Guess what - a week of doors!

This week has seen us continuing with the doors that arrived last Friday. These are larger, 90cm wide, and much heavier, as they are the main outer doors to the apartments.

Making the frames has been a little more difficult because now it is a complete box around the door, so our measurements have to be exact to get the correct clearance on each side of the door as well as top and bottom, also the hinges need to be fitted spot on otherwise the door will not fit.

We met with a few problems to begin with but have persevered, getting better and quicker each day and with each door, in fact by Friday we had fitted 4 complete frames and doors, built the last two frames and prepared the apertures in the walls ready to fit those frames and doors next week.

On Thursday we had a short working day so that we could shower, change and get  ready to go out to the Opera with Alex and his family.

The building is magnificent and first opened in 1810, it was destroyed by fire in 1873 but reconstructed and reopened in 1887

The most recent renovation was completed in 2007

On Saturday morning we went with some of the children from the shelter to the Odessa Catacombs, which are a network of tunnels, on three levels extending under the city, making up about 2500km in length.

We are now about to start our last week here in Odessa, so we will be trying to get all the work completed before we leave a week on Monday.

When we have hung the last two doors we need to complete the fitting of the locks and door plates then infill above the door frames with plasterboard. We hope to get this done before the end of the week giving us time to tidy up and leave the area ready for the team coming out in May to carry on with the work.