What a difference a day makes

March 14th 2008 represents something of a milestone in terms of the project as this is the date when the hotel hosts its first art exhibition. The exhibition of work by various local artists is intended to be spread across our four public rooms but with one week to go I am beginning to think that Frank was correct when he said we would not be ready in time.

Our bedrooms have been put on hold as we focus all of our attention , all of our staff and all of our money in preparing the rooms for the big day. Four rooms to strip, prepare, wallpaper and repaint as well as picture rails in the middle rooms, two public toilets, a kitchen and the bar.... and no sign that the scaffolding is going to come down in time. The artists take the news better than I did.

With twenty four hours to go, the carpets are all down but we are still putting paint on the walls and desperately trying to remove it from the floor. On the morning of the exhibition we discover that the sofas are the wrong colour and the dining chairs do not assemble. The kitchen is in a state and the two public toilets are still being painted....and just when you think that nothing else could possibly go wrong .... nothing else goes wrong!!!

The exhibition opened promptly at 4.00pm for the viewing by artists, guests, friends, relatives and neighbours – we hope you enjoy these pictures.

Things can only get better

They say that time speeds up when you are enjoying yourself but let me tell you that it goes pretty fast when you are not. A few weeks ago the public areas in the hotel looked quite presentable but now the place looks like a building site and I wonder whether I should start insisting that we all wear hard hats.

Frank assures me that the additional work will all be worthwhile in the long run but I am not sure we have enough of a long run if we are to open on time.

The work continues and, to date, we have:

• stripped the wallpaper and most of the walls
• stripped the wallpaper and replastered the hallway
• refurbished the bar area and installed new lighting
• gutted the kitchen and replaced the floor and walls
• gutted the back room and strengthened the rear wall
• rewired the whole of the ground floor ….thank you Trevor
• got the central heating working (but only in the basement)
• sorted out the hot water supply (but not to the top floor)
• installed four toilets to serve the public areas
• removed four toilets
• installed a state of the art fire alarm system
• cabled in the new CCTV system
• removed the old fire system and the unsightly trunking
• replastered the walls on each of the landings
• condemned two bathrooms (but not due to open in phase 1)
• nearly finished restoring the sash windows
• replaced the TV aerial and wired the rooms at the front of the hotel

The hotel continues to throw up lots of surprises such as the glass roof above the false ceiling in the back room which had to go as it was in danger of falling on top of our guests.

Then the newly installed toilets had to be removed when we discovered the condition of the floorboards underneath. Leaking water seems to be a regular occurrence and just as you sort one leak out then up pops another.

As if that isn’t enough for this update, one of our neighbours decided to report us to the Environmental Health department for putting our rubbish in the back garden and my solicitor wrote to remind me that I had not yet paid the stamp duty and could I forward £26000 at my earliest possible convenience.

Surely, things can only get better?

What happened to the New Year

I cannot believe that it is nearly the end of January and the clock is ticking away the minutes until our opening in March. The repainting at the front of the hotel is now proceeding rather slowly and I am wondering why the scaffolders are not demanding the scaffolding as we have had it for so long.

The situation at the rear of the hotel goes from bad to worse as we now discover that the room at the back used to a conservatory ....in fact the old glass is still still visible under the leaking roof. More expense as we now have to remove the old and broken glass and then replace the leaking roof.

Then we have the sagging floor, rotten windows, damp rooms, leaking showers, missing floorboards, faulty guttering and a heating system which defies everybodies efforts to get it up and running. The kitchen isn't arriving till late February and our contractors have now all gone on holiday.

In the meantime, our TV aerial has given up the ghost and the quote for replacing the aerial and running cables to all rooms came to £3000 + VAT. To add insult to injury, we also received a letter from TV licensing informing us that we were liable to prosecution and a fine of up to £1000 for not having a TV license.

Surprisingly, we are all still determined to meet the opening deadline and we have even drafted in a few extra friends to help us - thank you Trevor and Gary. If you fancy a decorating weekend then you are more than welcome to join us too.

No more pictures as they all look exactly the same as the last ones!!!

Christmas in Eastbourne

Christmas has come and nearly gone and still our minds are very much focussed on the hotel and whether we ever will be open in time for March. The repainting at the front of the hotel is coming along just fine but well over budget as we find that the rendering needs replacing and the majority of the windows need renewing. The situation at the rear of the hotel is not much better and the damp in some of the rooms is entirely attributable to some nasty cracks which will also need attention.

In the meantime, we managed to remove the floorboards in the back room and found out why the floor isn't level ..... the joists have all rotted away so there is another expenditure we didn't bargain on - the good news is that the rear of the hotel isn't subsiding! The kitchen is gutted and we would have the plans finalised had it not been for the fact that Frank cannot tell the difference between inches and centimetres. The fire alarm system is now in place and we eagerly await the lighting system which is all planned for (but not paid for).

Of course we are not neglecting the Gladwyn and have already redecorated the lounge which is now looking rather nice although I say it myself. Regardless of everything going on around us, we found some time to decorate the Christmas tree and decorate the front of the building so the whole place has a Christmas feel. We are now working on the hallway and then room 6, room 4, room 3 and room 1....in that order. If we ever finish that before opening then my one and only Christmas wish will have come true.

Here are some of the latest pictures of the work in progress

Too busy to blog

Perhaps it is a measure of how busy we are that it has been nearly a month since I last wrote here. The answer to my last question was five skips and still more rubbish to go. In the meantime, the scaffolding has gone up at the front and the gardens are being sorted at the back. The kitchen has been completely gutted , the second entrance hallway reinstated and we have removed the carpets from the hallway and stairs….hooray for that.

Frank made the big mistake of deciding to strip room 104 of the woodchip wall paper and one week later agreed with me that this was probably not going to be a priority (if we still intended to open in March 2008). We have some ambitious plans for the other rooms and I have been busy commissioning artwork and collecting paintings and prints for the Kandinsky, Lowry, Monet, Rothko and Van Gogh rooms.

Today saw the launch of the hotel website at www.davinci.uk.com and I am grateful to Frank for the hours, days and weeks which he has put into this .... I hope you agree that the effort was worthwhile. In the meantime, a big thank you to all our friends and family who have turned up to help us with the project. One day I promise to create a roll of honour and include your names as testimony to your support and encouragement.

Some pictures for you too look at....

Upstairs and downstairs

Day 5 and we are now beginning to wonder what the hell we have let ourselves in for. Our initial view about the place is beginning to be tempered by the fact that, downstairs at least, the place is an absolute disgrace. Upstairs, the bedrooms are not looking so bad and the front rooms are OK although the reception had to go - just a pokey cupboard under the stairs. Downstairs is another matter and how anyone could live down there is an absolute mystery. The floors and ceilings are falling in, the carpets are too dirty to walk on and the furniture is an absolute disgrace ....heaven only know how many skips we are going to need to move this lot!

Completion at last

Getting this place was never going to prove easy but when your solicitor says completion by midday and you are still pacing the room at 3 o clock then you know something must have happened. For some reason I now have two solicitors on the case and both think the other has got the money. In fact they are both wrong because the money has gone to the clients solicitors as I discover when I start ringing around myself. Fleurets ring to say the place is now mine and the keys are handed over on the doorstep at 3.30pm on Thursday 1 November 2007. The hotel is ours and the journey begins.