Thirty Five
On Monday we varnish the floor again. And we have our first badger squabble – by the time we’ve hurtled out of the comfy sofa where we’re sitting after varnishing, they’ve been spooked (probably by us hurtling to the window) and gone… but definitely two badgers squabbling. Later in the evening one returns, looking a bit dishevelled… and he doesn’t like apples. Fussy bugger.
On Tuesday we varnish again – that’s 3 coats, and they’re still just soaking in. I say I’ll do one more Wednesday morning before work, then we can paint the walls in the evening. It’s still soaking in, so we buy more varnish, and do another coat instead of painting. And then I do another coat before work on Thursday. We think it’s 7 coats in all, and it looks lovely. Eventually. Then we cover it all up again to do the painting…
The colour is called ‘Cookie Dough’ and it is exactly like the same colour as our chocolate cake mixture. The paint is fab – great colour. In fact, Guy likes it so much he already has a sweatshirt to match…
I also go to the electrical supplies place to get the bits Wyn will need for connecting the power up – it will be BLISS when we don’t have to go to the pool cabin first to connect the power and lights. And it will also mean we can shut the window that the cables are currently passed through.
At the weekend there isn’t much else we can do, so we decide we have to tackle the a small bit of plastering at Guy’s house… rain has been getting in down the chimney and although we’ve cured it getting in, it’s messed up a bit of the bedroom plaster… easiest thing to do is batten it, put up more plasterboard and replaster.
We have battens and all the tools we need. At my house. We pile everything into mum’s car (bigger than mine!) and go to the builders merchants for plasterboard. That gets shoved into the car too, and we’re set.
We measure up the battens and mark them up for drilling, then realise we haven’t got enough. We’ll have to go and buy some more. We have tools and stuff at Guy’s house, but no money between us… We’ll have to go back to my house to get money to go to B&Q to buy battens. Which will take time. BUGGER. Then we remember Guy’s 20p piggy bank… so we raid that. I nip off to B&Q and pay for the battens with 20p pieces and Guy stays behind to drill holes into the wall. I get back to find him Very Cross and with a Very Blunt drill bit. Now we need to go back to B&Q for new drill bits… but we decide there won’t be enough 20p pieces, so we really do have to go via my house to collect money, then to B&Q for drill bits, then back to Guys. Then we decide that we have to drill into mortar (which we don’t know where to find) so we make random holes in the battens hoping to hit lucky. Eventually we have enough fixings in the battens, and wood that looks like Gruyere cheese…
We whack up two bits of plasterboard and then decide we have to go and get clean to go to Bob and Veronica’s party. However, we never do things that simply, so we’re going via IKEA to buy six black iron shelf supports for Guy’s shelves in the cabin. Easy. It shuts at 8, so we aim to get there for 7.30… we leave late, after having the world’s fastest baths, and hurtle into IKEA with a little time to go… we ignore everything in our bid to get to ‘storage’ and find the shelf displays. They have precisely ONE shelf bracket. Which is Not Much Good. Not even if you only wanted to put up one shelf… Even if we unscrew the display one on the wall, we’d still only have two. BUGGER. We are Not Happy. We leave in disgust and head for the party.
Good party! We have two cakes with us – a Malteser cake for eating, and a fruit cake for Bob and Veronica to take home for themselves… We think we’ve captured them in icing, and it gets much admired, which improves our mood no end. Guy’s band plays for some of the party, and it’s a good night all round…
On Sunday we finish the plasterboarding and then plaster the wall. Knowing how much mess we made in the cabin, we’re hugely careful not to splat plaster on the other walls and the carpet. And even we stay remarkably clean! We’re improving! My plastering’s not perfect, but it’s acceptable, and we think we’ll put a picture on the wall to hide the worst lumps. It’ll be a BIG picture…
After lunch we put a second coat of lovely chocolatey paint on the cabin walls, and that’s it. We stop. We are knackered. Again… We wonder what other people do on Sundays, and think it’s probably ‘lie in, breakfast, papers, coffee, walk, Sunday lunch, snooze, tea, telly, bath, telly’. We’ll do it one day…
Achieved: We have a painted shed!
Non-purchases: Those bloody IKEA shelf supports.
Pressies: Two fake sheepskin rugs to go in Blunkett’s NEW wicker dog baskets. The cats already think they’re lovely.
Wildlife update: Badgers, robins, squirrels, damn mole, pigeons… some days it’s like a Disney cartoon.
Plan for the week: Wood for architrave and skirting gets delivered Monday, then we cut it and paint it. Then fit it. We have Friday off work this week, so should make good inroads into the ‘finishing’ bits and pieces before the installation of The Stove on Monday 3rd March. Hooray!
Statue of the week: Saturday saw the unveiling by Anthony Hopkins of the statue of Tommy Cooper in Caerphilly. After the party on Saturday night we went to have a look at it on our way home. It’s good! Apart from the odd mouth, the strange unrecognisable stance and the rabbit with its tongue sticking out…
On Tuesday we varnish again – that’s 3 coats, and they’re still just soaking in. I say I’ll do one more Wednesday morning before work, then we can paint the walls in the evening. It’s still soaking in, so we buy more varnish, and do another coat instead of painting. And then I do another coat before work on Thursday. We think it’s 7 coats in all, and it looks lovely. Eventually. Then we cover it all up again to do the painting…
The colour is called ‘Cookie Dough’ and it is exactly like the same colour as our chocolate cake mixture. The paint is fab – great colour. In fact, Guy likes it so much he already has a sweatshirt to match…
I also go to the electrical supplies place to get the bits Wyn will need for connecting the power up – it will be BLISS when we don’t have to go to the pool cabin first to connect the power and lights. And it will also mean we can shut the window that the cables are currently passed through.
At the weekend there isn’t much else we can do, so we decide we have to tackle the a small bit of plastering at Guy’s house… rain has been getting in down the chimney and although we’ve cured it getting in, it’s messed up a bit of the bedroom plaster… easiest thing to do is batten it, put up more plasterboard and replaster.
We have battens and all the tools we need. At my house. We pile everything into mum’s car (bigger than mine!) and go to the builders merchants for plasterboard. That gets shoved into the car too, and we’re set.
We measure up the battens and mark them up for drilling, then realise we haven’t got enough. We’ll have to go and buy some more. We have tools and stuff at Guy’s house, but no money between us… We’ll have to go back to my house to get money to go to B&Q to buy battens. Which will take time. BUGGER. Then we remember Guy’s 20p piggy bank… so we raid that. I nip off to B&Q and pay for the battens with 20p pieces and Guy stays behind to drill holes into the wall. I get back to find him Very Cross and with a Very Blunt drill bit. Now we need to go back to B&Q for new drill bits… but we decide there won’t be enough 20p pieces, so we really do have to go via my house to collect money, then to B&Q for drill bits, then back to Guys. Then we decide that we have to drill into mortar (which we don’t know where to find) so we make random holes in the battens hoping to hit lucky. Eventually we have enough fixings in the battens, and wood that looks like Gruyere cheese…
We whack up two bits of plasterboard and then decide we have to go and get clean to go to Bob and Veronica’s party. However, we never do things that simply, so we’re going via IKEA to buy six black iron shelf supports for Guy’s shelves in the cabin. Easy. It shuts at 8, so we aim to get there for 7.30… we leave late, after having the world’s fastest baths, and hurtle into IKEA with a little time to go… we ignore everything in our bid to get to ‘storage’ and find the shelf displays. They have precisely ONE shelf bracket. Which is Not Much Good. Not even if you only wanted to put up one shelf… Even if we unscrew the display one on the wall, we’d still only have two. BUGGER. We are Not Happy. We leave in disgust and head for the party.
Good party! We have two cakes with us – a Malteser cake for eating, and a fruit cake for Bob and Veronica to take home for themselves… We think we’ve captured them in icing, and it gets much admired, which improves our mood no end. Guy’s band plays for some of the party, and it’s a good night all round…
On Sunday we finish the plasterboarding and then plaster the wall. Knowing how much mess we made in the cabin, we’re hugely careful not to splat plaster on the other walls and the carpet. And even we stay remarkably clean! We’re improving! My plastering’s not perfect, but it’s acceptable, and we think we’ll put a picture on the wall to hide the worst lumps. It’ll be a BIG picture…
After lunch we put a second coat of lovely chocolatey paint on the cabin walls, and that’s it. We stop. We are knackered. Again… We wonder what other people do on Sundays, and think it’s probably ‘lie in, breakfast, papers, coffee, walk, Sunday lunch, snooze, tea, telly, bath, telly’. We’ll do it one day…
Achieved: We have a painted shed!
Non-purchases: Those bloody IKEA shelf supports.
Pressies: Two fake sheepskin rugs to go in Blunkett’s NEW wicker dog baskets. The cats already think they’re lovely.
Wildlife update: Badgers, robins, squirrels, damn mole, pigeons… some days it’s like a Disney cartoon.
Plan for the week: Wood for architrave and skirting gets delivered Monday, then we cut it and paint it. Then fit it. We have Friday off work this week, so should make good inroads into the ‘finishing’ bits and pieces before the installation of The Stove on Monday 3rd March. Hooray!
Statue of the week: Saturday saw the unveiling by Anthony Hopkins of the statue of Tommy Cooper in Caerphilly. After the party on Saturday night we went to have a look at it on our way home. It’s good! Apart from the odd mouth, the strange unrecognisable stance and the rabbit with its tongue sticking out…
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