Let me take a break from blogging about France.
Woohoo we have finally moved back home for now; it has been 3 weeks so far, and we are loving every minute of it. Yes there were loads to do - bringing boxes back from our shed, unpacking, cleaning (seriously, we saw spiders in the sealed boxes - thankfully not too many). And the process goes all over again. I was very thankful to K who did most of the hard work, and we had our cleaner Edina over on the first Sunday to help us. She cleaned and mopped the whole house again, and vacuum cleaned our sofa too, cos dust, as I found out, is an all powerful thing which can seep through any cracks and settle on anything and everything, even in rooms which the workers didn't touch. That was our first weekend which was exhausting to say the least. The second weekend was spent just enjoying the half-done house, our new bedroom and just happy to be back on our bed.
House status update - it is half done with exposed raw wooden planks on our stairs and landing, and two of our bedrooms are still awaiting the extension works to go ahead. We had asked the carpet company not to fit the stairs due to the impending works. We finally obtained our approval from the council - hooray to that - although we did have to compromise. They said we needed a pitched roof instead of a flat roof, in order to match the look of the street. Also because our adjourning neighbours objected due to light issues, we are unable to extend the entire width of the house of 7m, but we can extend 5m. We thought it was reasonable enough, and so that's where we are. The builder is coming back again this week to discuss phase 2 of the works and most likely we need to move out again :( because it involves hacking down of the external walls and gosh I cannot imagine the dust again. This time round I hope we will be more prepared and cover everywhere necessary. That said, I think the most difficult part of the project is now done because I think our kitchen was the one which involved the most planning and decision making.
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| The kitchen coming together. Getting the worktop was quite a mission in itself. |
Our worktop experience. The first template guy who came to measure the exact size of the worktop turned up one morning and halfway through measuring he told me the components below the island were not perpendicular and he can't proceed. I had to get the builder to correct it and arrange another appointment before they can come down again to measure. Huh? Not straight? Where? Obviously it was not clear to my naked eye and sadly I saw him pack up and prepare to leave. The builder happened to arrive at that time and when he heard of how someone has criticised his work he got all defensive and rude. Oh god, not what I needed, for I was caught in the middle. In any case that template guy did leave, the builder did correct the alignment afterwards, and I had to call the company to arrange for another session which caused a week of delay. Then I was told the worktop would arrive in 9 working days time. Guess what, on that day they brought the worktop they realised it was cut too small for our island! Huh seriously? So they had to bring it back to the factory to get it cut again. *faint* And finally, 4 working days later (after I called to complain), they delivered the island worktop.
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| In all its glory |
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I am ever so proud of the matching bar stools I got for the island where we have breakfast at on weekends now.
Lots of washing up as you can see cos we unpacked all our cutlery that first weekend and had to wash everything. |
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| K cooking in our new kitchen for the first time last week :) |
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| Our bedroom sans curtains |
Our bedroom. K loves his televisions so yes by now he has got a small TV mounted on the wall (in place of the picture you see above). One thing we both realised which was very important was curtains. We slept in this room without curtains for a week, and it being summer, every morning we both would wake at 5plus in the morning where it was so bright. We were both so happy when the blackout curtains arrived a week later. We worked hard that night to put it up and now we are two happy bunnies.
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| Despite the workers dumping rubbish right in front of the rose plants, I am so glad these are hardy plants and this one even managed to do an 8-in-1 stalk! What an amazing feat, I am very impressed. |
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| There it is, in all it's glory. Some of the petals have sadly, dropped by now as we had a torrential downpour yesterday |
On our 3rd weekend we actually hosted our first guests! As unbelievable as it sounds I know. One of my best friends from JC got married the week before and way before we spoke about our extension plans for the house, I told her that they were welcomed at ours. I was sorry I couldn't take any time off during my peak period to fly back for their wedding and the least I thought I could do was to host part of their honeymoon. We all agreed and then came the house delays and all, and I was so worried we wouldn't be able to keep our end of the agreement. Thankfully we managed to move back in time, clean up and welcome them into the blue bedroom, the same room which Cindy stayed in 3 years ago. And the same trip which I first heard about "this guy" who is now her hubby. What a sweet story :)
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| In Chinatown for some roast duck |
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| I suggested visiting the Lego store |
They didn't want to impose too much on us, and so for their one week here in London, they stayed with us from Friday till Monday. I have to say there are genuine friends who come and visit, wanting to spend time with us, vs friends who say the same, but actually want free accommodation. Sad but true, as I've seen both camps. Although it must be said that since we live so far out now, the latter camp has diminished quite a bit. I mean Cindy and her hubby XZ didn't want to leave our house! lol we went out on Friday night for dinner, then come Saturday and Sunday when we asked if we could drive them out somewhere they said it's fine, they were just happy to hang out. They didn't need any sight seeing. What chilled out guests they are! So yes we just spent time chatting, brought them to our local supermarket, had a BBQ just 4 of us on Sunday, and snoozed after that before waking up groggily wondering what we should do for dinner. It was a very chilled out weekend and I was very glad actually because of the two hectic weekends prior to that.
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| The husbands preparing to BBQ |
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| As you can see the surrounding grass is no more, as our old kitchen cabinets as well as other rubbish were dumped there for a period of time. So sad :( |
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| tada! |
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| Our farewell meal which was quite a story in itself - we almost had to go MacDonalds cos everywhere we wanted to go to were closed! |
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Sisters forever.
Congratulations again dear friend, we are so happy for you that you found your happiness in XZ. So glad that we are still jiemeis despite being physically so far away and we can always catch up from where we left off.
Hope to see you guys soon! |
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