Wednesday was marked with both triumphs and defeats. The day started with the arrival of our radiator and I decided that installing this would be a worthy first task of the day.

After spending a small eternity measuring up the bracket and deciding exactly where to place I set about drilling holes for it. Once these were done I evaluated our fixings I had and decided that we could use a slightly longer fixing. Another trip to B&Q it was.

We then moved on to getting a 50/50 coat of emulsion and water on the ceiling (finally). Donna was delighted to be finally getting to do some painting. In no time at all we were covered in splatters of paint and finally had some white on the bare plaster ceiling.

Ceiling

I moved on to a job I had been dreading all week: removing a 2 metre stretch from the skirting board in preparation for a wardrobe. Our skirting board was held on by nails into the masonry behind the hollow plasterboard so the job was to cut it at 2 points and remove the middle section. This was without a doubt the worst job I’d attempted in a while, all the advice on the internet failed me and soon I found myself making holes in the wall without any progress on the skirting board.

Hours passed while I fought on with my chisel, hammer and stanley knife (I couldn’t get either of my saws into the space). I managed to remove one nail by digging away into the board with the chisel and finally getting the hammer angled right to remove it. However on the second nail disaster struck and I suffered a casualty. Goodbye Hammer.

Hammer

Without a hammer I had to turn to an old friend - my trusty drill. Thankfully this was a far more productive approach than my previous flailings. Soon after most of the nails were free and I just had to (somehow) cut a entirely through the skirting board at the point we wanted to break it.

Skirting on

A prolonged attack with the drill and chisel finally lead to the breakthrough. A few snaps and scatterings of splinters the skirting was finally free from the wall. Hurrah! Although there were still some nasty holes to fill and a good centimetre of skirting board still to reduce and sand.

Skirting off

During this battle Donna had bravely made a solo mission to B&Q and had returned with a pile of screws and fixings. Elated by the success with the skirting board I returned to the inagural task of the day - fitting the radiator. I screwed the first 2 screws in and moved on to the third, only the hold was no where to be found. A bit of hunting and I discovered the top holes and slipped up about 0.5mm while the 2 bottom ones had slipped down a similar amount. Bollocks. It was too late for further drilling so it’s a job for tomorrow.

Dejected from my failure I decided to ruin the rest of my week by trying to fix old paint cracks by chipping at the cracks with my stanley knife. The paint cracks are now gone. However there are now big gaping gaps between door frames and walls that we need to work out how to fill.

Plan for tomorrow is:

  • Work out how to fix the gaps between door frames and walls
  • Sand the plaster hole fillings
  • Caulk the crap out of the room