Monday 8 June 2009

A small step for man ....

Today I finished the step down into the barn - one bit of concrete and tiling that I've done entirely myself. As a result it's a bit irregular. The concrete sloped slightly, so the glue for the flagstones had to be quite thick to make up the level. And the last flagstone isn't quite level with the others. But after grouting it all it doesn't look too bad. In fact it looks better than in the photo, and at last the original tiles put in a couple of years ago by our Moroccan team are grouted and cleaned up, and match the others. I'm hoping that the grout will keep the rain out too - it used to get in under the doorframe.
A small step
If I had to do it again I'd know how to do it better (getting a flat concrete surface would be a good start). With glue this thick it'll probably take a week or so before it's fully hardened.

This is a very minor part of what's been going on over the last few weeks. The spring weather has kept me away from the blog - hot sunshine for the best part of a month, with just enough rain to keep the grass growing so fast it needs cutting two or three times a week. But the last few days have seen thunderstorms and rain, and have also brought our builders back. Finally, the staircase is in, and Marcel is finishing off the tricky bits. There are missing risers at the top and bottom of each flight, and these are rebated into the stairs on three of their four sides. This makes putting them in an exercise in advanced woodwork. His young assistant Sebastian is fitting the cladding along the sides of the veluxes in the stairwell. The effect is a real transformation. I had almost stopped thinking the work would ever be finished, and this one piece of work has made everything seem possible again.

The owner of the joinery business, M Goutel, has had some difficulty finding workers to the work he's said he'll do. As a result, he's started training us up for it. I've been sawing off plasterboard ready for the upstairs ceilings to go in, and Caro has been taping up and filling the joints in the plasterboard in the kitchen. he's kindly supplied us with brand new stainless steel jointing trowels/spatulas, and even came along with half a tub of the filler. it occurs to me that perhaps he intends paying us the minimum wage, and then invoicing us for the cost of the work we've done (plus his profit margin).

Still, he's promised us the balcony too, later this week, and that the men will stay with us until the work is all finished. That should be most of June taken care of, then.

The tiles for the bathrooms haven't arrived yet, so we have something of a delay their. We're hoping that Raymond will be able to find the couple of days needed to install the walk-in shower, and enclose the downstairs bath (and tile a bit). After that we'll try to get on with the rest ourselves.


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