Tag Archives: painting facade

Tuesday 10th July 2012 – YOU KNOW WHO …

… your real friends are when you ring them up and as if they fancy a trip to Montlucon on Friday morning – arriving there (45 mins from here) at … errr … 07:00.

“What’s the score?” asked Terry
“Brico Depot has some interesting stuff in the arrivages that has caught my eye but it’s big and bulky, and we need to be there early”
“I’ll bring the trailer then”.

I hate to tempt fate by making announcements about things that are outside my control but if this comes off it won’t ‘arf be a stunning development for round here.

So where was I? Ahh yes.

rendering concrete lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceAfter the usual couple of hours on the web pages I went outside and spent a good deal of the afternoon putting the second coat of paint on the rendering of the lean-to.

You can see what the rendering was like prior to the painting if you look at the bottom left-hand corner where I couldn’t reach. I know which one I like better.

That took me until 17:00 when I went off and attacked the garden.

Clotilde gave me some of her lettuce thinnings yesterday and so I weeded and hoed a few spaces in a couple of the raised beds and planted them in … note to self – when I thin out the leeks, send some round to Clotilde in exchange … and then gave them a really good watering – not that they need it of course in this weather.

After that I checked on the carrots and beetroot that I planted a couple of weeks ago. They seem to be doing fine and so I planted another row of each. Certainly covering the sowings over with old caravan windows seems to be the way to go here

That took me until 19:00 when I knocked off. Thoroughly exhausted – you’ve no idea how much like hard work all of this is.

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Monday 9th July 2012 – THIS IS WHAT …

… I was doing today.

RENDERING CONCRETE lean-to les guis virlet puy de dome franceI’ve painted the end wall of the lean-to that I’ve been rebuilding.

And even looking carefully, you can’t really see the join between the original rendering and the rendering that I did.

You can however see the original colour of the rendering if you look between the ground floor window and the 1st floor window – a horrible manky dirty grey paint. This cement-based paint that I’ve been using to paint the house – a pale yellow colour, makes it look so much nicer.

And it will look nicer still when I do the second coat.

You’ll notice the door of the lean-to. That was one that I made back in 2000 and as I was leaving, and not due back for 6 months,

I painted it in used engine oil to preserve it. It’s the best treatment that you can ever do to wood and when I’m preparing wood to be buried in the ground, like fence posts and so on, I always soak the ends in used engine oil, even today.

This morning though I was as usual on the computer doing my web pages. And quite early too – I was awake long before the alarms went off. A couple of consecutive early nights are what I have to thank for that.

But I had a weird dream again – I was a-wandering down West Street in Crewe and met up with an old school-friend, and we chatted for ages about one or two people we knew and the cars that they owned. We all – a large group of us in the end – ended up back at a hotel. Bizarre!

This evening, with the hotel in St Gervais d’Auvergne closed for holidays, the Anglo-French group went round to Clotilde’s and spent a very pleasant evening there. Clotilde made loads of stuff to eat, which was really nice of her, and she gave me a doggy bag, the contents of which I have just this minute demolished.

It’s nice to meet up with good friends and chat away for ages. I really should do it more often.

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Thursday 6th August 2009 – ALL THE SCAFFOLDING …

scaffolding moved from front of house les guis virlet puy de dome france…has now gone from the front of the house Well, in the sense of it being erected, that is.

That’s good news in the sense that I can now put the roof back on the verandah and close the verandah door. It all helps keep me warm and dry

And warm it was, too. 37 degrees outside, the warmest of the year so far, even though it didn’t feel quite as hot as yesterday.

I’ve painted as much of the outside of the house as I can do right now. The rest will have to wait until I’ve tidied up whatever is lying about in the way. So don’t hold your breath. Regular readers of my mighty organ will know that tidying up is not my forte. In fact, it isn’t even my 39. But at least I can reach everything from ground level except for the little bit over the kitchen where I’ll have to invent something to help me reach.

And thinking on, I have to record that painting the outside is the first (I think) thing that I have done to the house for aesthetic rather than practical purposes.

