Basement Reno

Transforming a basement  into a comfy and very useful, liveable area. Project in a nutshell; basically ripping out all tongue and groove boards, re-wire with several sockets, lights, speaker & HDMI cables (on ceiling and way at the back end), re-stud, vapor barrier, insulate with 20cm, plasterboard, painting, parquet flooring, skirting boards, and Bob´s your uncle!

Bathroom Renovation

Each and every material has it´s own grace, in this case mineral stone. It has indeed a huge process, however what an amazing final look! Client wanted instead of an existing jacuzzi a comfy bath and extra shower too. A few extra goodies along the way and oh my, what fine style this was. Space might have been reduced, but so many more things were gained. Toilet´s position was changed, plumbing was completely modified, loads of demolition done to concieve a bareback state and so as to save a few cms of space for the extra services. Electric underfloor heating included. I love everything I do, but this sort of things where absolutely all trades are involved tickles al my senses!

Optimizing Time

We´ve all been there – those situations where you somewhat almost feel confronted by something you´re more than clueless about, yet decide to push your luck…after all, we have the capabilities to learn.  A few hours later, or in the case of Die Hards, days later, we end up with a million pieces of something we can´t remember where it fits in. 

Now I totally agree with doing that, me myself have taken VCR players, radios & computers apart, even attempted modifying my xhtml and also opened the car´s bonnet. I´ve spent so many hours exploring the unknowns, some items I could put back to it´s original conditions and other´s…well, ended up in recycling.

I may have learnt a number of things throughout experimenting with foreign objects or doing things unfamiliar to me, BUT I have learnt one thing in particular that stands out above all and still repeat it to myself whenever I find myself in that moment:

OPTIMIZE YOUR TIME

There´s a very famous expression that has been tweaked recently:

“IF YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING PROPERLY, DO NOT DO IT YOURSELF”.

This basically boils down to the fact of “time” where maximising it is imperative. Successful people all around the world have clearly figured this out, deliberately concentrating on tasks they are most productive in – and outsourcing the ones they are less so. There´s no need to spread ourselves thin.

I have quite a few trades below the belt, however it makes sense to outsource those I´m hopeless at if my time can be better spent focusing on something else. (In this case electronics for instance:-) 

So, my advice would be to save yourself some valuable time so keep calm and phone the professionals!

Videt to Bath Conversion

This was a videt to bath conversion. We all have our needs and in this case, spending quality time splashing in a comfy bath is more appreciated.
Job involved clearly hammering out the drainpipe to a suitable slope so as to have a nice angle for water flow from the drain which was cenetered in bath as seen, reconfiguring the pipeworks, building a framework for the bath, using jackoboard as well, creating the appropriate acces points and tiling it neatly up.

Easy peasy, a two day job in total. (Okay, a long two days however, but still only two days ;-)

Now where are those cute orange ducks?!