With a weekend away planned, we tried to get a few jobs done in the evenings in order to keep things moving forward.

My first job was to finish the lime plaster on the stone wall. With the plastering finished the next job will be to fill the cracks and paint.

Having done the previous three coats of paint on the ceiling I passed the fourth coat on to Chris to do, who admitted that it was the worst kind of painting job.

When we’d put in the windows at the back of the house we hadn’t gotten round to filling around them with mortar. Though it does need doing it hadn’t caused a big problem until the recent storms. While most of the windows just let in the wind, one of the kitchen windows started to let significant amounts of water in, leaking through the plasterboard. While it only occurred when the wind and rain was in storm conditions, it could very quickly cause significant problems. So the first dry evening I got out and plugged the gaps. Hopefully that’s the end of it, though there’s still four more unproblematic windows to do.

Having chosen the colour for the kitchen walls I started with the first coat, before Chris fixes the worktop in place and makes things more fiddly. Having painted two walls I think I’ll keep the third wall white in order to keep the room feeling light and open.

Before we disappeared for our weekend away Chris got the last coat of oil on the worktop, to allow it to dry by the time we got back. This will mean he can get in the hob and oven this week, and the sink after that. Having gone from the least finished room, the kitchen suddenly looks like it’s very close to being finished. Of course that doesn’t mean it’s time to pull back, lots more work to do.