Something new - video blogging

So much easier than a large flowery description and a gazillion photos.
Here's the lounge:

arggggguuuurrrrrh!

Note: I wrote this post yesterday (Thursday 19th April) and it was longer than this one now but Blogger ate it and I thought it was lost forever. Surprisingly it was in my drafts when Blogger allowed me to log in again today so here it is. It's not in it's entirety - there were a couple more paragraphs at the end but I am looking at the positives here (see below :-) ) and just grateful that 85% of it remains!

That title has been coming out of my mouth fairly often this week. It does not even deserve a capital letter as it's a negative noise and I need to get over myself and perk up.
I think I am becoming more kiwi as the days go by. I hope, in some ways, I am. That laid back attitude and ability to pick yourslef up and get moving right along is something I admire hugely...given the right situation.

So apologies, my little blog, for neglecting you. I've been meaning to swing by and pay you a visit and leave you some words but it just hasn't been happening.

Here's an update:

Decorating is on to Plan B....possibly even Plan C by now.

The stripped walls in the lounge are un-smoothable. No amount of sanding is ever gonna get those suckers smooth. So we are looking at getting it skimmed. Which means tradesmen. And waiting. And being stood up. Do these people not want my money?! Luckily, NZ tradesman are a better breed than some others I have met. The one that stood me up at lunchtime called back an hour after I left a 'where are you?' message with his receptionist and apologised. We shall now be getting up at an ungodly hour tomorrow to see him before going to work. (You can guess how grumpy I will be if he doesn't show this time can't you?). The one that didn't call me at 8pm last night as promised called at 8pm tonight instead - again with apologies and will be coming to quote on Saturday.
Once we know how much it will cost we can determine if we will have a redecorated lounge anytime soon or if we will be facing gibboard and wallpaper paste marks for the next few years.

The good to come out of all of this is that the dining room is painted. Two coats thank you very much. All good (we didn't have to strip wallpaper in there as it was in a decent condition). Now we just have to clean up the skirting/cornicing and we will be good to go.

Work in progress photos are generally being put here. I am too lazy tonight to wait for Blogger to load them so you will have to click to view this time :-)
And the hunt is on for a rainbow chandalier similar to this one. I may have convinced (heaven knows how) G that it is a good idea and I want to get moving before he has a chance to change his mind. I also ordered curtains and blinds today too. Because we can't sit here with the old ones pinned up with drawing pins forever.

Busy Bees

Wow - what a week. It's been a busy one that's for sure. Between us we spent 4 nights away from home (2 each) and I drove about 800kms. We've tried to spend all weekend catching up on....sleep, housework, washing, home cooked meals, each other, decorating, TV and the list goes on.

Hopefully this week will be a little easier. No overnights this week and with Easter Friday it's a 4 day week. Never have I needed a 4 day weekend more!

The decorating isn't going as fast as we would have hoped. We are STILL stripping wall paper in the lounge. Must be about 75% done now. Then we need to sand, prime and finally paint.

We've picked the colour and are trying to sort out new curtains. I think it's fair to say we won't be finished over Easter as was the original plan. But we are definitely planning to be done by the end of April as it's starting to get colder and stripped walls make me feel cold!

And while I was away I found a gorgeous throw at half price in Oamaru which should fit well with the new colours. It will be perfect for adorning the back of the couch ready to drag down for napping and reading on a chilly weekend afternoon.

Speaking of weekend afternoons...soccer season has offically started with G's first game taking place yesterday. They have Easter weekend off and then it's back into the regime of Saturday afternoons. All good for me - I have the perfect excuse for doing girly things like painting my toenails, watching chick flicks and scrapbooking.

Wedding plans are coming along nicely with a few RSVPs and guests booking flights over the last few weeks. We have the photographer booked (and engagement prints ordered and on their way to us...engagement photos nearly 5 years after we got engaged!) and have chosen the hotel in Wellington where we will stay the night before and night of the wedding. We're also getting there in the way of flowers and a cake.

The only thing that we haven't made any headway in and that I am slightly worried about is a celebrant. Anyone reading this able to recommend a great celebrant in the Wellington region?

Hope to get round to a Wellington and also a South Island post soon with some photos and links for soon-to-be guests.

The photo above is sunrise taken on State Highway 1 between Dunedin and Oamaru on Thursday just gone. Makes the early starts and time away from home worthwhile :-)

Reinventing the lounge

Warning - this is a picture heavy post. Probably the most amount of photos I've ever attempted in one post. Hope you can see them all (there should be 11).

So calling it redecorating would just be a euphanism. It's bloody hard work so I have decided 'reinvention' is a better suited description of what we are trying to achieve.

We moved in 3 years ago at Easter (how did time go by that fast?!) and at the time said we were pretty happy with most of the decor but we wanted to paint the lounge and dining room soon. Soon is now!

I used a very tecnhological way of determing when we should start by working out that the actual painting would take the longest so a 4 day weekend at Easter would be the perfect time to do this (now I hope to god that the painting will take half the time of the stripping or we could be here all year). Given our rather hectic schedules over the next few weeks and the fact we are both spending a fair amount of time away from home we decided this was the best weekend to get the stripping done.

The wallpaper has to be stripped because it isn't in a fit state to be painted over (not to mention how many coats would probably be required to cover up the orange...sorry, I mean terracotta).

That white strip is where I demonstrated to Graeme the unfitness of the paper by peeling it easily away from the wall. Oh how I wish the whole lot could have been that simple...

So we started stripping yesterday at 11am after our first trip of the weekend to Bunnings where we bought scrapers and a tiger (for perforating the paper to help the steam/water/whatever you are using to soak into the paste to make it easier to remove) and a new mailbox (possibly to be mentioned in another post when it comes out of the garage and gets put where it's supposed to be!)....

Look at those pretty swirls.

There was a point yesterday where I decided this was a fine enough pattern to remain on the walls indefinetly.

We started with the tiger swirls, a sprayer filled with hot soapy water, the scrapers and our bare hands...

It was a slow and painful process.....

and an hour or so later we ended up in Bunnings for the second time.

This time to hire a wallpaper steamer.

which moved things a little faster but still not quite as fast as we had hoped. We did continue to make steady progress (and managed to fit in a Starbucks break with some friends before getting back to it late afternoon). The only thing getting us through at this stage was listening to music DVDs at top volume (Muse and Travis in case you're interested)....

It felt like we were never going to finish this one wall. We made a pact to finish it before we went to bed and put on a Bill Bailey DVD when the music DVDs finished. And at just before midnight we finally made it...

By this time I had developed "the claw" where my hand was stuck in the position of holding a scraper and it hurt to stretch it out. We went to bed exhausted and wondering if we could get away with just leaving it looking like this forever.

But with a new dawn came new enthusiam and so this morning we were right back to it and make a fair bit of progress on our second wall...

We only had the steamer for 24 hours so it had to go back at 1pm today. We still have a long way to go but we've made a good dent in it.

We bought some wallpaper stripper to try on the evenings we are at home this week and then will probably hire the steamer again next Sunday and hopefully have it finished.

We got coffee on the way home and sat down to look at our achievements...

There is one member of the household who is quite concerned with our antics...

He can't work out why we are making so much mess and why his bed is in the dining room!

Hopefully I will keep snapping pictures as we get further along and I will be back with some more photos and updates as we go along.

The exciting bit is that we actually bought some tester pots today so we can start playing with colours ready for when we can actually paint our chosen colours on the walls (which will be after an undercoat goes on).