… some nice and pretty beading around the window and the doorways on the stairs up to the attic. Yes, I’m going all suburban and pretentious, aren’t I? Whatever next?
The Ryobi mastic gun did the business here, along with a tube of contact adhesive. Cut the beading to length (remember to cut the bevels the correct way round – GRRRR!), stick some glue in the angle, press into place and then tack down with a couple of 25mm lost-head nails, and there we are.
And doesn’t it look pretty too? It’s not like me, is it?
In other startling news, we have also turned the corner. at least, as far as the plasterboard goes. I’ve put the first pieces on the stud wall for the stairs that go down to the ground floor.
This is quite symbolic progress. All that’s now needed is one more piece of plasterboard on the reverse side of the stud wall to the bedroom, three end-pieces, some filling and sanding down, and then I can wallpaper the walls on the landing and that will be finished too and I can start on the bedroom. I shan’t know myself.
I know that I said that I would be sanding down the stairs and vacuuming them ready to varnish them this weekend, but several things have conspired together to put an end to that idea.
Firstly, I’m not going out tomorrow. Cécile is having a visitor to her house in the morning tomorrow so I have to go round there early. That means that I won’t have time to varnish it before I go out.
Secondly, Mondays radio recording sessions have been cancelled due to illness at Radio Tartasse, so the third consecutive day that I need for varnishing isn’t going to happen either.
Thirdly, we’ve had a hanging cloud over the mountain all day today and I’ve received precisely nothing in the way of solar energy. There’s plenty of power in the batteries of course, but not enough to run a power sander for a couple of hours and a vacuum cleaner afterwards.
Fourthly, the temperature didn’t rise above freezing all day today and the next few days are likely to be the same. The temperature downstairs is just 4°C and the varnish won’t ever stick in that kind of temperature. It’ll just sit on top of the wood and freeze, and then break off when it’s knocked.
Accordingly, I left the varnishing for another time. Never mind. There’s plenty of other things to be going on with.
I was invited out this evening. It’s the annual dinner for FCPSH – the Football Club Pionsat St Hilaire, and I was invited to go along. I didn’t stay to eat because you can’t expect them to cater for my diet, but I was there chatting for a couple of hours.
And it really was freezing when I returned. I had a hard job to keep my feet on the concrete. And in my room the temperature had fallen to 9.8°C – the coldest for quite a while, but a roaring wood fire soon had that back up to normal again.
I’m glad that I bought this woodstove.
