The Project: May 2016

Tuesday 31 May 2016

"I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison." W. C. Fields

John, my erstwhile guru and mentor, was otherwise occupied this visit so I bit the bullet, studied the internet, read the instructions and decided that I was up to fitting sockets and wiring lights whilst flying solo.

I tested the wiring with a failsafe widget and was chuffed to little mintballs that all had been installed correctly.

Monday 30 May 2016

"Hence no force, however great, can stretch a cord, however fine, into a horizontal line which is accurately straight: there will always be a bending downwards." Williamm Whewell

which might go some way to explaining the excruciating difficulty I had when fitting coving in the bathroom!!! Level? Nope! Even? Nope! Smooth? Nope! Straight? Nope!

but it looked a bit better when it had been filled and painted

So, that's the first room in the house fully completed

and an old friend takes up residence

Monday 16 May 2016

"One has to look out for engineers - they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb." Marcel Pagnol

After numerous false starts, the sewing machine - with all its constituent parts this time - was set up and working perfectly - for about three and a half minutes. It's part of island life where you can't just pop into John Lewis for parts/advice/a service. I had no alternative but to investigate with my trusty screwdriver to see if I could identify the source of the grinding noise and accompanying lack of needle upanddownness. Ignoring the online manual, I did indeed dismantle it further than taking off the moving foot thingy and bobbin whatsaname. I removed as many screws and bits of plastic casing that would come off; carefully placing them where I could easily remember from whence they came. When I got to the point where all that was left to do was mantle, I sprayed WD40 wherever it seemed relevant.

Hey presto - machine working at the right speed and quietly and all that was left at the end were two screws (which must have just been cosmetic, mustn't they?)

So, add "sewing machine engineer" to my patchy ragbag of skills!!! Now, where did I put that enriched uranium?

Friday 13 May 2016

"I like to stay home a lot. I like to do other things too, like decorate or build." Barbra Streisand

The new windows are signs that we're moving forward with the project, and against a perfect blue spring sky it feels like the place is beginning to live again

I'm really happy with the way I've been recording the construction and renovation work but I've been looking forward to having a camera which is capable of taking some decent indoor pictures which show the style we're aiming for. We're constantly searching ebay, Gumtree and auction rooms for things which are affordable, to our taste and which "go together." Following a visit to Jessops last week, I took my new Olympus E-M10 Mk2 to the Manse to record some of the work we've done on three of the rooms over the last few visits. The pictures largely speak for themselves.