Decorating 10

So, a day of some things positive and some things - well, let's just say, not so positive.

First things first - a picture of the new light switch. Well, actually it is the old light switch, but in a new position. If you remember, it was about three feet from the door; it is now only six inches from the door. It was actually completed last night, but I forgot to photograph it.

I couldn't go to the house this morning, as I had an appointment at home. But OH went and made some progress. For one thing, he has started to remove the furniture that was left behind by the previous owner and has taken the back bedroom carpet out, along with its underlay.

He replaced the blind on the back bedroom window - removed in order to paper and paint the window reveals and now hanging back in place.

We also now have every home owner's dream - a bath in the kitchen!! It reminded me of when OH and I first met - he had just replaced his bathroom suite and there was an upturned bath on the landing floor, where it remained for some considerable time (well, it was cast iron, so really heavy and difficult to remove). 

Well, at least that means it's no longer in the bathroom, where it needed to be removed from.

I removed the carpet from the bathroom floor. It was foam backed and had been glued down, but thankfully it came up without issue - that is, it didn't leave bits of its foam backing all over the floor! 

But why do people lay carpet over rubbish they should have swept up before putting new flooring down??

This was underneath the carpet!

There is a stain in the corner behind the toilet, which was expected, as this is the floor that backs onto the back bedroom wardrobe which had had a leak for some time. The floor is currently dry, so no problems there. The other stains are just from the glue.

I'm not so sure about how the waste pipe is fitted though.

But then things never go altogether according to plan, do they. There is always something to throw a spanner in the works. I was on a roll, and it was a mistake to think it would all go swimmingly.

My next task was to remove the carpet from the hall, stairs and landing. It came up easily enough, even where it was well attached to the gripper rods on the stairs. It will not go to waste, either, as there is a huge walk-in cupboard in the front bedroom that the hall carpet will fit in nicely. So three bits of carpet later and we have a clear hall, stairs and landing.

The landing was straight forward, once I got the carpet and underlay under control - some of it had continued down the first couple of stairs, but it came up okay. The landing floor was swept and so that is now ready.

Next, I turned my attention to the stairs. The underlay had been stapled to the stairs. So had the previous underlay - and the staples had not been removed. 

They weren't all this clear - some still had bits of underlay beneath them, which is how I know there were two types of underlay in the past

There were at least nine staples on each stair, and one or three (depending which stair we were on) on the vertical riser - making 130 staples altogether to remove. Great fun!

But the hall - well, that was a different matter. The carpet came up easily enough. The first thing I noticed was the wiring - if you can call it that! There was a wire trailing around the corners of the landing, but that was not unexpected. 

What was unexpected was the number of wires trailing around the hall - and the fact that they just ended - that's right, they were just cut ends - all but two, which were kind of tied in loops and had some kind of tape around the ends. And all this was underneath the carpet!! We do have to fit some kind of wiring for the stair lift, but it seems there are a few other wires that need tidying up too!

I was surprised to see that the gripper rods had been placed some distance from the front door and a strip of underlay between it and the actual door. It was obvious why once I lifted the strip. Between the door and the floor was a gap about 2" wide and at least as deep.

On this one, you can see remnants of carpet and newspaper (see below) , as well as the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door frame

At the ends, where the door frame fits to the (what should have been) floor, the gluey stuff (rubbery stuff that seals and sticks the frame to the wall/floor) had carpet stuck into it. If I pulled at the carpet, it was pulling the sealing stuff out too. And to cap it all, it was not the carpet I had just taken up (green), but presumably the previous one (orange). It seems the frame had been stuck on top of the carpet, rather like the window frames had been stuck on top of the wall paper!

The door itself had clearly not fitted properly, because there is newspaper - yes, you read that right - newspaper stuffed in the gaps. There was also a nasty draught coming in under the door.

Yes, that is newspaper stuffed in there!

Obviously the gap needs filling, but that means even if we did it this evening, there is no way it would be dry and firm enough for the carpet fitters who are meant to be coming tomorrow. I rang them and postponed. But as time is now getting very tight, I have rescheduled for Monday, which gives OH tomorrow to fill the gap, Saturday and Sunday for it to dry and Tuesday to fit the stair lift, before going away on Wednesday. Let's hope all goes straight forwardly from here!

