It’s been a while since I posted a little update on our decorating capers hasn’t it? I blame the fact that I have either been painting/cleaning/painting/cleaning like a woman possessed or unable to extend my claw like finger to type because of all the painting/cleaning-ness.

But still, excuses excuses, and I do have a little bit of progress to share. I can practically hear your cheers of delight from here! Settle down, settle down, let me explain why this is all taking such a freaking long time.

Firstly, it turns out that cleaning takes a mega long time when there are layers and layers of filth that you need to scrape through before you get to the bit that you actually want to clean. Painting takes a mega long time when every room needs so many coats of white that you feel like you’re staring at the same section of wall with the same paint brush and the same vat of paint every single day forever (because you are).

Secondly, everything takes a mega long time when you have general lack of care and consideration to deal with. Allow me to sum up the last week:

We clean.

We pull nails out of floors and walls and we clean and we scrub and we paint.

A knock at the door and we accidentally find out that the house has been vacant for a long time. *adds to the Contrary To What We Have Been Told list*

We clean. We paint. We sand.

We call to ask about asbestos (thems some big holes in that there artex). We are told exactly where it is.

We paint we fill we skim we sand.

We get a new fence. Hurrah! (We also score a brand new hammer left behind by the workmen. Fortunately I find it before a) Beans or b) anyone with half a mind to put it through a window)

We find out that when we were told exactly where the asbestos was we kind of weren’t and it is in far more places than advised. Oops.

We get a new window. Hurrah!

The boiler stops working.

We paint and we clean.

The boiler is fixed. Hurrah! Wait, now the header tank is leaking.

We paint…hang on, why do we have a header tank when we have a combo boiler?

We paint.

Someone comes to fix the header tank. Hurrah! Oh. It’s full. The outgoing pipes had been cut, the in going pipes had not. We have a full (leaking) tank of old water perched above our asbestos ceilings. Oops.

We clean. We paint.

Do you see what I mean? Every single day I have woken up in the morning and gone to sleep at night feeling like it would genuinely be far more productive for me to hit my head repeatedly against a brick wall.

But thankfully despite all the silliness and setbacks and raaaaagh we seem to be getting somewhere. Money (what money?) and holes in walls and waiting on people to make appointments to fix X Y and Z have slowed things up but almost all the rooms have reached a point where we can actually see the light at the end of the (very long) tunnel.

These are the last photos that you’ll see until I can go all DIY SOS on your asses and unveil the finished result. Until then I have plenty to say, brace yourselves *puts on ranty hat*.

Behold: