83 and a half.

Monday 14th

 

As I'd started to finish off sanding and linseed oiling the beams yesterday I decided to carry on with that and get them finished. Although all the purlins were finished there were still all the lower beams, across beams and mezzanine beams to finish - all with at least 3 sides to paint. This ended up taking me almost all day.

 

All the beams are oiled

 

Whilst I did that Pete started to clear up the work area and put away all the stuff we weren't going to use again. He also went through all the screws and nails and organised them into labelled boxes - very efficient. This also took him a while, and needed doing, as we had just boxes of random screws everywhere and it was always a nightmare trying to find the right size!

 

Tidying up

Organised stuff

 

Once I'd finished all the beams I helped Pete to finish clearing up. We started with emptying the hallway area and sweeping there so that we had space to build the temporary stud wall we wanted to put up. We then quickly put together a top and bottom beam and a few upright batons to start our stud wall - this is going to be covered with plastic to keep dust from spreading when we sand the floor in the kitchen-to-be. We will also keep it up when we renovate the living room as it will stop our new kitchen getting too filthy. Anyway, once that was in place we completely emptied the kitchen-to-be and moved all the building materials back into the hallway area - we were now almost ready to start work on the wooden floor!

 

Foaming the gap behind the wooden wall

Temporary stud wall going up

Kitchen-to-be all cleared and tidy

 

It was already dark when we finished so it was time for the usual evening events - cooking and eating dinner, washing up, getting the fire on and watching a film.

 

Tuesday 15th

 

We were up early today to get on with work - although I was feeling very tired and thought I might be getting ill (I wasn't though, thankfully.) We spent the majority of the day finishing off the temporary stud wall - fixing in noggins and then pinning the plastic to it. We also built a door into it, on hinges and with a little latch and everything! We are quite pleased with the result (for a temporary measure anyway) and we've used clear plastic so the rooms have stayed light.

 

Nogged and plasticed

Door as well

 

Once that was done we stopped for a late lunch and then decided to have a go at fitting a few sockets. Although we have fitted several sockets downstairs we are no experts and it took us a good hour to get the first one fitted! Pete was feeling much more patient than me today so I stripped all the wires for him whilst he followed me around and fit the sockets on. We managed to get two more finished but were slightly disheartened by the fact that the wall mounted sockets we'd bought for the stone wall wouldn't even fit a bloody plug in - why do they sell stuff that doesn't do the job it's supposed to!!?? Argh!! So after that we quickly fit the two spot lights in the hallway area - a very simple and easy job - and then it started to get too dark to see what we were doing so we called it a day and cleared up.

 

Woo hoo - one socket!

Another socket in - but it doesn't bloody work

Spot lights in the hallway

Another evening doing the usual.

 

Wednesday 16th

 

Now we had our plastic wall up it was time to begin sanding the wooden floor. We got up early and nipped to Chirpan to get sand paper and a few other bits and pieces. Back home we had a quick brekkie and then got on with cleaning the floor. Pete hoovered first and then I started sanding, scrubbing and scraping - any technique I could think of to try and get rid of all the paint, plaster and years of dust that was embedded into the boards. Whilst I started that Pete gave the hoover a good old clean out and also fixed our old, industrial style hoover (using sponges as new filters) so we didn't have to ruin our household one with all the fine dust. He also popped over to Hristos to ask to borrow his belt sander.  

 

Cleaning up

 

The belt sander didn't work as well as we'd hoped as the floor boards are so warped that it is hard to run anything flat over them at all. I was working away with the little electric sander but we'd bought far too fine sander paper and I had to keep changing it every five minutes!

 

Starting to sand - it's cold in there

 

At about 3 o'clock we packed it in and decided to go to Stara Zagora. We'd ordered some tiles last week which were ready for collection so we thought we'd go and get them and stock up on more sandpaper. We spent the rest of the day there and came home in the dark - we even got a burger at the builders merchants for dinner!

