Babysitting
Did very little over the past weekend as I was babysitting.
Basically Izzi’s Mum was away seeing some friends and I had my lovely little sprog all weekend. If Izzi could have managed it then I suppose I would have engaged her in some plastering or chimney sweeping, but as she’s only four and we don’t live in Victorian times I settled for a weekend at Anna’s avoiding my freezing brickyard.
I did however get some work done during the week beforehand, time was limited so I spent every evening I had getting things done. Basically if I have a moment and despite being tired after a day at work I try to spend my time as productively as possible. I’ll often find myself working very late into the evening, generally I have to clean the bath of plaster before I can take a bath, to get the plaster off me and I usually end up in bed getting less than six hours sleep to wake exhausted to start it all over again.
Anyway the fireplaces are now both bricked up, bonding plastered and skim plastered. I followed YouTube and my mastering plastering DVD to make a really good fist of getting the fireplaces sorted without needing to resort to expert help. They’re not perfect but they’re pretty good, the feathering at the edge could do with some work, I didn’t get the “fat” off the plaster properly and this led to some sandy residue and there was a teeny bulge in the final finish (still this could have been the original skeewiffedness of the chimney) but this was only noticeable to me.
I also spent time with the Easi-fill 45, bodging every crack and bit of crazed paintwork I could find. This took ages and I still have yet to complete one room, I now think I could have done a better and quicker job if I’d had a bit of guts and done some more plastering. It could have turned out a disaster though and it would have meant removing all of the picture rails and skirting board that had been so well fitted by the original builders – and I doubt I could have re-fitted them as well as they had been installed back then.
Anyway I’ll know if I made the right decision once the sanding is done. I know a lot of people I’ve spoken to swear by Easi-fill, hopefully I’ll be one of them once the sanding is done, as long as the dust doesn’t finish me off first.
Meeting heating engineers on Friday, hopefully they can get the work done soon and my fire may start heating the thermal store.