A mammoth undertaking

When Christopher and I first bought this cottage, it needed a lot of work doing to it. Most urgently, it needed completely re-wiring, as the original rubber-insulated electric cabling was beginning to perish. We found a semi-retired electrician, Jack, who spent many weeks crawling around in the attic and chiselling channels in the walls to replace all the wiring. By the time he’d finished, the house needed completely redecorating, and it was far too big a job for us to take on ourselves. Jack recommended his brother, Derek, who had a painting and decorating business, so we happily went with that suggestion.

Derek brought with him his son, Rob, as his apprentice. I found out later that this was in fact Rob’s first job once he’d decided to join the family firm. I certainly noticed at the time that Derek was giving him very firm direction! They were both very hard workers and did a very good job, so we were happy to use them again and again.

Keeping on top of the paintwork in this house is like painting the Forth Bridge – there is always something that needs a fresh coat. Derek retired many years ago, but Rob took over the family business and I hire him for a week each summer to keep the house in reasonable decorative order. This year I had a long list of jobs for him, including covering over stains from old leaks on the ceiling of three rooms, mending a broken gutter, and replacing and painting several sections of soffit and fascia on the extension which were looking distinctly rotten.

Today things came full circle, as Rob brought his own younger son with him on work experience. Billy has just left school and is considering whether to train as a painter/decorator and join the family business. Today he got a bit of a baptism of fire, working with his dad to replace a large section of my garden decking, which was so rotten that the planks crumbled when you stepped on them. They’ve replaced the worst half this time, and we’ve agreed that I’ll have the other half replaced next year, as it would otherwise be too big a job to fit in to the allocated week along with everything else I want done.

I can tell I’ve lived here a long time when I’m on my third generation of decorator!