A few small jobs

Last weekend I managed to get around to doing a few small jobs. A couple of things were annoying me - not just because they hadn't been done yet, but because there were boxes of stuff lying around and I wanted to get rid of them. The first job that needed doing was the fire extinguisher. I don't know how many times I knocked the box with the extinguisher over. We had a bit of trouble deciding where to put the thing at all (we have a small one in the kitchen, so it didn't necessarily have to go in there too). In the end we decided to put it on the back of the chimney stack - i.e. in the corridor between my office and Eileen's room. It is now pretty much hidden from 'normal sight' (come to think of it, maybe that isn't such a good thing) but it is still easily accessible. Hopefully we'll never need it, but as they say, it's better to have it.

Another job - or rather two jobs - that badly needed to be done were the lights on the outside. Uli had left two cables through the insulation on the outside, so all that really had to be done was to install the lights themselves. One of the lights was a sensor light, which only comes on if (a) it is dark enough and (b) somebody passes by the front door. The problem here was that I had to turn off the electricity at the fuse box as there was no switch (with a sensor you don't need a switch). Once I figured out which fuse it was, it was quite easy to install the light. The other light is to the left of the balcony door (looking in). Luckily, there is a switch there, so I didn't have to turn off the electricity - just the switch. The light itself was pretty much the same as the one by the front door (except for the sensor) and so it was equally simple to install. The end result is quite nice, I think. The bulbs are E27 800 Lumen LED - both 11W. I don't imagine they'll be on all that much - although in summer, if sitting outside, it could be on for quite a while on some nights.

Electrics, planning and a polish blacksmith

We are still not completely finished with the electrics. As I wrote in the last post, we are running on two of three phases - which is entirely possible and plausible thought not desirable. We want all three. Plus, I'm not sure whether or not the damage to the existing (and hidden) main cable is limited to one or two phases. For peace of mind, the replacement cable needs to be installed. This morning I tackled the job of threading the cable into the main fuse box. This was in no way easy. The cable itself is too thick and stiff to thread through the small hole, so I had to strip the protective insulation skin off it and de-tangle the five wires. I could then thread each wire individually through the hole. After a lot of pushing and shoving I finally got it through. Thus, it should now be relatively easy to actually connect up the replacement cable.

As well as that, I just ordered more linseed oil varnish - the same colour as what I used on the beams in the kitchen and in Eileen's room and the guest room (a kind of reddish brown). The idea is that I will varnish a leftover beam (it needs to dry first). Then I will fix it to the wall in the corner of the kitchen (vertically, floor to ceiling). Then I'll bore deep holes into it every thirty centimeters - the idea being that a wine bottle could be pushed in to the hole and it should stay suspended in the air - almost horizontal, but not quite - so the cork is covered with liquid and doesn't dry. The leftover beam I have is not quite long enough, so I'll have to join it to another beam. Then I'll need to figure out how best to fasten it to the wall. If it works, we'll (a) hide the gap between the white wall and the brick wall in the kitchen and (b) get ourselves a useful wine rack.

Sandra ordered a metal tree from a polish blacksmith. I was a bit sceptical of the whole plan, but when the piece came, it was clear that it was quite good quality. It is a kind of a clothes rack, shaped like a tree. It had five metal rings through which screws fasten the whole thing to the wall. It took me about five minutes to fasten to the wall - thanks to the Makita drill with hammer action.

Lastly for today, we're still planning the gallery. As well as the linseed oil varnish, I bought 20L of whitewash for the brick wall at the back of the gallery. I have to scrub the wall with a wire brush first, to remove all the loose dust. Then I'm going to point it - roughly the same as the kitchen. Then I'm going to paint it white. It needs to be painted because there are too many bad bricks and gas concrete bricks in it. Hopefully, they'll all disappear underneath the whitewash and I'll be left with a nice white brick wall, with blackened beams crossing it. We'll see...