Decorating 9

Wednesday - Finished the painting of the hall, stairs and landing. OH was out working, so I had to do the hard bit by myself too!! That meant getting out the ladders and climbing up over the stairs to reach the highest drop from the ceiling to the stairs, then, using the step ladders on the landing, reaching out over the stairs to reach the bit where the ladders had been removed. Scary! 

OH arrived this afternoon and changed the position of the light switch in the bathroom. Why anyone would want to have the switch half way along the bathroom wall, I don't know - though OH did have a guess which sounds plausible. It seems (judging by the join in the ceiling and the matching join in the landing wall) that the bathroom and toilet used to be two separate rooms, but have been joined into one. That would explain why there are two lights in such a small room! The switch, which is a pull string, is just one of what would have been two switches - one for each room. If the other one had been a wall switch, it would explain why the previous owners retained this one, even though it was practically hanging over the bath, rather than next to the door. In fact, it would have been next to the second door, before it was removed.

Using a toothbrush, I then cleaned the window frame - it looked like it hadn't been done for years and was black with grime. 

I also cleaned the windows and we removed the carpets. There was some 'delightful' lino underneath the flooring, a relic of a bygone era; at least it sort of matched the yellow paint on the walls!

It didn't cover the whole floor, though it must have done so at one time

Having removed the underlay and the partial lino covering that had been left behind, I found several floor board nails under the underlay, not hammered into the boards, but just lying on the floor.

Under the window, there has either been a leak of some sort (not sure where it could have come from though, unless it was a previous radiator), or else something has been spilled on the floor. The lino was stuck to the floor at that point, though it wasn't too hard to remove. The lino backing has discoloured the floorboards, making it look much worse than it actually is. I gave it a good scrubbing, so all should be well. 

The gripper rods around the room had been nailed down on top of the lino in places, so rather than remove the grippers, we cut the lino along the edge of the grippers and removed the excess. 

All it needs now is the floor sweeping and/or hoovering, and the floorboards resetting where they have been raised for some purpose - they are either not level (one end of the room) or the board has been cut in such a way to make it sink when you stand on it - ie, there is nothing below to support the board end. These are tasks that must be done tomorrow in order that the carpets can be laid on Friday.

Decorating 8

It has been very windy the last couple of days, up to around 40 mph westerlies. But it has had its benefits. Instead of having to go out and rake up all those leaves, they seem to have raked themselves! The lawn and paths are just about clear and there are very few leaves left on the trees.

As far as the back bedroom and hall, stairs and landing are concerned, I can now say we are at last on the home straight!

Sunday: I finished papering the back bedroom, painted behind the radiator, and OH replaced the radiator. The paint is very pale, so you can barely tell that there is any paint on the wall at all - but it's a pale pink colour, in case you can't quite see it!

After that, I put the first coat of paint on the wardrobe ceiling, which has dried out nicely. It didn't take long to dry as it was only damp and hadn't had the chance to get too wet. Once again, 'the blob' has positioned itself on my picture. I have tried cleaning the lens, but to no avail.

The doors to the wardrobe are not level; one is higher than the other, which might explain why it catches on the frame at the top. The handles, therefore, are not level either! I realised this when I went to take a picture of the nice shiny new door knobs:

Anyway, rehanging them will probably solve that problem. Failing that, we will need to shave a bit off the top of the left hand door, otherwise the doors don't close. Just need to add a bolt after that, so they can close properly, and add a proper rail for hanging clothes.

OH removed the radiator in the hall, so I can paper behind it, but I didn't get to that part today.

Later in the evening, I decided to go back and do the second coat of paint on the wardrobe ceiling. It will be dry tomorrow (the first coat was already dry) so I can paper the walls.

Monday: I phoned the carpet people to confirm the fitting date as Friday - nothing like adding a bit of an incentive to work even harder! Later I realised I had had a missed call from them; I (and they) had forgotten I needed to pay the balance on the goods. It was too late to do anything about it, so it will have to wait till tomorrow.

It was all go in the back bedroom today; I am determined to finish it asap now. I papered the wardrobe walls - they look so much better now you can't see the old walls, with its mismatched paint and places where filler has been used to fill old holes and more recent holes where we removed the (leaning) shelves. I had to scrape bits of old carpet off the walls where the previous owners had glued carpet pieces to the shelves.

