Posts belonging to Category Doing up the house

Guess what we’ve been doing again today? 

Here’s a clue:

Today’s definition of disgusting: pulling off a nicotine-stained piece of hessian-style wallpaper having used a steamer, only to be slapped in the face with boiling hot liquid nicotine.  Nice.  I’m guessing it is nicotine that has been building up since about 1975, as that was probably the year that hessian-style wallpaper was in vogue.

Today’s definition of happy:  Finally finishing a twenty-foot wall, having stripped it of every last scrap of its decades-old and nicotine-stained hessian-style wallpaper.  What joy.

Today’s plans for tomorrow:  There is the same hessian-style wallpaper in the kitchen too.  It’s equally stained, but probably includes chip fat in with the nicotine.  I can hardly wait.

Hope you are enjoying a nice seasonal break today, and your definition of disgusting today is nothing worse than the clothes on the cheapest end of a sales rack.

Happy Christmas

Hope you had a great Christmas.  I think I managed to remember everything vital in my last-minute shopping: everyone had enough to eat and drink, and everyone got at least one present!  Unfortunately something did have to give, and that was Christmas cards.  They definitely gave, and I didn’t (give any cards).  I hope people will forgive me.  Being made redundant and moving house at Christmas is not to be recommended, really.  Not to forget having an operation a couple of weeks ago.

The birthday girl managed to make it home from London for a couple of days (she arrived on Chritsmas Eve and returned Boxing Day).  Her birthday is Christmas Day. She usually travels by Megabus, being an impoverished law student by day and 24-hour-Sainsbury’s checkout girl by night (fortunately she doesn’t sleep much).   However, Boxing Day saw us shivering on a Manchester street awaiting a Megabus that didn’t arrive.  The National Express bus station opposite looked too warm and inviting to ignore for long, and less than an hour later, we were in there, booking a replacement bus ticket and drinking hot coffee.  Bliss.  A bus arrived on time, and she was able to board it with warm hands and feet, as well as a happily-caffeinated bloodstream.  She comes back for a week on the 5th January, when Sainsbury’s have decided thay can cope without her for a week, and had already pre-booked her Megabus return tickets.  Let’s hope the buses arrive.  On time would be a real bonus.

I have been spending the weekend stripping.  It was hard work, but it has to be done!  I have even persuaded my teenage daughter to strip for money. 

Wait and read on a little before you get indignant, thinking I have desperately taken up a very inappropriate new career and influenced my daughter in a most unmaternal and dreadfully negative way.

Maybe if we

Wallpaper everywhere but on the walls

 Last time the builder was at the house, I couldn’t help but get excited at the new gutters and fascias he’d put up.  I know, it is very sad, isn’t it?  Perhaps I need to get out more.  On the slight off-chance that you’ll understand even a tiny bit about how much difference a good gutter can make to a neglected house, here’s  a piccie:

What gorgeous gutters. Oh, it

Well, it’s more stripping for all of us here for at least the next week.  I will be glad to see the last of the wallpaper.  I will be painting all walls, and don’t intend to have a scrap of wallpaper in the house.  I always thought that putting paper on walls was a strange idea anyway.  Plain walls, and space for lovely pictures – that’s got to be the way to go!!

What are you thankful for in your life?  Isn’t it funny how that focus changes sometimes?  I was struck while I was recovering from my op how thankful I was for: my comfy dressing gown, my co-codamol which made me feel comfy, my comfy slippers, my comfy sofa with its comfy cushions and my (you guessed it – comfy) bed I could get into whenever I felt like a bit of extra comfiness.

I’m feeling a bit better now but frustrated because there’s loads I want to do but can’t.  When I lift even something that’s not particularly heavy, I get more pain.  I know it’s my body’s way of saying “Stop it, you stupid woman!!” and honestly, I do listen, but I must admit I am tempted not to.  I should be thankful I am recovering and less reliant on the comfy stuff and painkillers, but funnily enough, I’m not. I am just fustrated.

The reason for my frustration is that we have now exchanged contracts on the sale of our house.  Now, I am thankful that has happened, but I am chomping at the bit as there is so much to do.  I cannot begin to imagine how many boxes need to be packed.

There are empty boxes awaiting packing everywhere…

boxes

more boxes