Tuesday 15 April 2014

The annual maintenance

Well, it's now annual. Watch this space next year and see if we kept it up! We realised last year that we were going to have to devote time to Bella, and more than a weekend here or there. So we both took just over a week off work and here we are, day 2 (or 6 or 4) depending on when we start counting!

Last Thursday was the first day off work for what felt like weeks for both of us. So we took ourselves out for coffee with Bella's daybook in hand to write down what needed doing. Quite a list! Patching paint, clearing rust, renewing window frames, renewing the cratch cover, deep cleaning inside, resealing the bathroom, removing the winter curtain liners and cleaning all the curtains... Exhausted before we started.

After coffee, we took ourselves off to the chandlery for the essentials. Paint, primer, brushes and...not on the list - new brass flush cupboard door handles, 12v electrics to rewire lights.  Hmmm. A longer list.

From Friday through the weekend, we did inside fun things of changing our table lamps to LED 12v, putting up another few lights in the clothes room and fitting the new cupboard door handles. Monday, the slog work started in earnest. By the afternoon of day 2, we have: renewed the window frames in the dining room and bedroom (remove from window, take outside, sand, replace, varnish), cleaned associated curtains, polished brass rods, restored roof spots (standing, anti rusting, priming, painting), cleaned mould from various places, cleaned the cratch cover (bow cover) and generally cleaned as we went along. More similar things tomorrow.

All the while, the sun is shining, the ducklings are hatching, the swans have built a nest and the birds are singing. Day 1 Elizabeth was grumpy. Day 2 is much better.