The ever cheerful carpenter!

Toby is our rock! He's been helping to fix the issues that the builders who were originally contracted to do the work have left behind, as well as his own jobs. He's built all the cupboards that I've been painting, for example. At the moment he's working on the arches in the communal stairwell. He's also had to help fix stud walls that hadn't been secured properly and remove and refit doorframes ( because when he came to hang the doors it became obvious that the new partition walls weren't straight ). It's a laugh a minute some days - not!

In the past, there have been partitions on each landing, which were ripped down by the builders, but leaving behind quite a bit of damage to the woodwork of the arches where they were attached.

Toby has used various bits of wood to replace what's missing. What I've neglected to photograph and really must, is the fancy multi grooved finish that will be fitted over the grey strip in the last picture along the bottom, the one curving up over the top of the arch.

The main picture shows him holding up the very first effort at finding some wood that was already correctly curved ( a bit of skirting board already cut from the main flat part of it, highlighting why you should never throw anything away! ) added to a straight cut piece of wood of the correct thickness ( i.e. he's holding two lengths of wood together to show me, so's we can make the decision together, although I've never felt the need to say no to any of his solutions as they're always spot on! ). The smaller picture over that is the finished result. Once it's painted no-one will ever notice the difference between this one and the original on the other side. Obviously there will be more photos once we get that far.

Meanwhile Toby soldiers on, still smiling!