I have been rather pre-occupied this week, with a couple of days in the office (long days, plenty of progress on audio story though), a blitz activity going on (same as a normal day, but with management "focus") and, of course, the building work, which goes on apace. This has meant I have been neglecting you, dear reader, and I know from the many letter that you have been missing your daily dose of mundanity.
On the building front, we now have both the washing machine and dryer under plastic sheeting outside the kitchen window, and with the wooden wall now blocking rear exit, I have had to tackle one of the items on my long term to-do list, to make our french windows from the dining room able to be opened, closed and locked. This required some fiddling with bolt locks top and bottom, and a fair amount of planing and sanding to reduce tops, bottoms and sides so they fit in their hole again.
I also replaced the lock and handles which were well rusty and cheap and nasty respectively. Final stage is to paint them. I have done the rubbing down, a job no-one likes, and have painted the left hand door. I hope to do little bits at lunch time and finish the right hand door and frame. I am using Sadolin external gloss paint. It goes on a bit funny, with a texture like chocolate goes when you melt it too fast, but it is self-undercoating and pretty robust, which means you can just slap on two coats and it will do the business. Having done experiments previously, I can confirm that on day 1, it does not look quite as good as old fashioned undercoat/gloss combination, however by day 44 there is no difference in appearance, and generally on day 999 it is in a better state. So, any paint that is easier to apply, can stick to anything and looks good for longer is a friend of mine.
Other news is that the steel over the main doors at the back is in, as is the steel across the roof span. The final steels, that bolt to the steel spanning the gap in a T formation, will go in shortly. All the walls that need to be removed have now been removed, with Acros holding up the ceiling until final steels and associated roofing carpentry is finished.
The footings are also dug for the new wall to brick up the garage door space, in which will ultimately be a window, and even the trench to take the washing machine and utility room sink waste is dug out to the point that will be our new whatever-it-is-called plastic junction and rodding-point contraption into which will also flow sink, shower and toilet gubbins.
I have the sense we have turned the corner in as much as we had done with all the pulling down of stuff, and will now be (slowly and painfully) putting it back together again. Badman reliably informs me that it is usually weeks 11-12 when you start to wish that these jolly and friendly strangers would just leave, so at the end of week 4 I guess we need to hold our nerve for a bit longer. Overall we are coping very well, albeit our house looks like a squat that has been greedily furnished with the spoils of a post-riot plundering campaign. I mean, really, who does need TWO fridge-freezers, and why on earth put them in the dining room?
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