The scaffolding is now up at the back of the house and they’ve started knocking off the plaster – revealing quite a big crack. Manuel’s not worried though, as it has obviously been there for years and there was no sign of it inside or out as it was hidden under layers of plaster and paint. He’s going to put some form of wire mesh over the back of the house to render onto which will give it a very solid surface.
We’ve been getting lots of nice comments about the front of the house, although all we did was say ‘yes’ to all of Manuel’s suggestions. We’re very glad that we went with his choice of color – we might have picked a more faded version (similar to what was already there) but the stronger tones look excellent.
I was feeling a little blue yesterday about the building work – not because it is nearing the end and I’ll miss the builders – but for two other reasons. Firstly, I realised that lots of the things that we were going ‘wow’ about when they were first done we now just take for granted – the new laundry cupboard or the shelf in the pink bathroom, for instance. These little touches that we were in awe of are beginning to feel as though they have always been there – which I suppose is a good thing and in reality there is only so long that we could stand and marvel at the joins in tiles…!
The other thing is that it hit us with a bit of a jolt is that, although we are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel, until the house is decorated it is still going to be a bit like living in a building site AND we will have to go through all the dust and debris stage again when the decorator starts (the thick layers of dust over house, dogs, cats – even food – has been one of the worst aspects). As the decorator will be sanding all the walls back – taking off decades of layers of paint – I think we can look forward to a whole new tranche of dust and debris.
We’ve needed the walls to dry out before they could start and the fine weather is certainly helping. We’ve not been able to put any furniture back as we’ve needed plenty of space for the air to circulate around the walls and also we’ll only need to move it all again when the painter starts. And the internal doors won’t be fitted until after the decorating has been done – which I hadn’t appreciated. This makes keeping the animals under control difficult, but this will be much less of an issue now the weather is nicer and, of course, when the builders have finished.
On the plus side – sort of – we realised that we’d made a mistake about a hob and extractor fan being included in the kitchen – in fact nothing has been included which is what we had originally planned.
You may remember that we had later thought, however, that Manuel had said he was fitting some kitchen stuff. We weren’t actually that surprised when we realised that we were wrong, as, when we worked out the figures, it would have been unfeasible that he could have provided this as part of the quote. We weren’t expecting that he’d include any kitchen things to start with, it was only when he was doing the electrics that we started to wonder – however I think we heard ‘are you having an electric hob’ as ‘you are having an electric hob’.
The reason why we are quite pleased as that it means we can really think about how we want it laid out and what we want in the way of equipment. At the moment Ian is thinking curved concrete work surfaces – which is a terrible case of deja vue as I think this is what he was planning for his house when we first met. So although it would have been nice if we’d had a kitchen ‘for free’, we are pleased that we can go back to our original plans and really work out something special. We were also thinking that we might not want to do too much till this time next year as it would be quite good to go through the heights of both the seasons before committing ourselves to a final layout. Particularly since we’ll not have used our stove and it would be good to check out what impact that has on how we lay out the room.
Later today we are going out asparagus picking – hoorah! We have picked a few sprigs but saw some people with armfuls yesterday, so it looks like the season has started. We’ll be able to use our new outdoor sink to clean it!