the bathroom is ready for tiling

The carreaux de platre were finished last night (and so was I). The tiling will have to wait until January






which is when the next blog is likely to be - I'm off on holiday.

proper building?

I've been back upstairs (and downstairs, and upstairs, and ..) with the "plaster tiles", carreaux de platre, starting to build the second bathroom and trying to avoid the many mistakes I made with the first. Somehow this feels much more like really doing something than putting up ceilings. Maybe it's the way you start at the bottom and build up?

Here's the general view of today's work. It would have been more if my back hadn't been hurting - you can just see the edge of a small stool, very useful for working while sitting down. Well, maybe I wouldn't have done that much more, as it's probably best to let the cement have time to set before doing the second layer - something is sure to move if you don't wait.

I'm hoping that forming the bases of the alcoves first will make getting the "shelf" on top level a bit easier, as it will provide a slot to put the main supporting slabs into.

The 5cm slabs weigh 17kg each, and I've been carrying them two stories up from where I heaved them out of the trailer into the ground floor yesterday. I'm not entirely looking forward to collecting the 7cm ones tomorrow (24kg).

And through the round window

.... yes, it's the bath. I'm making the surrounding edge 10cm wide, partly to make it a useful surface, and partly because at that width it's easier to support the edge of the bath, which otherwise tends to flex (and break the grouting). The two carreaux already in place are 5cm thick, and outside them there will be (tomorrow I hope) a further 7cm thick slab, providing the builders' merchant has managed to get them for me. Nearly all the work today has been in the thinner slabs.

The weather is cold and damp, and we've been in a cloud most of the day. I've only been out to clean the tools (it's best not to put too much cement down the sink). And Proust finally ran into the buffers today - Time was finally Regained. The last book telescopes a long period into a short (um, fairly short) narrative, a striking contrast to the others. I'm not sure how much I enjoyed it.