Sunny September

Well, we are now half way through September and pleased to be able to say we have continued to make satisfactory progress, the weather has been kind so we have taken full advantage and planted a Laurel hedge along the front and one side of the front of the property, 39 plants are in place so hopefully they will settle in with continued fine weather ready for a good growth season next Spring.
We now have to decide what to do with front garden once we take up the remaining ugly concrete paving slabs, grass? flowers? whatever it is, no doubt it will be more hard manual labour for me!

Three first floor bedrooms have been expertly re-plastered including ceilings, a part of the refurbishment I thought would have to be boarded and skimmed! so, really pleased with the outcome so far, this is looking very good.
Work continues along the hallway and stairs where the paper stripping continues, it is surprising that most of the old stuff is removed quite easily with a a steamer and a good set of scraping tools. In some areas, usually internal walls, we have found the old lathe and plaster is crumbling and will have to be removed and boarded.
Light switches and sockets are also being recessed into the walls as we progress, sometimes this can be a time consuming task as I find cutting out solid stone quite arduous at times, but, persistence is the only way forward here, we never once thought this was going to be an  easy project, hence the blog title"An Awful lot of Effort".

Also during September we have found a very helpful company to strip the beautiful original doors, they collect and return within a few days. To date 3 doors have been treated and the initial results are excellent, the dilemma now is do we keep with the natural wood idea or paint gloss white as we originally intended?
Some real effort and patience is now required as the door frames themselves have to be stripped with heat guns and chemicals, the size of this task cannot be underestimated as the surrounds are considerable to say the least!