The sitting room is almost done!

Some of you may remember that we got caught in the floods of July, not as bad as the poor people in Gloucester and Hull, but all the same it was bad enough to warrant our insurance company assessor proposing that the walls of sitting room needed replastering and then redecorating as well as having the flooring replaced.

It has been a long drawn out process, of drying out and repairs. So it has been absolute chaos here, with all the furniture from sitting room having to be piled up in the dining room and in bedrooms and eventually had to put the sofas and dresser in the workshop to get the floor done. The only room downstairs that has kept functioning properly is the kitchen, and a very small space around my desk in the dining room so I can still work and get on the computer.

The replastering commenced on 9 October , but we got of to a bad start as when he removed one huge patch of plaster he discovered it was filled totally with gunk that absorbed water and the wall underneath was soaked, apparently a "cowboy" job had been done just to patch up that area. So we then had to let that all dry, Stan brought his diesel Space heater in and for 2 days we lived as in a sauna whilst the wall dried out! The plasterer came back and did all the plastering and he calculated he would be back to paint on the on the Monday, but when monday came the plaster wasn't dry enough, so away he went leaving me to ring him when it was dry.

Well, I thought it was pretty dry by the Thursday so rang him, but he couldn't make it till the Monday of the next week, and we were going away for half term break, so it was left again until we came back. On our return I phoned him and he agreed to come on Friday.

But Friday came and he didn't..............his child was ill and he was needed to look after her. So we agreed Monday29 Oct.

At LAST on Monday he came and did the painting, he was rather shocked at my choice of colour, I choose "Roasted Red" paint which is a stunning rich red and I so desperately wanted to make the room feel warmer and cosier. The girls all agreed with my choice, but Stan was horrified. But as I pointed out he had forgone his opportunity of an opinion as he had been very stupid, driving his lorry into the drive and broke the cesspit cover, sending the huge concrete block into the depths of the cesspit! He then proceeded to drop the tape measure down the cesspit too, when he was measuring up for a new lid! So I got my red paint. And actually i think it looks pretty good. What do you think?

Then comes the exciting bit the laying of our slate floor. Even before the flood Stan had got it into his head that he wanted a flagstone floor and I had been looking into costs and it seemed very expensive, but after the flood the insurance company agreed to give us the equivalent to the cost of a new carpet to get the flooring of our choice. The Insurance contractors quoted an exhortionate amount of money over £2000 above the cost of carpet, so we said no way and I went to my kind and friendly handy man in the village and asked him to quote, this turned out so much cheaper. I managed to buy the slate tiles on ebay for a very reasonable price and this last week HM & his mate have been here laying the flooring. Now HM is a gorgeous man and I can't help looking at him, he works in shorts and has lovely legs, tall, fit and trim with floppy blond hair . Yummy!!


He'll be back tomorrow to do the grouting and that will be the end of the job, but I am already preparing my list of little jobs that just need a handy man!!