MrHeff was specifically told not to over engineer - very strict budget.
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She designed the turrets that house the cannons.
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We’re currently in the throes of painting. One of our upstairs bedrooms had a curious outwards bulge in the plasterboard, just above the skirting board. It’s a 40 year-old house on stumps, so I thought perhaps there’s been some settling and shifting over the years resulting in some downwards pressure. I did think it a bit weird though that it was at the bottom of the wall rather than the top.
In preparation for painting it was time to open the wall up and see what was going on. Got the skirt off and cut out a section of the plasterboard, only to discover a farking great chunk of cement down in the wall cavity, which had set hard against the plasterboard.
Started trying to chip it back, so as to be level with the wall frame, but decided it would be best removed enitrely. Just to be completely annoying it had set over several partially hit-in nails, which made it a pain-in-the-arse to shift - had to cut a bigger section of the plasterboard out and smash the cement into bits with a hammer and chisel. Messy work…
Tidied, framed it out, screwed and stuck down the bowed plasterboard, bogged up the screwholes, have a section of plasterboard cut and will shortly be screwing it in and begin the process of filling, sanding and finalising.
Over-engineered it? Probably… but it won’t move, has given the existing and replacement plaster sections something to be fastened to, and it will do the job. I ain’t no plasterer… 
Can I just say though… in equal parts… fark the brickie (who decided to tip what I assume was leftover cement into the wall) and fark the plasterer (who decided to plaster up against unset cement)…
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We had a debacle with a new slab that didn’t meet the required hardness for grind/polishing.
So it had to be removed at someone else’s expense. (A huge waste, and I would have preferred to simply get my money back and keep the slab)
New concrete supplier, new concreter.
After a month of waiting for it to cure, which is a lot longer than paint to dry, on Monday, we get to see the first grind.
Fingers crossed…
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Good luck…
I have a good mate in the building game. Some of the stories he has told me about slabs… in particular where either the slab has been poured in the wrong spot (sometimes by metres) or wasn’t ground correctly (but wasn’t identified as an issue until after the actual build had long since commenced).
Yes a mate came over. He’s an ex concreter and now does inspections on defects for Lendlease. He said that some crazy stuff gets signed off, that turns out to be below standard, needing to be ripped out and started again. He was actually ok with our slab, and it was structurally sound if it was going to be covered. But for a high end polished finish it was gonna be a disaster.
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Selling my house soon but some of the renos I did 20 years ago need a bit of renewing. I was never happy with the tiles in this bathroom so have redone the floor (grout not done yet). I wish I had done it 10 years ago!
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Add about 25% on to your expected budget.
Most things end up costing a bit more than you anticipate, and there will always be unexpected challenges that have to be sorted.
Use quality tradies if you can find them.
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Yep good advice. Have factord it in. MrHeff knows the builder- really good quality builds.
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We’ve been renovating for most of this year. Just need them to do the granny flat, landscaping then it’s done.
The best advice I can give. Be kind to yourself and your family. It’s farkin stressful. Much more stressful than following the bombers.
Things go wrong. Costs blow out. What works on paper sometimes doesn’t work out.
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