Sunday 29th March – Week 9

So, as suspected in last week’s blog this week has principally been about painting – lots of painting.

Dave has continued to focus on his gym completing the ceiling in white and wall panelling in a dark grey. It looks fabulous but he won’t allow me to post a photograph until he has it ‘furnished’ and complete.

What Dave’s ceiling, and my continuation in the Priory, has highlighted is that while we had hoped we would only need 2 coats of white emulsion before the final colour can be added. However, it appears that 3 coats is the minimum and, because it is all pine cladding and so deeply grooved, it can only really be applied by brush making it a long, slow, process.

Again, I won’t bore you with more photos of painted white wood (yet) until we have completed a little more, but I have attached some before and ‘after’ pictures of the other major task we have undertaken this week – stripping Hayloft kitchen and bathroom in preparation for refitting with all new units and equipment.

The first picture shows the kitchen – taken some time ago – of the how the kitchen once looked, the second how it looks now.  Have you ever had that feeling that perhaps you shouldn’t have started a task …

The bathroom was in a more tired state (apologies – forget to take ‘before’ pictures until I had already started the work) and will be an amazing transformation.  We are replacing the bath with a double ended tub – being environmentally friendly and saving water by encouraging guests to shower with a friend 🙂  When we removed the old bath it was evident why there was a slightly damp smell in the gîte as the bath drainage was not as effective  as perhaps  it should have been!  With everything stripped out we are able to reconfigure the pipework, replace the fittings and renew the decoration – it will be amazing when finished.

Having now received all of the items from the kitchen order (after 3 deliveries from Castorama(!)) we will start building and installing next week in Hayloft where we have our first guest arriving in May. Doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence for the bathroom delivery that we are expecting in 2 weeks’ time! We have set ourselves a tight deadline but, with a little assistance and lots of effort we will complete this work, in one of our smaller gîtes, in time and make an amazing transformation.

Busy week ahead (as they all are) with Easter to look forward to but, with the clocks going forward today, the wonderful long light evenings will get even later – as long as the weather cheers up significantly, as I write we have had a very wet and wild day – bring on the summer – please!

Joyeuse Pâques.