Renovations - Part Twenty-Five

It's been another really busy week for us this week at 169. My parents came down from Scotland too which has been such a great help.

Most of the building has had its first coat of paint on the new plaster now. Once you get started on a job like that though you realise that actually painting is the easy bit, it's all the preperation before hand that gets so time consuming and tedious.

My Dad has been an absolute star and spent literally all week working on the window frames in the upstairs studio/workroom. It was just the frames that are around the glass that were new replacement ones so there was lots of old wood to prepare before anything could be painted. Due to the thickness of the insulation that we had to put on all the exterior walls, the window frames also had to be built out by a good 4 inches, so there was a join between the old and new wood to disguise as well.

Lots of scraping, filling, sanding, more filling, more sanding....

Now the frames and sills have had their undercoats done and they look amazing!

The window at the top of the stairs has all been preped and undercoated too....

Thanks Dad!!!!

I've also been cracking on with stripping the beams too. I think we have figured out the best system for getting the layers and layers of paint off after lots of experimenting. Heat gun as much as possible off and then use the nitromors and wait patiently while it does its stuff for 50 minutes....scrap it off as much as possible then use coarse wire wool sometimes dipped in more nitromors for stubborn areas, mostly dipped in soapy water to help break the scummy stuff up then finally sand it with the sander. It is such hard work! But I've only got one side of one beam left, then there are just little areas to finish off like the decorative bits at the bottom.

This is the side I worked on this week, it still needs sanded and cleaned at the top but its looking so much better than it was. Its also quite tricky to get the light right to get a good photo so I can't wait till we open and you can all come and see them for yourself!!

We got pretty much all of the downstairs where the shop will be white washed with the new plaster paint too this week. Once Ayaz and I had worked out a system of who does what we managed to get round really quickly. Then my Mum and Dad were able to help too.

I was in charge of cutting in and painting the coving.....

While Ayaz used the roller (that weighs a ton!!) to cover the roof and walls.....

We've only got a little bit left around the bay to do and then it's back to the start to get the top coats on!

My aim is, by the end of next week that we have a specific completion date. Once its painted, which shouldn't take too long if we work really hard on it, we can get the final floor covering down and finish off the wood work and fit the doors. Then plumb in loos, fix on the light fittings and we're all set! I wish it was that easy!