Getting plastered, and painting the town, erm, matt contract white
Entry posted by Crofter
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Since the last update, the interior of the cottage has come on leaps and bounds. The rather unusual partitions and ceilings were all framed up and then plasterboarded. I was sensible enough to enlist help with some vaulted ceilings, having learnt the hard way that a 9.5mm board balanced on your head is quite liable to snap in half.
I had originally planned to simply tape and fill, but at short notice heard that a plasterer was up on the island and available for work (his original contract had been delayed). So it was a mad rush to finish all those fiddly little window reveals etc and then watch the amazing transformation as the whole interior received a full plaster skim. It's made an enormous difference to the feel of the building, turning it from the untidy patchwork of plasterboard to a lovely smooth dusky pink uniformity. You can now truly get a feel for how the space works- and the feeling is good!
My electrician was a little less pleased than I was, because we hadn't quite finished all of the wiring yet, but it was nothing that some educated guesswork and some poking around with a bit of bent fencewire couldn't resolve. I did put one hole in the wrong place, and was pleasantly surprised to find that polyfilla does actually work, creating a perfect seamless repair. I'd only ever used it on plasterboard surfaces previously, and you just can't quite hide the edge between filler and paper.
Next step was to get on with painting- it seems to make sense to do this before installing flooring, kitchen, doors etc. The new plaster is fairly gobbling up my contract white paint, but I'm sure it'll only take a few more coats before I can switch to the final finish. The worst part so far has been the section of wall which will have the woodburner flue running in front of it. This is boarded with cement fibre board and the plaster has taken on a noticeably darker tone, which the paint has not entirely managed to hide.
It feels as though the end is very much in sight, but of course the remaining interior work- paint, tiles, floor, skirting, doors, kitchen, bathroom, plumbing- is a huge amount of work, and then there is the outside jobs that have yet to be completed.
One last piece of progress has been my electrical connection. Originally I had been quoted around £2000 for this, and the work had proceeded up to the point where the cable would enter the house, but no final connection was made. A few months later I was told that my quote had expired, and I received a partial refund to reflect the outstanding work. Fast forward a few more months, and when I tried to get the remaining work done, I was once again quoted the full £2000. It turned out that they hadn't updated their records and thought that no work had been carried out yet. There followed several emails and phonecalls to various different people, but this morning I received a revised quote which, in their words, had 'come down quite a bit'. Indeed it had- it was now for under £300, as expected. So, that was time well spent. If in doubt, always query the bill!
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