Had a good day

We got down to the house about 10.30 last night, and in order to maximise the time we've got here I painted a coat of Stain Stop on the most badly-marked parts of the kitchen wall I wanted to paint.  It only needed 12 hours to dry, rather than the 16 I thought, so we were already up on the game.

This morning David contacted Laurent Mazij to see if he would come and fit us a door upstairs...

We've got a large space that's enclosed by three walls and a roof, but we can only access it by a ladder from the barn.  There are a few things stored there, but only stuff like chairs that can be carried [relatively] easily up a ladder.  If we had a door from the grenier, we could take all the spare furniture/doors/sanitary ware, etc, through to the other part of the house and risk that no-one will want to go to the bother of stealing our "treasures".

And then we will have a largely empty space to use as our "salon d'été", and can quickly find anything through the door if we need it back in a hurry (which is unlikely, to say the least).

We also wanted him to repair the flashing round the chimney; when Angelo and Jonnie swept it last year they told me that the tin has come adrift.

Weirdly enough, as I was just about to climb into my painting overalls, Laurent phoned to say he was coming over, now, so I put off giving the wall a coat of paint until after he'd been.  We're so used to people planning a visit and then not showing up that someone threatening to arrive in less than half an hour and actually coming was lovely!

Even better was the news that the chimney is probably watertight, so doesn't need to be repaired.  Laurent said to keep and eye on it during heavy rain to see if there is a leak, but the staining is probably from a long-repaired leak from before the roof was replaced.  He would have done it, but reckoned that it was unnecessary.

Saves a bit of cash, so we're very happy with that solution!

He also wasn't phased by the door request, and understood that we only want a temporary thing, and yes we understand that our door we plan to re-use isn't very sturdy, but then the wall would be easily broken if anyone had a mind to do that, and the stuff we store upstairs is only of value to us [old clothes, anyone?], so I think we're all happy with the plan.  He is to leave the beam alone, and build us a temporary step either side of it.

He says he will have it done within two weeks, the estimate being acceptable.

So we're keeping our fingers crossed.

[We do a lot of that, don't we?]

That meant I managed to get a coat of paint on the wall before lunchtime [OK, so lunch was about 3pm, but it still counts!], and unloaded the car before we headed off to the supermarket.

The wall looked pretty good, but still needed a second coat (but hopefully not a third), so when we got back from Bar-sur-Aube, I painted it again, and am now relaxing with a glass of something fizzy!

I really liked the paint I used: Crown "Breatheasy" matt emulsion in Antique Cream - it seemed to cover fairly well, and didn't spatter.  After having used a lot of Dulux recently, and become totally disillusioned, I was pleasantly surprised.

And it really doesn't smell, either.

Haven't gone completely native yet: if I had I would have put the Basque dresser where it is to go and then painted round it - we have enough furniture with paint marks to know this frequently happens!

Whether or not it requires a third coat, we will be able to put the dresser in place tomorrow and get on with cleaning the kitchen.

Plumbers: missing in action, and David thinks unlikely to surface, but he said we were fine to use the original part of the central heating, so that's making the house a lot more comfortable!

Yesterday when we arrived the kitchen was 11°C, and the bedroom 7°C [and outside it's been below freezing], so it was brilliant to be able to light the fire in the woodburning stove and put the heating on.  It must have been on the frost-stat setting, as David noticed the radiators were warm; that would explain why the kitchen was so "warm".

I found it quite interesting to note that the cellar was 12°C when I went down there to find a paintbrush; if the worst comes to the worst, I can sleep in there!

All round, a very heartening day; I hope yours was too.