 

Chickens in the greenish walnut orchard

Thursday 17th

 

Sanding, sanding, sanding. Pete belt sanded the areas he could and I followed him with the electric sander, smoothing it out and getting in all the edges and around the nails where the belt sander couldn't reach. It was a cold job as we had all the windows open and was not the most exciting work as we couldn't even listen to music over the noise of the sanders and hoovers. Although, having said that, we are very happy with how the boards have come out. We had quite low expectations as the boards were so filthy and we had no idea what colour they would even be, but they have sanded right back to a lovely, light piney colour (although we are not sure what type of wood they actually are) and they look great. There are obviously some imperfections we can't remove with our small hand tools, but we don't mind showing the history of the house and, anyway, they add a bit of character! Our favourite blemish is the burn where the previous owner has obviously dropped a coal filled iron on the floor (see the picture.)

 

Iron burn

 

We stopped sanding as it got dark, with just over a third of the floor sanded completely. A good job done, although we were both feeling a little wheezy despite wearing our masks all day. Another evening by the fire and playing Scrabble.

 

The floor looking good

Lovely evening

Bilko enjoying the fire

Friday 18th

 

Market day today. We got up especially early and left before 8.30 - without even having a cup of tea! We didn't need much food so we got all our shopping done quite quickly and then browsed a couple of charity shops whilst we waited to meet Baba V at 10 o'clock. Baba V has now moved to Chirpan for the winter and we'd bumped into her last week and she'd invited us over for breakfast today. We met her at the arranged place and she led us to her home, linking arms with both of us all the way. Her daughter was at home as well and they'd prepared banitsa and coffee for us - so sweet. It was lovely to spend some time chatting with them both and great to see Baba V's town house - which was amazing by the way, straight out of a Wes Anderson film set in the 70's! It was also useful to have Baba V's daughter there as, although she spoke no English, she was better at grasping what we were trying to say in our bad Bulgarian than Baba V is! We stayed for an hour or so and then said our goodbyes so we could go home and get some more work done.

 

Back home and unpacked it was onwards with the sanding. Pete got quite a bit more done with the belt sander but then our little electric sander stopped working - noooo! We took the whole thing apart and gave it a good clean and checked all the electrics. All put back together again and still nothing, and an hour wasted! We decided that, frustratingly, our only option was to jump in the van and go to Chirpan to buy a new one. Luckily they are not too expensive, but the new one we got is a very cheap brand (the only option they had in the shop) and not as good as the old one. Back home I did another hour or so of sanding with the new sander whilst Pete prepared dinner and did the washing up.

 

New and old

Broken sander

 

In the evening we went down the road to the bar to have a few drinks with S & G. We haven't seen them for a while so it was nice to catch up, although we didn't have a late night as we were sat outside and we all got too cold by about 11.30!

 

Saturday 19th

 

Thankful for the early night we awoke with no hangovers and only had a short lie in to drink our tea and do the crossword. Once we were up we were both straight back to our sanders, but Pete finished with the belt sander first so went to go and squeeze lemons for more lemon juice to freeze. I carried on for most of the day and managed to get it all finished -yay!

 

Finished :-)

Squeezing more lemons

 

During the day we also got a call from the shop lady who needed some help moving a sofa. There were new people, who have just moved to the village, who were looking to get rid of some of the old furniture. In return for our help, and use of our van, we were offered two mattresses, which were in great condition and we can't refuse anything free so we snapped them up. We helped the shop lady with her sofa and then went home to unload the mattresses onto the garden table to air out in the sunshine. Oh also, just to mention, we invited the shop lady over to have a look at the work we're doing on our house - she actually used to live here, 7 odd years ago, so it is nice to be able to show her what we're doing and we hope she is happy we are bringing life back to her old home.

 

It's tempting to just have a massive outside bed!

