With the long weekend we thought we’d get a decent amount of work done. Of course things never go as quickly or as smoothly as we’d like but a few jobs got moved forwards despite a number of delays.

We decided not to bother trying to straighten the lounge windowsill, and just stuck it down as flat as we could. Chris also rounded the edge of the kitchen windowsill and stuck that in place, before treating both.

The kitchen step has been a puzzle for a long time. Because of the outflow pipe for the washing machine, we weren’t able to lay the utility slabs over the top at the same level as the rest of the floor.

Chris was keen just to lay them at a raised level, however, I was worried they would fade in with the rest and people wouldn’t notice the step up and trip at the threshold.

Having avoided the problem for a few years, we finally agreed to create a wooden step, which would at least be more obviously different. Chris used some spare planks of wood and bought some trim to create a rounded edge. Hopefully we won’t have too many people pancaking on our kitchen floor.

Having taped and PVAed the downstairs toilet walls, I set to work on plastering. I knew it would be a horrible job as it’s a small, awkward space, with lots of odd angles. What I didn’t realise when I started, was that the plaster was too old and had gone off. This meant that it went hard far too quickly, and was difficult to smooth out on the walls. I made do, making tiny batches at a time, not ideal.

Taking a lot longer than it should have, it also left a terrible finish. To fix things I then sanded it down as best I could and used filler to smooth things out. Annoyingly I also forgot to add the trim around the windows, so I attach this and used filler to cover the error. Very much a bodge-job, but once it’s painted no one will ever notice.

Chris worked on a rather more satisfying job, installing his TV table below the bookshelf. I’d told him a while back that we could only have as many books as would fit on the bookshelf, so of course he reshuffled the shelves to fit another one in.

He added a trim to the bookshelf and table, as well as doors. Inside the table he installed the plugs that had temporarily been attached to the bookshelf.

There’s still some finishing touches left, but it’s certainly getting there.

We’d installed and treated most of the floor, but the company that delivered the floor had accidently left out one packet. While it wasn’t a big area, it took quite a while as every piece bar one needed cutting to fit into the wall. Once installed, it got three treatments to match in with the rest of the floor.

We had hoped to have a day off on the long weekend, but in the end we got too involved in our projects to step away. So not much rest, but worth being tired at the end of it to have moved things along.