Hallelujah

We're back.  But its been an up and down couple of weeks. And we're still dealing with the aftermath as you can see below, hence the absence of updates - despite there being SO MUCH to blog about...

Within 2 hours of the builder's call to say the painters were done, we were back in (but steering clear of the walls).  It was all awesome for about 15 minutes, until we realised the boiler was broken.  The first shower in my long-awaited sparkling new bathroom involved a kettleful of boiling water and the new plastic bin from under the kitchen sink, temporarily seconded for the fondly nick-named 'bucket shower'.  

Now its 2 weeks later, and we've had our last bucket shower.  Boiler was replaced on Tuesday.  Budget was looking ok until we had to add that bad boy on to the bottom line.  It was ridiculously expensive, even at the mates-rates we managed to get by hiring a friend (£1300).  But I'd forgotten all about that by the time I'd turned myself into a prune having my first extended and super hot shower under that shiny new chrome head.

Absolutely everything is covered in a thick layer of dust despite the dust covers, which were admittedly a bit haphazard.  The floor is stil filthy, and our feet turn black walking on it.  I've just spent tonight (yes, Saturday night) cleaning the bedroom, continuing to file our clothes into the Great Wall of Wardrobes, and washing the floor.  But given that I haven't been able to do the lounge room for all the stuff everywhere, it probably won't make much difference.


But despite this, the absolute highlight of the last 24 hours at least, has been sending the dishwasher off on her maiden voyage (on the eco-setting of course). Oh how I'd dreamt of this moment.  It was almost everything I'd imagined, except that the Ikea Whirlpool quality isn't quite as good as it could be... but I guess it was bottom of the range, and we did get 3 appliances for the price of 2 (we also bought the under counter fridge and freezer).  The sliding mechanism of the top drawer means it sometimes misses the connection with the top spray hose at the back, and then the door won't shut.  


Anyway, here's a sneak peek or two, with more detailed posts and much better photos to follow at a later point when we've tidied up and found the camera...
Wardrobes. No more suitcases, at least on the weekends.  Unfortunately still travelling for work every week.

Kitchen lighting, shelves, and some Orla Kiely ceramic containers with wooden lids for tea from our Mums (luckily enought to get both for my birthday this year).  Stainless steel shelves still have the protective wrapping on in this pic.

More soon!
Happy weekend.


 

Bedroom upgrades

I haven't posted any photos of the bedroom before now (except a snapshot of the beside table, and I'm sure the suspense has been killing you.  Here's a photo taken in the first week after we moved in.  That silver cylinder of loveliness streaking through the room is actually the kitchen exhaust, winging its way to the atmosphere at the rear of the building. 

Note the ubiquitous Ikea Malm double bed.  In birch veneer no less.  Well, it was inherited so I can't take the blame on that one.  But I ask you, what is wrong with Black-Brown? Or even oak veneer? Basically anything is more interesting than Ikea's birch blandness.

Anyway, we've made 3 key improvements since this photo was taken. (1) We changed up the position of the bed so the head of the bed is opposite the window. (2) We replaced the ugliest blind in the world, and (3) I bought a new duvet and cover when we were in Australia.

The previous owner had rented the flat with a very fetching cream blackout blind, which would have been extremely functional (albeit very ugly) - if only they had bothered to get the right size so that it covered the entire window! As it was, the blind was fitted a couple of inches below the top of the window, and when fully extended the blind left about 5 inches of free space at the bottom of the window.

From the looks of the additional plug holes, it looks like they made at least 2 attempts to finally end up with it in this genius position.

Anyway, our new blind was bought online, hassle-free from www.blindsuk.net.  It is African Blackwood, which translates to "cheap wood painted black". Either way it is 100 times better than what we had. GG has filled the old holes so now it looks the finished product.  We did discover a rather large crack in the brickwork while drilling the holes, but hopefully its nothing serious.

It is such a large window that the blind is ridiculously heavy to lift, so much so that I'm afraid one day I'll rip it out of the wall.  And it actually does a pretty poor job of keeping light out in the morning, but that's not a problem because there are few things that can come between me and a good ol' shut-eye.  These days the only thing that keeps me awake is GG whinging about noise from the neighbours.  Sorry for the poor quality photo, the rooms not very wide and the window is so tall its hard to get a good perspective (or lighting conditions!).

The second major improvement was the purchase of new linen - a black and white graphic duvet cover and grey coloured sheet and pillowcases.  I am incredibly fussy when it comes to duvet covers; it is virtually impossible to find one that I like and that GG won't hate. Originally I wanted something asymmetrical, with trees and bird silhouettes but I was unable to find anything that had the right colours (i.e. blue/grey tones with not too much white in it) and wasn't too trendy.  I'm pretty happy with what I found, and was even happier with the price: $AU50!  

I've since been using the old duvet on the couch for watching TV, and last night I accidentally ripped a huge hole in it. So it was probably a rather timely purchase.
The one thing the bedroom is really lacking is storage, at the moment we only have a couple of rails on the wall for hanging clothes (to the right in this photo), and consequently we are still living out of suitcases. 13 months after moving in.  I can't even bring myself to take a photo of that horror show.  But in the works is a wall-length floor to ceiling wardrobe that will solve all our storage problems and probably yours too.