Painting!

Finally, after days spent taking things to pieces, ripping stuff out, creating mess and chaos, we have at last got to a point where we could actually start on something constructive.  

I have painted a window sill.

Granted, it was only undercoat but still, it's a step in the right direction.  It's pleased us no end.

Radiators in need of a good clean

On the back of one rad, N found this stamp - we already knew the house was built in 1979 so the radiators have seen 35 years' service.  

We've also taken advantage of the radiators being off the walls (the heating engineers need to drain and flush them through) to paint the walls behind them - it's always the trickiest bit to decorate if the radiators are in place.  Just a couple of coats of white emulsion but it's one more little job to tick off the list.  N has done sterling work cleaning all the radiators; front, back and between the panels.  They look much better for a bit of soapy water.

Gradually covering the pink!

We've got the bathroom tiles sorted - much easier than we thought; we both picked the same tile immediately we saw it, something of a result.  The coving proved a bit of a bonus, too.  The pack was 3.6 metres in length, way too long to fit in the car but we noticed that some of the pieces were damaged so we approached a salesman and suggested we take the damaged goods off his hands for half the marked price (don't get if you don't ask!).  A deal was done, we took the pack into the carpark and N proceeded to cut the lengths at the damaged point and lo and behold, they fitted into the car perfectly!  

We are both terribly weary, we don't mind admitting.  But little by little, ever so gradually, we feel we are turning the corner.  We hope to get stuck into some serious painting this week, the boiler/central heating will have been finished and work on the bathroom begun.  It's beginning to take shape.

And guess who turned up this morning?

Ambling along the path in the back garden was none other than Harry the hedgehog (short for Hieronymus, N tells me - he's a fan of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels).  It could of course be Hilda or Hetty but I think we'll stick with Harry until proved otherwise.

We're rather thrilled to have our own hedgehog.