warmth

As would be expected, big plans for painting and cleaning up fell through when I fell ill. However, we have made some big, big progress on the fireplace, thanks to one of L.'s many cricketing contacts. A bit more expensive than Shaun-the-plasterers work, but all this is two days! Hopefully the overwhelming smell of drying plaster will lessen before tomorrow's Thanksgiving feast...

In the very beginning (mostly for Lukas's sake, so he'll stop asking me why we had to take in down in the first place):

From Briar Crescent

After L.'s demolition work last week:

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Cleaned out (I was tempted to keep it like this):

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Nixie's work, end of Day 1:

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Nixie's work, end of Day 2 (plus L.'s expert arranging):

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Not quite the roaring flames L. was picturing when we first began... but still very nice:

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Advances for the feet

Last weekend we made a bit of a impulse buy. We were going to get the shopping and noticed a carpet place in the same shopping area. We'd been talking about carpets, dreaming about the day when we could walk in our socks upstairs, should we so choose, our toes cushioned by something nice.

The carpets were 20% off, so what could we do? The chap came to measure on Tuesday and the carpet was laid on Friday. It's not the woolly glory I was picturing, but it's still amazing. And has turned us into truly responsible decorators. Today's task is painting our bedroom (yes, painting after carpeting--it was an impulse buy). New carpet was covered with old carpet, which was covered by plastic, which was covered by boards. Then the edges were very carefully taped. A far cry from last week's painting of the lounge, when paint was allowed to splatter more or less where it pleased. Tomorrow will reveal if these efforts were enough....

Upstairs bedrooms on Friday morning:

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

Three hours later:

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From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

Of dignity and delivery

One of the biggest problems living in Our Little Work in Progress has been the sheer amount of dirt, dust and paint that ends up on our clothes. Being (until today) washing machine-less, we've been forced to enter the real world looking scruffy. However, we've reached the end of our rope (and of moderately clean clothes supply), so today we gleefully headed to Curry's to pick ourselves up a washing machine.

It was glorious going up and down the aisles, testing doors and buttons. The Curry's saleslady was very pleasant. We settled on one we liked. And then the trouble began. Model was not in stock. Model was not in stock at other Exeter branch. Model could, however, be delivered. For a small sum of 9.95 GBP. Unless, of course, we wanted it before the 25th of November. In that case, we could get 'Express Next-Day Delivery' for a mere 19.95 GBP. Except, of course, it wouldn't be next day as it was after 2 pm. In fact, it wouldn't even be the day after next. [By this time, L. is a bit red and pacing. I, of course, am calm and cool]. Instead, we could look forward to 19.95 delivering our washing machine four days later.

Could Curry's not see the dust on my bum? The dirt on my elbows? The paint on my hem? And my thumb! Surely the sheer sadness of my bum thumb would move them? No such luck.

We pondered, we paced, we contemplated the sheer ridiculousness of 'Express, Next-Day Delivery'. In sum, it was too much. We gathered our credit cards and fled to Tesco to drowned our dirty sorrows in wine, pizzas and ice cream (yes, it was that serious). And what should we find at that most amazing of stores? Not only wine, pizzas and ice cream, but a beautiful, slightly cheaper washing machine, in stock and ready for us to take away tonight! Amazing! So, the day ended with a positive, soon to be much cleaner conclusion.

Appeased?

Well, the kitchen gods exacted their sacrificial flesh last night by means of a carnivorous vegetable peeler. Hopefully, the opening ceremonies are over and no more blood will be demanded.

From Briar Crescent

(Poor thumb--and on the first peel, too! The gruesome details involve a surprisingly large chunk of the tip, searching around for the peeled bit of flesh, a trip to the hospital with an appropriately concerned L., massive bandage, ice cream to ease the pain, and now many lectures on appropriate peeling techniques.)

Regarding the kitchen

I write this from our completed kitchen! Well, completed minus a little bit of trim painting...

How did we achieve this huge step forward, you might ask? With the 'worst storm in ten years' brewing outside on Friday night, L. and I made a last minute run to stock up on paint and then commenced a major painting session, ending with our exhausted falling into bed at 2.30 am. It was well worth it, because on Saturday, all we had to do was the second coat of touch-up, wait for it to dry, and then convince the upper cabinets that they really did want to go back on the walls.

This order of events was only slightly interrupted by an early-morning phone call from Barbara-the-Neighbour which informed us that our fence was flapping wildly in the wind. After several thwarted attempts to control the fence (goodbye, ugly flower pot), it was finally secured. The big bonus was that Barbara must have taken pity on our poor cold fingers and brought over a steaming bowl of stew for us later. Glorious!

Even more gloriously, we can now cook our own stew in our most beautiful of kitchens.

Kitchen before (admittedly, not too bad--though the green-blue was much more overwhelming than is shown in the photo):

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Kitchen during:

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From Briar Crescent

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Kitchen now, in all its glory:

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From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

And finally, the hotpad that I created months ago from a holey pillow case in anticipation of this, hanging in its rightful place:

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Happy things

Previous posts might lead one to believe we're not enjoying ourselves, but please, do not be deceived! We are having a great time. Including:
Nice creamy pasta made on our most beautiful of stoves:

From Briar Crescent

Relaxing with a bit of wine, grapes and cheese in the lounge:

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And starting to plan (and discuss heatedly) the decorating plans:

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[I love the shade, although we didn't quite realise the material it was made out of, resulting in 'Well, bummer! It's plastic!' when it was unwrapped]

De-dusting

Now that we've officially moved in, two main concerns have presented themselves:

1. Everything's in boxes! And, unfortunately, our packing style is haphazard at best....
2. We're reluctant to unpack boxes considering the sheer amount of dust & dirt still filling the house.

