Tiles in place

J is finally recovered from his cold (not flu I think…) and I enlisted his help putting the tiles on to the fireplace.  He put the adhesive on and I put the tiles and spacers on.  In spite of his protestations to the contrary, J did a good job – he has always been good at anything requiring finesse and manual dexterity.

As is usual with such things, the second panel was easier to do than the first, and doubtless the third (along the top) will be easier still.  But then there will be no more to do and we will immediately forget all the lessons learned and will have to pick it up again from scratch the next time we are called upon to do tiling.

So the fireplace is nearly finished; I am adding a final row of tiles along the top, and I have bought an a Victorian firebox to stand in front of it.  Yet again I have made a rod for my back as I could have bought a fully restored one for £400 or so, but the one I bought from eBay for £35 is not restored and is dirty and a bit rusty.  The vendor also informs me that in order to make it easier to courier, he has dismantled it for transport.  Actually this may make life easier because the individual parts will presumably be easier to clean.  Then when it has been reassembled I will polish it up with graphite paste (aka “Black Lead” although there is no lead in it).  Unlike the kitchen maid though – I will wear gloves, my hands are bad enough with assorted paint colours, tile adhesive and lime plaster.

The curtains have gone to “The Steamie” (our local laundrette) to be dry cleaned.  They are dark red velvet and actually suit the dark green wallpaper in the dining room quite well, so I have decided to put them back up in there and make the new curtains to go in the drawing room instead.  The curtains in there are the same red velvet but in really bad condition (moth holes and emulsion paint) and really do not go with the room at all.  So I will throw them away and the new green ones can go up instead.