Success. We achieved our goals for today. This is this first day in this DIY sprint that we have acheived that and potentially the first time in my adult life.

We started the day with a blitz of sanding. Round the ceiling we went sanding down the polyfilla holes and cursing our inabilities to sand them flat. In my time away from DIY I seem to have lost the ability to polyfilla well and instead leave massive clumbs that take an age to remove by hand - and all out destruction with the electric sander.

Once the ceiling was clear I decided to attack the plaster with the electric sander. Last night we decided to leave a heater on over night in the room and that seems to have really helped the plaster dry with now just a couple of small patches remaining cold and a little soft. When they were sanded I decided my thirst for sanding wasn’t fulfilled and I kept the electric sander vibrating away while I went round the skirting board. Filling the room with a thick cloud of dust.

Sanding

Donna made the smart decision to spare her lungs and eyes and venture to Tesco for supplies while I sanded my way through the room. She rewarded us both with a fry up for lunch to mark a productive morning (I say morning - it was 3pm).

We both moved on to the painstalking job of sanding the tops of the skirting boards - where they meet the wall. In this room we had found that these joins were plagued with cracks and chips so this job was going to be long and tedious. The day trickled on as we sanded away to the sound of Ke$ha and Disney classics.

When we’d finally completed the room loop Donna had the chance to take her starring role. It was finally time for the caulking. After some disastorous attempts by me in the past Donna is now the only person allowed to caulk and caulk she did, leaving a nice clean rim around the room.

Caulking

After a break for tea (dinner - for those of you not from the greatest county in the world) we got some paint on the ceiling. We were rolling pretty late, past midnight. So I sincerely hope that our neighbour upstairs wasn’t in bed otherwise he may have heard some creepy noises from below.

Paiting

We await tomorrow to see if we have to lay a second coat on.

Plan for tomorrow is: