Free flow… or not

Dark nights are closing in and already I can feel that this summer is trying to escape. I almost feel that we did miss most of it, being so busy and pulled in so many directions but that’s ok because we needed to sort out our home. And gosh, it feels like home. I really love the lights on the textured wall inside and the brilliant white garden wall which I have just finished.

After so many delays it feels that everything is now slower (a bit more content now we have started enjoying it? I wonder) and my body is recovering. How, Well I am for one sleeping more and somehow my body takes that as an encouragement to wanting even more sleep. I could almost hibernate! The other part of me that is healing is my ankle. After 3 operations and feeling sore and stiff, the physiotherapy visits and workouts are starting to make a difference and it make things that little bit easier.

So, am I in free flow yet? not quite. I am being stalked… by my two and a half year old, who is literally bouncing with limitless energy. She has started skipping many naps, preventing me to do anything without numerous interruptions. Think the simplest and quickest task and still it won’t get done without, “help”, “pipi” and the cutest one of all “cuddle me”. You can talk to any mum and they will tell you that naps are a window of opportunity, peace and quiet and time to do whatever is on the list. hum… my list or rather the one I should write since I have discovered that having one made me procrastinating more, is getting longer.

On the plus side, I have just finished staining a piece of MDF in a rich teak colour to create a work space in my soon-to-be craft space upstairs. The unit below, bright white are now sagely waiting in place for the inauguration. Nothing fancy just starting with small bits and see where it takes me… after we move another 20 odd boxes out of the way again! 

So soon I should be able to add more pictures to my blog and let you guys seeing what I mean rather than leaving it to your imagination (not that there is anything wrong with that). I am hoping to be able to write more on my blog too as things develop. Almost feels like a New year’s new resolutions list! Well cheers to the beginning of a new chapter. :-}

12 Truths about a house renovation

Renovating our house has been major event in our life in the last 12 months (more if you add the planning of it). So I thought it would be interesting to go back and select the big things I got out of it. Some I expected, some surprised me. This is a big thing and if you are considering it, read on and maybe one of these will help you along the way.

Here goes:

1. Choose your builder with care. If you happen to chose someone that makes this a worthwhile journey like we have with Simon, you will be even prouder of your house and suffer less stress. He was excellent on many levels including diffusing tension. He and his team have done a brilliant job. Just remember to communicate. So important.
2. There will be stress. Yep and that is with me being at home, able to check everyday progress, questions, etc… There is no way I would have coped if I had to work as well. extended maternity leave is no walk in the park but it has it’s advantages. Last thing is things will get very tense at the end. Everyone wants to finish. Everyone is tired. Just think, not long now, not long.
3. It will run over. Time is a fluid concept. 4 months delay in sorting out the mortgage due to a rubbish broker, delay in finalising the planning application, weather, waiting for windows… this is a long list and it will get long when you are not looking!
4. So is money!
5. Trust your instinct. If something does not feel right, investigate because chances are that if you don’t it will bite you in the bum later! In the same token, don’t be scared of improvising and experimenting. You might be surprised of the results and how good you can be at something you have never done.
6. Getting involved made me connect to the house. This house was a concept for a long time and not my idea. However by creating inspiration boards and painting, staining, varnishing… the house has become mine too. I helped. I am part of it.
7. Take pictures regularly. You will forget what it was like! It helps people you know to visualise what you are going through. It helps with blogging. It will be fun to do a scrapbook if I ever have the time.
8. Delays will affect your life in weird ways. For me,  it delayed starting a creative business. This is taking over your life and until it is done to a certain point, it will be very hard to concentrate on anything else. You will use all your holidays to finish jobs… Lots of small (and big) things that may make you feel your life is on hold for a while. The reassuring thing is that it is only a temporary state of affairs.
9. Take any offer of help. The amount of things to do is huge. Sharing takes away the pressure especially when you are exhausted and your motivation starts dropping. Go and eat out, laugh and only then go back to work. You need a break now and then and sharing the load, well it is not a bad thing.
10. Once it is all finished (well the main bit anyway), enjoy and share it with your friends and family. For me, a house is for sharing. I look forward to busy crafty Xmas evenings, Invite the ones we love to our home wedding, sharing drinks and meals with same… See I am already there…
11. Pat yourself in the back, this is not a small achievement
12. Having the house of your dreams takes hard work, vision and the odd glass of wine to keep you going. No way round it. “Simples” as the meerkats would say!

