“One minute, there I was… Picking out high-end wool carpets. The next? I was performing an emergency autopsy on a wall that has decided to turn into Weymouth beach.”

The Great Concrete Excavation

With the power restored and that “naughty wire” officially a memory, I allowed myself a moment of dangerous optimism. Then I immediately went carpet shopping.

I’d heard whispers on the Poseidon Weapons trade desk earlier in the week that Grampian Furniture offered an all-inclusive carpet fitting service. It turns out that these rumors were indeed true, though “all-inclusive” is a polite way of saying “hefty.” But in this project, “done is done” carries its own currency. I put a sizeable deposit down on a hard-wearing Blue Tweed woolly number. It’s classy, it’s durable, and I’m fairly certain it’s going to “bang” under the neon lights of the arena.

Walking out of the shop with the carpet choice locked in, my focus switched to the brutal reality of preparation. This meant a visit to B&Q.

I genuinely hate DIY shops. Watching people wander the aisles, radiating excitement about their home projects, is a phenomenon I simply don’t understand. For me, it’s just the looming anxiety of spending significant cash with absolutely no guarantee that the end result won’t look like an insurance claim. I’m reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer tries to build a brick BBQ. Sure, he lost his investment, but I live with the genuine fear of accidentally deconstructing my entire house.

Sometimes, you just want to punch in the ‘tradesman cheat code’ and have someone else handle the misery, but that comes at a price. Currently, I’m running on the free side of a season pass, grinding through the manual labour to save every possible penny of real-world currency for the actual games and consoles that matter.

I bought half the DIY aisle just for leveling the floor and patching holes. However, there is an entity in our universe that has a pretty awesome name, especially when it visits someone else. ‘Reality’. And Reality was waiting around the corner ready to take my lunch money and properly do me in.

The new blue tweed needs a level surface, and the concrete slab in my arena had other ideas. I began the weekend with the staggering arrogance of a man who thought a flat-head screwdriver was an appropriate tool for breaking up industrial adhesive mixed with concrete. I grossly underestimated the task in the same way Donald Trump grossly underestimated the Strait of Hormuz. He probably respects that waterway now with the same fearful reverence I hold for my new favourite tool: the broad chisel hammer.

A day and a half later, armed with the chisel and my very own Mjolnir, I’ve managed to smash and bash my way to the interior door. The goal is to craft a 1cm “ramp” to bridge the gap between the concrete and the wooden boards. This is precision engineering being delivered through blunt-force trauma.

Then came the moment that made me question the universe. I noticed the plasterboard wall next to the entrance was sagging. It was just a slight, tired-looking bulge. Upon touching it, the wall didn’t just move. It surrendered completely. The contents fell onto the floor in a sad, grey heap of prehistoric biscuit crumbs. Peeling it back revealed a disaster: the internal cement has decayed completely.

Sometimes I believe in a higher power, and other times I don’t. When I don’t, it’s clear that this neglected higher power can be counted on to send me his “locust plague” and I have a feeling that the intent this time is to ensure I never finish this room. However, much like a biblical protagonist (or a very stubborn Armourer), I am not one to be defeated.

If you’ve seen The Matrix, you’ll remember Neo lying in that chair while Tank loaded combat programs directly into his brain. Well, that’s me tonight. I don’t need Kung Fu; I need to lie on the sofa, plug myself into YouTube University, and by morning, I will be a floor-levelling, brick-pointing, plaster-repairing machine.

Tomorrow, I will test my skills in the Dojo. I’ll likely yield hilarious Homer Simpson consequences, but at least I’ll be doing it in high-definition.

What Next?

The discovery of the “Crumbling Wall of 1902” has proven to be a heavy blow to the timeline, but with a Blue Tweed carpet on deposit and a head soon to be filled with YouTube sourced masonry skills, I feel momentum is on my side.

• Operation: Wall Recovery: Strip back the prehistoric biscuit crumbs (decayed cement), treat the internal brickwork, and repoint the section before the new plasterboard goes up.
• The Concrete Ramp: Finalise the 1cm transition between the slab and the joists to ensure the carpet fitters don’t have a breakdown on arrival.
• Acreage of Plaster: Smooth over the redundant plug socket “bullet holes” and prep the surfaces for a marathon painting session.
• Climate & Light: Install the new LED roof array and fit the blinds to turn this from a building site into a controlled gaming environment.
• The Floor Mat Maneuver: Finalise measurements for the door mat installation once the floor-levelling dust has settled.