Twenty Five
On Monday we decide that there HAS to be an easier way of cleaning the floorboards… we do some hunting on the internet and come up with the following suggestions:
1. Nitromors. Yes, we know, been there tried that.
2. Caustic Soda – will eat the wood. Best not then, eh?
3. Sandblasting – apparently ok on hardwood (like maple, hooray). Will cost but we are now past caring…
There is (luckily) a sandblasting chap (Jason) near home, so we arrange that Guy will meet him in the centre of Llanbradach and give him two floorboards to test. Guy shoots straight through Llanbradach, not realising that that was, in fact, the centre. Big place. Jason takes away our boards and agrees to meet up again with the results on Wednesday morning.
On Wednesday Guy picks up the two planks. Not sandblasted. Well, not except for about a foot on one end – the sand blasted not only the grunge, but also the wood and just wore it away. No good. BUGGER. It seems the only way to clean it is to use hard labour, sharp implements, and Nitromors…
We decide that at the weekend we will do nothing except clean floorboards and see how far we can get through the pile, which looks like this:
Before we start we decorate the shed for Christmas. Which consists of some mistletoe, a bit of ribbon and the shed’s Christmas card (sent with love from Debbie’s shed). Our shed has a Christmas card all of its own!
We knock nails out, clean the groove side (only a little chiseling necessary) and then Nitromors the tongue edge… slow progress. Guy goes to B&Q and buys more Nitromors and little triangular scrapy hook things called shavehooks which are seriously sharp and can remove up to 6 layers of skin with a single stroke.
Mum visits for coffee and gets roped in to help. Well, Christmas is a time for family, and all that…
The three of us beaver away in the shed… I say I think it’s a bit like Santa’s little helpers… Guy says the elves probably (a) make less noise (b) don’t have such big hammers (c) aren’t in possession of lethal chemicals and (d) swear less.
By the time it gets dark we are seriously aching… we swim and have hot baths, which helps a bit. And then do nothing else…
Sunday is frosty and beautiful… we have a festive looking shed!
We clean floorboards all day, only taking a break to visit the Woodland Trust workers with fruit cake and festive greetings ... we don't stay to help on the basis that we have enough hard labour going on at home! By the time we stop (when it gets dark) Guy's fingers are so stiff he can hardly hold a hammer, and I can't stand up straight because I've been knelt over too long. We're too knackered to either swim or have baths, so we just sit on the sofa and fall asleep instead...
Achieved: Some floorboards cleaned.
The enormous pile now looks like this:
Progress. We think we’ve cleaned 170. There are about 80 to go, so it’s progress, but oh, so s-l-o-w!
Hours worked: All the weekend daylight ones, basically….
Pressies: We treated ourselves to an early Christmas present of FOUR new shavehooks and some more Nitromors.
Purchases: Nitromors and shavehooks (the ones before we used them all up and treated ourselves to more).
Wildlife update: To go with the squirrels (numerous), badgers (two), robins (at least 3), pigeons, magpies, bluetits, coaltits, starlings, sparrows, nuthatches (all numerous) we now have a mole. The little bugger is chucking up piles of earth under the seed feeder. I have told BB to hurry up and catch him…
Plan: Spend Christmas Day being CLEAN and not doing floorboards.
Drink: Guy tried to educate me in the finer points of Islay malt whisky. Lost on me, sadly. I’ll stick to gin. Thinking of which…
Pressies (part 2): Jo and I swapped Christmas presents and opened them at work – she gave me gin and I gave her gin. Damned fine system!
Cake count: 1 chocolate Christmas cake, 3 Malteser cakes, two decorated Christmas cakes.
The ‘oh bugger’ moment of the week. When we realised the sandblasting wasn’t going to work…
Tip of the week: Don’t kneel in Nitromors. It stings.
Christmas wishes: Happy Christmas everyone! If we've sent you a Christmas card, hope it arrived, and if we didn't, here's Little Red doing his festive bit for 2007 and who, by the wonders of computer graphics, now appears unconcerned by the decorations...
He’s grown since we took the pics with Vincent’s camera, and now he’s got his winter woollies on (Little Red, not Vincent), so he’s been renamed Large Ordinary Grey (Little Red, not Vincent)…
We both hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!
