The First Few Days of the Job

February 27th – 29th (Thursday – Saturday)

The last three days were spent working. Each morning we did a bit of Spanish lesson time before heading to work and putting in a full day, as we have found that it is best to keep the Spanish words and phrases fresh in our heads. 

The progress on the entrance and hallway area has been somewhat slow, as it is one of the worst areas. We scraped all of the loose paint off, but often when we started to sand the paint that had seemed well adhered, it would start to bubble, and we then had to chase it further and further with the scraper. 

The hall area also had a lot of doorframes, seven in total, and so with the ceiling moulding and the baseboards, it was a lot of finicky, hand sanding. We finally got the entrance/hall area fully scraped, and the first sanding done. 

We applied the first coat of filler to a surprising number of dings, holes, scratches, and cracks, and then left them to be sanded later.  

On Saturday, Jason started the work on the bathroom, which was the second worst area. Luckily it was a much smaller area, but there was still a lot of surface area to scrape and sand, as it also had a light well for the skylight. 

I got started on the first of the bedrooms. It was large, and had a couple of large cracks in the ceiling, which will take some work to repair, but overall neither bedroom was in bad shape. The paint seemed to be well adhered, although there was a surprising number of tiny holes in the walls. It was as though someone had been playing darts at the wall, although we suspect it may simply have been an accumulation of holes from tacks over the many years of posters having been put up.  

Gladys came by to deliver us some supplies that we had asked for, and she was very happy with our progress, so that was encouraging.  

One thing that is very nice about having the job, is that with how little we have been spending over the last nine months, the amount we are making now means so much more to us than it would have in the past. After just one day of work we have more than paid for a month of moorage and power; it’s a big difference from living in the city.