In other news, I had a good tea tonight. Lentils and onions and spices, with garlic, beans and potatoes out of my garden. And nice they all were too, especially the garlic! Nice and strong, no wonder I’m not troubled by vampires.

Tomorrow I’m starting the pointing of the side of the house (the side you can’t see in the photo). That should be interesting as I’ve never done pointing before. But all the mortar there has dried out and is disintegrating and this is likely to be the only shot I’ll get at fixing it.

I’ve set myself until Monday to do it and then I can discuss with Terry Monday night about doing the lean-to roof over the kitchen and fitting the wind turbine.

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Wednesday 5th August 2009 – TODAY, I CHANGED THE HABITS OF A LIFETIME

kwikstage scaffolding les guis virlet puy de dome france My usual working hours here are from 09:30 to 1400 and 15:00 to 18:00 or 18:30. So here I was today, 21:00 when I climbed down off the scaffolding.

But then again I was in full flight painting the front of the house and I totally lost track of time. Mind you, it was so hot at 14:00 when I stopped for lunch that I ate inside the house and stayed here until 16:00 when it cooled down. 35.5 degrees in the shade, and off the scale (more than 40 degrees) in the direct sunlight.

As well as having done more than half the painting, I fitted the fascia board and the guttering. Many people don’t agree with fascia boards when doing roofing (especially round here) on the grounds that they just collect the water, rot away and then drop off.

But that’s exactly the point. If it wasn’t for the fascia board then the exposed ends of the rafters would collect the water, rot away and drop off and if anyone thinks that in 10 years time I’m taking all the roof off to replace the rafters then they have another think coming.

We didn’t buy enough guttering – there’s about a metre short. And I also need two joining pieces. I won’t have time to go back to Montlucon to look for them on Saturday so I’ll have to see what St Eloy can offer.

And in other news, having gone to the bank yesterday to give them a copy of Caliburn’s log book, I had a letter from the bank today reminding me that Caliburn’s temporary certificate has expired and if I don’t give them a copy of Caliburn’s log book by 15th August they’ll cancel the insurance.

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Tuesday 4th August 2009 – A PHOTO FROM A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ANGLE TONIGHT

painting facade kwikstage scaffolding les guis virlet puy de dome franceand if you look closely you will notice that the facade of the house has been painted down to the level of the decking on the scaffolding.

That was this afternoon’s task – the morning was taken up in cementing underneath the rest of the eaves. It wasn’t easy without a bricklayer’s trowel, that it until I tried out a piece of recycled plastic slate. What a good finish you can get with a few offcuts of those!

Lunchtime involved a visit to the bank at Pionsat. The temporary insurance certificate for Caliburn has run out
and they haven’t sent me a new one yet.
“Well, you haven’t sent us the log book” was their story
“You didn’t ask for it” I replied. “You just asked for proof of Caliburn’s new registration number and I dropped off the certificate three weeks ago”
“Yes, but we still need the log book”
So GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR to the Credit Agricole! I wish they’d make up their blasted minds!

And it was so hot today that the 15 litres of water in my mini-heat-exchanger was scorching. So I took advantage of that and had another shower. Two in a week! I’ll wash myself away at that rate.

I also connected up the fridge. I’ve decided just to run it during the daylight hours in sunny conditions. I have to do something with the excess solar charge seeing as how the batteries in the house now top out after just 30 minutes and isn’t this a change from a short while ago? I’ve filled it full of these ice-packs so that it should retain the cold for a while and I’ll have nice cool orange juice for breakfast.

After the shower I xylophened the two planks that I’m going to be using for the fascia boards on the house, and put the first coat of wood preservative on. I’ll do the second as soon as I wake up and then put the second coat on the house under the eaves while the planks are drying. When they are dry I’ll fit them and then fit the guttering. After that, the scaffolding will come down another level.

And in other news, I had a phone call from a guy I met in the Auchan. He wants to come round and talk Solar Energy so we’ve arranged for Saturday at 18:00. Good job it looks like we’ve been working around here. I’d hate him to think that this total disorder is habitual.

Perish the thought, hey?

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