Another busy week

It is Wednesday night, and we have spent every evening this week at the house. Phil and Lou did loads of wallpaper stripping, as did Skry. I did some wallpaper stripping and a lot of painting. We all helped with lifting the old carpets (including lifting all the staples that were holding down the old underlay). It has been a mammoth effort so far, and we still have a lot of work ahead of us. But the new carpets are being laid tomorrow, so we are all taking the day off decoration to rejuvenate ourselves. It has been well earned!

Our electrician Paul has been there nearly as many evenings as we have this week. He's a lovely guy, and has done a very professional job for us - less than $2000 to add to our plug sockets (we went from nine or 10 single sockets to nearly 40, all around the house), rewire some lights, and upgrade the fuse board circuits. There's no way two computer programmers could survive with just one socket in the study, but now we have 12 in that room alone, which should be ample for all our electronics and gadgets!

The wallpaper stripping has left the walls in a bit of a shambles. Walls here don't seem to get plastered unless they absolutely have to be. Ours weren't plastered when the house was built, so the wallpaper was applied directly to the plasterboard. There is a plastered stripe across all the rooms where the top and bottom pieces of plasterboard were joined, and the wallpaper lifted off that bit beautifully, but everywhere else there are lumps, bumps, nicks, and glue that just won't come off. Unfortunately we can't afford to have them all plastered now, so we're just going to have to do our best. I bought some really gloopy sealing paint and am applying that as an undercoat, which helps a little bit, but it's still far from perfect.

At least the old carpets are all out of the house now. The place will be transformed once the new ones go down. We'll have to tread very carefully after that, while we complete (or at least find an acceptable stopping point for) our renovations, and put down lots of plastic sheeting, but it will bring the whole house together. And then we get to choose colours for the walls - that is the fun part. I am doing the two bedrooms, Skry is doing the study, and we've already agreed on colours for the living room. Check back here for details at a later date!