There you are. These are the things I thought I would share. Can you relate to some of these? Can you add some more? And one I have been wondering about, would you say all teh above also apply to a self build? Let me know and drop me a line.

 

Home sweet home

So we have finally moved in. Internet use came back eventually  and I can now reconnect with my life!

So what happened?

Well it has been very stressful, no way round that. No surprise they say it is on the top 3 things that will stress you out in your life.

The main thing was that the house (where we are now) was to be ready for the 31st of July (Wednesday). With a last push on the last few days and heaving with people, it was going to be tight but it was ok. We had negotiated a couple of day  after that to clean the house before giving back the keys. The thing is that the landlord changed her mind and took that away, after we had it in writing fro the letting agency. Don’t get me started on that. I am still angry about it. So we had to bring teh move forward by 2 days. No big deal you will say?! Actually it was a big deal. On Monday morning the carpet fitters turned up to fit the carpets on the first floor (meaning we could not take anything upstairs) and when confronted with the amount of people in the house said they would come back when the house was empty! I told them they would have to work with the given situation, the team of 5 plumbers was send away for the day and we just made piles downstairs. My  parents came to help as well as my twelve year old niece and we would have not managed without them. They were stars!

I don’t really want to run you over the details. Needless to say it is still a bit raw. I also want to concentrate on the now. The now being getting settled. Hum… not quite straight forward here either. Never that simple. Normally one week in we would have made our home quite welcoming and organised quite a lot. Fat chance! This time it is simply not happening.

A few days have come and gone since I started writing this post. Interruptions, minor dramas, my little princess being poorly… All added to our stress and high levels of tiredness. I will write some of the truths about doing a renovation but for now I am happy breathing deeply, standing back if only for a few minutes and enjoy our new home. No matter how much is still left to do, It looks stunning and is going to be a great place to live. So for now I will post this and hopefully add a picture update soon.

5 coats? but it’s summer out there!

Well, actually I am talking about coats of paint. You can breathe now! Saying that, when the carpenter told me I needed 5 coats in total (1 of primer, 2 of undercoat and 2 of gloss) on all skirting boards, window seats and architraves (door surrounds) for a nice finish. In my head, panic and stress as I am desperately trying to work out how I am going to fit that in when there are still many walls to paint or repaint as things get done and they get scuffed or marked. I only get evenings so it is tricky to fit it all in and that is when Adrian does not want that time to do his bit so then I stay at home with little P.

The kitchen has arrived and the worktop is now on. Gas hob. hood and sink to be fitted yet. After days of surfing the net and going to shop to find a sink unit for the main bathroom (after the one I stained was deemed to be too high), we ended up finding a company in Dorset doing us a bespoke unit at a reasonable price from rustic oak beams. It looks great, is unique and will make the room. I was quite nervous ordering it online but I have done a few orders online recently and the customer service and the products were brilliant and what I wanted. I am getting converted to buying online! Usually I get fed up with not finding what I want for the price I can pay and finding the selection out there is poor so I am very happy! Next I have to let know that company! Good feedback should not stay untold as it lift spirits and also tells these companies that they are doing things well. I guess they are improving my confidence too on many levels.

Each box I open now makes me want to start unpacking more! I can’t though as the dust is everywhere and floors are not finished anywhere. The wood is get used to the house downstairs and I reckon I will be cleaning up dust for weeks after we move. Less than 3 weeks now and I can’t wait. My parents are arriving next Tuesday for 10 days. It will be nice to see them and get help too.

Almost forgot. As if my life was never complicated enough, I have had to book an appointment with the French Embassy to renew my passport. Yep, very different system when they sent it through the post to you! I have to be on the train for 11 hours to get it. I will save you the frustration with them in the past and recently so I don’t look forward to it. But, I don’t have the choice so I am trying to think about what I can do to make the day pleasurable. Taking my camera? Visit something there or meeting a friend for lunch there? I always get nervous about things like that. That means lack of sleep before (don’t ask!) and making the most of the day when I get there. Actually London is lovely so who knows. I might have a great time even though I will only have about 4 hours to spare there.

