2nd coat and touch ups

Earlier today, our team of decoarators applied a second coat of oil to the hall floor. It looks a rich, dark red (OK, in places). The floor has real character and sets the room off. The team also applied paint to areas that have been missed or damaged.

The first coat of oil is drying

First coat is drying. This modern oil mixture is based on an old favourite - linseed oil. It will be non slip and easy to repair. The floor looks darker than the test area dried, but I already think it looks very good. See picture above.

Oil drying time is 12 to 18 hours, so I am unsure if it will be dry enough to get the second coat applied tomorrow.

Our favourite plumber called today. He should be with us for another session on Saturday morning. Rob Hall (as many of you may know) is my hero. He sorted out my house central heating whilst I was away on holiday. He could have ripped me off, but he didn't and I can only commend his honesty and professionalism.

Chiseldon Oilers (Floor treatment begins)

Oil based floor treatment is being applied as I type. It looks very nice. The PVA repair has been removed and we will have to wait and see if it can be seen after the oil has been applied.

Floor looks great

The floor has been sanded and looks very good. Martin Goodwin helped with PVA mixed with saw dust to fill deep defects in the floor... This is how it looks tonight. Picture from the Veveri (thanks Andy):

We have £160 worth of floor oil being delivered tomorrow. I can't wait to see how it looks.

Soon we will have to mark time, as the remaining jobs require funds that are bigger than mine and the Scout Groups pocket book. We will need to access PC and Village trust funds.

Floor looking very good and ready for oil

All of the floor has been sanded. I will be in the hall from six tonight to fill in some of the holes and valleys that are a feature of such an old floor. I will do with this saw dust and PVS glue mixture.

Earlier today floor oil was ordered via the web and it should be with us tomorrow. There is a lot of dusting and hoovering to do before we apply the oil (two coats required).

Last nights finance meeting (Parish Council) didnt happen, but I am minded to invite them to meet in the hall and see it for themselves (once the floor has been treated and we have dusted). Whilst we dont have all the facilities, we do have public liability insurance in play.

A great deal of progress has been made in one day, with the internal doors glazed and hung, - they look stunning with new white gloss paint and laminated glass (complete with kite marks).

Our Treasurer visits the hall tonight. I want to see her reaction to the hall... should be a picture.

Floor transformation begins

The sander arrived this morning and the transformation has begun! In this case, the use of an exclamation mark is justified:



This evening, I'm off to the DIY store to seek advice and products to seal the floor.

So far the sander and our fantastic team of decorators have more than exceeded my expectations.

The internal doors have now been 90% glazed (we need two more strips of beading). The doors were stripped to bare wood and laminated (with kite mark) safety glass installed.

I can't wait to see the floor fully sanded and treated.

We had to do the floor last (in the decoration process), but we now have a big job dusting the newly painted surfaces...

Floor exposed!

Friday morning saw the rest of the hard board covering the floor removed. Its sat outside the hall and will be removed at six o clock tonight. The floor still looks viable, but local advice suggests we should steer clear of inflexible surface treatments (we want low maintenance and hard wearing). the number of nails removed is phenominal!

Before nine this morning the front door mat well was cleaned out. we have the promise of a new mat for free...

Ends of the stage had to be lifted up, to enable the removal of hard board. This will require stabilising.

Inside the hall, a second door mat well was found under the hard board. We will have to fill this and a likely candidate is a second door mat!

Refuse disposal and reparing holes in the floor will be weekend tasks.

Floor and doors, oh and a signed lease!

Yesterday saw the internal doors (inside the main entrance) removed and taken to Roman Glass in Swindon. Whilst they were measured, they made the return to Chiseldon due to glass removal being charged at £5 per pane.

We now have both doors stripped to bare wood and they have been primed. The glass has been removed and we have £80 worth of kite marked, laminated safety glass cut to size and ready for fitment.

The floor has half of the hard board removed, exposing the 3 inch planks for the first time. Water marks are all over the floor but I think that the plan to sand the wooden suspended floor still looks valid... There is only three hours of elapsed time being worked tomorrow by the six man team, but I would expect the floor to be almost cleared of the hard board covering by the end of the working day - ready for the arrival of the sanding machine on Monday morning.

