Penance

When we have lots of guests, it seems to be that you can only find time to do the light day to day chores such as shopping, laundry and cleaning the house. Our lives might seem quite peaceful and serene, but when it comes down to just the two of us, we are working harder than ever.

Latest big project have been to do the ceiling beams throughout the house and the shutters. So allow me to bore you with our day to day thrilling adventures in house repair.

While in most parts of the world, that would seem not too challenging, but in Paros it is quite something else.

With the beams, one must treat them with woodworm poison, stuff that is extremely toxic and can cause blindness and nausea if it gets in your face or eyes. So, with goggles and rubber gloves, it was injecting this stuff via industrial syringe into the problem spots and then painting over all the beams. This stuff is no laughing joke about the toxicity. A close friend of a friend apparently went blind in one eye because of this stuff; so I basically panicked every time a bead of sweat got between me and my goggles. Second, you must fill in the huge cracks and spots with wood spackle. Third, you sand it down. Fourth, you paint, all the while doing this from a shaky ladder that would probably buckle under the weight if I was 50 pounds heavier.

The difference

End result

While I did the ceiling beams, Jen made quick work of dismantling all the shutters, sanding, and giving them two good coats of paint. I had the fun job of ripping out old hinges that were rusted beyond repair and spackling the holes. 

The end result, really makes the house look well taken care of and spectacular. 

And of course, no work would be complete without the help of Loulou by dragging away dropcloths, eating paint chips and running away with screwdrivers.