Soon I will also loose internet for 10 days… Last time we moved, this is how long it took for them to reconnect broadband. We can expect that again! I am doing a lot of things online and there is no amount of ranting or pleading to change this. Amazing to think that at a time when technology is everywhere they stop providing this service for such a long time and think it is normal. A friend of mine moved back to Canada a couple of years ago and got hers straight away… Maybe we should send staff here to train in Canada. Maybe they have a secret recipe to keep customers happy…?? Better make the most of it whilst it is still there…

Chaos, no less

Something has to give and at the moment all areas of my life are chaotic. Not much I can do about it other than putting the hours in getting our house ready which I do every day. I have also started packing. We now have a moving date of the end of July. We know what happened? My brain went into hyper drive. I panicked not knowing how everything is going to happen in that time frame with just the two of us. Fortunately my mother in law came this week to relieve me from toddler duties. That gave me plenty of time to paint some more. I am glad to say that it is now starting to look better and I have even started on a couple of colours to create accent walls. That was so good for my tired soul!

My parents will be coming too which means that again the lifting of boxes will be shared and so will be childcare, cleaning the rented house before we give the keys back… you get the gist of it.

I know pictures are better than a thousand words. So… when my mother in law started clicking away to record how much mess we are coping with at the moment I thought this would be perfect to show you what we are dealing with!

 

The first are our rented home bursting at the seams, in packing progress and accommodating the odd DIY projects too.

 

The following is our house 4 weeks away from moving. So much to do still and the very strong temptation to take stuff over there. But floors are not down yet and there is going to be even more dust in the next few days so more cleaning than keeping stuff here, even though it drives me crazy! Not long, 4 weeks, not long………

Busy fingers

It seems ages since I last posted a blog. Don’t get me wrong. I have written many… in my head… whilst painting… they just did not make it to my keyboard!

So for the last few weeks, I have been painting, staining and varnishing almost everyday for a few hours. I am surprised I am not going to bed with a paintbrush in my head or dreaming of some! The house got delayed again but we now have a moving date, end of July. There is still so much to do though. So we are doing our bit, as much as we can and take it into turn to look after little P. so we can go and do stuff for a few hours. It is taking shape and you know you have turned a corner when you can put colours on the walls. It has been fun picking sampling pots and making decisions. Last time we had to pick a latte colour for some accent walls in our lounge, it took us most of 5 years to agree! Agree on 3 colours in the last 3 weeks is, take my word for it, an achievement. This also means that even though some rooms will be white, not all of them will be. Now and then, I get a glimpse of what we have piled up and I can’t wait to open the boxes, get reacquainted with our things. When you have things in storage for a long time (some have been packed for the best of 3 and a half years now), it makes you appreciated seeing them again. Memories of choosing them, sometimes from holidays abroad brings a lot of happiness.

Another thing that kept going round my mind is having time to think (what else can you do when you paint for hours on end?) made me appreciate how far we have come and people we love too. In the last few years, we and people we know have been through divorce, moves, cancer, redundancy, early (to the point of survival) births… The list could go on. Amazingly though, most of it has been overcome and it show how people are built to survive and cope. Coming through tough times to find an safe haven to rest and recharge the batteries. I guess this is what our house means to us. What is yours? Drop me a line and for teh ones reading this and going through a tough time, be strong and you are not alone!

Recent picture of our downstairs. A long way to go and yet, almost there

Blank frame

My days have suddenly grown longer. Everyone in the household is going through that process. At least it is easier in summertime. Can you imagine doing this in the middle of the winter? Terrible thought! I was up at the crack of dawn this morning (yet again), my brain working overtime to find solution and create hours out of thin air. All for what? so that we can have a blank frame to move into. Yes some painting could happen much later but with carpets and oak wood floor down, it would be trickier and take longer versus being actually there and not needing childcare.

So at the moment I go painting as soon as Adrian comes back every evening. Weekends will either be more work for him or more house stuff for both of us, in turn, so that someone is here to look after little P. I have asked my mother in law if she could come for a few days so I can grab more hours during the day… Awaiting a call back. Can I also convince my dad to come over to do a week worth of painting? See, if they were around the corner it would not be a big deal. But they either live away or abroad. All my friends have kiddies too so can’t ask there.

I know things will be OK. It will be fine… so I am off trying to see if I can come with any clever ideas and post this. More later.