Inside the hall, snagging and painting missed bits continues.

This evening I was handed a brown paper envelope. Inside it was a signed copy of the hall lease agreement. I need to make some copies of that signed lease agreement and need to book an appointment to get the lease registered at the land registry. This is a very important event for the project.

Snagging time

Two days of effort (by six members of our decorating team) bring us to the point where we are into clearing 'snags' in the decoration. By Friday morning we should be taking up the hard board covering that has protected the floor for years.

Monday morning will see the arrival of a sanding machine and the room should come alive as we bring the floor back to life! Our plan is to sand the floor (3 inch red cedar planks) and then treat the floor with a modern, hard wearing floor treatment.

Over night, a hot water cylinder arrived in the loft. I assume a Scouter delivered this as no one else had keys - until this morning!

This evening I gave serveral members of the club committee a guided tour of the freshly decorated hall. I also showed off the hall to Amanda from Norris Close...

This evening, the club agreed to the routing of electrics into the hall. This is very positive.

We expect signed copies of the lease agreement to be with use by tomorrow evening! Then its off to a solicitors to register the lease at the land registry... (probably next week).

If you know of a friendly electrician with a p certificate, we really need him or her to contact us and to support our efforts... Thanks, Akela.

Prime, sand and small steps to progress

The door repair has a coat of grey undercoat on it and AV lightly sanded his plaster work in preparation for the decorators. In the kitchen, the area where the old electrics were has filler and a coat of mint green to match the rest of the kitchen.

Mick (the club chairman) inspected the interior of the hall - with lots of verbal support and approval from him. He (and others) had spotted the wood on yesterdays door repair. With the verbal green light from the committee to sign, I would expect to be registering the lease with the land registry very soon.

Whilst its not much progress today, each time we do a job takes us closer to our objective of the hall being available for Scouting and the Chiseldon community. That said, we clocked up another two applied man hours...

I expect to be in the hall tomorrow from 08:30, sharing (one of my) bithday cake with the decoration team. They are in the hall for the next two weeks and real progress should be seen by all in the village.

A long day in green dale...

Post my birthday bash (last night) with Scouty chums, we started work just after eleven this morning. One objective in mind; to repair the hole in the entrance door. The Veveri agreed to pitch up and share the job. A quick measure of the rotten door and we were on a road trip to Wicks' to buy wood.

We spent until five o clock doing the repair. Each bit of wood had to be rebated to fit the old door frame. The reason for the repair was 50 year old wood that had rotten, so we treated all parts with a wood preservative that can be painted onto.

Final part of the job was to make and fit drip boards for each of the doors. These were treated and screwed into place. Skip used his electric plane to shape the boards (dont know the proper name for these items).

During this work, Akela fitted a draft and drip strip to the rear (used to be fire) doors. To make this work, the hasp had to be removed.

Dont know it I mentioned this but the club committee and steward were not happy with our choice of 'village green' for the external wood work. I was sure I had mentioned it to them, in any case we have simply taken one of the previous colours that the hall wood work had been painted in and used that colour. I have promised that we will move to white in circa six to nine months time.... Probably when we have access to other funds and move to plastic windows and doors.



Here is a shot of the inside of the hall. Things are really starting to look good.

On Monday, our decorating team return for the final two weeks. I want to see inside and outside painting completed and have the floor boards taken up. This will allow the floor to be sanded and treated and should make the inside look stunning!

Finally, a message on my answerphone from David at the Club (yesterday evening) says the committee will proceed and sign the lease. This means we can really get cracking with services and heating / guttering.

We now have a quote of £800 for the guttering, electrics still need a written quote and I now have a £3500 quote to lay 17 metres of pipe and install a gas meter... clearly we are going to need access to village funds.

Cleaned stone work in Vereri photo

Whilst the blog has seen a break in posts, the following tasks have continued:
- Plastering in ladies loos (ceiling and windows)
- Electrics have been ripped out of the kitchen
- Coat hooks have been made for fitment in the hallway

Andy just shared this recent piccy of the cleaned stone work. Externally things are looking very good. Note the hole in the right hand door (thats why it was left in grey primer).