"Not recommended for DIY"

Hello!

All over the place this week, but on Tuesday I finished the bathroom ceiling, with a coat of varnish on Thursday:

I went to do another coat on Friday, but "3 hours dry-to-touch" expands to 36 in this wet, cold weather. Instead I fitted some Munsen Rings for the water shut-off valve:

Previously it felt like a wet handshake, but now it's firm and steady. Serious.

I also ordered some jubilee clips to secure the accumulator tank, thinking they're measured by circumference, but 520mm I selected and this monstrosity turns up in a reel. Equipped with the insight of measuring by diameter, I re-ordered some 160mm ones, but didn't check the rest of the specs: the band was 4mm too wide for the bracket... 3rd time lucky. 🤦‍♂️

The wall drains also arrived, and they look ideal:

They're about 40mm too high, but I was expecting that — it'll be some combination of digging the concrete and trimming the bottom pipe. The tolerances are tight to create a draining gradient, so regular plumbing fittings won't do and I'll need to fit some connector thingamajig in the side of that exit pipe.

Too late on a Sunday to start chiselling concrete, I settled for a 3rd coat of varnish on the ceiling. For good measure I’ll do 4 — this is the wet room after all!

About those tiles...

Remember how last week I was making all my bathroom tiles? That was until I found the Kromatic range by Claybrook...

You know that feeling when you've been looking for something, you find it, and your body vibes in response? Uh-huh, that's the one. Mind and body, in total alignment; we have found the tiles. I may be an idiot, but not so much that I'll continue down a path when a better solution is staring into my soul. No questions of earthenware and whatnot, these are perfectly suited to a wet room — porcelain tiles with glaze that won't craze.

I might actually finish this boat by May???

These are the samples I ordered, and they look perfect:

Definitely the coral, then a toss-up between pearl (bottom right) or almond (top left) as the neutral.

However, that's only the walls. I still have the floor, for which I'm doing non-standard shapes (i.e., not squares or hexagons). Luckily the pottery studio has a 3D printer, gathering dust in the corner, so I've brushed off my CAD skills to make some tile cutters:

Kites and darts, for an aperiodic P2 Penrose tiling (the flanges are for rigidity). Now to find some glazes that complement the walls...

Finally, my neighbour snapped a photo of Katona on one of the nice days, under a rainbow:

Until next Sunday!

- Nick