Thursday, August 12, 2004
Painting and pointing
Saint Clarisse
Caroline finished pointing the fireplace yesterday and it makes a huge improvement. She experimented with a few different mixes of lime, sand and cement and ended up with a 5 parts sand (sable) and 2 parts lime (chaux). Using even a small quantity of cement made the mix too grey. This morning she finished brushing the excess off the stonework to leave a nice clean finish. I think if there had been cement in the mix it would have set onto the stones and looked messy.
I've been stuck scraping the remains of wallpaper off the stairwell in our house. When I say wallpaper it was actually a pink carpet-like material that must have been stuck on with evo-stick. It's been a nightmare to clean and fill ready for painting.
As you can tell the focus shifts from the gites to our own house during the summer. Whilst the gites are occupied we concentrate on the gardens and general DIY in our own home. However the weather has been very showery for the last week keeping us out of the garden and off the beach.
| 11:13:11 PM
Painting and pointing
