Where for art thou o Flooreo?

Well.  The floor.  You may have read hope in my writing of nine days ago and you’d have been right.  I really did think our floor would arrive last week.  Instead it arrived today, and I thought I’d be rejoicing however the guy from the timber yard could only supply half of it today and - not only that - he told me we should have gone for matai instead of kauri wood.  This is because matai is much harder wearing.  Er, you cannot surely suggest this after we have waited a month for our timber.  I said, ‘OK, can you please take that lot back and arrange for matai instead?’.  I wasn’t amused. Plus that would have taken another month in all probability. Then I said that I was just kidding and that I would tell Steve to stop walking around in his stilettos so as not to dent the kauri. 

I also have grave doubts that our kitchen will not be going in as scheduled next Wednesday.  It is a bit of an art and here’s progress as of close of business today:

Looking good so far....

The contrast between door and floor

It's a long way to the other side of the room!

 Meanwhile, I received my 3 bags of joy from My Food Bag this week (I was actually supposed to cancel the delivery because I couldn’t see how to make it work without an oven, however I missed cut off!).  So far we’ve had  harissa rubbed fish with couscous and a feta & harissa sauce, and then tonight was a Japanese-style dish with chicken, rice, Brussels sprouts (haters – they rocked; try them sliced and stir fried with sesame seeds and some oil then add a little water to steam them and voila – beautiful).  I fear that the following two nights will be more challenging with a beef hot pot with a pastry top and then a quiche Lorraine!  I can do most things except brown off pastry.  I may well be swooping in to somebody’s house, commandeering their oven for fifteen minutes and then flying out again – I might leave them some pie as a bonus.

Last weekend was a good one; Steve managed to paint the main bathroom white, glorious white.  It looks so much crisper than the cream which was in there (although I quite liked the cream as well, I think the white looks better with the tiles). I’ll see if I can display for you a bit of a before and after special below.  Apprentice guy put in skirting boards today (we’ve watched him blossom, grow up, get more confident; he’s a different boy to the one who started our job).  So now all we need is a bit of hole filling and painting there and then we’ll chuck in the laundry and bathroom-type essentials (a toilet).

Left: After.  Right: Focus on the wall colour not the bottoms, if you can.  Also note that the lino to the right has gone! Underneath the cardboard Sofia is standing on are the beautiful new tiles.

 

Olivia gets in on the action, with Geoffrey the Giraffe of course.

 

The bathroom ceiling, no longer mint green!  That hole will be our skylight.

 

Steve's painting set-up

 

 And the man himself, in action!

 

 On the mouse/rat/monster we have lurking.  We haven’t caught it, although apprentice guy told me he hadn’t seen one in a few days.  I bought some rat pellets last week and then a friend told me a story about how they left rat pellets out and the whole rat family decomposed in their roof.  Hmm.  Not sure on a course of action here.

We may not have caught a rat but we have been lucky on the washing front, in that our wonderful next-door neighbour washes it in her machine.  This means we actually have some clean clothes on rotation!  Not long to go, not long to go, not long to go until the washing flows freely once more.

I leave with a few sentences describing my frustration at the lack of pace now experienced on the build. I was looking longingly at our beautiful new space the other day and I thought that what I was feeling was similar to the frustration of unrequited love (not that I would know, oh no, not me, I have never had that sort of angst – oh alright, maybe once).  The prize is so close; I can see it and imagine it, yet it’s out of reach right now.  Of course, unlike unrequited love I do know with some certainty that I will get the guy (floor/kitchen) in the end.

Good night!

Anna x