Woke up at about 5AM with a most horrendous cough, I thought it was getting better not worse, I could hardly breath and my throat was hurting like hell. I drank about half a bottle of cough medicine, it didn’t cure the cough, but at least it made be sleep through it.

So I started at 11AM. Managed to get the radiator screw things undone. Just unhooked it and laid it down, but in the end decided it was easier just to get the bloody thing out of the way, so I drained it and put it outside. As most of the wall behind the radiator hadn’t been covered in industrial whitewash I decided to steam it. This took a couple of hours but at least I could do it all in one hit. So by about 3PM I’d done behind the radiator, got some rather sticky stuff off the corner of another on and removed the backing paper along the top bit of coving, all with the steamer. I’ve decided I’m just going to sand down the rest of the coving as it’s not too bad.

Had lunch, picked up the dog poo. (Didn’t combine these tasks.) Jamie then got up.

I then put the kling strip on the one remaining wall behind the book shelf and covered it all in cling film. Put the radiator back on the wall and tidied everything up. Shipped a load of stuff out to the garage, which is now turning into a massive junk dump. Bottled the Shiraz. Five fairly full bottles, just drinking the last little bit out of the demijohn now. For a red wine it’s very nice, I don’t feel it would be better on chips.

So that’s it, done for the day. Bath time. Looking forward to the cough coming back later no doubt. So next week, it’s on to paint stripping the wood and start prep-ping all the surfaces. I reckon with sanding and neutralising it’s about a three week job. Then when it’s all stripped down, it’s time to start building it all back up again. Job for another day.