Frankenstein is born

Okay, so the walls are in a worse state than I’d originally thought; huge  cavities have appeared from  behind the shelving and many places that didn’t seem as bad are actually vomiting chunks of plaster on contact.  The whole room needs re-plastering, and it’s a big room!   So,  I decided to sit down and map out the whole project, what needed to be done by when and how much was it going to cost?

I quickly realised that my £2,000 budget was woefully optimistic and I’m leaning more towards the £4,000 mark. Double what I’d originally anticipated. That’s because, not one to do things by halves, I wanted all of the windows replaced and a new set of  patio doors to lead out onto the decking, £5,000, any advances on £5,000? Well, what’s the point of doing half a job.

So, enter the project calendar and enter the man to make it all happen, Handy Andy! He’d already worked with me on the original reclaim of part of the shop, now my study and the place from which I’m typing this.  So, I had complete faith in Andy’s ability. Most importantly, he’d already worked with me once and was already aware of my control freakery!

It’s a momentous day, ‘the door’, the main entrance to the shop is going to be bricked in. I believe this is going to end once and for all the public’s inclination to stop and stare at our house “are they open, aren’t they? There’s no signage anywhere, the doors been stripped of any kind of sticker, there’s a big gate blocking my entrance to the path but, what the heck, I’ll try and push it open anyway”. Aaargh!

It’s really weird to see the space through which so many have entered (including us on many a winter morning) closed in.  But it’s good, it’s helping bring some finality to the whole affair and I’m pleased.   I won’t bore you with details of the lengthy debates we had about finding bricks that match the rest of the building on the outside. “Just block it up!” was pretty much what Andy got from me and he rose to the challenge.

Now, onwards and upwards….