The Entry Hall

Simon has been hard at work on our entry hall the past 10 days or so. It seemed like it only needed a few finishing touches after we cleared it of the junk that testified to where we stopped work two years ago (!!). But it's amazing how long these little jobs can take. And how well I remember how much I hate stone and plaster dust.

Simon sanding the graineterie (granary) steps.

The entry hall provides internal access to both the house and the graineterie, and these removeable steps take you up from ground level to the granary's floor level. In the fullness of time these will be replaced with new, less rickety steps and become a display stage.

 Simon plastering.

He neatened and insulated the recess made for the graineterie steps. We altered the original arrangement in March 2010 to make it more practical. All this work commenced so unexpectedly that he had forgotten he had never done plastering before...

Simon sanding the stone doorway between the kitchen and the entry hall.

You can see how thick the wall is and how dirty (note the gunge coloured patch underneath where he is working). Also note his ingenious coupling of the sander to the Dyson vacuum cleaner, which has had its filters removed to stop them clogging instantaneously with near talc quality limestone dust. This photo is posed - even with the Dyson attached you wouldn't be able to see Simon for the cloud of dust.

Simon preps the pantry door for painting.

 

When this was a working grain merchant's this was the office door, which comes off the end of the entry hall opposite the front door. It's shiny because it's wet - the true colour of the woodwork was the bottom panel of the door: mission brown!

 The finished room.

Well almost. Still no skirting board or mouldings, but the lights are done and everything is clean. The freshly painted pantry door looks so much nicer. We were greatly amused to see how well the new paint goes with the scuzzy opaque film on the glass.

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A la cuisine hier: Vegetarian Samosa Pie, served with lime pickle and a dollop of yoghurt. The pie is a potato based samosa filling put into a pie dish, covered in pastry and baked, rather doing the traditional triangular deep fried samosas.