Almost goodbye Jef

Mon 11 – Weds 13 July 2022

Weds: I write this at ten in the evening, eyelids heavy waiting for a super moon to rise and delayed cat-sitters to arrive. We leave early tomorrow for Colonsay and another short break.

Jef has work waiting and wanted to be finished today, but will finish the last small patch of wall tomorrow (Thursday) morning. Today’s planned help was not forthcoming – everyone here seems to have, or be rubbing up against, Covid. Both he and I would rather the biggest room comes out well; a little more time is fine.

The cement board round the flue is now covered in a layer of drywall adhesive. I’ll go over the joins lightly with 120 grit sandpaper.

In between my endless scraping and sweeping of spilt plaster, pushing Jef to and fro along the wall on the now half-height scaffold tower and passing him his hawk reloaded with plaster I’ve continued assembling, adapting and fixing the kitchen units.

Turns out we’re one base unit short. To be delivered on our return. I had a query about what filled a gap between one base unit and the adjacent one at right angles to it. An email to the woman who we dealt with at Ikea sorted this out, partly their mistake (dimensions on plan wrong) and my overlooking a diagram. Anyway, she was on the ball and helpful.

There are a few small items I’m unsure of and can’t find in the instruction booklet(s) but generally all seems fine. One thing that needed a bespoke solution was fixing the units to the wall – where their fixing brackets are only occasionally coincides with a structural timber in the wall. First I was able to relocate their brackets to a different part of the cabinet but after that I started to make my own simple L-brackets from some hefty steel I’d bought for another purpose but not needed. It felt very satisfying to have the means of making what I needed…

I have an L-shape of units fixed to the wall. This is the last unit before a slot for the dish-washer, beyond which is the second carousel unit at right angles. The batten acts as an anchor for this side of the unit, a spacer to but the carousel unit up to and a support for the worktop.

So this is where I got to today and where I’m leaving off for the six days away.

When I come back the plastering will be complete. I’ll be able to put the scaffolding tower outside (until needed for painting), move the work bench out of the kitchen and build the row of units that return on the right hand side to form the U-shaped layout.

Constant use of spirit levels on all three planes seems to be paying off and so far as I can see everything aligns as it should within reasonable (or unreasonable) tolerances, depending on your point of view.

Colonsay beckons: we look forward to exploring Traigh Uamha Seilbhe (beach of the small caves used as stock-pens) and Uamh Uir (the cave of the grave-dust). If we spoke or read Gaelic the place names could tell us so much.

The super moon will bring a greater tidal range so exploring beaches at low tide could reveal things rarely exposed. Perhaps at last we’ll find razor clams?