Make shift

Alley-surfed furniture is one thing -- and definitely something that continually amazes us as to how many fixable and in-good-nick items are left out in the street. But making your own furniture from random resources lying about in your own home? This is definitely exciting territory.

Responding to my request for his expertise in building a desk, our friend Italianarchitect popped by today to begin the job. Combining the doors of an unused MDF-made wardrobe that we had dumped in the living room with a gorgeous piece of painted wood as raw material, we worked together with saws and a cordless drill to create this:

Solid, sturdy and just fantastic to look at and use. The first of many furniture-building adventures in the squat, we hope.

Floored

Aden House, circa today, 31 January 2009.

This photo of the same floors was taken on 20 November 2008.

Yes, five new squats in two months, on a council block ten minutes walk from ours where we'd heard that all the power had been cut off, except to council residents. Judging by their lights in the evening, the squats have restored their leccy. Not bad, eh.

Affront door, part 3, a saw point

By the time 5.30am rolls around this morning, the installation of a new front door will have taken nearly 12 hours to complete (give or take beer breaks, continued recoiling from the Sitex/police events and shoddy attempts at dinner-making).

When we start off just after 5pm on Wednesday with our reluctant DIY skills, Rhoderocker and me have no idea what we are getting into.

We start by nailing a wooden post to the doorframe, to reinforce it and give the new door something to connect with (it is slightly slimmer in width than the hallway).

This is our spare door by the way, and our attempt to hack off the top with the type of saw that tree surgeons use.

Partway through the sawing, we swap it for a hardwood door, which Kitchen Sink Neighbour has eagle-eyed for us three blocks away. Heavy to carry back, it is solid and thick, the type of door you need to withstand being kicked in.

After removing its own hinges and attaching it our doorframe, we hit a snag : the new hardwood door doesn't close!

Still, the general idea is there.

After (probably) committing criminal damage to the top of the doorframe (by chiselling at it so that the new door can fit comfortably beneath), and five hours or so of continual work, we stop. Sawing and inane screwdriving can quickly bust shoulder joints and sour minds.

Work resumes just after 1am, with Diagram Drawing Electrician's carpentry expertise running alongside us.

As a result, the door is rehinged and rehung -- yes, hung. You hang a door, we are informed. You don't put a door on. It takes considered precision and patience.

Once rehung, the angle grinder is used to remove one of the door's original hinges that we neglected to unscrew first time round (eg. pre-10.30pm aka worn out).

And then it is hung and then re-hung again, this time so we can hack off the top of the door and reposition the wooden post so the door can be closed properly.

Here is our new front door, at last.

It is roughly 5.30am by the time we finish. I never want to see a door hinge again.

Here is the new door once more, with its own Section 6 warning, alongside its Sitex compatriot.

Piss the season to be jolly

Last but not least, the toilet.

Successfully linked to the waste water pipe by the concertina-like nozzle (known in the trade as "New Extendable Jollyflex"), our new skipped toilet edges our house further away from the cold barren shell that it was more than six weeks ago.

Here is the intended joining of Jollyflex and holes :

To ensure there is no water leakage from the toilet bowl, several reels of water-resistant Denzo tape are applied to the rim of the toilet spout (the lower hole of the two in this photo). Denzo tape (which works by sticking to itself) will provide the Jollyflex with an extra grip on the toilet, and a few drops of PVC pipe weld glue help to seal them together.

Waterproof plumbers seal is then applied around the Jollyflex, as it slots into the waste pipe. This also prevents any unspeakable substances from leaking out.

And now the moment we've all been waiting for...

Our

Own

Toilet!

Goodbye to leaving the flat for a pee.

Electric window

Pressing on with the determination of a marathon runner going uphill, the household races to complete, or at least inch closer to completing, most of the main DIY projects.

First up, the electrics.

Thanks to Obi Wan's loan of a multi-meter, each electrical wire is checked to see how much current they contain.

Apart from a rogue spark exploding, the job goes rather well. Here is our stove. Yes, we have a working stove now (the oven at least).

Talking of the kitchen..

The decision is made to shut the kitchen window, that is currently being propped wide open by Sitex steel bars. We decide to retain the bottom Sitex steel bars, because the idea is to keep the metal sheet on, reattaching it straight away with our two-bolts-and-some-string technique.