 

Late afternoon, once the sanding was done, we did another clean up upstairs - Pete hoovered and mopped the floor to get rid of all the dust and I went around a wiped down all the beams, which were also covered in a thick layer of sawdust.

 

Wiping everything down

 

Once all that was done the last job of the day was to do a first coat of varnish on the area that will be behind the oven. We'd managed to move the oven around to get the sanding done but we wanted to get it in place for the varnishing otherwise there would be a varnish line. We hadn't actually tested the varnish yet and it made the wood go a lot darker than we thought, which is nice - although I was quite liking the light, yellowy colour actually.

 

Varnishing behind the oven

 

In the evening we got scrubbed up and headed over to a nearby village to see our friend C for dinner. We had a great evening with her, in her beautiful home, with yummy food and a few glasses of wine.

 

Sunday 20th

 

We'd ended up getting home at about 1.30 so we slept in a bit and started the day with a big breakfast. Once working I was concentrating on starting to fill the gaps between the floor boards with caulk - we'd read that this is a cheaper way to fill big gaps before using the, more pricey, wood filler. Whilst I got started on that Pete had the electrics off again and fit the plug socket above the cooker where the extractor fan will go.

 

Happy lie in :-)

Caulking the bigger gaps

Socket for the extractor fan

 

Once that socket was on we both worked together to get the extractor fan on to the wall and working. This was easier said than done (whose idea was it to have a stone wall here!?) as to get it level against the stone wall was very difficult, to say least. We had to use packers on the uneven stone, and to make matters worse the thing came in three pieces which we kept having to hold up to make sure they would all sit nicely! We got it looking okay in the end, although not perfect, but we were happy with it - and it was our first step to looking like a real kitchen. 

 

Extractor fan in place

The last jobs were to do a bit more caulking, foam the hole where the vent pipe goes out the wall (to avoid drafts) and to do a second coat of varnish on the area behind the oven. Once all that was finished it was dark and we were hungry, so it was time to make dinner and get the fire going.

 

Foamed in and (almost) ready to go!

Monday 21st

 

Yesterday we had tested the wood filler that we'd bought last week in SZ - back in the days before we had tested the varnish, so we thought that the wood was going to be light and pine coloured. Because of this we'd bought a yellowish wood filler - it had actually been the only one they had in the shop but we thought it matched the wood rather well. Now we'd discovered how dark the wood went with the varnish we had to go and buy a different coloured filler - another trip to Chirpan it was. Luckily the shop in Chirpan had several more colour options so we chose the darkest one and went on our way, getting back home still quite early.

 

We both then spent another day upstairs - I was filling the gaps in the floorboards whilst Pete carried on with fitting the rest of the sockets. He smashed this job and by the end of the day we had all the kitchen sockets fitted as well as the three wall lights - which look amazing! I was a bit slower going with the filler as I didn't want to masking tape the entire floor so I had to keep cleaning up the edges as I went.

 

Lights and sockets - looking great!

Filling the gaps - with the gas heater on today



Pete stopped working when it started to get dark so that we could have the lights on. He then went off to get the fire going and make dinner whilst I carried on filling. We ate dinner - lovely leek and potato soup - and then I went back upstairs to finish the fillering job. I really wanted to get it done today so we'd be able to varnish tomorrow, and in the end it took me until just after 8 o'clock to finish - so not too bad. Unfortunately, after all our hard work, we don't actually like the filler - the colour is good but it has dried all shiny and plasticy, so we might have to paint it or just let it get a bit grubby (which won't be difficult, I'm sure!) We also moved the oven into place against the stone wall.

 

All filled

Tuesday 22nd

 

Today was the day we could varnish the floor, at long last! It was really only a one man job so I spent the whole day upstairs doing that. I started with sanding back any filler that was over the edges and then gave the whole floor a good hoovering a moping, making sure to get all the little bits so I didn't varnish them in. The rest of my day was spent varnishing the floor - again a cold job as all the windows were open as the varnish was very smelly. Luckily it has been cloudy for the last couple of days, which isn't as pretty as blue skies but has made it noticeable warmer.

