Sanding not Slacking

Now some of you may accuse me of slacking because I have not blogged for a while (over a week! – sorry!) and so maybe there is no progress to report! It’s quite the opposite; I have had my busiest week so far. As you know from my last blog, we made the heavy decision to sand the floors in all the suites, this is not something that we had in the budget or in the plan and so it was imperative that I did it quickly to reduce the floor sander hire costs and so that I could get back to things that are in the plan.

So on Tuesday morning I rushed off to Bort Les Orgues on a stunningly beautiful day to get the Floor sander. I nipped into the Champion Hyper Market on the way back to pick up some provisions. Well, you know me, it is impossible for me to just nip into a French supermarket, so 1 hour later I emerged with a full trolley load of goodies including some fruit plants that I got for 2 Euros each! They are amazing as they have Blackberry, Raspberry and Red Currant all on the same plant.

When I got back it was lunch time and check out the temperature above – 30 degrees! This was in the sun but even in the shade it was T-Shirt weather.

It took me ages to pluck up the courage to actually start the sanding. I was in one of those moods where any other job seemed more important just so that I could avoid what I knew was going to be an incredibly hard slog. So I did things like clean the inside of the Fridge! Then the outside of the Fridge!

Eventually I got round to it and of course as soon as I did I regretted not starting earlier. My memories of Floor Sanding are not good – I sanded the whole of our 3 bedroom Victorian house in Hitchin 4 years ago and all I remember is being overwhelmed by the amount of dust that is created and how many times you had to go back and forth to get the floor flat. Well, technology must have come on a little bit since because my French floor sander was really good (it was French too – they are so patriotic!). It took off a decent layer of floor in a single pass and the vacuum was so efficient that I didn’t even have to wear a mask.

The pictures above show me working my way through Suite 3 which I had finished by the end of Tuesday – that’s 3 rooms (bedroom, bathroom, hallway) all sanded down to a fine grade so that it was really smooth.

On Wednesday I got up early and attacked Suite 1. I didn’t quite finish this in one day because I had to pick up my Mum from Clermont Ferrand and I got lost!! When we got back we sat down to eat a fantastic leg of lamb that I had cooked for 5 hours (thanks to J-O). I invited Piers, Sarah, Jessica and Emily over too. They are friends of Dad and Jacqueline’s and have been staying in the cottage for the past week. We had a lovely meal and drank lots of wine and I went to bed exhausted.

However, I was desperate to get it all done before Emily came on Friday so Thursday started early too and I cracked on with Suite 1 which is considerably bigger than Suite 3. It took me all day and after a lovely meal that my Mum cooked I went back upstairs and started on Suite 2. At 11pm I admitted defeat and called it a day. I had only managed to get through half of suite 2 and with the decorators back in that room on Friday there was no way it was going to get finished.

Before

After

So I picked up Em from St Etienne on Friday morning and we rushed straight back home so that I could continue with the sanding.

However that 4 hour drive took it out of me and so when we got back to find Mum had made a lovely summer's day lunch we couldn’t resist sitting outside for an hour in the sunshine.

Em also took this photo of the garden that is getting greener every day.

I managed to sand Suite 4 bathroom and another hallway before I had to return to Bort Les Orgues at 6.30 to give back the sander.

The weekend continued in the same vein. I had bought myself a little disc sander on the way back from the hire shop and so on Saturday I sanded all the edges in Suite 3

By the end of the day I had managed to get the first coat of varnish on the floor and with a lot of help from Emily we even got the first coat of paint on the woodwork.

I took Em back to Limoges on Sunday morning. It has been a busy week for Em after her brilliant achievement of gaining a new contract with Channel 4. She will be sad to leave Vn like I was but it is an exciting new opportunity at a great company and before I know it she’ll be a proper “media type”, hanging out in trendy London bars and cafes! She’ll fit right in!

Channel 4 Building in Victoria

By the end of Sunday I got the 2^nd coat of varnish on the floor in Suite 3 – not quite as exciting as talking about working at Channel 4 but you know you love it!

I will blog this evening because progress is now fast and furious as Mr Laine has brought in 3 extra workers and I now have Katie and Simon helping me too. So we have 11 workers on site this week!