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...