1. Nitromors. Yes, we know, been there tried that.
2. Caustic Soda – will eat the wood. Best not then, eh?
3. Sandblasting – apparently ok on hardwood (like maple, hooray). Will cost but we are now past caring…
There is (luckily) a sandblasting chap (Jason) near home, so we arrange that Guy will meet him in the centre of Llanbradach and give him two floorboards to test. Guy shoots straight through Llanbradach, not realising that that was, in fact, the centre. Big place. Jason takes away our boards and agrees to meet up again with the results on Wednesday morning.
On Wednesday Guy picks up the two planks. Not sandblasted. Well, not except for about a foot on one end – the sand blasted not only the grunge, but also the wood and just wore it away. No good. BUGGER. It seems the only way to clean it is to use hard labour, sharp implements, and Nitromors…
We decide that at the weekend we will do nothing except clean floorboards and see how far we can get through the pile, which looks like this:
Before we start we decorate the shed for Christmas. Which consists of some mistletoe, a bit of ribbon and the shed’s Christmas card (sent with love from Debbie’s shed). Our shed has a Christmas card all of its own!
We knock nails out, clean the groove side (only a little chiseling necessary) and then Nitromors the tongue edge… slow progress. Guy goes to B&Q and buys more Nitromors and little triangular scrapy hook things called shavehooks which are seriously sharp and can remove up to 6 layers of skin with a single stroke.
Mum visits for coffee and gets roped in to help. Well, Christmas is a time for family, and all that…
The three of us beaver away in the shed… I say I think it’s a bit like Santa’s little helpers… Guy says the elves probably (a) make less noise (b) don’t have such big hammers (c) aren’t in possession of lethal chemicals and (d) swear less.
By the time it gets dark we are seriously aching… we swim and have hot baths, which helps a bit. And then do nothing else…
Sunday is frosty and beautiful… we have a festive looking shed!
We clean floorboards all day, only taking a break to visit the Woodland Trust workers with fruit cake and festive greetings ... we don't stay to help on the basis that we have enough hard labour going on at home! By the time we stop (when it gets dark) Guy's fingers are so stiff he can hardly hold a hammer, and I can't stand up straight because I've been knelt over too long. We're too knackered to either swim or have baths, so we just sit on the sofa and fall asleep instead...
Achieved: Some floorboards cleaned.
The enormous pile now looks like this:
Progress. We think we’ve cleaned 170. There are about 80 to go, so it’s progress, but oh, so s-l-o-w!
Hours worked: All the weekend daylight ones, basically….
Pressies: We treated ourselves to an early Christmas present of FOUR new shavehooks and some more Nitromors.
Purchases: Nitromors and shavehooks (the ones before we used them all up and treated ourselves to more).
Wildlife update: To go with the squirrels (numerous), badgers (two), robins (at least 3), pigeons, magpies, bluetits, coaltits, starlings, sparrows, nuthatches (all numerous) we now have a mole. The little bugger is chucking up piles of earth under the seed feeder. I have told BB to hurry up and catch him…
Plan: Spend Christmas Day being CLEAN and not doing floorboards.
Drink: Guy tried to educate me in the finer points of Islay malt whisky. Lost on me, sadly. I’ll stick to gin. Thinking of which…
Pressies (part 2): Jo and I swapped Christmas presents and opened them at work – she gave me gin and I gave her gin. Damned fine system!
Cake count: 1 chocolate Christmas cake, 3 Malteser cakes, two decorated Christmas cakes.
The ‘oh bugger’ moment of the week. When we realised the sandblasting wasn’t going to work…
Tip of the week: Don’t kneel in Nitromors. It stings.
Christmas wishes: Happy Christmas everyone! If we've sent you a Christmas card, hope it arrived, and if we didn't, here's Little Red doing his festive bit for 2007 and who, by the wonders of computer graphics, now appears unconcerned by the decorations...
He’s grown since we took the pics with Vincent’s camera, and now he’s got his winter woollies on (Little Red, not Vincent), so he’s been renamed Large Ordinary Grey (Little Red, not Vincent)…
We both hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!
Comments
Post a Comment