Dirty, sweaty stripper

dirty work

Yesterday I got well and truly mucky. It was the hottest day of the year so far, and I was indoors after work with Nitromors and the hot air gun again. Not together, of course. That would be dangerous. Flammable. And even hotter than usual.



for the high bits

down to the wood

The paint stripper was gunked onto the hand rail on the upper landing, and while it did it's chemical magic I stripped some of the door frame for what will become the games cupboard in the dining room/library. I didn't want to use the gun on the lower stair rods because I'd have dissolved paint falling on my head. I'm not as daft as I am funny looking.


The white paint on the doorframe came off in huge rubbery strips, and the layers of varnish underneath made lumps of claggy resin on the blade which I scraped off onto the back of an old chair I was standing on. I think I'm going to keep some in a specimen jar as it looks kinds funky.

After half an hour the Nitromors had shrivelled up the top layer of paint, and softened the lower layer enough that is scraped off easily without applying any pressure. A second thin coat and the varnish came off too. It's going to take flippin ages, as it has to be done in stages and small sections, but it's going to be worth it.

While I was at work, Two Heads was hard at work breaking up the old foundations.

The photo of the yard in the sunshine was taken at 08.50 Thursday and the big view from above was taken at 4.30 Thursday, so you can see it's a long slog breaking up all that concrete. I couldn't get into the yard to take a ground-floor photo this morning (7am)as they hadn't started yet and the door was still boarded up.  Brewie the builder says the wall is staying, as it's a perfectly good fire rated, themal, thermite, thermoneuclear thingamy rated wall. He plans to book a digger to come in on Monday and dig down the metre-deep trench for the new foundations. Whoopie; we'll be around on Monday to see it in action. How excited am I?!?!?!