Be Excellent To Each Other

Right-handed pool player with a fat ass. The triangle gives him room to use the long cue on the break without needing to pull out the small sticks, and the light lets him see what english he is putting on the cue ball.

Solved.

This is the most convincing theory yet!

The room looks lovely Mimi and Russel! Great job!

Thank you Nikachu!

Excellent work you two.

Cheers Mr Snappa.

Thanks snappa, but all I did was come up with a theory

This weekend Russell and I tried to make the shed feel a little more inviting.

I painted the outside about three years ago, pretty much straight after we moved in.







But the inside has always been really dark and uninviting. I've hung some of D's artwork up there for the last few years, but really the whole thing needed brightening up. I thought it was beyond just being painted, so I had the idea to use some vinyl tablecloth as a sort of wallpaper/backdrop, and also to resurface the work benches and wrap the shelf (we replaced the shelf with an offset we already owned, as the old shelf was past it, and the brackets needed replacing anyway).









It feels a lot lighter in there now. Russell also moved the glove rack away from the window to allow more light in there. It cost less than £20 to brighten up, and it's just stapled up if it doesn't work out, but I spent some time in there today sowing seeds and potting things on and it was brilliant with the music on and a cup of tea.

Great shed work… but the spiders will be cold now you’ve moved the gloves from the window.

Nah, the gloves are in a nice new cosy spot for them

That’s from Lego Masters Australia

Hamish Blake is fast approaching 'national treasure' status.

He and Brickman make it easily the best version of that show

He’s a warm spider.

Got some new paint on the walls

How did you get it lighter at the bottom.

Technology advances have meant that the old striped paint you used to send apprentices to buy, is now gradient paint.

We’ve decorated our living room. I’ll post pictures of the changes, because I wanted the room to be fun and joyous, and I think it is.

When we moved in all of the rooms were dedicated similarly. There was old textured wallpaper, in a lot of the rooms it was mismatched and later painted white (though not recently, as you can see in some pics it was kinda grubby). It also had this built in unit, stained 70s orange.



Shortly after moving in I painted the whole room (walls and units) ‘Millennial Grey’ because I was fed up with white after having rented the flat, but couldn’t work out what to do with the room. I don’t seem to have taken any pictures, but here are a few from the last couple of years, plus when we started decorating this time around:




Sorry, have to split this into two posts as I keep getting the photos messed up…

Now we’ve decorated it with a bit more thought. The grey was only ever intended as a cover up because the grubby walls and orange stain were depressing and we needed something other than just plain white after living in a rented place.

So now we’ve decorated for ourselves, with fun and colour.

We’ve painted the ceiling, crown moulding, stripped and repaired the woodwork around the doorframe and skirting and then painted those. Painted the built-ins and the sideboard, changed the hardware on the sideboard, fully stripped and wallpapered the walls (with a skim coat on the worst wall, painted the radiator. Put up a proper curtain rod and put in new curtains and a rug, and I made a new lampshade and cushions.

The colours on these photos isn’t quite right. I don’t know why: but anyway, I am so happy that it is finally ready to live in and enjoy.

That greenhouse wall covering is kind of amazing! And not a little bit confusing

That’s amazing.

For the first time today I managed to get enough distance from
The work to have not ‘expected’ it as I walked into the room, and I was delighted by it. The walls that the seating face have a subtle colour and texture so if you are sitting and watching TV or similar it’s not overwhelming, but if you want to read or just relax you can sit and just take in the wider effect, which is nice. It looked even more confusing after I’d hung the wallpaper but before we replaced the furniture

I do love a bay window, I always have - and moreso now as they aren't a widespread feature of houses out here.

I was not expecting such a dramatic restyle, it's very striking and it looks like it's been done really well. Top work.

I look at all those nice clear and clean surfaces and think, in my house they would instantly be covered in clutter.

That looks so nice meems, well done! The real plant and flowers are the perfect finishing touch.

Let me tell you, that was easily the hardest part of this entire project, specially fitting the curtain pole.

There was a broken plastic slider rail in place when we moved in, which you can probably see in the ‘before’ pictures.

I wanted a solid curtain pole, but my gosh working out the lengths of each section, minus the angle joints and accounting for the distance from the wall created by the brackets really was something. It’s a seven sided rail (five internal ides to the bay and then two back to the plane of the wall that the bay is set into, because otherwise the curtains hang 15cm out from the sides. Hard to explain, but essentially if we don’t turn the corner back to the wall there was a big empty gap down either side which would let in light and draughts.

I like bay windows for their Christmas Tree homing properties, mostly

Thank you. I like that we were brave enough to go bold with it. It was a bit of a leap of faith, but l love it now that we’ve finished.

Cheers, Z! I didn’t see this earlier

I made a shelf for my synths. A shylnthf.

Neat!

You forgot to leave space for the next 3 though.

Wow, those photos are fantastic.. I would love a room like that.

Question 1: do I need a cordless drill? I've got a corded one and it's good but the cord annoys me a little.

Question 2: if so, which one should I get? Does 'brushless' matter? I want one that can still go into brick so I guess it has to be an impact driver.

I don't want to pay like a ton of money though. Is there a reasonably good budget one that comes with the battery?

No.

I have an 18v Black and Decker and it's dandy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decker-BCD001C ... B07NMLY5HR

Honestly I'd recommend getting a cordless drill & impact driver combo set of some sort, I got one recently and its just so much easier when doing jobs to not be swapping bits about and impact drivers are better for not accidentally rounding screw heads.

Nice price but looks like it'd struggle with brick.

Nope. Never had a problem with it. As long as you have the right bit, it'll get through anything*

*Does not include Adamantium, Vibranium and Unobtanium

Ah. Sweet. At that price it's worth a try.

Brushless is better - more torque, longer battery life.

My brushed drill and impact haven't given me any problems yet.

Longer motor life too since there's no brushes to wear out. Not a massive deal for DIYers I don't reckon.

I treated myself to a Bosch twin pack of drill and screwdriver and it's been brilliant. It was a couple of hundred, so into professional grade territory and it shows the difference.

You’re all very much skipping over the first question, which was does he need one.

Some jobs they're incredibly useful. This summer I helped my brother replace his guttering - I cannot imagine how annoying that would have been without a cordless drill.

In my experience, corded drills are overkill for almost every domestic DIY task. And they're a pain in the arse for ladder work.

So, yes. Get one. Get a cheap one first and if you find it's not enough or you're using it all the time, then get a better one.

This is to be male.

Screwfix do good deals on drills and impact driver sets, I got a Milwaukee set and it’s been brilliant so far.

100%

I've got Stanley FatMax cordless tools and they seem pretty well pitched for the odd bit of DIY and I like the yellow colour - it's better than the really cheap in-house stuff you get from DIY shops, or the no-name stuff you get from t'internet.... but without being really expensive and unnecessarily high-level. Decent range of tools too, and it's really helpful if you can use one battery type for your drill/driver/jigsaw etc.



I don't know if brushless matters or not, for me the sweetspot seems to be one or two up from the cheapest. But for drilling into brick, isn't it a hammer drill you need (with masonry bits)?

For masonry I'd use a corded hammer drill (ideally an SDS one). You can get cordless ones, but the price takes quite a jump up.

As for brushed vs brushless, brushless drills are more powerful and have better battery life, so they cost more. If it's just for use around the house a brushed one will be fine.