Renovation project - Can we fix it? yes we can!

Renovation project - Can we fix it? yes we can!

John has managed to get away from the garden and has started on the back of the house, but he hasn’t escaped the cleaning, this area is to be our kitchen terrace (I love using these words, garden terrace, patio rather than the rubbish area and the dumping ground!)

Once the area is cleared I clean the walls (this is on a par with scrubbing the floors) I use a wire brush and scrape all of the moss and green from the wall and the drain pipes. John has been told about some lime finish and is going to use it (I think we had actually used this before as plaster finish, when John was trying out every version of plaster he could find).

And joy of joys we have a friend who has just bought a mixer and we can borrow it, this means that John can mix his own mixes and I can keep going on the garden.

Our joy is short-lived as when he sets it up, it doesn’t work, bugger, but not to worry he is a man of many skills, and as BOB the builder always says, can we fix it? Yes we can!

But no we can’t, as he opens up the little engine bit (can you tell John isn’t sat next to me as I write this? I am using my own technical terms e.g. the little engine bit!)

John has hold of the bits and thinks he can fix it but as it isn’t ours we have to call our friends and check that they are happy with John fixing it or whether they want to take it back as it has not been used yet. They come round and think that carrying it in the trailer may have bumped it too much. John sets too and he is better than BOB! It works, but he has spent the best part of the day on this and who knows how long the good weather will last.

He sets too and mixes all that he needs, the cement cover goes on first followed by the lime cover (this is another Blue Peter moment, as in here’s one I made earlier as this takes a couple of days in total)

John is happy with the way that it covers but really not happy with the end result, John wanted to have a lovely flat finish and we again get into the discussion about not having it look perfect, the house is too old to look perfect and I love the fact that the finish undulates (if I say bumpy he gets really upset, men do take the strangest things personally!).

 

But WOW what a difference our kitchen patio is on its way, we just need some more decking and a picket fence to finish it off!