Hey friends,

Lots of words last week so lots of pics this week to mix it up and keep you on your toes. But first...

👩‍💻 The Future Of Home-Working

I don't know about you but I'm very intrigued to see how this plays out as restrictions are eased. Will the majority of people return to the office, do some kind of hybrid working or will many get to work remotely most of the time.

The repercussions are pretty huge if there is a big long term shift to home working: office spaces may have to be repurposed; restaurants and bars in city centres may struggle with the reduced footfall and a three hour commute may become feasible if only to be endured once or twice a week, meaning the commuter belt will stretch a lot further out from cities. Does make you wonder whether HS2 is worth the trouble.

I'm obviously all for it as I see any commute, other than by walking or cycling, as a waste of time and money but many like the social interaction of being in an office and can go stir crazy being at home all the time. I must be a misanthrope.

Anyway, Abi had a catch up with work this week where they are implementing a choice of the three options. Each will be on a different contract which to me, reading between the lines, sounds like different pay grades but that wasn't mentioned. She doesn't have to make a decision yet but will likely select the fully remote or hybrid option. One of her superpowers is that she brings a lot of cheer to the office which I think has been recognised as rather valuable by her bosses in previous reviews so that's something to consider.

Either way, that gives us more freedom in regards to travel and juggling the kiddo. Anecdotal but I thought it would be interesting for anyone else going through the same discussions.

👨‍👩‍👦 The Average Life

I live a pretty normal life: partner, kid, house, car. I am however always intrigued by different lifestyles. Farming or homesteading; digital nomadism and minimalism; RV or tiny house life; even hunter gatherers.

So I got thinking about it and wondered whether I just live a normal life or instead an average of all the different lifestyles I find intriguing: a few chickens here, a month abroad there. The latter sounds more idealised but perhaps most of us live an average of lifestyles we find intriguing and end up..normal. Is it following the crowd or just a sensible existence?

Okay, this is either thought provoking or pretty daft but it's the type of thing I think about when I'm on my own doing DIY. I recently re-watched Into The Wild so that might have sparked this train of thought of no conclusion. Great film by the way and based on a true story.

🏗️ Projects

Bedroom - finished!

You guys really came through on my wall hung TV dilemma. The Samsung Frame is a popular choice it seems. I saw lots of great examples of wall chasing and other techniques to get it flush and cable free. Thank you and sorry I wasn't able to reply to everyone. One thing was obvious, it requires a One-Connect box which I'd forgotten about. I'm not sure where I'd house it.

While I pondered my options I moved on to the scaffold board shelf above the bed. I checked out this site of reclaimed timber yards and found one near me. It was an absolute wonderland and I enjoyed wandering up and down the aisles checking out what builders throw away. I imagine this is how Abi feels walking around Selfridges.

I picked up a 2m length for £9. Apparently scaffold boards are in high demand so I got lucky. I gave it a light going over with 60 grit sandpaper, stained it and gave it one light coat of varnish.

I used a magnet to find the furring bars on the soundproofed wall so that at least one of the shelf bracket screws was secured to something sturdy. We then found some nick-knacks to decorate, and then it hit me, the shelf can host a projector, no need for a TV!

There's no way of changing the size of the projection with the £75 device without moving the projector forwards or backwards but luckily the screen fits on the chimney wall quite nicely. It needs some tweaks but I'm happy with it, especially for the price. Feels like being at the cinema. I read somewhere that you don't get as much blue light compared with a TV which makes it a good choice for a bedroom. The below shot just happened to be blue! Avatar - Extended Edition in case you were wondering.

So far we've streamed by connecting to a laptop but will likely get a firestick which will give us Prime, Netflix and something I use called Plex.

I still have the problem of the cable hanging down but at least it's out of the way behind the bed. I won't mess with the soundproofing so to hide it I'll get a longer Figure 8 cable, preferably in white, have it go down the left side of the shelf and disguise it with a hanging plant.

As for the plug I put in for the tv, I think Abi will use it for her hair dryer.

Anyway, I can draw a line under the bedroom. One room done and dusted!

Studio

The studio should be ticked off soon enough as well. I stripped the wall and ceiling paper. The walls were fine but the ceiling had cracked along the plasterboard edges. Now I know where the phrase papering over the cracks comes from:

I've had the plasterer in today to scrim and skim. Plastering is the kind of task I would take on because if you screw it up it's easily rectified by a professional and there's little cost to the plaster itself. The only thing that's stopped me is the mess on the floor I'd most likely make. I got lucky this time as my plasterer had a cancellation so could fit it in, otherwise it would have been a month to book in so I'm thinking about learning how to do it. Hopefully it's one of those things where time and effort will make up for lack of skill.

I'm looking for a bit of advice on a couple of small projects for this room. First up I want to replace the wall lights with something like the below pic but prices are very high on Etsy (can't find them anywhere else) for something that looks so simple. I can do the wood bit and perspex underneath but I'm struggling to work out what light fitting I need to buy that can be wired in:

My other issue is the acoustic panels. Ideally I'd use some acoustically-transparent fabric that can be colour matched to the opposite wall's colour. If you know of anywhere online that does wall colour-matched fabric, do let me know!

Initially I wanted to print off some of my wildlife photos on canvas and then use acoustic insulation behind but much of the sound would reflect from the canvas material rather than be absorbed by the wool behind hence why I need acoustically-transparent fabric instead.

Hedging

I've been cutting the hedge. It's a good hedge; thick and full of different species of trees and shrubs. Better yet it's fully on my neighbour's land so we get to enjoy it without losing any width of the garden. It runs from the road at the front all the way to the rear garage so it is quite a job keeping it trim though. Before I started I said to myself that if I cut the cord yet again I'll buy the Dewalt cordless trimmer and low and behold that's what happened:

Did I subconsciously self sabotage to buy a new toy? Not sure...

This time around, I re-wired the (now shorter) cord but will make the purchase next time the growth gets wild.

Laylandii

This is how it's done!

The lads were brilliant and did it all in one day so here's how things look now:

The fence and next year's workshop should hopefully hide the view of the lorry. I've got plenty of logs for the chiminea now and I have a cunning plan for a wood store. So now I need to figure out how to dig or grind out the stumps (or pay those chaps another £650) and finish the last stretch of fence. I've not yet made a start on the garage roof as I've tweaked my back annoyingly but hey, the sun is chirping, birds are shining, life is good.

👋

I'll stop there as I'm off to watch something on my massive wall cinema!

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