Graham's Top Tips

[skier-hughes]

If you are relaying your tiles onto a bed of sand, followed by a bed of lime mortar....

DON'T

Prepare your sand bed in the evening and leave it uncovered ready to lay your tiles in the morning.

IF
You have cats.

WHY
Because when you get up they've not only deposited some waste in it, they also scratched around to cover it up. All your nicely sieved sand is full of the old dirty sand, bits of earth etc, so you've got to get it all up and start again.


More top tips to follow as I make even more stupid mistakes :lol:

Graham

 

[Gervase]

Ouch! Console yourself with the fact that you've brought a little light relief to a grey and windy west Wales!

 

[Nimster]

Alteratively, make sure you attach the cats firmly to a different floor with superglue before you go to bed, placing a litter tray under their bums to prevent mess.

 

[MdB]

Either that or strap a piece of buttered toast to their bellies and drop them onto the floor. As cats always land feet first and as buttered toast always land butter side down it isn't possible for the cat + toast to hit the floor. They will just hover a few inches above the floor rotating slowly.... (just make sure that the cat can't eat the toast)

 

[Gareth Hughes]

At this time of year, after spending a cold day on the scaffolding you'll want a nice warming stew, soup or casserole. When making your delicious stock as the base for this,
DON'T
Place a colander in the sink and drain the contents of your saucepan through it
BECAUSE
a. all you'll have left is some bones and a damp bouquet garni
AND
b. your friends will never let you forget it
AND
c. their small children will pick up interesting expressions of dismay which they may be tempted to use on inappropriate occasions.

 

[Nemesis]

This of course is simply a word of advice, shurely Gareth you couldn't have been so foolish???

 

[Gareth Hughes]

This of course is simply a word of advice, shurely Gareth you couldn't have been so foolish???

I'm afraid so, and not just the once either.

 

[Nemesis]

Shucks. Once is forgivable... twice...

PS buy a tub of Marigold.

 

[Gervase]

Marigold's marvellous stuff, but carnivores like carcases in their stockpots (and, ultimately, in their soup!).
I've lost count of the times I've emptied a bag of sugar into the teapot, or filled the sugar canister with boiling water. Only once have I tried to fill a car with oil without checking that the sump plug was in. That was messy!

 

[Nemesis]

Well I reckon Marigold saves all that messing about boiling bones and pouring the results down the sink.

Clearly eating carcases still is making soggy bits in the brains of some...

 

[Gervase]

Bloomin' useless in car engines, though! :lol:

 

[Nemesis]

I note a worrying tendency Webb to add smileys to your posts. Desist.

 

[Penners]

OK - top tip from the Wild East this afternoon:

Never place your cup of coffee near the paint tin into which you are regularly dipping your brush.

 

[Penners]

Sorry... forgot:

:lol:

 

[DaveBrigg]

Having encouraged small children to join in with the removal of cement rendering, do not then leave hammers and bolsters around after the plasterers have spent a month putting on a fine finish of lime.

 

[DaveBrigg]

When elderly parents come to visit the site on a cold day, do not leave them unattended in a room which contains both of the following:
A) a collection of carefully preserved sections of skirting board.
B) a wood fire burning in the grate.

 

[Lime]

Never assume people speak the same language.

Telling someone to seal something can be interpreted as block up as I discovered many years ago with a friend's gas fire.
Sealing around a flue does not mean block it up!

 

[DaveBrigg]

Top Tip No. 3
A gravel driveway is a convenient location for storing old roof battens, with the nails still poking out, but it's not a good idea to park your car there in the dark until they have all been removed.

 

[Jane Smith]

Top Tip no. 4

Never, ever trust your husband when he says, "There's NO dry-rot in that house at all," even if he is a chartered surveyor and therefore qualified to make such proclamations. It's amazing how quickly selective blindness can be induced by the lust for a particular period property.

 

[Aidan]

Top Tip No.5

Whn clearing a blocked trap on a sink or basin, place a bucket under the trap and another bucket in the sink/basin.

The contents of the trap are drained into the first bucket. When you stand up and immediately tip it down the sink/basin, some of it might be caught in the second bucket.