Here is the angle grinder being used to dismantle the top and middle Sitex bars :

Da-daaah!

Despite a crack or two in the panes, the kitchen feels warm at last.

Law de toilette

On our way to dinner tonight, USgal spots this piece of objet d'art lurking next door to a Buddhist centre.

We've found a toilet!

Do you think this will conceal it in the meantime?

Later joined by SoundsNorwegian, we return for the toilet.

Now, if only we could find ourselves some wheels...

Ah-ha!

NB. It seems modern supermarkets have added a wheel-jamming mechanism to their trolleys to prevent their theft. We are probably getting some weird looks from people, who may be wondering why it is taking three people to use a trolley.

Here's an aerial view of the toilet.

All aboard!

More wheel-jamming as we head homewards, but the chance to shit in our own home propels us on.

Back home and...

The nozzle fits!

Eventually, the toilet and waste water pipe will be joined like this :

We will then attach them to the cistern, and hopefully a working toilet will spring forth.

The toilet baton is passed.

First supper

What's so significant about this photo :

Because the rice has been cooked... in the flat, by a rice cooker that was bought over today.

So, in a way, this is the first result of food cooked in the house, thanks to our electricity-restoration efforts.

What comes down must go up!

How do you put the Sitex back on, and quickly, when there is a police van downstairs from us, that is perhaps investigating a flat that junkies have broken into overnight?

Kitchen Sink Neighbour urgently instructs us to do so, because part of the window in SoundsNorwegian's room has a hole in it -- any sign of criminal damage to our property will be an invitation for the police.

After a series of long and short nails failing to go through the window panes outside (that look as though they're made of wood, but it turns out they're a combination of metal and grout), a new idea! =>

(For the concentrating eyes amongst you, you may be able to pick out the string that is holding the Sitex to the window)

Two bolts and two lengths of string.

Heft metal

SoundsNorwegian decides that we need to angle grind off the Sitex that is attached to her window. She wants natural light to come through and properly too, rather than through the poke holes of the metal sheet. The chance to close the open window is a bonus, given the increasingly chilly nights of late.

The task of removal generates a few concerns... by having the Sitex up, ugly as it looks, it may also be shielding us from onlookers. The Legal Warning on the door keeps potential squatters away, and having the Sitex deflects residents or at least the assumption that we're a bunch of junkies. Taking the Sitex down may also endanger the security of the flat, create an opening to intrusion.

SoundsNorwegian decides to go for it, despite all this. We can create the illusion of the Sitex being up afterwards, by reattaching it in some way.

Here are a few photos of the angle grinder going at it :

Sparks flying, as seen from the outside.

And post-angle grinding!

The light really does make a lot of difference to the room, as any light would. A few panes of glass will need fixing.

Light saber

Seriously, a lookalike for Obi Wan Kenobi, as played by Ewan Mcgregor, comes over to sort out our electrics.

Or, to be put it another way, an electrician Obi Wan stunt double who could very well have fought Darth Maul, instead fights through our tangle of electrical wires whilst balancing himself carefully on the edge of a broken metal chair, with all the silent concentration that would probably be the envy of most Jedi.

First up, we get wired into the fuseboard.

An extension cord is then attached to act as an interim power socket.

New switches are added to the ripped-up kitchen sockets.

Thanks to the company head being connected to the outside supply, the electricity box is now live. With a desk lamp from next door wired up to a kitchen socket, we huddle about it, waiting for a moment of revelation. Obi Wan stands eagerly at the box, ready to flip on the power.

Will the wall sockets explode? Will the lamp explode? Will nothing happen?

We are standing within an inch of power restoration, but is this still too much distance to run?

Nope.

For this happens :

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have electricity. It is momentous.

Spot the difference

At some point, you'll stop seeing multiple pictures of our electrical pipes at various stages of hacked. You'll stop seeing them in this blog, probably at the point when ALL the electrics are up and running and our candelit nights become a distant myth.

Some day, we will all be able to look back on these photos together, with either nostalgia or with memory lapses, thanks to other more fun memories overlapping them out of the picture.

In the meantime, forgive us for this long game of Spot the Difference.

