Renovation Project - Pointing old stone walls and visitors from the blog

Renovation Project - Pointing old stone walls and visitors from the blog

The stairs are being left alone for a while now as we need to decide on the colour and varnish we are going to use. So the next big job is pointing the walls, again I get the dirty horrible job, I still have distant memories of my old career, dressing up and driving all over the UK with my laptop and having people answering my questions, I was so important once upon a time, if some of these people could see me know, I am sure that they would not believe I am the same person, but as I say these are now distant memories and I am back in my scruffy work clothes raking out an old wall.

It takes a couple of days to rake the walls completely; we have the wall around the windows and the wall around the fire place to do.

To point a wall correctly the old mortar has to be chipped away with a pick making sure that all bits are removed. Once it is removed John makes a plaster mix and puts it in place, this looks so easy it is almost like the kiddy painting kits as you have to keep in between the lines, but as I say it looks easy until I have a go, then you find out that it isn’t easy at all!

You have to get the mix in between the stones before it goes off, every gap has to be filled and if any goes on to the stone it has to be removed.

So we spend a few days raking the stones, and then scrubbing them with a wire brush to get all of it off and bring the stones up to standard then adding the new plaster mix to make them look good.

As John starts I look at it and my heart sinks, it looks dreadful, OMG I can’t believe how bad it actually looks. There are big old stones and we have almost glow in the dark white plaster between them!!!

I give up and have to say how bad it looks, John then tells me this is how he felt when he did the walls in the bathroom and I wasn’t there. It turns out that when it goes on it looks very white, but once it dries and is finished it does go a bit darker and looks completely different, we’ll have to wait and see, but I do feel a bit better.

Whilst we are doing this job we have some visitors arranged, this is a family that have been following the blog and got in touch to say that they are visiting France, so a quick visit would be wonderful.

John is a bit freaked out at the fact that I talk to people around the world and arrange to meet them, and his usual comment is what if they are mad axe men, but as I point out the people we have met have been wonderful so far, we did go to stay with some people in Bergerac and that was wonderful, so he feels a bit easier, personally I never actually worry, I just think that it is amazing that you can meet people so easily that have common interests, it is a little bit like hitch hiking and travelling 25 years ago, lots of people did it and you met loads of new people, but this was a time before fear and crazy people (or just before crazy people were so widely reported and I was too young to have fear!!!!!)

The family arrive and they are so nice, we spend a couple of hours chatting and have a tour of the house and are told that the photos on the blog do not do the house justice.

As they are leaving we arrange to visit them next year as they have a house in a different part of France, so again it was a fantastic experience and good friends are in the making.

When I started the blog it was mainly to keep a record of what we were doing and keep family updated back in the UK, but it has turned into something much bigger and I love that people from all over the world get in touch and visit.