All so quiet

It is very early in the morning now little P wakes up at the crack of dawn but at least it is quiet. For the last two days we have had sewage work in our street. They work mainly in the evening and the night before last the compressor in front of our house worked until 3.am to restart at 7.am! They have also used a resin that smells like car coolant and it is still down in the lounge. OK, it is safe but very heady and persisting. They are supposed to finish the work today (Sunday), fill the trench now filing the front of our house so we can all park in the street!

What a weird week this has been. Adrian has gone to watch a cricket match with a friend. He does that once a year, goes away for the weekend and this time will come back with lots of goodies! He has been to IKEA “en route”. Not straightforward as not everything was available and he has to go to another one today. The closest to us is about 4 hours from here so only on long journeys. I am very excited. I have been planning this shopping list for the last few weeks. I was only sad not to join the trip as I love to go there but it wouldn’t all fit in the car with little P in the back too. So what is coming? Some bookcases, fabric to do curtains, curtains to reupholster the sofa, (I will explain the logic in that next time) storage solutions than can double up as storage somewhere else later. It is all about to find solutions and systems that work. Once we have that, we will be able to put away the essential and then, maybe I will be able to be ruthless and get rid of stuff that may make someone else very happy.

At least, just a few most hours, and I will have “toys” to play with!  I can’t wait… Patience is not my strong point… This should be keeping me busy for a while and give me plenty to do at the next craft evenings (about a year and a half ago, I started a craft evening with some other mums. We meet mainly at my house and have fun. Sometimes some evenings turn to some chatty evening but that’s part of the fun too). The thing is, for the foreseeable future, all evenings will be craft, painting and so on… I have finished staining the unit for the bathroom and I am thrilled with the results. Promise, I will posts plenty of pics in the next few days so you can all see what I am talking about. I have now so many things on the go. Some needs Adrian to be there so I can go to the other house, some are fitted during nap times and need drying time, some are waiting for the fabric but are all worked out and measured up. Did I ever say that I never work only on one project at any one time? They always seems to be feeding from each other once I get the momentum going and actually, this is an important part of my design process.

Workmen are back. Noise will follow… The street will be all repaired and working like new before we move back and that can’t be bad.

Not another month!

As we were approaching the end of the month, things got exciting. The under-floor heating has just been fitted and the concrete screed (thin layer of very wet concrete) was poured over it yesterday. Apart from the fact we can’t go there for a few days and that applies to our building team, it was all falling into place.

   Pictures of our downstairs open-plan

That was until I asked the question if we could give our notice to our landlord for the end of June… silence… and then the response ” it will have to be the end of July I’m afraid. If it was only the two of us, we may just about camp back in but with a two and a half year old, it simply isn’t safe.

Of course, my brain gets that. Yep, that’s my heart that takes over and want to move boxes, set up the craft room and get back to normality. A few other things have been put on hold for when we move back but they can’t wait. The rent money would be better used for a few things that we need. He ho, never mind, what is 4 weeks in a lifetime?

Good job I have started planning for a few projects and the latest is re-upholstering my sofa, just because I can. It will stretch it life-span a little, entertain me and almost make me feel as it is a new one… Cushions covers are now done with final wooden leaf finishes added this afternoon and a trip to IKEA next week should give me what I need to start on the rest. Did I mention that I have never done one sofa cover before? Don’t worry, that never stopped me before and I tend to go for bold and big projects rather than baby steps. More fun than way… until I pull my hair out if I get it wrong. Nothing that can’t be fixed. Let the fun begin!

Putting the love back in

Good news, the cat has gone. Strange how his presence freaked me out but I was not having a good day. Things have now returned to normal even if a bit more manic. Now when Adrian comes back from work, I leave him in charge of bath time and bedtime and I am straight out of the door. Cross the street and varnish the new doors for our house. It is quite repetitive to varnish one door after another. It is also becoming quite soothing, you know, that feeling you have when your mind wander as you go because a lot of it will take hours but not enough to engage your brain. It is nice to be involved in the process of the renovation. Until now, our builder has done everything, Ok, following our brief, but nonetheless doing the work. Now, we are starting to put the love back in!

Today, plasterers on stilts will start on the ceiling downstairs. it is a huge area and this should make a good picture. As soon as my little P. decided to put her toys down and sleep, I can go and check it out. Can’t wait…

There you are, this is our new shiny open-plan downstairs. Good eh? This feels so good. Light at the end of the tunnel… literally….