Sanding party

Sanding ‘Party’

A new lick of paint is always a great way to refresh a space and often great fun to do - but getting ready for the paint brush can be a real pain, particularly in a hall and landing area.

When our hall was ready for a refresh, and as it included banisters, door frames and skirting boards on three floors, we decided we needed some help.

Having done the sanding ourselves the last time we renovated the hall, and knowing how long it took, we thought the Skills exchange might come to the rescue.

We organised a one hour sanding ‘party’ on a Saturday and five enthusiastic Skills exchangers arrived.  Mike brought his own sand paper and block, Flora brought a nifty cordless detail sander and everyone came with masses of enthusiasm.

People were dispatched to the attic, first floor and ground floor and started rubbing away.  There was dust!!  Julie disappeared into a hall corner to tackle a large wooden area and couldn’t be seen for white mist.  Martha and Flora took it in turns to tackle the downstairs surfaces and front door, Mike was on the top floor doing banisters, skirting boards and door frames and Monique attacked the first floor banisters, door frames and skirting boards.  In the meantime Monika made a great deal of ‘fog’ burning off paint from another set of banisters.  Masks were provided!

Within the hour we had sanded every paint surface on three floors and it was all ready for painting.  It took a while for the dust to settle but, if we had not had such great help on the day, it would have taken us weeks to do it on our own.  The brilliant thing was that as people were only sanding for an hour, they did it with masses of enthusiasm and really made an impact.

Many thanks to the skills exchange and the sanders for a brilliant hour of their time.

The sanding party was made up of Monika and Andy and Mike, Flora, Martha, Monique and Julie.

Andy and Monika on Crosby Road