Day 80 - When we were too busy to take any good photos (or site management day).

It was a twelve-hour day on site today for some of the team as we approach T-8 days until our first booking and still lots to do.

The downstairs kitchen cooker in The Lodge had its necessary repairs and sign off and so it's ready for our first residential booking in there in a couple of weeks' time.  The bathrooms were also one of the final elements on the list in that building needing attention so they don't let the side down when our new guests arrive.  Our contractors did some significant works to the flooring yesterday for us and the team continued their work to finish off the job, sealing in various places, and applying finishing trim to smarten it up and to ensure it's as watertight as is needed. A day's work and an emergency B and Q run for more finishing tape courtesy of Viv and The Lodge is looking smarter.  Just a final further clean to go following the completed works next week and we should be there!

We want the outside of The Lodge to look as smart as the inside and so, in addition to the replacement paving slabs laid this week, Paul and Volunteer Andy, have been installing some fencing behind The Lodge to demarcate the garden area and that's looking very smart too (we'll take some finished photos of all of the above on Monday).

Elsewhere, in between visits from prospective partners and the return of one of our surveyors to find a couple of rooms which he forgot to check on his last visit, we had a small team working exceptionally hard in The Barn.  Strictly speaking, Volunteer Carol, worked some of the day in both buildings, with a further intensive descale of some of the taps and further deep cleaning of The Barn, including the lights throughout.

There was a considerable effort from Zoe, Alison and Hazel to finish off some in-progress painting and to remove the old flecks of paint from the floor in the Main Hall of The Barn.  They also did a further deep clean of the kitchen and then Volunteer Gordon arrived to finish off the tiling in the back lobby which is looking much smarter too - The Barn is catching up fast and with some further intensive work net week we're expecting to be quiz and booking-ready in there soon.

Paul also spent some of the day moving the bags of foliage and sand around the site back together and out of the way so that things look a bit more guest-ready and a bit less like a building site!

More focus on The Barn again tomorrow with only a week to go, Love Foxie x