As promised .........

Believe it or not, we haven’t dropped off the face of the earth in the last oooh, three months or so since we last updated. Work is continuing on the house, though we have had some changes in plans (it wouldn’t be a “work in progress" otherwise!)

Since we last wrote in August, (in no particular order) we have:

1. Removed the old plaster and lath from the ceilings in both the dining and living rooms. This was a horrible job, and one that I managed to wriggle my way out of somehow. Bringing down a ceiling with eighty five years of dirt, dust and pidgeon poo was not my idea of fun, so we enlisted the assistance of our resident handy person, Dave. Here are the pics to prove it was just as messy as we thought it would be. In fact, it was so nasty that I had to do a late night mercy mission to get some eye rinse for PK, as his vision went blurry from all the crap they were covered in.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Replaced some structural beams that were chewed to cardboard by previous termite visitations. Greedy little buggers …….
   
   
   
   
   
3. Rewired both the front rooms for electric (CAT 5 and 6 still to come)
   
4. Put insulation into the walls in the dining and living rooms.
   
   
   
   
   
   It’s amazing the difference it makes in the front rooms. Either that or it’s just because it took us the entire summer to get to this stage, so it’s cooled off anyway. Oh well, at least it’s quieter in those rooms now.
   
5. Some of the bricks on the front porch have been removed, cleaned up and re-mortared. The rest will be done when we feel like it. (photos coming)
   
6. Put up drywall and plastered the living and dining rooms. Note the large drywall hoist that PK used to install the drywall onto the ceiling.
   
   
   
   After getting a couple of sheets installed he decided he needed additional assistance (REAL assistance, I’m no good with heavy lifting) so he went down to Home Depot and picked up a couple of guys to help out. We were AMAZED at how FAST these guys worked. Incredible. Made us look like fat white people. Hmmmmm …..
   
   Unfortunately the drywall ended up being a right pain in the proverbial, so we ended up getting our trusty plasterer to finish it off.
   
   The first time around the plasterer came over while I was away in Maryland for work. The first rule of renovation – don’t have the contractor come over to do something decorative while the wife is away. He did a fantastic job – but it was totally the wrong finish. We asked for cat’s face – and we got cat’s face. Unfortunately what we wanted was sand finish. Not sure how we screwed that one up, but we learned the hard (read: more money) way. Luckily the plasterer was able to come back a week later while I was home and re-do the walls. Poor guy, he was probably cursing us (in Welsh, I’m sure) from here to Vegas (he’s just moved there).Here are some pics of what the first round of plaster looked like:
   
   
   
   Kind of hard to see, but it’s actually quite …. blotchy. Not the look we were going for.
   
   
   
   Here’s a look at the new plaster, before we primed it today:
   
   
   
   
   
7. Stripped the wainscoting out of the dining room, planed it down to clean wood and are in the process of restaining. It had a lot of insect damage on the outside surface, so we had to scrub the wood with wire wool before we could put it through the Dewalt planer that PK bought to take the first few layers of wood off each board. More photos to come.
   
8. While I was on holiday in NZ, PK and his lovely sister did some amazing work around the house. PK put up an awesome porch swing so we can sit out there and keep tabs on the neighbours – I mean, keep an eye out for trouble makers. PK’s sis did a Wonderwoman stint in the back yard and it still looks fab. She’s a keeper, I tell ya!
   
9. Painted the living and dining rooms with primer (one coat so far, the next one depends on PK’s skills to locate a source for another 5 gallons of primer on a Sunday as our local store is shut).
   
   
   
   Hey wait a minute ….. that looks kinda familiar ……..
   
   
   
   WHAT??!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
   
   Nah, just joking. It’s only primer, kids. Nothing to be scared of there. We’re gonna throw some color at it real soon, I promise.
   
   Righto, PK is back with the McDonalds for breakfast then we’re making a start on the second coat of primer (PK couldn’t find another source for the same one we used for the first coat, so he’s buying another brand. Hopefully this is kosher and we are not offending the primer gods by this heinous act.)
   
   More soon ……..

Edit: Oops, nearly forgot. Gratuitous kitty pic ...........