Taking shape

Mental note: “Next time we decide to do a refurb – and I’m sure there will be a next time – do not start just before the holiday season”.

Sod it. The place is definitely taking shape. Where there once were walls there is now blissful open space and where there once were doors, there are now lovely white walls. About 3 weeks to go, during which the decorator needs to finish two rooms, the mason needs to tile the bathroom and the floor dude needs to sand the floor. Possible? Of course! You cannot do refurbs without being an ignorant optimist.

Have we blown our budget? Definitely – about as much as The Wolf blew coke. However you reach a point where the costs are no longer allocated to the refurb and thereby not the property investment, but instead allocated as part of the certain continuous outflows from owning a property. A US economist recently wrote an article, arguing that owning your property is a poor investment – then I guess we own a home.

Really looking forward to invite all of my readers for champagne and lobster, once we’re in. Easy promise, as I will be drinking on my own :o)

Happy summer.

what lies beneath

By no means has the work stopped,  but as we have entered a phase where the progress is less obvious, a few more days are required between updates, to maintain the suspense of my diminishing number of readers.

Looking at my blog’s stats, they more resembles those of a personal digital diary than of a social media meant to share information among interested parties. Interested parties…. hmmm…

Anyways, Marie can now joyfully celebrate her victorious efforts of removing wall paper from Alfred’s room. Towards the end it did seem as if she was losing the battle. Covered in small pieces of wall paper, she was after hours of relentless scraping, unable to loosen the grip of her wall paper stripper and walked around with a dazed look on her face.

I on the other hand, have had the joyous task of entertaining Alfred in the garden, while clearing out vegetation so old and rare, that I can likely be the first to give them a Latin name.

I cannot say I am surprised, but I have found that the proportions of an ivy, closely resemble those of an iceberg and will have to settle with the fact, that each year, I will have to remove the new offspring from its root network, likely to cover most of the city.

This week the plumber has nearly completed his tasks. The carpenter is working on the ceilings and walls and next week will be the mason plastering the walls. All in all, we are moving forward at a comfortable pace worthy of a house from 1895.

 

Building it up

A mere two weeks into our project and the re-build has started. It is phenomenally satisfying to once again see the rooms taking shape.

Starting a new task when refurbishing is always interesting. However with every piece of plaster breaking beneath our furious wall paper strippers, it becomes blatantly obvious that the task of re-plastering the walls is going to be insanely time consuming. The brilliant idea of replacing the panels of varying sizes, with one size throughout, revealed sizeable holes underneath, but after a crash course from the mason, I feel confident that it can be handled – add it to the work list!

All hardship and frustration disappeared as they opened up the walls to the kitchen. When considering the layout, several people asked why we wanted to go through all the work required to make these small openings. We were so happy to see that those openings are going to make all the difference. Can’t wait to feel the rooms when the last remaining wall has been put up.

 

 

 

I’m trav’ling at the speed of light

“Let’s get rid of some agression” the master mason said to his apprentice, before forcefully pounding his hammer into the bathroom wall.

Demolition has the appealing attribute of lightning speed progress. Unfortunately it also brings with it what seems like a dauting task of rebuilding the scattered walls into smooth surfaces.

 

 

Let’s get ready to rumble!

Getting started – week 1

It may not be strikingly obvious to the untrained eye, but a significant progress has been made. This is in part due to the amazing help of La Famiglia, in the fight against wallpaper. Nowhere are changing trends as evident as when uncovering layers of wallpaper, ranging from green stripes, through red roses and black palms!!!

The plumbers arrived on Thursday and had quickly removed radiators, sanitary systems, replaced the downpipe and hidden randomly located pipes, hurting the eyes of the minimalistic viewer.

This coming week will be foused on demolition; a task that most men would enjoy and actually be capable off. However knowing that the upstairs neighbour is trying to run his business from home, we have decided to outsource the mundane task of knocking down bricks and instead relish in joy when inspecting the progress.

The first few days

The unmistakable smell of old people was stuck in the rooms as Alfred and I picked up the keys on 1st May 2014.

Luckily the weather was good, so we could leave the dauting task of refurbishing the flat for now, and take a stroll in the naturally kept garden.

The first few days have been spent removing parts of the kitchen and starting the mammoth task of removing old wall paper. The joyish feeling of removing large pieces of wallpaper, is often abruptly replaced by the insane frustration of wallpaper desparately clinging onto the plaster.

Still in the early days, we are filled with positive energy. Having been through this exercise before, the question is how long we’ll be able to maintain it. We look forward to having the builders start, hopefully this coming week.