The dishwasher incident I wrote about recently - two litres of water into the mineral wool, a home dehumidifier, sorted in a day - was, in the grand scheme of water-related home disasters, a rounding error. It did remind me of something considerably less manageable. A different house, about fifteen years ago.

Flooring: part 4 of 4 After removing the old floor and checking the subfloor, next step was to install something we like. Choosing panels Apart from the look, the main decision criteria were low emissions and durability, roughly in that order. We ended up with two types, but with similar features.

Flooring: part 3 of 4 The floor replacement job was going slowly, but surely. With a few boards missing, I had a thought that seemed perfectly reasonable at the time: why not temporarily hook up the dishwasher? Every hour spent washing dishes by hand is an hour not spent on the actual renovation. Solid logic.

Flooring: part 2 of 4 After removing the vinyl floor, I discovered some floorboards in the kitchen needed replacing. Not many, maybe seven or eight. It seemed so basic - after all, that’s just some measuring, sawing, drilling and screwing - but in combination, it was one of the more tedious renovation tasks I’ve done. Most jobs require either precision or working with large and heavy objects, this one needed both.

Flooring: part 1 of 4 There’s a special kind of optimism that comes with removing old floor covering. I pulled back a corner of the old vinyl, saw it peel away reasonably cleanly, and thought: I’ll be done in an hour.

A few months ago I moved into a new place: a house in need of deep renovation. I brought tools, ordered materials, but there was no workbench. I simply needed a reasonably flat surface at a comfortable level for sawing, drilling and sanding.