I also did the gloss paint on the skirting under the radiator. When the radiator was lying flat (but still attached to the pipes, so 6" above the floor), I hadn't been able to reach the skirting. I also removed the curtain rail and painted the wooden batten that holds the rail up.

Not wanting to stop, I papered the rest of the stair well - at least, as far as I could reach. There was one sheet that seemed impossible - the ladder was in the way and it was impossible to reach from the landing. However, undeterred, OH found a way to do it and so he hung the awkward piece of paper. But I managed to do the longest drop by myself - with much fear and trepidation - I'm not happy up a height!

I got all the way to the front door in the hall. There are still around four sheets to hang and several short pieces over doors - some are about 8" 'long'; others are 2". I have no idea why anyone would make a house where the door frames are only two inches from the ceiling!! It's a nightmare to paper and, although the pieces are so small, it takes a long time as they are fiddly. Behind the gas meter was fiddly too, but we managed. I am seriously sick to death of wall paper and paste!!

I couldn't paper over the top of the front door. I had thought it was just some old paper that hadn't been taken off properly; but on closer inspection, it turned out to be some very rough filler that had been slapped on and, at the base of it, OH discovered a huge gap between the frame and the wall - deep rather than wide, though wide enough - and there was a nasty draught coming in through the space. So he filled it for me; the papering there will have to wait till tomorrow.

He also finished the final coat of plaster in the kitchen, so that is now smooth and flat, as it should be. He did make one cheeky comment - he said he thinks I should paper the kitchen walls too! he has got to be joking!!

On a brighter note, he finished mending the kitchen door handle - it didn't have a spindle holding the two handles together and where the 'tongue' sticks out, there was just a hole.

Tuesday: I rang the carpet people and finalised the payment.

Then I finished papering the hall and repaired the lining paper in the lounge, where I had had to remove a damaged piece. The lining paper is wider than the original by about 6", so I had to trim it to fit. So that's another little job done and I will be able to get on with the living room just as soon as the painting is done in the other rooms.

Before papering

When I left to go home for lunch, I met two men coming out of the garden of the house next door but one, carrying ladders, buckets and cloths. It seemed like a long shot (not!), but I thought I'd just ask them if they were window cleaners. 'What gave that away?' they asked! Hmm, I wonder! But they might just have been mates with the people next door but one. Anyway, yes they are window cleaners and they charge the princely sum of £3 to do the windows (seven windows in all), so they cleaned them for me and said they would call back when the house is fully occupied.

Talking of painting (I know, that was a whole paragraph ago), I painted the newly papered inside of the wardrobe. It took about an hour. Then I started on the bedroom walls. It was time consuming to do all the edges with a paint brush, plus all those fiddly places where a roller would be too big, but once I got going with the roller, it was really quick. The whole things was done in a trice - pity about the hand painting bit - the whole thing took about three hours, but would have been less than an hour if I hadn't needed to do any hand painting.

When I had finished that, I started on the hall, painting behind the radiator first so OH could replace it on the wall. It was something of a trip hazard lying flat just outside the living room door! Anyway, I finished that whole wall and, after tea, I did the adjacent wall and most of one side of the stair case.

Meanwhile, OH was working on taking out the bath. We are going to replace it, so it needs to come out before the new flooring arrives on Friday. 

The walls are covered in sheets of marble look alike plastic sheets, a bit like clicklock flooring, but vertical. 

Anyway, it was added after the bath, so in order to remove the bath, some of it had to come off - the end wall and the bath panel. Underneath, the wall had been tiled, and at some time, the tiles had presumably become unattractive, so they had been painted. Then the panels had been stuck on top of that with some really strong glue. It was a miracle he managed to get them off without damaging them. 

It's just horrible! Nothing we set out to do is straight forward. I'm sure people go out of their way to make things as hard as possible for whoever comes after them; either that, or they think they are going to live forever and will never want to change anything ever again!!

Anyway, the bath is not actually out yet, but at least it is ready just to be removed. 

So, that's all done. Tomorrow, I must finish the painting on the hall, stairs and landing - does it seem like I have been doing that area for ever? It certainly feels like it this end! I will also have to paint the hall radiator and then clean everywhere, ready for the carpet fitters. Then Thursday, I can get started on the living room - yay!!