Not Yet Floored the Floor ...

I've been thinking a lot recently about people and what events in their lives shaped them to be the way they are, while leaving certain impressions on others. I've also been thinking about what happened in their lives, for them to do the things they do.

Each time we work on the shop, I can't help thinking about it's former owner. About her experience as a shopkeeper in a small country town as ours. Why she carried out certain renovations to the building, and how she coped with multitudes of maintenance jobs, while conducting day-to-day business transactions.

One of the many changes / renovations we have made to the shop is lifting up the ceramic tiles that were on the floor of the main restaurant area. Our intention is to "industrialise" the floor, by taking it back to cement, finely sanding and then applying a non-slip, transparent finish. The Machinist hired a floor sander, but as he suspected, the equipment didn't address the problem, as patches of paint (not necessarily floor paint) and tile adhesive melted and stubbornly, would not budge when the heat / friction of the sanding pads were applied. After a couple of hours of sanding, chipping paint, blisters and choking on adhesive fumes and cement dust, we still faced this:

As a result of the trevail, the Machinist disappeared for half an hour and returned with his own contraption: his trusty Hilti drill, fitted with a long rod with a 150mm chisel on the end. For removing paint only, he also made up a long-handled chisel; with ultra-sharp tip.

And if this doesn't seem enough hard work, here are a few pictures of the old restaurant, fully gutted, awaiting a completely new look: