Wet, wet, wet!

It's been extremely wet, and David must have got really fed up with all the muddy footprints we keep tracking through the house, so the first thing he did when we got there this morning was to pour a trug of water over the concrete and scrub it with a stiff brush.  I looks a lot better, and as he's put down some cardboard [we haven't any door mats yet], we're hopeful to keep the worst of the muck outside.

The moisture has brought out a bumper crop of toadstools; I think I'm going to love it here!

Continuing our theme of water, water, everywhere, we unboxed the steam cleaner and the wallpaper stripping head that we'd bought, and started to strip the paper off the lounge walls.  I was pulling off the plasticky outer covering, and David used the steamer to soften and remove the paper inner layer that remained stuck to the walls.  Another big thanks for the right tools; our scrapers are brilliant - so much so that David suggested buying another pair so that we can each have a large and a small one.  Totally agree; sometimes one is better than the other for a task, but it's great to have a choice.

David got all the paper off the wall by the fireplace - our first priority, so that when Nick comes back he can see the opening and what the plaster is like - and I sponged and stripped off the opposite wall.  It felt great to have the room looking like a bare canvas, rather than just another list of things to do, and being able to do it without plugging an extension cable into one of our sockets and a work light into the other was marvellous.  We had a choice of power points in the lounge [rather than the only pair, high up in the hall cupboard, which is what Steve and we have been relying on for the last month or so], and could just switch on  the ceiling lights.  Once the tubes had warmed through it was brilliant, in both senses of the word.

David then moved onto removing the paper behind where all the radiators will go [Richard suggested that if we could paint behind where they will be, it will make our lives easier; he's right, so that's the next priority], and I stripped some more from the study.  I need to buy in large quantities of sugar soap to remove all the remaining wallpaper paste (and hopefully the nicotine), and then I should be able to start getting some paint on walls.

That really will make an enormous difference to how the place looks.

I ended the day by laying out breeze blocks to simulate the hearth; useful, as we think the middle section needs to be wider than Nick had suggested - now we need to see if they can do equal thirds across the width, with the middle section deeper so the stove door doesn't overhang the floor.  I'm planning on painting the boards, so would really prefer to keep ash off them, and if we do have to carpet [because it's too cold], then I really, really, don't want any fallout from the open door.

It's been another good day.