We observe this almost every day when we are out in the car and wonder how those larger vehicles stay on some of the very narrow secondary roads when a huge farm tractor or one of the huge trucks that speed down some of the lanes,get past. There is no shoulder, and only a small strip of grass between you and a deep ditch, most of the time. It is even harder to find somewhere to do a U turn, as we are apt to do. I also wonder how larger cars find somewhere to park, because parking is a breeze in our pint sized auto, a VW Polo. Driving on the highway is a breeze, because almost every other car is about the same size as yours:) Occasionally I get a bit 'scared' by a fleet of large trucks, so we just choose to take the secondary roads, and sometimes the 3rd. I do have to say though, the width of the road is in direct proportion to the 1/2/3 rule! 4th, of course, is a dirt road, and this is why our car is covered in cow poo and mud, right now. The road to home is a dirt road, and it has rained this past week! Thankfully, the rain also washed the car at night:)
Back to work:
With another two full 8 hr days behind us, we desperately needed to take some time out. Our poor bodies aren't used to the hard physical labor, and my wrist was about to give out. Waz has done a Trojan job putting all the tape on the ceiling in the bathroom, and a light spackle, and will need to float that in the coming days, once it dries. The weather has turned wet and damp and nothing is drying. Ernie is supposed to be coming in to give a top coat to what I have already given three coats of primer to. Nothing wants to stick to the walls, and this French paint sucks, seriously. It barely covers anything.
I have spackled until I cant spackly much more. Filling holes in the walls, and cavities where they shouldn't be..aieee!
Some progress photos!
Bathroom ceiling, first spackle and tape.
All behind the toilet was horrid and we really needed to put this green Gib board there as it is a water area and waterproofing is needed. They have now decided NOT to put tile on the walls up to the chair rail, so we aren't sure if this will work if and when it is supposed to! Not our problem, I guess.
Waz has now framed out both of the air vents, and they look a whole lot better.
Had to share a sunny day photo before the update photos. I took this around the corner of the Manoir where we live. Rain at the bottom, and sunshine at the top over the top of the Apple Orchard.:)
All kinds of things been going on with this renovation project. Here we are looking underneath part of the Longere (Long Zhair) opposite the Manoir, which joins the apartment upstairs. The problem was a wall in the kitchen of the apartment which was almost permanently damp or wet, when it rained. It appeared, after English carpenter Ray, went up in the ceiling, that the wall used to be part of a chimney that was demolished and the chimney is still on top of the roof, held up by..ummm....a few rows of bricks and nothing else. It was not anchored AT ALL to the house! aieeee! So Ray put up his scaffolding and took about four courses off the chimney to make it safe (it remains to look nice!) and in the process found that the gutters were full to busting, so for the next two days, he and his son Michael cleaned gutters of debris...enough to half fill their trailer.
Ray also did a not so nice tree trim of the Indian Cedar..an otherwise gorgeous tree. Without having Ernie there to tell him which branches to trim, he went a bit crazy and left the tree looking rather horrid. There was hell to pay, of course:)
Ernie let loose, on the day were decided to take off, and started painting a top coat on the living room walls. This 'fancy' paint has sand in it and a sparkle. They must have paid a mint for it, but it feels like sandpaper to the hand! Hmmm....he also experimented by painting one of the windows with the same paint....I have told him not to do any more...it's horrid to touch! blech! He ran out of paint on this wall! There will be a chair rail detail attached, with a dark maroon paint on the bottom...not our kettle of fish, but they (Terry has dramatic overtones and 1930's actresses in mind for decorating) are the ones who have to deal with it.
Under the window was such an abomination that we had to cement the wall to keep it from falling out and then I had to spackle over it all. Because of the cold and damp, it isn't drying very fast. I have spent my time scraping the windows!:) I need to get a really good paint brush to do those details.
First coat of undercoat is on the Bathroom wall, and the tub has not come upstairs. It is rather in the way, but Ray will do the plumbing for it on Monday, and the electrics too we hope. We will need to move it for Waz to put the molding up and for the rest of the painting to be finished. If we do nothing other than finish this bathroom before we go, we will have done well. This is a huge project and we have been working 4 days and sight seeing 3. It is supposed to be the other way around. 30 hr weeks, when we should only be working 24!
This is the cement Ray put on to keep the wall from falling apart.
The bedroom wall was similar, but not quite as bad. He had to cement this one too when we took the old heaters off the wall.
Today is Saturday the 19th September. I have started this a couple of times, but the internet has been very patchy and photos wouldn't upload, so it has taken me about 4 days to write this. Much has happened in the meantime. I will detail our sightseeing and other goings on in the next post.
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