Now I don't claim to be Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen by a long stretch but I tend to have a good eye for colour. So once we'd got the wood work and wood painted the lovely shades of grey and white we'd picked I slapped a few shades of colour on the walls. A ploy with a couple of drivers - give the locals a view of what's coming with potential of their input and also see the colour in the day (not rocket science).
I'd already decided on yellow, and with a few people not quite sold - Lee included we started painting the pub. We're doing this around opening times, or around customers some days which makes it pretty tricky to do it all in one go. But one full wall done & three coats later, it looks great. The yellow goes super well with the grey, the white and the blue that remains from Peter's days.
However, in the process of decorating we've been taking the many, many, many pictures off the walls. And there were many. We will be putting some back up but a lot less - with the clutter gone and the walls freshly painted the transformation is brilliant and I'm so proud of Lee.
Damp has been a bit of a saga in this pub and the story went that a previous landlord put an irregation system in to water the hanging baskets and this has caused permanent damp in one of the exterior walls. This damp seems to reappear after a few months of painting over. Which begs the question - is this an old problem or a current problem?
Opposite the till there's a wall that used to be a window and there was a big picture on that wall until Tuesday. We took the picture off the wall and we didn't find damp, we found water. Actual water on the wall. I suspect the problem is not gone. So, back to the corporation to send someone out to actually confirm the problem is what we suspect - the gutter down pipe that's actually set into the wall. Where plants grow there must be water - and we can see fern. All being well the damp hasn't caused structural problems.... Survey time starts!