We had the day off from painting etc yesterday, so obviously we went down after school to get a couple of hours in :-).

Today, the boys went the play at Grandma’s while mummy and daddy got stuck in at number 16. Granddad also popped down as he offered to help remove the scabby front garden and put some cleaner looking stones etc in place. This took around 4 hours all told as there was the original garden to dig out, which effectively ended up with approximately a half a ton of muck. Greg had already collected one ton of stones and brought them in his trailer. The front garden now looks sensational and Simon is very tired – we moved about 3/4 ton of stones and 1/2 ton of garden muck, although it was moved three times so 1 1/2 tons moved in total 🙁 It was moved because Simon was concerned over upsetting the neighbours as the driveway directly outside the front of the property does to actually belong to the property – it belongs to the neighbours’ property.

So, inside Vicky cracked on with the upstairs painting so we now have fully completed gloss work upstairs and the bathrooms have a coat of the white emulsion on the walls and ceilings (we decided to have them cleaner and therefore just white emulsion).

Finally the kitchen cabinet doors are prepped for sending and then three coats of the spray paint – the actual spray work will commence on Monday.

Slowly we are getting there, although we have set ourselves the tough target of having the house complete by next Sunday evening. Will we make it? Stay tuned to see….

We are now a full week into the gig and we are doing, well…. OK.  The garden is tidied and the grass has been fed and weeded – OK so “weed and feed” has been deployed following the garden having been weeded in the flower beds etc, and the electric lawn rake having removed the thick of the moss etc in the grass area 🙂

The bedrooms have now had their ceilings painted, their walls painted and the gloss work done – just need to re-visit the master bedroom as we had a small accident and leant on it tonight following painting – hence it needs re-doing 🙁

Simon got some fancy new ladders that fold up to make a handy platform – perfect for on the stairs to enable the highest point in the house to be painted.  These arrived last night so they were used to full effect today.

So, we now have a coat of emulsion on the upstairs hall, with the stairs and entrance hallway to be looked at tomorrow hopefully.

All upstairs gloss work (excluding bathroom) has been done and is finished (the banister rails were a real PITA), so we are almost ready for the carpets – the gloss will have over a week to dry and harden in preparation for the carpets 🙂

Tomorrow, we intend to complete the bathroom and make a dent in the spray painting of the kitchen cabinet doors – we chose to paint them as oppose to replace them as the spray cans are costing approximately 4 UKP per door as opposed to 600UKP to replace the doors….  There are 21 doors incidentally.

We have also chosen to spray the bath panel and then we won’t need to locate a replacement for it 🙂

We are doing pretty well at present – just need more hours in the day to be able to crack on 🙂

We have spent a whole 5+ hours in number 16 today with paint brushes in hand 🙂  We have given all three bedrooms a fresh coat on the ceiling and we believe that they are finished now.  We also decided to make a start on te gloss work, so have got one coat on all the bedroom skirting boards, the door frames and three doors.

We also decided to attempt to patch up the two damaged doors rather than replace them, so the first level of filler has been applied and sanded slightly in readiness for the second and final application tomorrow.

We also got the old oven out today and it is now in the garden awaiting skipping tomorrow. – the decision to replace it took place a couple of days back – cleaning it was proving nigh on impossible – we don’t think it had been cleaned at all in the 9 years of service since the house was built sadly.

Grandma and Granddad came by and took some measurements to nip to Stax in order to buy the replacement oven and other goodies to allow us to close in on completing the house in readiness for renting.

The boys played downstairs in the lounge reasonably well for the whole time so we were very lucky – sadly it was raining today so they were not able to get outside to play 🙁

Tomorrow, we will be returning for a couple of hours to try to get the emulsion on the walls in the main bedroom and maybe the second room.  The smoke smell has pretty much gone now and what is left is a smell of rotting wood.  The wood under the sink in the kitchen has now been removed and a replacement is being prepared – this was a significant cause of rotting smell, so this should be one down.  We are also replacing the woodwork behind the lavatory bowl in the house bathroom, as it has also sustained water damage.

We have also seen the plumber from Scarths this weekend. He was sorting a couple of leaky areas in the plumbing work and then tidying up the area under the kitchen sink (read replacing).

Finally, we got word from number 4, the tenants are moving out on the 17th of March and hence we will be able to take a look then to determine what will be required in order to ready it for new tenants.