Tag: sanding

Here we go!

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The flooring is here!  We had a manic day yesterday.  Barry had the opticians in the morning, and of course, that was the time when the pallet of floorboards came.  The man couldn’t get the pallet trolley thing up the path, so left it in the road.  I was literally running in and out of the house, just in case a car reversed into the pallet.  Then Barry came back, and wondered why I was running round shouting “Cones!  Get some cones!”.  We don’t have cones, but he thought it was funny.  I did not.

He then started laying the flooring in the living room.  I tried to help, but I’m relegated to underlay (because it doesn’t matter as nobody sees it).  I’m also permitted to put little protective feet on furniture and unwrap the next pack of flooring.  Oh yes, I know his game.

We also squeezed in a cinema trip (Wrath of the Titans, 1.5/5, don’t bother) and a trip to Nando’s to see some old uni friends.

We’ve got two sets of visitors coming over the Easter weekend, so the pressure’s on to get the flooring in (although we still need to paint the skirts and radiators in the living room before putting the beading in, but that can wait).  The paint’s cracking at the bottom where we’re hammering flooring against it, so that needs sanding off and redoing.  Also, Barry’s working in London all week, so he’s not going to be productive from there!

Sunday is supposed to be the day of rest.  It isn’t in our house!  Onwards!

Photos of the flooring so far…

Neither a borrower nor a lender be

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My ex-uncle (he used to be married to my dad’s sister) lives about five minutes from our house and loves DIY.  He has any possible conceivable tool, power or standard.  He can advise on plastering, putting up kitchen cupboards, decking, etc., etc.  This gentleman kindly lent his ex-nephew-in-law (can you be an ex-nephew-in-law if we were married after they divorced?) and I his (used) Bosch power sander and a set of stepladders for the various jobs we need to do.

Complicated family politics aside, the sander broke after we’d had it a few hours and so we faced the dilemma: to buy or not to buy the replacement?  Of course, we did, but I really begrudged shelling out £33 on a sander we won’t get to keep and barely got use from.  I’m hoping the stepladders don’t jump out of the car when we’re returning them!

You live and you learn; we will probably just buy a tool next time we need it – at least we’ll get to keep it!  On the plus side, my ex-uncle will be happy and if we do need to borrow something again, he will hopefully be obliging because we’ve been honest.  I say hopefully, because I’m actually telling you before I’m telling him…

On an unrelated note, I thought I’d put up a couple of photos of the kitchen before we do anything to it for posterity’s sake.  Excuse the mess, we’re decorating!

This is the wall (both sides) that will soon be no more.  It holds two radiators, a thermostat, and three light switches that need moving.

There’s a little bay window which would be nice for a table once we’ve got some more space.  The blinds are down because we don’t want people to think we’re complete layabouts without knowing why the kitchen’s in a state!  Not sure where we’re going to put the oven when the wall’s come down, think we can just shuffle it about.

We’re keeping the fridge…

Yes, we had pizza for tea that night…

We’re also keeping the dishwasher and washing machine…

The kitchen is perfectly serviceable and we would probably have kept it for years if we hadn’t have been extending it, but it’s not what we would have chosen ourselves.