Well, *I* think it's cold

I'll grant that it's not -something insane, but it's definately in the minuses, and the absence of heating is continuing to be an issue. Paul turned up, as promised, with the Viva's engine - and we trundled round to the garage, Paul following. Having returned home it became apparent that the Viva had, in fact, coated the front of Paul's car with oil - it's been burning so much. But hey; the garage will be swapping head from Brick to new engine and new engine into car. They've also said they'll try and flush the coolant system (particularly the heater) while they're at it. This will give the car a much needed boost in heating performance.

Hopefully this is the final big expense until the Viva-EV project is sorted.

The cold, however, is having a delaterious effect on bathroom progress. I can't paint the radiator because the 12 hours to dry only applies to 'normal' houses where the temperature is, say, positive. I could and might attack the shower tiles some more after lunch; because, well, then I could put silicone sealant round and that could not dry too. I'm hoping the radiator might be dry enough for it's third (of two) coats. It does look surprisingly okay though, given the poor job I did of stripping it. I managed to get the edges pretty good, but I just couldn't get all the paint from the centre bits between the fins. Still, we can but try.

Looking at the space where it's meant to go though, that's good. Because it looks quite bathroomy now; just the act of polishing the tiles and painting the skirting's made a lot of difference. I still have to run the radiator pipe along the wall, and clean the floor tiles, but once that's done and the radiator's painted and dry, it can all go together. Oooh, faint stirings of some excitement.

I've also been studying the current bathroom cupboard, and, I think whole thing above the water heater - cupboard, doors, shelves. I think it's entirely non-structural. I'd assumed that it was part of the support for the hot water tank, but no, I think the tank just sits on the shelf. this is good, because it means I can remove chunks of it and then whip away the wall from behind it, and run all the pipework for the boiler without actually having to have the original boiler taken out. 'course there's still the small matter of sinking all that wiring into the wall in the kitchen. Ah, there we go, the tiredness at the slow progress has come back :-/

Ach. Well, we'll see how I get on after lunch.

So I found the positivity

I think it was hiding under the carpet. Anyhow, positivity got me into the fracking cold bathroom, fan heater enabled and pointed at the still tacky radiator. It's still tacky, but there was considerable fumeage as it heated up. I peeled off the masking tape to reveal the tiles which look shockingly respectable; finished cleaning the shower stall and washed the tiles around the edge, and the basin of the shower with white spirit to try and get the grease off in the hope that the silicone will stick this time. It's stuck along the front edge, which gives me some hope. I then polished the tiles outside the shower on the corner, and all the way round where I've put the top bit of grout in.

Definately coming on, it is. I did a teeny bit of scooping up the crap, then prepped one of the last areas that's not yet grouted and....grouted it :) That took much of the afternoon; but now there's only small areas by the sink and some of the boxing left to do, oh and the strip right by the door, because the paint wasn't really hard enough and it needs another coat.

Then, because I wasn't done being productive I stripped the cupboard out of the downstairs bathroom. This cupboard hid the waterheater (well, it did until I took the door off to put the temporary link in to the upstairs bathroom, then it just surrounded the waterheater) and other than mouldering away slowly hasn't really been doing much else. Oh, it hung the moose, too.

Anyway, with somewhat of a battle it's been removed. See, blokie blokie assembled it, then put it in, then tiled. Which was fine, except that I've run a pipe through what was an appature, and suddenly found I had a giant frame around my pipe which I couldn't easily disassemble (or move far enough to get to the screws to disassemble it). In the end I applied brute force (and ignorance) and "it came apart in my hands, guv". Some of the better bits have been salvaged in case they're handy for the temporary kitchen. The rest has gone in the front garden pile of rubbish.

After a lot of sweeping up, the bathroom downstairs actually looks lots bigger. And it's now possible to run the heating and hot water pipes where they should go, at least it will be when I've taken a small chunk of wall out. Hopefully soon the radiator will dry, so I can cut the pipes and fit the damn thing, it's terribly frustrating at the moment :-/