The Money Pit

Buying a new mitre saw

Since we moved in and began DIYing I'd guess we've hired a mitre saw from the local tool centre about 6 or 7 times. At £20 a go that's more than £100 spent on hiring. With lots more jobs coming up that require skirting and architrave, I'm going to need a mitre saw about the same number of times again, if not more.

It was getting to the point where it was obvious I'd be better off buying one, so I have.

I went for a Dewalt. Don't ask me why exactly. Sometimes I get all brand-loyal for no real reason. Apart from understanding they are meant to be really good all I have to go on is that I really love bright yellow tools. Anyway, I looked almost exclusively for a Dewalt. First stop was the trusty Screwfix catalogue, where I found the DW707 at a reasonable £269. I then looked on eBay and found a shop in London selling them for £229 with a free stand thrown in. The eBay shop is called WHOLESALE POWER TOOLS. It arrived yesterday and I'm impressed. It doesn't feel like it's as expensive as the one I used to hire (another dewalt), but it won't be getting as much use and should last me just fine.

You've got to love eBay. If you want to get anything cheap it's the place to go. It's funny with places that sell things cheap though, they all seem to quote the same RRP. In the case of the DW707 lots of places say it should cost over £700, yet they all offer it for well under £300. However, this model on Amazon does cost £499. That's more that twice as much. Incredible.

I nearly bought a DW707 second hand on eBay but even that went for £180. So, I could always sell this one when I'm done and then I'd definitely be better off than if I'd hired each time I needed to cut at an angle.

Wooden Floors

My love for wood floors is fast fading. While I still like the idea of bare floorboards and love the parquet we've laid I'm starting to realise how impractical they are. What I mean is they can't stand up to general daily use.

Well, they probably could cope with daily use if it weren't for one factor - stilletos. Not all stillettos, just those with broken heals. When the heal breaks on most high-heel ladies shoes it's because the plastic has warn away to reveal the inner screw head that holds the replacable heal to the shoe.

When the heals break they become a deadly weapon. Take a ten stone lady and a broken heal and it would be a strong wood that could withstand the offending screw. It's lake placing a nail head on the floor and then loading it with a ten stone weight. The floor's going to suffer. It's almost like striking the nail with a ten stone hammer.

In our house the wood floors are all but ruined. The floorboards in the living room have hundreds of the indentations all over them. It looks awful and all we can do now is get a carpet or a rug to cover over them. The once perfect parquet in the kitchen is now scattered with dents. It's only really obvious in certain lights but when you slaved over it for days on end it's very annoying.

What can you do? Well, for us, for the time being, the only option is to ask all female visitors to either let you check their heals or for them to simply remove all footwear. Not a welcoming gesture as somebody enters your house. Not an added stress you really want either, constantly worrying about who's in the house and what they're wearing.

In the long run I think we're going to have to go for carpets and try and restrict people in heals from entering parquet areas.

New Year, New Start

Woh. Three months and no posts. Well, I did warn you it would be quiet round here for a while.

Now it's a new year though and time for a new start. I've had enough time to recover financially (well, almost) and now have a renewed vigour for getting on with the house.

I plan on starting to post here again and have plenty of stuff to talk about and plenty of things in the pipeline. Hopefully I've not lost all my readers during the quiet spell.