So I said it wouldn't be 4 weeks until my next post... its been 3...
The weeks just keep getting away from me and somehow another 3 weeks have passed by without an update!
We had a busy Easter weekend working on the house, and made some good progress, although not quite as much as we'd hoped... our plan was to get the fireplace finished by the end of the weekend, but the walls and brick slips had other plans.
Saturday was spent building up a frame in the fireplace to tile on to. We brought the back of the fireplace forward slightly so that it was the depth of a brick, to avoid having to do any extra cuts (Although somehow it didn't quite work out that way as the pattern changed and we had to do more cuts anyway!) and had lots of trouble getting the screw to stay in place in our crumbly old brick walls.
With some much needed help from Dad, we got that finished by the end of the day Saturday, and spent some time in the evening planning out the pattern for the brick slips, and making sure we had enough of each style (oh, how easy we thought this would be...)
Sunday morning we got to work, and made our first attempt at cutting the brick slips. The instructions said to notch the back of the tile, and then snap. Simple.
Nope. The bricks slips weren't having any of it. None of the saw or sharp objects we tried were getting anywhere, and we had no chance of snapping them without scoring them deeply first. In the middle of the search for alternative tools, I discovered a technique that seemed to work- I used a metal file to score them and then broke them in half with a hammer and chisel in one swift action.
Things then went really well for about half an hour. I was measuring the fireplace for the sizes we needed, and Jamie was breaking he brick slips to suit. We were nearly ready to mix up the adhesive and start putting the brick slips up when it all started to go wrong. A few in a row shattered in to pieces when Jamie tried to break them. So naturally we started being more gentle with them, only for them to break even more! This went on for a while until around 20 had broken (and these things aren't cheap!) and then panic ensued. I worked out that if we kept going at this rate, we would very quickly run out of spares and the whole thing would be wasted, as we wouldn't have enough left to finish the whole fireplace (and we hadn't even got to the tricky ones yet!)
Eventually, Jamie had the idea that maybe it was us being too gentle that was actually causing them to break, as we were having to hit them more than once, which was causing them to shatter. So we counted down from 3, and Jamie tried hitting them as hard and as fast as he could. It worked! We still had a few breakages, but most of them were remaining in tact and we could continue with the project.
In the end, it literally came down to the last few brick slips, and that arch was practically a jigsaw puzzle trying to scramble together the right pieces to fit together. But we got there in the end!
Since this picture was taken, I've filled in around the edges and filed down the corners of the bricks to neaten it all up, so its already looking even better. Next up is to grout between the tiles, but after one failed attempt at that (the mortar that was recommended is far too dry) we're still figuring out the best way to attack it.
In the mean time, we've been working on getting some paint on the walls. After I finished sanding the word work a few weeks ago, it was time to fill a few areas on the walls and around the edges of the skirting boards and architraves (stripping the paint had caused some edges of the plaster to break off) and then of course there was more sanding to do.
This weekend we put lining paper on the chimney breasts in the two bedrooms, and put two coats of paint on the skirting boards, floor frames, architraves, and all the walls in our bedroom.
Dad had already painted the ceiling and the coving twice, so its now looking very clean and white in there. We still need to add some colour to the walls (pink and grey) but its already such an improvement from the dirty, marked walls that were there before.
This week I'll be getting the spare bedroom up to the same level, and then going round and making any minor improvements that are needed (a few pin holes need filling, some areas need a bit more sanding). Then we'll be adding a final coat of white before moving on to the colour!
Dad has also fitted the new radiators in both bedrooms (we've temporarily removed them again to decorate) and finished most of the wiring upstairs. He's also been preparing to start the bathroom in the next couple of weeks by locating the stop-cock for the cold water (we thought at one point that we didn't have one and our water was coming through from next door!), and this weekend he sorted out a new hand-rail for the stairs up to the studio.
This week we finally set a date to move in! The carpets are being fitted upstairs on Wednesday 23rd May, and we'll move in that weekend. We'll have the studio and 2 bedrooms finished, so I'll have my work room during the day, we'll have our bedroom (and our own bed back!) to sleep in, and we'll use the spare bedroom as a temporary sitting room. We're aiming to get the first stage of the bathroom sorted so that the bath can be fitted, and then we'll work on getting it finished as quickly as possible once we're in.
After a few months of work and starting to feel like we might never get in, we're so excited to have set the date and can't wait to start unpacking in our own home!