So, in an effort to speed the unpacking, we've tackled the living room floor. Phase 1 was undertaken with a naive optimism and consisted of hand mopping. The result seemed suspiciously as though the dirt had merely been spread around.
Phase 1 results:

From Briar Crescent

For Phase 2, we were better prepared: new mop, multiple mop heads and sparkling wine. L. and I worked out an assembly line--L. mopped a foot-square area, brought the mop to me, I put on new mop head, L. mopped, I cleaned the old mop head. Rinse & repeat. The results on our test area were promising, so Phase 2 was a larger-scale implementation of the processes trialed in Phase 1, with the addition of scraping off by hand the large clumps of plaster and pulling out extraneous staples and nails.
Phase 3 results:

From Briar Crescent

Now, it might not look like much, but we can actually see the floor now. And I'm sure the air is cleaner already....

Big progress and new additions

Thursday's post reflects the despair of being abandoned, but today's post is all good news. The plasterers descended on Friday, and by the end of the day, the living room was bare bricks no more, the ceiling had been fixed in the kitchen and even the living room ceiling had been skimmed! Incredible! These men are machines! Tea-guzzling machines! And their work is beautiful. The walls are so lovely and smooth and flat.

Even better, L. has apprenticed himself out to the plasterers and seems to have really mastered the art of bonding. I am well impressed and hoping he'll get the hang of skimming so we can redo the hallway soon...

The plasterers found time for us today, so we have two guys here madly trying to finish things off. The downstairs looks like it's almost done, so it looks like we'll be painting next weekend! (Now, if only L. and I can agree on the colours....)

But the biggest news of the weekend is that we've officially moved in. Every last bit of our worldly possessions are piled around us in our lovely, very-shabby chic home. Also, we went to the Recycling Centre shop on Saturday and found not one, but two beautiful dressers (one with a ship!), a chest of drawers and a lovely little cabinet. They were all delivered the next morning for a mere £14. Reusing couldn't have been easier.

Lukas's handiwork:

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The state of the living room:

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Recycling family portrait:

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Close-up of the ship:

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Charting progress

Yesterday ended on a high--we went to the house, and Sean-the-plasterer had finally done something besides loose our keys. In fact, he had plastered the whole of Bedroom 1. This morning, predictably, took a dive. Sean-the-plasterer is our plasterer no more. So, today was spent madly scrambling to find someone who could come in to plaster ASAP. We seem to have found a team for tomorrow, but from then, they're 'booked up 'til Christmas', apparently. Bare bricks are stylish, no?

The gas central heating chap came by to collect money, connect the last radiator and talk us through our amazing boiler and control box. I do like to be warm, and I think I scared both GCH chap and Lukas with my gleeful excitement. ('WOW! It's warm! That's AMAZING! The radiators are beautiful, don't you think?')

Also, we set up Bedroom 1 so we could move into it on Sunday according to plan. Of course, we were planning on having it painted before we moved in, but at least the bare plaster is about the same colour that Lukas is pushing for on the walls.

Freshly plastered:

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

Ready to move into, council estate style:

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From Briar Crescent

The inevitable crash

As one would expect from the manic past few weeks, the crash has come. Just a momentary one, I'm sure. We got used to things moving so quickly and significantly (electrics--necessary, heat--necessary), but now we seem to have stalled in the superficial (plastering--necessary?). For two whole days we've been waiting for some progress beyond bags of plaster piled in the living room. For two whole days I've shown up at the house, camera in hand, excited to see the progress. Yes, I realise, only two days. Tomorrow, undoubtedly, things will be better.

Thinking ahead

While we're not quite at the stage to be putting up light shades, now is the time to start collecting things, it seems! (Ingenious ideas found on Apartment Therapy, original site, Das rote Paket)

[White plastic flower pots]

[Tennis racket]

[Bits of paper]

All about the fireplace

The fireplace dominated our weekend. Being too cheap to get the professionals in (and mostly convinced that it isn't really asbestos), we stocked up on rubber gloves, masks, duct tape, and google. The major linchpin in our de-asbestos-fying plan was, of course, the disposal of the suspect material. Fortunately, the local recycling centre accepts certain kinds of asbestos by prior arrangement. 'Prior arrangement', it turns out, is a quick and easy call to receive specific instructions about the bags to be used (two plastic bags, heavier than your standard-issue rubbish bags and securely sealed) and to establish which day we'll be coming and what our car's registration number is.

The actual tearing down of the backboard was a bit of a let down. I expected pieces flying around dangerously and fibers dancing in the air. Instead, it was a relatively simple procedure, with the board coming apart in only a few pieces. Board was placed in bag, which was securely duct taped and then placed in another bag, which was duly duct taped as well. The double bagging and hurried taping definitely made the disposal more satisfying. Which is good, because dropping the waste off was also surprisingly easy. They didn't even double check our registration number!

Lukas and I debated all through this process whether we wanted to put the gas fireplace back in or have an open fire. Lukas, it turned out, had his heart set on this roaring open fire. You can imagine his profound disappointment, then, when not one, but two of our builder friends promptly crushed his plans with the definitive, 'Oh no! Open fires are definitely not allowed in current health and safety regulations.' Poor Lukas.

And it was poor Lukas this morning as well when we drove half an hour to pick up a fireplace surround I'd bought off ebay for a killer price. I'll not bore you with the details as the entire incident can be boiled down into three sentences: 'That'll never fit in the back of the car!' 'Of course it will!' It did....eventually....

Asbestos?

From Briar Crescent

From Briar Crescent

Completely cleared

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...but sadly not destined to be an open fire

From Briar Crescent