Another epic day

Today has been an epic day and we have achieved loads so let's get to it without delay.

Dutch checks out his pillow

Dutch likes his new house

Lots of rubbish to clear

Much tidier now

The chicken gets her leg treated

Blowing dust off the filters

After doing my exercises this morning I went out and stapled Dutch's pillow down to the pallet and moved all his bedding over; he seems to have settled in to that already which is great news. After dropping her at school I got stuck into moving the pile of sticks, leaves and other wooden junk from the edge of the patio and swept some other leaves up from around the place. It's looking much neater now. When the men arrived they went straight in to treat the chicken, which is a pretty simple task that I'll have to do tomorrow and Sunday. She seems a lot better. After that they went into Rosie's rooms again to clean the filters in the air conditioning units.

Bekir fitting the new lights

Lifting the unit upstairs

Probably not its final resting place

I hate flies inside so much!

Kill all the flies

Taping the door up to keep the smoke in

The first inside task was the finish up fitting the lights as my new bulbs are on their way but not here yet. I spent a bit of time tidying in the balcony and decided to move the unit in there upstairs to replace with a better shelving unit to help the balcony toys stay tidy, so the men helped to lift it up and put it in place. I noticed that once again we've got a huge fly problem out there so this prompted the next task - setting off a smoke bomb in there. It went off so fast and then we found that the doors to the balcony are not very well sealed so we had to rush to tape up the doors into the lounge however it was too late to seal the door in the bedroom so that had to be shut off and abandoned for 24 hours. It was stinky!

Halil fits the bulbs he found

Drilling for the first frame

Lots of frames going up the wall

Fitting the Lord of the Rings posters

Right at the top of the ladder

And all the posters are up and look GREAT!

The men then had to head out to get better screws and wall plugs for the next task and they were able to pick up some bulbs for the lights so the ones coming from the internet will now be in spare. And now the main task for the day, that I expected to take all day, which is hanging the posters up the stairs to the roof space. They went up super quick and before I even realised it all of them were up and I had to work to decide where each poster is going to be set. I was bouncing around and so excited to see these up and done but now I need to buy more posters and frames to complete the walls (and one of the frames I bought is actually empty so yeah I do need more).

Using the laser to ensure everything is level

Cutting through the plasterboard

Starting to drill it out

Holes punched through

Sweeping up the rubble

The four holes looking great

I expected that job to take all day so I was even more excited that now the men were at least able to make a start knocking the holes through from outside Room 13 into the Games Room. I explained what I wanted and they got the laser out to get the holes actually matching and discovered the floor really isn't even out there; one hole is 1.5cm closer to the floor than the other! It was then out with the grinder and cutting through the plasterboard and then the big drill bit and knocking the holes through and I could barely believe it but by the end of the day they had completed all the extra three holes and so we now have the four holes through. Amazing progress!

Pitched the tent for tonight

Rosie set up for Movie Night

As I mentioned earlier the bedroom is out of action (and I went into it after dinner and it is so bad I had to hold my breath the whole time) so I pitched the tent and me and Rosie are going to camp out tonight. She's having a movie night with Angela while I'm typing this up and then we'll go out with some hot chocolate and have a nice night out there.

So there it is. We've a busy weekend lined up so expect another long one on Monday. Thanks for reading and  back Monday.

Plastering and electrics today

Back to it today and the men are still in Rosie's bedroom and playroom. Let's get to it.

Bekir chiseling out for a backbox

Halil works on the corner by the beam

Electrics being tidied up

Bekir sets reinforcement in place

More plastering going on

Getting the backbox secured

More edging from Bekir

Halil smoothing this plaster

First thing Bekir was in with the hammer drill chiseling out around the power from the sockets that he removed yesterday. While he was doing this Halil went up the ladder and started the multiple layers of plaster on the beam in the playroom. Bekir got the drilling donw and fitted a backbox then secured that in place before heading into the bedroom to put the corner reinforcement on the beam that is in there. Halil was continuing plastering doing a lot more layers. In the playroom the plaster was now also around the backbox which will now be covered with a plastic lid. In the bedroom more plastering and edging was done around the edges of the room, which is the slowest part of the task. All in all it was good progress today, and while they aren't going to get this task done tomorrow I'm hopeful it'll be finished on Friday.

Three of the puppies playing together

Rosie being a statue again

Enjoying the sunrise from the roof terrace

I'll leave you with some more after school fun. Today for the first time Thelma joined in playing with Dutch and Xena which was awesome to watch. I even got a video. Rosie was doing more statue play, this time sat up on the windowsill. She's having such fun with Dutch. The sunset this evening was lovely and we headed up together to enjoy it.

So there it is. Thanks for reading and back tomorrow.

Sunday working

The men were in today as expected so that means there's a bonus Sunday blog for me to write. Let's go back to yesterday first.

The men burned our undergrowth

Playing kerplunk with this one

Very happy with the egg she found

The moon rises over the hills

Rosie with her sparkler

Yesterday was a very busy day for me as I spent lots of time cleaning and tidying in various parts of the house. Angela and Rosie were both pretty sick with this cold but Angela still found the energy to get out and plant in the garden as well. One of the jobs I did was to tidy the balcony and rearrange it which was a successful change up. While I was shifting things I noticed that the men had set fire to the undergrowth, probably with the welding machine, but had kept it very quiet and not told me. No harm done. Other than that the lounge was done and then I threw myself into shifting things from the Games Room up into the roof space which was a huge task and I'm still aching from it now but I got it done. I had some time to play with Rosie and then when she was feeding the chickens and ducks with Angela she found the first egg we've had so far! Very cool! The moon rise last night was amazing, really large and yellow, and after she was ready for bed Rosie got to have the last sparkler in the pack.

A morning glow

Lifting the 7m lengths onto blocks

The men help with the swinging chair

A lovely spot for us all to sit

Before it was filled with cuddly toys

Halil sets to painting

Today has been another lovely warm sunny day. The sunrise was beautiful but I was the only one awake to see it; Rosie had an epic lay in as she really isn't well at the moment. She's slowly got better through today thankfully. The men were in at their normal time and, after lifting the remaining steel lengths up onto the blocks where they would be more in the sun to dry off, they helped me by carrying the swinging chair frame around to the back of the house to pass up to me on the balcony. This was the final part of the balcony reorganisation. Angela then asked me to put up a toy sling in Rosie's bedroom so that wasn't a tough thing to do. The men did some chopping of wood while the steel dried then they set to painting and spent a large chunk of the day getting every thing bit of steel that was not yet painted covered up. Thinking about it I may ask them to go do the grapevine frame tomorrow as well

The locust that Rosie and Angela found

Rosie playing on her scooter

Her very own design

A huge pile of wood to be stacked

Angela spent most of today with Rosie and they had a lovely day, doing lots of things inside and out. At one point I was called to see an interesting creature which turns out to be a locust. It was very large! Other than that Rosie had lots of fun on her scooter, and she's getting very good at it indeed. When Angela took a well deserved rest I read with Rosie then she played with her peg board. Outside the men had finished doing the painting of the steel and were now back to it with all the wood, splitting in tandem. There is so much wood! We may have bought too much.

So there it is. There's a chance that tomorrow we'll have the crane here and the long lengths will get lifted into place. Either way there is a lot of work for the men so back tomorrow. Thanks for reading.