9" Oak parquet blocks...

Now we have all the copper tails for the rads in the front room, we can finish the middle parquet section, as previously stated we have run out of mahogany and are cutting the Oak strips into blocks.

Finished ready for the radiators....

Write lists get straight get organised

Polished concrete with sink and hob

We have made the shuttering to fit the sink and hob, making sure we have left enough space for any connections.

We have used a mix of 3 Portland Cement White

2 silver sand

1 Canterbury Spa, mix of stones and shells

1 mix of red and green glass

To avoid cracks we are using a damp proof matting and strengthening the slab with strips of metal, we used chicken wire, however it comes in a roll and tends to bend itself back, we are going to cut down some old metal coat hangers and use the varying lengths to strengthen around the sink and hob.

Terry's Tea

We have now set up the business mentioned in my profile, we are now mortgage free, time to work on the business, as mentioned in our previous post the old man Terry Yardley set up Terrys Cafe in 1982, the wholesale meat trade local butchers and the whole meat trade died overnight with the introduction of supermarkets, while growing up the old man had pig farms a chain of butchers shops and he also ran canteens on the big Tarmac and Elliot's building sites in and around South London, one in Farnborough Village where we later grew up, in 1982 he diversified and bought an old greasy spoon, threw out all the local layabouts and started again with the help of Auntie Kath, there is a video on the Terry's Cafe website outlining the history of the shop, being a meat trader all the produce to this day is bought direct from the Markets both Smithfield meat market and the Borough fruit and veg market.

Austin my younger brother, named after Austin's of Peckham a dairy during the morning and a reclamation yard/ Antique shop during the day, now owns and runs Terry's Cafe on a daily basis, the only part of the breakfast that can be enhanced is the beverages, fresh coffee has been introduced, fresh juice will soon be available and we have just brought out our own range of Tea, Terry's Tea pure unblended Ceylon Tea sourced directly from the tea plantations in Sri Lanka, we have just created our own blend of Breakfast tea Morning Pride, a cup of tea since 1982 has been 20p with your breakfast, we are now  going to purely sell Terry's Tea at the shop, £1 bottomless Terry's Tea with your breakfast.

We will soon be introducing our take on Afternoon Tea from 3-6pm via Groupon, Terry's Tea rooms with a view to acquiring a new shop in another part of South London.

Morning Pride

Afternoon Tea/ ceylon black

Earl Grey

Green tea and jasmine

Chamomile 

The links above are to the blog we have written along the journey and links to the cafe website, we have set up a completely seperate company Terry's Tea Ltd that will supply Terry's Cafe with it's tea and we are also looking at various markets restaurants, cafes, Tea rooms boutique hotels, health food shops, small independents to start, we have already had a lot of interest from both America and Australia two countries that drink a lot of iced tea for which Ceylon tea is perfect, no after taste.

Terry the Old Man and Auntie Kath In typical pose

Dad, Cousin Debbie and Austin Daniel Yardley

Brownies Buttons and Bows

Our Kitchen was designed on an old habadashery display cabinet, the old man was a Smithfield wholesale meat trader nd our Mum brought up in Alscot Rd Bermondsey came from a family of Haberdashers amongst other things, our Grandad Danny Barret had the habadashery stall in the Peckham Arcade and Bromley North market on Thursdays in South London, our mum and her brothers grew up working the stalls in Peckham and Bromley. Our Uncle still has the habadashery stall in Bromley high St every Saturday.

In Later life our Mum Helen Barret/Yardley set up her own habadashery stall in Bromley indoor market, much to her brother Dennis' disgust as I remember, money can bring out the best and worst in people, if the intention is purely financial it invariably ends negatively. Brownies Buttons and Bows, Brownie was a name given to Mum by her dear friend Helen Hughes, previously one of the Bursars of Horniman's museum, mum wore a lot of dark brown in her younger years hence the nickname, our kitchen is designed around her display cabinets made from hardwood, all of the shelves were drawers for ribbons cottons and zips with a glass top, lovely old handles.

Our kitchen is pretty much a mirror image of those display cabinets.

Brownie, Helen Patricia Yardley 1946 - 1991

Danny Barret, middle, Greece 1960s 

Internal walls

Now we have all  the pipework in place it is time to put the internal curved walls back in the bedrooms hallway and Finley's corridor, we have already damp proofed, the idea being to use a layer of 6 mm ply and then making bendy 12mm ply using a circular saw and making horizontal cuts in the ply allowing it to bend slightly.

More pictures to follow

Kitchen Sink

Now we have the hob on the boat it is time to finish the kitchen work surfaces cut the holes for the sink and hob and lay the polished concrete work surface.

My Old Man's a Dustman

We have everything we need to make Tino a home finally, experience taught us to buy the important expensive and finishing items first, even if they have sat in their box or wrapper until this point, the whole heating system, kitchen sink, spiral staircase, fitted wardrobes, knobs, handles, kitchen table and benches, the bathroom suite.

It is very easy with a project like Tino to put the budget to it's extremes. Buy well, as with our previous post try and use as much as you already have, the kitchen has been made from the Teak we originally took out of the crews quarters, the pine kitchen table and benches were made from the dividing wall between the kitchen and hallway, the internal walls have been made from the pine tongue and groove we took out of the bedrooms, the bed was made from the mahogany in the hallway, all our hardwood flooring is reclaimed some from a County Hall in Surrey, some from St Dunstans College Catford and some from St James' London all at a good price probably a fifth of the price of new wood, our radiators are reclaimed from Holy Trinity Convent, Sundridge Park Bromley.

We imported the handles for the kitchen and our sink, hob shower and taps are all from clearance sections, places like screw fix reduce items at different times of the year for silly reasons, keep your eye out.

My point is don't be too hasty with your purchases do your homework with prices, "your profit is in your buying" as the old man use to say, can you get it from a salvage yard or at a discount most designs are a replica of a previous design and "is there a cash price?" Another phrase we heard a lot growing up....

In regards to tradesmen choose wisely they all have a tendency to slack of towards the end of any job, my advice is to only have one trade a time on any project if possible otherwise it becomes like Grange Hill within a few hours.

Draw out any plans you have do not under any circumstance leave it to the tradesmen to decide, if possible do any prep work before, set the ball rolling on the right foot, ultimately it is you that will have to look at the finished product everyday so get it right first time draw it out there will be little decisions to make during that will have a big impact on the finish better to be prepared and know exactly what you want and how you want it to look, realise, taking on a project like Tino you are going to come up against some opposition from all angles so you have to be strong in your decision making, once you have started there is no going back.........

The Old Man, Terence William Yardley 1941 - 2010 and his three boys

5 ring gas hob

We have ordered the gas hob, half price from Argos, 5 rings stainless steel, good reviews, perfect for The budget.

Use what you got son, Use what you got.....

We are at the tail ends of this project and as always with any project the budget starts to dictate, being brought up by a war baby, the phrase use what you got was a phrase I Heard a lot from my own Dad and Finley This is to you, whatever you are doing, stop and think, only fools rush in, don't run away with yourself always, do your homework, keep the overheads down and where possible use what you got not always what you initially think but find a starting point and go from there, hurdles can be jumped, every problem has a solution and everything is possible if you use your mind, with this thought we have to finish the middle Mahogany parquet section, unfortunately we have run out of blocks, we are about three metres squared short, however we do have the left over Oak parquet various widths and the Oak strip flooring that was originally in the main bedroom, some of which is being laid in the wheelhouse, we are going to cut the strip into blocks and use lengths to finish..

Bathroom update

As previously stated we are now putting a shower bath instead of a full wet room, the roll top bath we have is not flat bottomed, a shower bath will only work with a flat bottom.... The brain started ticking and somehow we came up with the idea of a tin bath, not the little tin dog bath you see in most hardware shops, the original tin bath... After a bit of research we came across http://www.brettellbrothers.co.uk/trade-products/tin-baths/ Uk manufacturers of the tin bath, after a phone call with Paul who has been making the baths most of his life, we have put an order in....

Fatso Wood Burning Stove

The excess wood from the renovation has been kept out on deck and chopped for fire wood, we bought a gas bottle burner, looks good, in reality doesn't give out a large amount of heat, luckily enough we have managed to get our hands on a Fatso pot belly burner, cast iron will sit perfectly in the front room.

Today....

We have managed to get a coat of paint and fill any cracks in the black pudding seam compound.

She is starting to look good inside and out.