When will it end?

It turns out I was optimistic, there is no end in sight to the sanding and filling… we keep spotting dents, bumps, plug sockets that need filler. I know it has often been said that you can’t have enough plug sockets, but you can. We have huge numbers. One tiny room (the blue room/ bed 2) has, 8 double sockets! When each one needs filling around, sanding and replacing you can have too many! However the bathroom has no power at all, so that will need putting in when we eventually get to that point – very odd.

So we continue to sand and fill. I’m despondent to be honest, it’s hard work, my hands are actually red raw from sandpaper and I have no finger prints left, my phone doesn’t know who I am and I am praying I don’t need a fingerprint log in on any apps.

 I have a jolly good cry, Ian works his magic and talks me round to it being OK and we continue. Ian is in the same state, he just doesn’t cry about it. Maybe it is a toasty in the warm conservatory, listening to the birds on a very cold sunny day that perks us up. This is going to be a beautiful place to live, eventually.

To do something different, I decide to sand the lintel that is in the blue room to remove several layers of paint. It’s teak we think and is visible in the room. It is beautiful wood and we would have loved to keep it on show, but sadly someone has kept up the theme of drilling holes in everything (why would you drill holes in a lintel?) so it needs filling and sanding. This is one for the electric sander, rather than doing it by hand like the walls, so has a different impact on me. This one gives me conjunctivitis! Marvellous!  Ok, so I should have had my goggles on (they went on fairly quickly, but not soon enough). 

Meanwhile, Ian starts to tackle the Artex on the kitchen ceiling, but before he starts, it needs loads of work to remove old paint that is coming off, work to stabilise it as it’s a bit dodgy, and generally preparing, so takes a day of prep before the dabbing begins.

Each job seems small on the daily to do list, but it takes forever and we are both now very tired. But, having done this sort of thing (decorating, not major renovation) before, Ian says, we need to get some paint on the walls so we can see the problem areas better. Hurrah! A different job, so paint we do. First bed 1, then bed 2. I concede, they can no longer be the blue and purple room, although after the first coat, you can still see plenty of colour.  I said in a previous blog ‘it’s going to be all white’, and it is!