This morning the view from the flat was like this…

At about 7.45 I noticed a brown muddy river heading down the high street…

By 8.15 it looked like this – (I’ll work out how to embed video soon!)

Jed flooding

Very little water came into the hotel thankfully and there was no damage, but other businesses nearby weren’t as lucky. There’s more heavy rain forecast for today. Meanwhile our ten Norwegian guests are insisting on their planned walk to Morebattle. Native walkers would either stay at home or get a taxi to the nearest pub!

You can see the whole ghastly saga unfold in previous blog postings tagged ‘renovation’ but for the sake of completeness I’ll provide a brief summary…

Once the ceiling was down it became clear that none of the support timbers was up to the job. Worse, most of the internal walls had disintegrated and needed to be rebuilt from the ground up and this involved digging foundations and pouring concrete. A lot of structural steel had to be used because of the low ceilings on the ground floor – the final count was somewhere around 17 steel girders and two support pillars. Main contractors John Laidlaw and sons working with consulting engineers Patrick Parsons managed to complete what was a fairly complex job in a relatively short time and we’d like to take the opportunity to thank them for what we’re sure you’ll agree is a superb job.

So here we go…

In the last week of January we asked the builders to carry out some minor repairs to the reception area. This was supposed to involve replacing the ceiling, installing some spotlights and should have taken about a fortnight. 24 weeks and £90,000 later we have, for reasons that are explained in previous posts, got an entirely new reception area. It’s been a bit of an epic and once again we thank all our customers for their understanding. A full photo shoot will take place today (we hope) and I’ll have the pictures up tomorrow.

Having cajoled/berated and otherwise pestered the builders to get the work done as quickly as possible I’ve now asked them not to fit the inner doors on Monday morning as we have a coach party coming for lunch. There’s more than enough work to keep the joiners busy until then and we should have all the doors fitted by midweek. Then the painter has to varnish them and then…

…well in case you were late to your seats the renovation work which has taken five months and cost somewhere around £90,000 was almost entirely unexpected. A minor tidy up of the front hall turned into an epic which we’re going to be paying for for several years to come. There is more work to do, but that’s dependent on a grant from Historic Scotland. We will find out if the application has been successful at the end of July.

Meanwhile, the coach party on Monday will see the dining room being moved to the back of the hotel next to the residents’ lounge. This will give us several advantages most notably that we won’t run out of dining space when we’re full and won’t have to move all the tables and chairs when we have a coach party. Oh and there’s a wee bar in there too which will keep folk happy that like that sort of thing…

Heather and Dennis Kerr from Australia along with daughter Karen and partner John arrived in typical Scottish weather (cold with heavy rain) and were presented with a bottle of our best bubbly!

We think it very fitting that our 10,000th customer should be a Kerr as it’s a local name and we get regular visitors from all over the world tracing their ancestors.

Here’s to the next 10,000 customers!

The only plus point is that the weather is so grillingly hot (for Scotland anyway – it’s mid 20s) that we can have the front door open even without the inner doors.

I currently have a painter varnishing door facings that are only temporarily fitted – they can’t be fitted permanently until the doors arrive.

Other than the doors we’re pretty well done. There’s a bit of papering and painting at the bottom of the stair that couldn’t be done last week as the plaster wasn’t quite dry. There’s some varnishing of the oak trims, there’s some roughcasting outside. It’ll all be finished this week. The editor’s decision is final on this.

Then next week the new doors will arrive and be fitted, the whole area will be painted and… we’ll be done!

In other news we’re looking forward to welcoming our 10,000th customer some time soon. Could it be you?

Skirtings and dado rails have been fitted to most of the reception area. Several of the walls are curved though and that has presented a problem. If we’d been using actual wood as in the stuff that grows on trees, we could steam it and bend it to follow the curve. Since it’s oak veneered mdf it’s less inclined to bend and more prone to kinking or snapping. But Laidlaw’s joiners are persistent and most of the facings are on now.

What’s not on is the new doors as they haven’t arrived yet. They’ll be coming the week after next and since we’re not inclined to heat the High Street that means that we can’t leave the front door open.

At the back of the ground floor the new seated area is taking shape too. The stone slabs have been sealed and will be grouted on Monday. The wooden floor will be laid either next week or the following with painting and varnishing happening the week after.

Meanwhile the stress has got to me to the extent that I’m planning to jump off a tall building. This will happen on Sunday and is for charity. If you feel like sponsoring me, go to www.justgiving.com/frogfather