Another 8am start for the builder but he only worked until
lunch-time and then disappeared for the weekend, normal for his team on Fridays. He has completely dismantled
the wall now and got rid of the debris. His poor old off-sider has to cart
buckets full of broken brick and concrete down the two flights of stair to toss
in the back of their truck. The framework for the French doors between the
living and bedrooms has been reinstated in its new location, the wall for the
storeroom put up and about half of the gib board has been fixed.
The hold point is possibly due to the ongoing wait to hear
back from one of the electricians. We need his quote so we can choose which of
two electricians to go for, and then for them to do the work. The gib board can’t
be fully put up until the new wiring is put in place. Monsieur Freitas rang the
second electrician on Friday to give him a prod.
 |
| Repainting in the bathroom |
Meanwhile, we spent a very profitable day in the bathroom!
We put the first coat of paint on the ceiling and half the walls. I then
scrubbed down all the tiles, prior to putting on a special super-adherent tile
undercoat. We will then be able to put on the wall colour. It took ages to give
the tiles and around the hot water cylinder a thorough clean. J put his efforts
into yet another clean-up after the builders, including two complete spongings
of all the floors, and also spruce-up of
the living room and kitchen so we can live in it in reasonable comfort over the
weekend until the builders arrive again and all the plastic sheeting has to go
back up. We were pretty shattered by
6.30pm when we finished.
During the morning we took time out to go to the Mairie
about our potential building plans for upstairs. They were very helpful but the
person we need to talk to was tied up in a meeting. He rang us later and we now
have an appointment for 11am Monday morning to see him. J also bumped into Mr
Antonetti and managed to find out that the two store-rooms are actually a
public part of the building, i.e. they are for the use of everyone. Mr Antonetti
said he was planning to give all the owners a letter asking them to tag their
stuff, and whatever is left untagged after a month or so will be taken to the
dump. After that, a portion of the
available space will be available for each apartment to use for storage. We may
have to pre-empt this letter going out. We figure very few of the owners of the
building (actually two buildings joined together by two lobbies and two
stairways) have made any use of the two upstairs storerooms. There is one empty
apartment, one gallery, 5 apartment owners plus M. Vargas.
Mr Antonetti is a bit of a shaker and mover, which is good
news. He is also talking about seeing if everyone will club together to pay for
painting the interior of the building, mainly the stairwell. It will cost a bit but we are keen. J
washed the windows and shutters of the downstairs mailroom – it looks so much
better. I plan to sweep and wash out the floor sometime soon.