 

Varnishing

 

Pete's day was spent downstairs doing a big clean up of the house. We have neglected the cleaning for a while, as we've been so busy, so everything needed a goody old scrubbing and dusting. The house looked fab by the end of the day.

 

We also moved the mattresses from the garden table as it was threating to rain and we didn't want to ruin them. We moved the bigger one up to the toilet block, we are hoping to somehow fit it into the mezzanine once it is finished. The other, smaller mattress was moved into our bedroom as it was the same size as our bed frame and now our bed is super comfy - result!

 

Big comfy bed

Yet another chilled evening by the fire.

 

Wednesday 23rd

 

We wanted to give the floor a little longer to dry this morning and we also wanted to take Lucy out for a walk as she hasn't been on one for a few days. We decided to drive over to a tiny village we'd heard about that was 11kms from our village, into the hills. We know the area is very pretty but we'd heard there was only about 20 people in this village, so were slightly intrigued as well.

 

The village was quiet (although we did see a few people around) and very pretty. We walked all the ay around the village and then followed a track by a stream for a little way. It was an overcast day but still a lovely walk and nice to do a bit of exploring. Sadly the shop in the village was shut so we couldn't get a coffee, so instead we came home, made our own coffee and ate bacon sandwiches.

 

Grey but pretty walking photos...

 

 

 

The afternoon was then spent with me doing a second coat of varnish upstairs whilst Pete started work on making some shelves for the kitchen. We'd already written down the measurements so he cut the wood to size and planed the edges. We decided to go for a curved edge and we think they look pretty good. Once I was finished varnishing I came out into the garden to help him - he carried on with the plane whilst I started to sand the finished shelves. We got two (out of five) finished before it started to get dark and we called it a day.

 

Outside workshop

Nice curvy shelf

Drying the damp wood in the house

 

In the evening I started to write the blog whilst Pete read and listened to music.

 

Doggy by the fire

Thursday 24th

 

This morning we were back outside to finish making the shelves. It was a cold and grey morning, so this wasn't a very tempting job but in the end the sun came out for us and it turned into a gorgeous day. We got the other three shelves cut, planed and sanded and then varnished to match the wooden wall in the kitchen. We ran out of varnish so there is still one left to do, but they look great. Pete also made a chopping board with the off cut of the lovely, wide plank we'd bought - we just need to research how to seal it properly now.

 

Shelves drying in the sun

Pete and his chopping board

 

Once that was all finished we stopped for lunch and then decided to have a look at our kitchen sink and try to build a frame for it to sit on. We managed to use an off cut of chip board to help make the sink more sturdy, but in the end we realised we needed to be in the kitchen to do the rest. So that job was set aside for now as we wanted to leave the floor to dry properly all day today.

 

Sturdy-ing the sink

 

As it was still only about 3 o'clock by now we ventured into the chaos of the barn and managed to drag out the old cabinet that we want to use in the kitchen. It was completely filthy but a good, sturdy piece of furniture - unlike a lot of the stuff in the shops now. Pete helped me carry it out of the barn and then he went off to make dinner whilst I had a go at sanding it back. We want to go for the 'shabby chic' look so I was trying to artistically sand back the paint to reveal the wood! I haven't finished it yet but we think it is looking rather nice. A little more sanding and a good old clean and will be ready!

 

Old cabinet from the house

Getting there with the 'shabby chic' look

 

This evening I've finished writing the blog and the fire is going again. Although we haven't really needed it, the last couple of nights we've been transferring a few embers from the yellow room over to the bedroom woodburner just before we go to bed, which makes the room cosy and warm.

 

We have Pete's mum visiting next week so the race is on to get in the kitchen, although really we are there now that the floor is done! Thanks for reading all! Goodbye for now xxx