DIYers Are F#*%ing Bastards

As an update to last week’s missive, we finally bit the bullet and stripped off our new paint and scraped our walls clean because of the paint crazing and then soaked and scrubbed them with dilute Flash all purpose cleaner as suggested by my dad whose a bit of a whizz with paint and brush (refuses to use rollers, he does “you don’t get the finish you do with a brush he says disapprovingly”... he’s right, but he’s retired and can take all fecking day, I’m on the clock). Anyway the Flash worked, albeit it took three hours to do... What was gob smacking though was the sheer amount of paste that still remained from the previous sand and scrub. In total it took four gallons of water, two scourers and a squeegee to get it all off; even with having painted the walls; then conceded defeat and having soaked and scraped them to remove our nice new paint... we still had this mammoth scrubbing job to do... how I missed it first time round I’m not sure? I think the original mist coat was so thin that it gave no clue as to what was going on microns beneath and the previous slosh with PVA likewise. In any event another lesson has been learned from the art of the bodger or the sneaky fucker looking to hide a nasty DIY secret. DIY is definitely the average mans school of hard knocks.

On balance it’s an all’s well that ends well scenario; the end result being that at a quarter to ten on the 10^th July the walls were dry enough for a 50/50 scratch coat, just to see if there was any other residues to worry about, and as luck would have it we awoke this morning to the manky smell of dried emulsion, that despite being laid on thinner than a final coat, doesn’t exhibit any signs of crazing or cracking... My Friday this week will be rounds of finish paint and edge filling, a final coat on Saturday followed by mounting the new radiator on Sunday and I have a tiny bit of gas pipe to box in and make neat.

It’s odd sitting here writing this and seeing the end of the damp saga... the chink of light at the end of the tunnel. One has to be philosophical: After the massive upheaval and delay that this job has caused, all the other odds and ends of tidying up will seem easy. Every Cloud as they say J