25 July 2007

The second week ...

......of renovation came and went and with it any romantic ideas I might have had about “rebuilding” an old house. The rain has been coming down in buckets and it’s warmer outdoors than inside. My youngest daughter had her best friend visiting and my eldest buried herself under four blankets reading the latest ( and last) Harry Potter novel emerging only for dinners book in hand. We are still on schedule but the fun sort of went out of it - for me. The first week I mostly carried stuff around and was a general helper and had time to sit and watch the corn fields and sipping wine in between carrying board and shovel isolation. This week I had a task that was all my own ….After the bedroom floor was in place the roof and walls were to be painted. That, my friends were my assignment! Not much you may think but the roof is raw board and was to be cleaned with a steel brush and then painted. The cleaning alone took me two days and I had acing muscles I didn’t even know existed. I went from being a happy “house owner” to being the bitch from hell cleaning the roof with my steel brush and muttering to my self “this is what you have hired help for” A villa in the south of France suddenly seemed very tempting. Knowing that I had the walls to paint when the roof was finished didn’t make my mood any better either. But everyone else was working so hard that I felt really bad about complaining so I grinded my teeth and kept on….My husband, who is a kind and wise man read the smoke signals coming from the muttering dragon in the next room and called in the “helpers” and packed me of to town. So my sweet parents came with promises of having the walls painted in no time and I went to town to restore my sanity with a long hot, luxurious soak in the tub.

So this week I learned the hard way that I do so NOT like to paint! At least not anything bigger than a small table or chest of drawers found at a jumble sale. And tomorrow I just might do some felting, or embroidery or sewing or….


In the wee hours of the morning the bedroom floor was finished. And the next day my assignment was to start...

When you hit your hand on the raw board for the twentieth time the language isn`t beautiful...


No I didn`t get totaly looney and fled the country for a warmer continent. We celebrated my youngest daughters birthday with a quick trip to a nearby Zoo


Can you hear teeth grinding ?



We have thousands of baby toads in the garden and my daughter ( knowing that I love frogs) captured some of them trying to cheer me up while I was painting....


But cleaning walls and roof isn`t a total misery. I found some old wallpaper ans newspapers hidden under the wall and I just might try doing something creative with it....






3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hello Jeanette, sounds like you are having a love/hate relationship with your renovating! Don't lose sight of the big picture and step back and admire your, ever so lucky, find from time to time....it will be so rewarding when you're done. Seems to me like you're moving along quite quickly...good on you and the "hired help". I've found when you are doing a big project you need to look behind at what you've accomplished rather than ahead at what needs to be done. I started a large garden from scratch and this was so helpful to me. I dug by hand every last GIANT garden bed and I think I would have given up if I didn't look behind to see the MOUNTAINS of earth I had already turned. As to painting, my dad is a painter and the secret seems to be to load your brush quite heavily and you will get a much smoother and quicker job.
I hope all goes well this coming week and everything works out as it should...you will need to go back to work for a rest!
Thanks for all the lovely photos,
Angela.

Anonymous said...

Hej Jeanette,

Vilket underbart hus du har köpt, jag tror jag blir avundsjuk, jag älskar och renovera och göra det som jag vill ha det. och allt lantligt och shabby chic kommer att bli perfekt i huset och runt omkring. Lycka till

Varma hälsningar
Sanne/homeweethome

Anonymous said...

hi i have some toads in my sandbox babies and one the same size as the one in the pic and i also found some eggs (4-6) some are hatching and i want them for a science project can you tell me what they eat?