Tomorrow we can slouch!

I'm so excited - tomorrow we can move the settee into the lounge.  Just how darned posh is that?!!!!  I worked different hours last week and so worked the early shift on Thursday and then when I got home we started laying the floorboards.  We started either side of the hearth which is the most awkward bit to do and so we were quite pleased to get that bit all worked out and cut to shape and ready to glue together on Friday morning.  We were also quite pleased with our cunning design for the hearth.  To allow for the boards expanding and contracting, you are supposed to allow a bit of a gap all round the edges.  In a normal room, this would be hidden by the skirting board which is put on after.  Now, obviously, skirting board would look a bit silly round this brick hearth, but equally so would a gap round it.  So, when we laid the bricks for the hearth Bob built a little frame slightly smaller than the finished size and a bit higher than the thickness of the floorboards and underlay and filled that with concrete then built the hearth on top.  This meant that when we took the frame away, the bricks were 'floating' above the screed and we could tuck the floorboards underneath so there's no gap to be seen, but there's still an expansion gap hidden underneath.
When you are laying floor boards it is always recommended that you buy extra to allow for wastage - little bits you have to cut off so the boards fit, but are too small to use.  Our floor area pretty-well matched the coverage given by whole packs and at £75 a pack we decided to ignore the wastage allowance advice and hope it all worked out OK.  It did mean we had to be really careful all the way through to use every offcut and make sure we didn't have any bits less than a foot long.  That, along with trying to ensure the joins didn't form a pattern and that the few boards with scratches would be under the settees, meant that a lot of thinking and planning ahead had to be done.  But we got on quite well and got it all done on Friday and were very pleased not to have to go and buy an extra pack just to finish the last six inches which is what we were dreading - look, this is all we had left!  Phew we got away with it again! 

Bob's socks were either too fluffy or too dusty for doing
this job - don't want sock fluff as a permanent feature
of the floor! 

We then had to leave it all alone for the glue to dry properly.  We just ran a bead of glue inside the groove of each board which got pushed in by the tongue when they were pushed together.  They are not actually fixed down to the floor, but should stay where they are because of their own weight and the weight of the furniture.  Yesterday we put the first coat of the oil/wax mixture on to seal them.  It was Bob's birthday, but if you are going to do a job on your birthday, this is a really good one to do.  It doesn't take long, is really easy and is very satisfying.  It's like magic as you paint it on and it brings out the grain and colour of the wood and completely transforms the floor.  I think I've said before, it reminds me of the magic painting page in the Rupert annuals we used to get when we were little where you just paint water on the picture and the colours appear by magic.  It also reminds me of our summer occupation when my sister and I were about 3 and 4 - Mum would give us a bucket of water and a big paint brush and we would spend hours painting the concrete garage and paths and then start all over again!  Today we put the second coat on and that will be dry by the morning and we can put the settee in!  Whoop, whoop!  Yeah!!  WooHoooo!!!  Tomorrow we can slouch!  We might go and look at tellies too and so we'll have our great big, massive 80" TV in there . . . . . . well no, OK, it's not going to be that big, but it will be bigger than the tiny one we've been watching for the last four and a half years and we might not have to leap out of our seats to read any captions or writing shown!  I am  little bit excited.

The little tiny windows are also in between the lounge and the two bedrooms.  These were draft holes in the barns and we didn't want to brick them up, but obviously the bedrooms need privacy.  So, we got a local glass artist to make little glass panels with coloured bits in so they are opaque.  She also incorporated some of the original roofing nails into them.  We got these years ago and kept them safe all the time we were in the caravan and through moving in until a few months ago when we broke one - oops! 



We thought we might try and get a little candle holder
on a spike that sticks into the wall for here . . .
is that called a pricket?

This window has a little light behind it and there was
supposed to be another piece of glass on the other
side, but that is the one we broke and so . . . .

. . . Bob has made a tiny oak frame and added an old
iron bar so it looks like some of the little windows or
arrow-slits in castles.  Or, a tiny little prison - I might
get a little troll or something to live in there!

As I said, yesterday was Bob's birthday (the big 50, but don't tell everyone).  After a lie-in and breakfast in bed while he opened presents and cards, we pottered around for a bit and got a picnic together and then went for a walk.  It was a beautiful sunny, warm day which was lovely after recent snow and big winds.  The Spring flowers are picking up and the hedge banks are full of primroses, celandines, wood anemones and forget-me-nots.  We had our picnic sitting on the panoramic pointer stone on the top of a hill.  I'm sure they have a proper name, but I can't think of it.  It's a big stone with an engraved metal plate on top with the profile and names of all the surrounding hills and mountains, so you know what you're looking at.  Anyway, amazing views and usually we don't see anyone up there.  Yesterday though it was quite busy and we had to keep moving our picnic in case anyone wanted to look at the plaque.  This walk was a bit of a test of my knee which actually held up very well and didn't give me much trouble which is good, even after doing a fair bit of kneeling the day before laying floorboards.  When we got home we oiled the floor then, after a cuppa and a piece of birthday carrot cake we had a nap - it's tiring having a lazy day you know!  In the evening we walked to the pub in the village and had a really nice meal and a few pints.  All in all a very nice lazy day.

Today we've been doing some furniture restoration on a piece some friends gave us.  It was supposed to be a fairly quick smarten up job, just sanding out some water marks then oiling and waxing it. Trouble is it just about fell apart when we took the drawers out and so we ended up pretty much taking it apart.  It is now all sanded though and glued back together and in clamps.  It shouldn't take long to finish it off and then it can go in one of the bedrooms.


Tomorrow we slouch!