The Fantastic Floor

Our recycled timber floorboards have now had their sand and polish, in preparation for our kitchen arriving.  Soon, we can move out of our bedrooms and back into the rest of the house again!

Will these people ever stop going on about their floor, you must be wondering?  Well, the answer is ‘yes’- its restoration is finally complete, the satin polyurethane finish protecting and darkening the wood and bringing out all of it’s notched history and character.  No doubt some of our own character will soon be added (usually in the form of ‘cat cornering’ scratch marks) but it all adds to the general ‘lived on’ appearance.

Colin buffs the initial high gloss varnish, in preparation for the final satin finish.

With everything ready for the kitchen’s arrival, the weekend saw us hard at work on other tasks. Rose concentrated on sealing the walls, ceiling and window of our bathroom – getting everything ready for the fitting of the large glass partition which will bring the completion of our shower that little bit closer.

Only another 200 filled spots to sand...

Meanwhile I worked outside, continuing the interminable task of sanding down the special filler which I’ve concealed the screws in our south wall Titan panel with.  I say interminable because this rather robust substance can only be smoothed away with the very wimpiest of sandpaper grades, to avoid altering the texture of the surrounding panel.  And speaking of wimpy: unforeseen events at the end of the week saw me doing a sixteen hour day, two night shifts in a row, and early starts in between.  As to how this occurred - the story is complicated, and involves carnage including a severed bike padlock, a cell phone killed by a chicken egg and a cycle home into a fierce headwind at 1.30am in the morning.  But let’s leave it there.

The result was that my sleepy performance on the end of the sanding block was well-intentioned, sustained but really rather pathetic.  Rose noted that my best efforts seemed to be directed towards fiddling with my iPod.

Despite this calibre of encouragement, I did a full day’s work in the hot sun and we headed down to the river to cool off afterwards.

Once sanded, the Titan panels will be painted the same dark 'greyfriars' colour
as the exterior woodwork, enabling our house to fade into the scenery
when viewed from the road

Unfortunately, the lack of sleep, sun and sustained tension in my shoulders put me in bed the next morning with a crashing headache – the sacrifices which we’ve made for this house!  Despite this, good progress was made in the afternoon and hopefully it won’t be too long until we can undercoat and paint the panelling, completing the exterior look of the house.

More interesting things will be happening inside, however, when the kitchen arrives tomorrow!

Rose and Monty demonstrate that no matter how busy life gets,
you must always remember to stop and smell the flowers.