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Do ring shank nails have heads on them like regular nails? I remember once looking for some headless ring shank nails and never finding any!

Thanks for all of the advice. I agree that plywood would probably work better due to the rigidity. Daft question - do I need to temper it first or even leave expansion gaps anywhere? Also, when I used hardboard (on the upper floors) I used 3/4 inch copper coated headless nails - should I...

Our lounge / dining room floorboards have the "usual" 3-4mm expansion / shrinkage gaps between them - but nothing drastic. Should I put down hardboard before getting a new carpet fitted - how do you decide whether to bother or not?

We had a very similar problem in our house but had already decided that we really did not want to repaper and replastering seemed too drastic. I bought one of those "sand paper holder" thingies - basically a flat sanding panel with a handle on the back and screw clamps at each end to hold the...

I want to construct a new custom shaped work surface from a large piece of MDF. What kind of primer / paint should I use for a smooth matt finish with less likelihood of scratching, peeling and wearing? The surface will act as a PC desk and so must withstand the mouse and such!

I keep hearing that you should nail or glue solid wood floor solid wood flooring to the subfloor, but if so, then how can it expand and contract based upon temperature / moisure changes in the room?

I suppose that if the floor will "settle" in a matter of months, I could simply delay putting the beading on - we could live with a gap for a while :)

Thanks for the reply WoodYouLike. I like the idea of oak beading - I think it would fit OK and I could pin/glue it onto the edge of the solid wood without any problems. But if the floor did expand, wouldn't it push the beading up against the fireplace edge? If this happened and the...

We have started to consider fitting solid oak flooring in our lounge / dining room. I have successfully fitted laminate before and feel capable of doing this. But how do I fit the flooring around our limestone fireplace? No problem cutting at the necessary angles, but if I leave an...

We have an existing conservatory with a (white) tiled floor. We liked the look of one we saw in a picture with a slate floor. However, will this get too hot to tread on - will the slate even tolerate temperatures of up to 60 degrees C?

Our lounge and dining room join via a large opening which gives the impression of havung one large room. Therefore we want a continuous floor surface to emphasise this. The floorboards run lengthways from the lounge through into the dining room. We have considered running real wood...

Does a truly flexible ceiling paint really exist? Some of the ceilings in our house look horrendous due to hairline cracks appearing at the joins between plasterboards. I recently spent a whole day sanding and filling the lounge ceiling along with several coats of paint applied over a week...

Thanks for all of the advice - I'll feed back my findings.

Incidentally perhaps, we have a new housing development a couple of hundred yards from our house. They have only progressed so far as clearing the old site though so I doubt that has anything to do with it. I'll ask the neighbours.

Until about 1 month ago we had very high mains water pressure - this also gave us a powerful shower (fed from our Baxi combi) and strong cold-tap water flow in our sinks and baths I would estimate that the pressure has almost halved over Christmas. I have checked our main stop tap and it...

Thanks for the info. We actually got hold of a tester for some Sadolin varnish which has a satin finish. So far, the results look good on a test patch in the hall. I have not yet decided what to do about the gaps in the floor boards. I have read about mixing sawdust with PVA glue and...

We live in a fairly typical semi-detached property and will soon turn our attention to decorating the landing and stairs. Going up from behind the front door, we have 10 steps in a straight line and then a 90 degree turn and two more to get to the landing. The small bedroom (directly about the...

We have good (original) pine floorboards in our lounge and dining room and have decided to go for the sand and varnish approach. We cannot use oil-based varnish because of our many fish tanks and so have considered low-odour water-based varnish. Does anyone have any experiences of this...

I often reduce the stickiness of it by sticking it against my clothing a couple of times before applying to the wall.

Whilst stripping the wallpaper from my lounge, I came across a particular section where the plaster dropped off in large pieces as a result of the steamer loosening it - the whole "sheet" of plaster came away from the wall and ended up in pieces on the floor. This leaves me with a 1 metre...