Sand

No, we haven't been to the beach even though it's the weekend of the summer solstice and long summer evenings. But sand features in a few of places at Hillside:

We've bought several new pine doors for internal doorways but will be reusing the old orange stained pine doors where possible, but not in their orange state! Instead we're sanding them back and then restaining them with the Nutshell Earth Pigments we used on the front door frame to give them the look of oak, at a fraction of the price.

The builders have started to render the retaining wall, hiding the blockwork that has been staring at us since last autumn. Instead, thanks to the sand, lime and cement mix, we now have several panels of lovely smooth render to look at and give a sense of the Italian style courtyard we want to create. It has a way to go yet though!

The builders tend to leave their mugs lying around in various places on site. Whilst we have water onsite, and they have their kettles to boil hot water, it seems that their preferred method on washing their mugs is by using sand! I've not seen them do it, but they've told C that sand is the best way to clean their tea stained mugs. I'm glad we take a flask with us.