We had planned on finishing the upstairs of our house last year, but I think we were a little over optimistic.
We really would like to get the majority of the work finished before summer though so we've made a concerted effort to get going again.
It's only in the last few months that we've managed to get the stud walls up that changes the hallway from the front to the rear of the house and the new spare room was plastered. Now the small hall (I call it the landing) between the bedrooms and bathroom had all sorts of angles involved and so I think there was some putting it off. James has worked his socks off plastering them and putting up the doorway architrave. I've been busy painting and we're getting there.
Poor James was also made to visit IKEA for picture frames to decorate the landing and buy some paint, as I decided the usual colour of white wouldn't do.
We also finished off the step between the hallway and landing and it all looks much neater.
Last weekend James plastered the hallway wall, and filled the gaps left in the plaster where the walls had been moved around. Yesterday he did the first wash coat to try and keep the dust down.
Now we are raking out the pointing from the stone wall in the landing ready for re-pointing. Pointing is a good job for evenings after work as it doesn't wake the kids.
So we're moving on at pace.
It's coming along well, it does take time, which is a good thing, often by the time we start a new project, we have changed our original plans to a better format.
ReplyDeleteOne day, I am going to come here to visit, and see that you are all finished. Doubtless I'll stroke out and keel over dead, the shock will be so great. Used to be, that people in the mountains here built their houses themselves, as they could pay for it, and it might take years to get finished. But that has died out now, and you and your family are the only people I know still following that tradition.
ReplyDeleteDo you ever read Kev Alviti's blog. He's English, too. He did a good post on the Wassel tradition, like yours it was intensely interesting. Some of the very old traditions survive in the Appalachian mountains here, but Southern Baptists have pretty well stamped that one out. More's the pity.