The never-ending story of the upkeep of Risca Male Choir Headquarters Part 7
After completing the work on the new upstairs practice room, we turned our attention to some of the smaller rooms. One of these was the Wardrobe Room, where spare choir uniform was stored. There had been a hole in the roof above this room. Although the hole had been repaired there was still a lot of damage to the ceiling
To enable us to empty this room, we first decorated a smaller room and transferred all four wardrobes into it. This move has worked very well and Ian Meredith (our Wardrobe manager) has agreed that the new room is much more suitable as a storage room.
The ceiling in the old room was then repaired and the room decorated.
We then moved onto the upstairs Filing Room. Fortunately most of the work in this room was cosmetic and the decorating was completed in a relatively short time.
Our next project was the ladies’ toilet. This room had a style of its own with an avocado toilet and pink hand basin! It was also a very time consuming task considering the size of the room.
Everything was ripped out and the wall tiles removed. We had quite a problem removing some of the old cast iron pipework which was buried in the thick wall. It took a long time to reach a point where we could start to replace everything.
A new waste pipe was installed and the outside pipework made good. The water heater was then moved to the adjoining room. The internal windowsill was also replaced.
The walls were tiled and the new hand basin, toilet and pipework were fitted. The age of the building and the condition of the walls made this an interesting challenge.
During this time a problem was noticed with the heating system. The radiators couldn’t be bled. Fortunately Kerry, our plumber for the past few years, assisted free of charge with the draining of the heating header- tank and clearing the blockage. Many thanks go to him.
The rooms were then decorated, carpeted and a new mirror and paper towel dispenser fitted.
The new tiles, new vanity unit and new basin were donated by myself, and the paint and tile adhesive was donated by Alan Davis. All the other costs were kindly covered by choristers Geraint Price and Tim Stone.
Many thanks once again to Alan Davis, Chris Davies and Mike Sullivan for all of their hard work. Monday mornings at HQ are made so much easier with your enthusiasm, dedication and Greggs steak bakes.
Written by, Kevin Lovett.
