Do any of you remember Saturday Night at The London Palladium?  They nearly always had a variety act who would impress the audience by keeping multiple plates spinning on cane sticks.  The more plates he could spin before they fell off the more the audience clapped.  Well, that’s how we feel, spinning plates replaced by managing plasterers, plumbers, builders, sparkies, chippys etc etc etc…..phew!

• 

Talking of variety acts, we went to the Cinderella Panto in Seaton…..oh yes we did!  It was a delightful evening and featured all the things you expect – ugly sisters to boo and hiss at, obviously two men in drag, cheesy slapstick routines, lots of kids singing and dancing and some great performances from the enthusiastic local cast.  The show was hardly likely to make The West End but it was great to see average looking people, in all sorts of shapes and sizes plus lots of small children strutting their stuff.  To be fair, one or two were pretty damned good.

We also went up to Gloucester to have a lunch with Neil’s siblings.  As it was about 2hrs drive we multi tasked and hired a van so we could swing by Bradley Stoke and collect the remaining bits of furniture cleared out from Cheryl’s house and flat.  It was a long day but lovely to see June, Roy, Bill, Sue and Bob.  The M5 was kind to us and we managed to get back in time to unload the van and return it that afternoon.

We also had a visit from Leanne and ‘middle aged’ Neil.  Yup, they have a new friend who is now ‘young Neil’ meaning that Leanne’s Neil has been elevated to ‘middle aged Neil’. We knew they were arriving late on the Friday evening, which was the same day as our trip to Gloucester.  We started to worry when it got much later and they didn’t arrive. 

Oops! We had the phones switched to silent night time mode and managed not to hear them knocking at the front door.  They had instructions to let themselves in just in case we were late back from getting the furniture and found the key from the key box but couldn’t get it in the back door as our key was in from the other side.  When we finally thought about checking for messages we found they had gone to find a pub to wait in until we got back.  At least they did us a favour as the pub they found turned out to be a bit of a dud and saves us the bother of checking it out.

It was great to see them and to show them the ‘before’ house as well as some of our plans.  We also had a lovely night out starting with a drink in the Hat and followed by excellent tapas in The Wild Caper.

• 

Phileas is still a regular visitor to the garden. There was quite a racket one day and we watched a turf war going on……luckily Phileas won! ……well we think it was Phileas as it’s quite difficult to tell them apart.

Getting plastered

Our bedroom had an unusual feature of narrow shelves hidden behind ‘secret’ doors which had been covered with wallpaper.  This explained why the previous occupants had placed two enormous wardrobes slap bang in the middle of the wall.  Regular readers will remember this was where we were left with wallpaper hanging off when they took the wardrobes away.

• 

We thought about exposing the shelves and decided to strip off all the damaged wallpaper to see how we could make a feature of them.  We then discovered the house originally had picture rails which sadly were all stripped out.  The plaster on the wall wasn’t in great condition and we finally decided that the size and position of the alcoves was making it impossible to have a sensible layout of bedroom furniture.  They had to go, and we needed a plasterer to cover them up and re-plaster the wall. 

Quite some time passed with several attempts to get plasterers to turn up and quote.  In desperation we searched again and found Pawel the Plasterer who gave us a good price and was available – hurrah!

We had also lined up a guy who can spray paint rooms and decided to give this a try as it can be effective covering over existing wallpaper.  Every wall in the house is papered so if we can avoid the work involved in stripping and remove any risk of pulling off plaster in the process…..winner all around!   We had been prepared to do the decorating ourselves but if the spray man can get it done as fast as he says, and at £120/day, then it’s not worth us getting the rollers dirty.  We got him booked in the start the week after the plasterer and felt pretty pleased that at last we were finally getting somewhere.

• 

• 

Pawel did a great job with the wall and a few days later it had dried out to a pale pink.  We cleared everything out of the bedroom and moved into the spare bedroom.  The day before the painter was due Cheryl glanced up at the wall which had developed a strange dark patch at the top which looked a bit damp – bugger, yet another step backwards!

This was the weekend of Storm Dennis and whilst Seaton escaped the worst of the weather, the combination of wind and constant driving rain had resulted in water getting in around the chimney stack.  We looked carefully at the wall in the spare bedroom – and that too showed a damp patch which was less obvious on the wallpaper.

• 

We cancelled the spray man and moved back into our bedroom.  We need to get scaffolding and work to repair the flashing and possibly repoint both chimneys – another potentially huge unforeseen expense.  Scaffolding will cost around £1500 and as I write we are still waiting for quotes for the repairs.  To say we were a bit pissed off is a massive understatement, especially as we felt that we were getting close to having one finished room.  It’s also another piece of work that will need to join the plate spinning as once the scaffold is up it stays for weeks and will block the driveway so no other workmen can get their vehicles in.

Always look on the bright side

On a more positive note, we have had some progress.  The engineer completed his calculations and sent us some complex drawings which we didn’t really understand.  We were advised by the building firm that although none of our alterations need planning permission, we would need to raise a building control notice as the local council will need to sign off any structural work.  A straightforward online process but an upfront cost of £470, and hopefully that will be enough to cover all the site visits we need.

A week later the head of the building firm returned to mark up walls and calculate final costs for steels and lintels.  He also suggested he may be able to carry out the work in a few weeks time – fingers crossed on that one.

With the possibility that work could start at any time we set about getting rid of the kitchen units we definitely wouldn’t be reusing in the workshop. We don’t like to put anything usable into landfill so thought we would have a go at giving them away but weren’t confident as although it’s a good quality John Lewis kitchen it is a bit dated. We needn’t have worried as just after placing a quick ad offering a range of old units ‘free to collector’ Cheryl’s phone didn’t stop buzzing. A few days later, and the units were gone.

• 

• 

• 

• 

We also took out the diagonal tiled false wall which was behind the AGA and discovered some interesting 1950’s wallpaper.  The kitchen is a bit of a mess but still functional for the time being.  We have to remove the remaining units and worktop on the big wall which is coming down but that will wait until just before the work starts.

• 

The Heat is Off

A decision was finally made about the heating & water system following several changes of mind over whether to get a combi boiler or pressurized system.  We’ve gone for a combi storage boiler – a clever halfway house which should be sufficient to meet our everyday needs plus the few occasions when we have visitors. We don’t need an additional water tank which means we don’t have to give up space in the utility and the door into the greenhouse can stay.  All of which saves cost – just as well given the new found chimney problem. 

Even better we found Matt the plumber who was able to quote promptly and is available at the start of March. We can’t start the structural stuff until the plumbing is complete as it involves repositioning of some radiators so that’s a real bonus.  He also comes with another big bonus.  For the last few years he’s only worked 6 months of the year, preferring to spend 6 months travelling like we did.  So, in a nutshell, he’s not VAT registered……yay, 20% off!

The replacement of the boiler isn’t straightforward as Neil needs to rebuild part of the wall where it will hang.  The old boiler needs to go before this can happen so the installation work will take a few days and mean no heating and hot water until its done and it’s not that warm at the moment.  It’ll remind us both of when we were kids, waking up in the morning with ice on the insides of the windows because we didn’t have central heating.  Luckily the wood burner in the study works so we will have one cosy room even if we do start to pong a bit.

Maybe next month we will have some real progress to report……….

• 

•