Running out of steam

There is a lot to do this weekend, more windows, more cleaning and more hoovering to be ready for the plasterers to start next week but we are beginning to run out of steam… We are so tired.

8am Saturday morning and George is already on the scaffolding knocking back the pointing on the gable end wall (which he pointed all on his own yesterday while Tom finished the sitting room floor). Hats off to him, Zanna didn’t get up until 11am this morning…

George sweeping up the lime mortar after knocking it off the pointing.

George is then on to knocking back the pointing on the sitting room floor that hadn’t gone off yesterday due to the damp. It still hasn’t today so Tom will come back tomorrow to look at this.

Cat returns to her own personal hell of removing the rock hard putty from Zanna’s bedroom window. She has been avoiding this as it is a bastard of a job and you can’t stand up straight on the scaffolding here, making it even more unpleasant. Our restored windows might be fitted next week so the window frames need to be painted and ready.

One of the newly made metal window catches.

The well used heat gun. The putty softens slightly when it is heated up, so this helps to remove it.

Cat is either swearing or telling me not to take a photo of her in the silly hat, or both.

The inside of this window will be painted but it won’t be dark grey like the outside as it will feel very dark inside, so the primer Cat is using for the inside is white and it looks awful with the soft grey! We haven’t yet chosen the interior woodwork colour, another thing we need to get on to… Also, because the interior and exterior paints are different, Cat has to cut in the paintwork for each colour, for each coat, and there will be multiple coats. This also makes her swear and hate the world.

Our electrics in the corner of the attic all ready for the next stage. This will be our main hub where the internet line comes into the house and the TV aerial goes out. Our Cat 6 cable also runs from here to the rest of the house.

Zanna moved all the new old ridge tiles from the land rover to the back garden, ready for George to move them up the scaffolding to the roof. Zanna could only carry 2 at a time. Zanna is weak.

Cat oiling the window on the landing with a second coat and a silly hat.

Oh dear the floor. I will talk about this later in the blog. It’s a bit traumatic and Cat will cry.

Our only pumpkin, with Zanna’s foot for size. It’s a perfect one though, just a little small, and so is the pumpkin.

Fungi growing on our old plastic drainpipe oddly as these usually grow on rotten things. We think there could be a dog poo buried in the long grass.

Sunday and Alison and Ken, our Architect cousins, pop by for a cuppa and to see how we have got on this week (they cooked us a chilli dinner and brought it over last Saturday evening, amazing!)

Cat (looking tired and as if she is about to cry) and Ken measuring up for the new staircase up to the attic and the partition wall. It is tight so we need to make sure the partition wall is in exactly the right place.

So. Our flagstone floor is covered in lime mortar that has dried in to all the holes and rough parts of the stone. Unfortunately most of the stones are rough with holes. Tom has washed and washed and washed them over the last couple of days but this hasn’t removed all the mortar.

Cat has washed them too this weekend but to no avail. These are going to need ****ing scrubbing with the ****ing residue remover AGAIN. This took days the last time and nearly broke Cat. We can’t even think about it at the moment, so we will be covering this over until after the plastering is done and deal with it in a few weeks time…

Arse.

Thankfully the weekend was saved by good friends, family, lots of cake and of course Jasper’s little face.

It actually stopped raining today and the sun came out. Here is Jasper enjoying the evening sun.

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