The following images are all the work of SoundsNorwegian, whom in the past few days has made the state of our electrics look less impossible. The sheer joy in her "It's just having the right tools!" says it all.

Sawn-off pipework, up until 2pm today.

Diagram Drawing Electrician was right all along -- a ratchet does the job. Just loosen the nuts below the pipes, for extra pipe malleability!

SNAP!! This is what all the sawing was about! Such ease in the way it breaks off (but the entire process has not been in five minutes, boys).

The wires are free! Freedom to wires! Wire liberation!

At last.

Thoughts about water

Water.

Thanks to USgal, the running water in the kitchen is now connected up to the waste pipes :

The other night (Saturday, I think), whilst eating a hearty vegetarian curry at a neighbour's, the topic of domestic water usage arose. Said neighbour does not have a cistern in her toilet or a waste water pipe in her kitchen.

Instead, as you can see from the photo below, the excess water that drains from the kitchen sink does so into a bucket directly underneath.

The bucket is then used as waste water in the toilet. Kitchen Sink Neighbour has a number of buckets in rotation. The biggest thing she has noticed is just how much water can be wasted in the kitchen and how much water is needed to flush the loo. It is something she is sure would go un-thought about if the conventional pipework was in place.

Without water bills, we're sure that households with the traditional plumbing don't get to realise how much water they flush away or throw out daily. Just physically witnessing it is eye opening. Even in these ecological times, there is no government advert warning people about their toilet use or educating them into conserving water in the home. We are flushing, boiling and unplugging away blindly.

The other day, we were discussing baths and whether we wanted a bath or shower installed. Would we return to our habits of a shower a day without thinking about it? Right now, a bucket of hot water from Kitchen Sink Neighbour and a scrubbing brush is all we rely on, a basic but efficient way to get the job done. You can see the dirt before your eyes and you boil the exact water you need, using it well, appreciating it as you cleanse away. That, or dropping by a friend who kindly lets you use their facilities.

How did the pre-hot water generation take their baths? A friend of mine told me that back in the 1940s, her father's family used to take their baths in the front room every Monday, boiling the water in kettles and bathing the entire family one at a time, maximising the resource. We weren't entirely sure how they decided who took first go at scrubbing clean -- was it decided by who was the dirtiest (with the cleanest going first) or by age? Either way, baths had to be planned.

Just like the candlelight reading sessions in the squat, such affairs were communal. Families united around a precious resource.

Spinning off from that, the talk of impending electricity has triggered new thought. If candlelight unites, then does electricity divide? After all, you can have electricity in each room, you can have it on without a glance or discussion as to who can use it or how much we need, whereas once a candle goes out, you have to replace it in order to continue your activities.

These resource-strapped situations do make you think about what you have and what you need. We wonder if those in their lit apartments with their ample electricity ever wonder about their electrical output in such detail.

Behind the scenes at the toilet

Do you remember this moon-like oddity?

As the sole repair job that has gone unchallenged, today I decided to bear the odd chemical smell coming from the waste pipe and bring the toilet in line with the rest of the house (ie. almost repaired). Someone had to do it, and with workable electrics in our grasp and USgal bringing the kitchen and bathroom waste water pipes into the modern age, I was without a task.

Onwards.

Some toilet surgery. Like an episode of CSI. Note the Marigolds doing their noble bit to protect me from the mystery that lies beyond the foam.

What mystery substance will gush out of the waste pipe?

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

A moment more...

Nail-biting stuff isn't it?

Oh my god, what's that?

It's a bag from Waterstone's the bookshop!

It turns out that the councilmen who had smashed up the flat to deter squatters were a literate bunch of people after all.

Seriously though, this is a tactic they use to block the pipe. Stuff it with newspapers or plastic bags before plugging it up with hard rock foam. This will be easier for them to unplug when it comes to the flats being reoccupied by rent-paying people.

A photo of the waste pipe, post-bag.

A giant reddish toadstool aka the toilet seat.

Hole-y moley!

Eventually, the following concertina-like nozzle will connect both holes and a working toilet (assuming the cistern works) will bloom from that. No more escapades to the local pub for their restrooms or using the toilet of a neighbour.

The toilet as of today. Looking like artefacts from an archaeological dig.

Toilet surgery, as sponsored by McDonalds.