When not attending to garden tasks what other things have filled your day?

That's a very, very nice side board Annie Kay!

 

On the topic of sideboards, everyone posted really nice ones.

Here is our sideboard. It belonged to my grandparents when they were young. The side cabinets hold sewing machines, the top drawer holds all of the other sewing equipment, and the bottom drawer holds fabric.



My guess is early 1910s or so. It works nicely for what I'm using it for.

 

That's a really cool sideboard @Daniel W It reminds me of the one my deceased mother-in-law had. Every family member said it was ugly, even my sister-in-law. I really wanted it but My sister-in-law got it before me !! I think she were not telling the truth about how she felt about it.

 

What exactly is a sideboard anyway? Is it the piece of furniture that went in a formal dining room and held the silver, tablecloths in drawers & food was served on the top of it?

 

Yep.!!.See, you knew what it was allll along !!

They can be used, really, in any room in the house. They make good entertainment centers. You can put
one in the livingroom to corral your throw blankets, keep tous, electronics, all sorts of things !!

I might even get me another for my living room.

 

We have a smaller antique one in a bedroom. The cabinets hold quilts, and the drawers hold clothes.

 

Sneaky!

 

My mother bought a treadle operated sewing machine before the war, with a bow-fronted door. It had thick mahogany veneer. A really nice piece of furniture. It was a "Harris" machine, a British company, who didn't make sewing machines, just "badged" them made by other companies. Hers was made in Germany.

It was like this one.

 

@Pacnorwest
A condenser tumble dryer is similar to a vented dryer in that they both use a heating element to dry your clothes. However, unlike vented tumble dryers, a condenser dryer collects the moisture extracted from your clothes into an easy to empty container.

I've never emptied the water container because i hardly use it.

I never thought that it could catch fire if i didn't clean the filter, so that's something to think about.

 

I had that type dryer when I lived in Germany. It doesn't require a tube and vent leading outside the building. I was always spilling the water. You need to pull the drawer out slowly but me, being in my "git'er done" mode would always just jerk the drawer out and splash water everywhere.

 

We were fortunate with our dryer, in that because we have a tiny kitchen and it didn't need to go in it, I could put it in the cupboard under the stairs.
This is used mainly for my wife's "museum" of vacuum cleaners. It sits on a concrete shelf to the right and the exhaust pipe I connected to an outlet I fitted in an air brick in the side wall of the house above the height of the dryer.

Below the shelf is the original "coal store," accessed by a door in the wall outside. It's only ever been used for storage, presently my electric golf trolley and other car related stuff.
We've had several different dryers in there over the years.
To get one out I have a piece of plywood I can use, one end sits on the shelf, the other on a baton on the left-hand side of the cupboard wall. Easy enough to drag it on to it. I then have a rectangular stand I made that's the same height, so the dryer can be dragged on to it so it is then clear of the cupboard. The Indesit engineer was impressed with that!
Most of the time it's used for storage in the garage.



The laminate floor is in one piece. If I take out, there's a trap door for the times I've needed to get under the floor when installing additional power points anywhere on the ground floor (but not for decades).



There's 18" of clearance between the floor and the concrete raft below.
It more recently came in handy, when one of the guys installing our new 25mm water supply from the main road, was able to get down there and drag the pipe up to the stop cock in the corner in the of the house, behind the oven unit.

 

We're still having problems with our central heating. I can't get it to raise the temperature in the house above 19c. This is with the radiators and the boiler on full and running it continuously.
The boiler will turn on and run for several minutes before deciding it's reached its operating temperature and turn off (I know that as there's a code on the display). After more minutes it will turn on and go through the same cycle again, The hot water is unaffected, it's there on demand. It doesn't bother me, but my wife feels the cold. So British Gas is coming to it again next Monday. That'll be another sixty quid (excess, a condition of the contract) ,on top of the nineteen pound a month, I'm paying for the service.
I'm not that bothered. If it needs doing it, what you have to pay.
I at least have now got my £100 back after they charged me £160 for the first visit.

Running the boiler continuously won't increase my gas bill by much, as it's not using as much gas as it should.

When shopping today, I went into Argos in Sainsbury's and bought this little fan heater.

Like this, but in white. It has two heat settings and a thermostatic control.
It was only £22.





My wife has it near her, by her chair, so problem solved, for the moment.

I went on to Bush's website to register the guarantee. You have to choose a category, but there wasn't one for fan heaters, so I registered it as an oven.
There's websites, for you.

 

DHR how old is your boiler and has it been tuned lately. Water boiler’s are notorious for issues . Also what type of gas are you having delivered . Not clear enough on your heating system to understand how it works.

My oil burner / emergency heat is tuned and cleaned yearly . It’s set at a temperature that will heat the home once the outside temps drops below 45F. The oil burner is located in the basement. Forced air unit is located outside which heats the home when outside temps are above 45 F. When temps are below 45F the system is set to switch to emergency heat - meaning to the oil furnace - located in the basement. It can be very spendy to run the oil furnace if not tuned up properly. If it is adjusted correctly and the filters are clean in the entire system I use less energy and save more $. The thermostat is online and I receive credit from the Electric service company in my area for not using high temps during peak hours . Those fans use electricity too while units are running.

We do not have natural gas in our location, therefore the oil burner is an alternative source for heating.

I have a couple of the air heaters like in your picture. They are handy and work quite well for spot heating use. Not a fire hazard. So nice of you to set one up in special areas to stay warm thru damp cold winters.

 

Sounds like your thermostat is broke @Doghouse Riley

 

My dryer has a closed compartment for the water so it can't get spilled.