Day 6, painting has begun

Our first item of furniture is in the house! One bike! 

The lounge smells very strongly of dog, despite all the airing. I have put a plate of bicarbonate of soda and we bought odour neutraliser and sprayed the carpet.

We are now coming to the conclusion that the lounge carpet must definitely go. Seems like the carpet cleaning was futile.

We have made a list of pros & cons about getting new flooring:

Pros: it will give us choice, we can improve the appearance, it will improve any uneven surfaces, we will (we hope) get rid of the dog smell, the floors will be cleaner, we can improve the edging (as there are loads of dirty gaps everywhere), we can add value to the house.

Cons: it will cost money, it is fussy, it is extra work for us, we have to decide on the type of floor (laminate vs engineered wood).

So overall, we will get new floorings. Priority - bedroom and living room.

We went to B&Q and we bought white matt emulsion and also the Beluga Song colour for the kitchen.

This is the beluga song colour

We painted one coat of white emulsion in the utility room and under stair space.  We learnt that it is really silly painting white on white as we can't really see the difference. Also, the first layer of coat is not really hiding any scratches or scrapes. In fact, it doesn't seem to make any difference.

Ideas??

The second plasterer came today. He seemed quite nice. He said that he will not skim over ceilings as he cannot guarantee that they will not sag in a few months time. Instead, he said that he will plasterboard over the ceilings and then skim over that.
Then he will just skim over the rest of the walls.

He looked at the bedroom ceilings and picked off a bit of artex and looked at it (see ceiling in photos below). He said it might not be likely to have asbestos as he can't see any fibres, but to be sure it would need testing.

But, he said that since he plasterboarding over ceilings then he wouldn't touch it so it would not be a worry.

We also showed him all the white stuff behind the wallpaper (see below).  He said it is not wallpaper paste, but most likely to be artex type plaster. He said that we do not need to remove it so Andy can hopefully stop the steaming. He can use bonding over the white stuff which will help the plaster stick. The main thing is to get all the paper off.

We have to decide between the 2 plasterers now, tricky as they both had conflicting advice.

Let us hope the electricians get in touch tomorrow.

Finally we need to get a gas boiler specialist in, the heating was on today and I can smell gas coming out from the pipe outside the house. Heating works really well and has improved the generally 'musty' smell in the house while it was on.

This week's tasks: 2nd coat of paint in utility area, bleach on the walls in bedroom 2 and 3. Clean window in bedroom 3.