It gets better

I knew that my hopes from yesterday had been realised when I looked out of my caravan door this morning and could see a pair of shutters leaning against the wall on the ground below the house’s kitchen window. It was also apparent from the sounds I could hear that work was going on on the front of the house.

By the time I got my drone airborne the two workmen involved had made great progress, with the shutters at the bedroom end all having been put into place and a start having been made on the full height double doors at the living room end.

Later on I caught them after they’d moved onto the windows at the back and it was evident that they were making great efforts getting the shutters exactly vertical and parallel to each other with identical spaces all round.

I went to take a closer look at the progress they’d made at the end of the afternoon.

The interior character of the house had been much changed by the shutters and in fact the bedrooms, bathroom and utility room were surprisingly dark with their shutters closed when I took a look inside them. Not so much the lounge, though, because the shutters on the double door at the rear still hadn’t been fitted.

Here are a couple of shots showing the interior locking mechanism that’s on each shutter and the locking foot that’s on the bottom of each one.

Here’s a shot of one of the gadgets attached to the wall that secure the shutters when they’re open

Finally, a general shot of the house’s rear.

They told me they’ll be back tomorrow to finish off. I haven’t looked closely yet, but obviously there’s had to be a bit of making good around the shutter hinges and fixings. I was pleased to see that they’d found the two bags of ‘Crépi’ left over from when the walls were rendered and had opened one to make sure that it matched the wall finish.

As the photos show, the shutters are in bare wood and when they’ve been fitted I’ll have the job of painting them all myself. I hope I’ll be able to take them off, lay them horizontally and use my spray-gun but I’ll have to wait and see. I certainly don’t fancy painting them all by hand 🙁