🖼️
The project:
I hired a carpenter who took my deposit, vanished, and forced me into a months long battle to get my money back. Out of pure spite, I thought, "How hard can it be?" I grabbed my tools, spent months covered in plaster dust, and bridged two awkward structural pillars. I framed the layout, built six symmetrical illuminated niches, and recessed a massive TV and fireplace. It turns out the best tool for DIY isn't a fancy saw it's absolute stubbornness and caffeine.Take that.
- Materials:
Termite treated pine framing timber 70x45mm H2
Gyprock plasterboard sheets
Gyprock stud adhesive glue
Gyprock base coat and top coat jointing compounds
Joint tape
Perforated metal external corner beads
Gyprock plasterboard screws
Concrete masonry anchor screws
nails for the nail gun
Premium interior wall sealer primer
Dulux Low sheen interior wall paint
Gap filler acrylic caulk
Unstoppable determination and pure spite
- Tools:
Air compressor framing nail gun
Compound sliding mitre saw
Plasterers plastic mud pan trough
Plastering taping knives and trowels
Cordless hammer drill and driver bit set
Spirit level and laser level
Heavy duty tape measure
Drywall hand saw
Fine grit drywall sanding block
Paint rollers, trays, and brushes
Safety glasses and dust mask
Hopes and dreams
- Step 1:
Hand sketched a scaled layout diagram to plan the symmetry of the six display niches and calculate exact structural clearances
Cleared the site by removing the old skirting boards, cutting out the necessary ceiling cornices, and using a multi-tool to cut back the flooring to expose the subfloor along the new layout line.
Constructed the primary timber stud frames, fixing the bottom tracks to the subfloor and top plates to the ceiling
Went absolute structural overkill on the internal framework since it was my first DIY build and I was winging the structural design, adding dense rows of extra support noggings to ensure it was completely bulletproof.
Begged a family friend whos a qualified electrician to help out for a box of KFC 😄
Sheeted the entire timber structure with Gyprock plasterboard using a combination of stud adhesive glue and drywall screws, then cleanly cut out the openings for all the recessed cavities.
Affixed perforated metal external corner beads to all outer edges of the niches to ensure straight lines, applied fiberglass joint tape to the seams, and finished with three coats of jointing compound.
Sanded the completely dried plaster finish flush with a fine-grit drywall sander, applied a sealing primer to balance porosity, and rolled on two coats of the final interior grey feature paint.
Asked friends to borrow some muscles to mount the tv and the fire place in exchange for my KFC 😄
made a lot of mistakes along the way because I forgot my own rule to measure twice and cut once. The biggest hurdle came right at the end when the fireplace insert opening turned out to be mm to small, so I had to carefully reach in and shave down some of the internal timber framing just to get it to slide into place. Is it absolutely perfect? No. But for my very first DIY project, I am incredibly proud of what I achieved
