starting point

Just a bit of the pointing complete. Lots more to go!

Poining

Make sure that you get that part in the corner, the back of the cupboards will sure appreciate the effort that went into it.

Erins point

Nothing like a bit of labour brought in, Australians seem to work the best!

After hours of work the pointing has been removed from the wall, just got to put it back, now what colour... at least there will be no more black dust from this area, for now.

Thanks to Dave and Peter for getting the wall reinstated. Plaster is up, joints need to be taped and a skim on the surface and it is as good as new.

Hopefully the bathroom will go in no problems.

So much dust in the house. At least it has, for now, been finished. More work to do so I don't know if I will take the time to clean this area yet.

The chimney opened. We had a survey today for the install of a fire, the debate is still current as we cannot decide between two different types of fires that we saw in the showroom. I guess it will be determined if we can / cannot have the chimney lined and a chimney stack installed.

Another Hard Day of Work

We got stuck in finishing off the dirty work in the kitchen today, chasing out the black mortar before we started to clean the bricks. I left Sarah in charge to get things going as I waited for Phil to drop off a table for tomorrows Half Marathon. Getting to the house I discovered that Sarah had taped up the plastic to stop the dust. While an admirable effort it was not effective enough to stop the dust from entering the rest of the house. So the first job was to tape up the plastic and to stop any  of the dust from going everywhere. That done Sarah handed over the reigns of the angle grinder to me to chase out the top three or four rows of bricks. That done and a lot of scraping laterwe had a break for lunch. I must have looked like a regular coal miner as I left the house this morning. Sarah had a disposable suite to wear, I got covered in the black dust from head to toe. Not even a wash under the kitchen sink could dent the layers of black dust that had gone everywhere.

The afternoon's plan was to finish off the dirty work, which would mean the end to the copious amounts of black dust everywhere. A bit more scraping and a going over with the grinder again with the wire brush in it and we were ready to have a go at some brick acid to give the bricks a spruce up. The difference is amazing, the once dreary black coated bricks after a scrub with the acid and a bit of elbow grease turn out to be nice and orange. I would say that there is only a half a days worth of work to scrub the bricks down, just have to work out what is the best way to get all the grim off the bricks.

Welcome Penelope!

Just got the news that Miechelle has just given birth to her second girl, Penelope Grace Elizabeth Williams. I wish the best to them both and I am sure that they will be well.

Sent from my HTC

Sent from my HTC

Sent from my HTC

Sent from my HTC

Work on the house

We did a bit of work on the house today. After a bit of shopping in the morning we got stuck in trying to finish of the bathroom wall. I put in a base plate to support the wall after pulling out the rotten pieces and the rotten floorboards. And all that is left is to try and secure in all the noggins in the floor as well as securing all the pieces of wood in the hall wall. Not much left to do, I think that we will meet the deadline for getting everything ready before the plumber is due to start

When the owners are away...

The mice will do a load of work!

That's how it has been today. After a weekend of slogging out plastering, grinding mortar and scraping bricks Peter and Dave got stuck in and opened up the chimney so that we can get a quote for installing a new fireplace, good news. Bad news, there appears to be no lintel or any releiving arch or brickwork so that may boost the price up a bit. Good news also is that the flashing on the side of the building is OK. Bad news is that all the gutters on the house are knackerd, well I kind of knew this already, I was just choosing to ignore the whole thing. Just another thing to add to the pile of things to get done. The fireplace has however been boosted up the priority list as it is starting to get a bit colder. I guess if we were sensible squirrels we wouldn't wait till winter is on the door step...

On the weekend Sarah and I had a go at sorting out the brick wall in the kitchen. We started off scraping out he mortar, but after a bit we decided to up the ante a load more. I got a cheap angle grinder from the hardware store and together with Sarah we attacked the mortar that was sitting on the bricks and also chasing out the top of the pointing. All I can say was that it was really dusty.  We put up a dust sheet in the hall, one of the old curtains, but it was as good as tits on a bull. The amount of fine black dust that came through and spread into the rest of the house was disturbing. It even ended up in the room in the attic!

Earlier in the day we took a break to go and support Julia in the Men's Health Challenge! 10km's of running with 10 obstacles to overcome, a bit of a army assault course. An amazing achievement and Jules finished the whole event.