Soft start, 2023

Here we are, a week into the new year. My son departs this morning after a week during which he deployed one of his professional skills with a professional tool I’d not expected or asked him to bring. But first we went to see the old stones of Kilmartin Glen, via Lochgilphead’s dump and the Co-op of course, returning via the modest heights of Dunadd.

I’d asked him to bring his router bits to help me decide what I wanted to buy, but he also brought a bank of tool boxes. They stack and clip together, organised and labelled. One box even contained his evolving prototype, portable, perspex trim-router table; you take off the lid and up it pops; ingenious, fully adjustable and beautifully made. I’d love to post a photo here, but don’t want to put his personal project into the public domain before time.

Before Tom’s arrival I’d finished tiling the bathroom shower. We carried the shower door upstairs and with some nervousness (mine alone) unwrapped it. I didn’t know whether it was going to fit in the available space but it did, with unexpected room to spare. The vertical post the door hinges on is a deep metal channel fitting snugly into an equally deep metal channel that you fix to the wall. These two interlocking posts allow some movement to adjust the overall width. We fixed the wall channel, using three pairs of screws instead of the three supplied, and spent the rest of the morning holding the shower door in place and considering how the post on the closing side of the door might best be fixed.

To keep the shower as light as possible and not reduce the apparent size of the room I’m sticking to my intention of having a fixed glass panel to the right of the shower door.

As a single pair of hands should be sufficient for the rest of this task we set it aside and got on with something else – the bathroom’s sliding door.

If I’d read the instructions for the sliding door properly, I’d not have put all the neat wooden edges on the pockets until after the door was hung. But then if I’d read instructions for building an entire house, I’d probably not have embarked on that either. I’d made a really solid and tidy job of fixing the wooden edges and we had to use our multi-tools to remove the top one on the landing side so that we could get the door onto the bolts that hang from the rollers. It was easy to launch into this deconstruction with Tom’s moral support where, had I been on my own, I’d have been more reluctant.

There was a further problem: the rollers wouldn’t fit up into the metal track (because I’d blocked part of it with my wooden pocket lining). So Tom got busy with his multi-tool, enlarging the opening a little.

With rollers in place, we measured exactly how tall the door needed to be, then trimmed the door to size.

Once fitted, the rollers didn’t slide freely; far too stiff to be practical. We thought at first the track must somehow have got squashed, until Tom (having used the same sliding door mechanism at home) realised the roller carriages were the wrong way up on their bolts – an easy fix and, with the rollers running freely, we tried to hang the door. It was okay getting onto the first bolt but we couldn’t then wiggle the door along and into its wall opening to get it onto the second bolt. We removed the wooden side trim but it still wouldn’t fit. Trim the plaster edge at an angle? Nope, I’d used a metal edge bead.

We cut the door – a forty-five degree slice off the back edge. Once hung, that back edge would be hidden in the wall pocket and invisible.

So there we are – a sliding door. I’ll need to inset a finger grip on each side, repair and refit the two wooden pocket edges and make some additions and refinements to the way the door is guided, but it’s good – a valuable space-saver that also avoids the possible clash of bathroom door with shower door.

Tom’s surprise equipment was a high-spec sanding machine and a portable dust extractor. There were a few places where Tom had spotted paint runs or unwanted texture, but we’d not envisaged Tom getting really stuck in. It was a bit of a shock and he is thorough. It was enlightening to see how 3-D blemishes can be invisible when lit straight on but look obvious when side-lit. I realised that I should have provided really good lighting for all of the painting, rather than assuming that daylight and the odd electric strip would be sufficient.

The sander’s abrasive pads are a mesh, allowing dust to be sucked through the underlying pad’s extraction holes. Almost no dust comes into the room – a huge contrast to other methods. I followed Tom round, painting over the sanded areas with diluted paint, ready for a final coat or touch-up.

So Tom’s stay passed quickly, with work and a couple of excursions, long overdue after his previous working visits.

We went to Dun Skeig on the far side of West Loch Tarbert, where the wet fields were full of rooks and jackdaws. Our favoured walk there is circular with a varied mix of field, hill, shore, beach and riverside and it was by the shore that we saw two otters. They swam close then came onto the shore, apparently mother and her vociferous kitten, calling plaintively and running straight towards us before changing their minds and heading back out to sea where they were joined by another youngster. Their swimming was playful, diving over each other, looping and plunging.

Tom’s partner Bex was meant to be coming too but she was again thwarted by a last minute demand from work. Next time, we hope!

Thanks Tom!