Tag Archives: renovation

Reallyreally T-i-i-i-i-r-e-d

I didn’t even do any of the physical ‘stuff’, but after six days of living amongst chaos, I am completely exhausted. I just wanted to check in and say all is well, the major construction works are done. Works slow to a crawl now, as the patching, painting and tiling are all up to OtherHalf and I, so don’t expect them to be finished in a hurry :giggle: But the kitchen/living area is already a much better place to be, so I’m happy.

I am also very happy about the state of Things Gestational. She’s not breech! We have one head-down, bum-up baby, which is wonderful news. I tentatively drafted a post two days ago in which I speculated that might be the case, but I decided not to tempt fate, and wait until today’s growth scan. Words like ‘perfect’ and ‘beautiful’ were murmured by the sonographer (wheee!), and the growth estimate puts Small at just above average – as in, not ginormous :giggle: Combined with a BP of 110/80 last week, and great blood glucose levels for the last three weeks, things are at last looking smooth (touchwood-touchwood-touchwood!). If only it weren’t for that darned 40-week deadline. We shall see… I’m through making any predictions with this one!

I’m Very Impressed

Not one single one of you felt the need to point out that starting to renovate one’s kitchen when one is 33 weeks pregnant might not be the smartest thing in the world to do? Especially when one turns green at the mere thought of DIY renovations – and that’s on a good day?

You would, of course, have been right :giggle:

It’s OK. It really is. The wall is down, and the roof has not caved in. I will survive, even if my sanity does not.

Small Stuff

The Hiccup Stuff
Or more accurately, the hiccoughs. They have started. Finn hiccoughed in utero for about the last two months. (Didn’t stop for about a month afterwards, either). Looks like Small will be following suit. I think it’s so cute! Much cuter than my abdominal bits are feeling and looking lately, anyway.

The Wall Stuff
The Wall, it comes down this weekend. Be afraid. Be very afraid. You know, I’d really like to take Before and After photographs, I would. If only I could get the kitchen and living areas clean enough to do so first! (Actually, I’ll probably have to, since the tearing down of said wall will necessitate some tidiness, after all).

The Dyeing Stuff
#1 – I’m very sad at the loss of my dyeing space, due to Wall-goings-on and the rest of the kitchen ‘rearrangement’. Am going to see if I can manage enough space in our stupid tiny laundry area to set up, but it may well be that my dyes go away for the forseeable future.
#2 – Hoping to squeeze this in before packing the dye-bits’n’pices away. Mum gave me some yarn to try dyeing. I picked up a couple of Landscape dyes (easy-peasy no-extra-acids-needed wool dyes) from Kraftkolour on the day they were closing their doors (sob! They went mail order only, how sad). So I’m going to try a couple of vareigated yarns. I don’t really knit – I can manage a scarf or a cushion though, so I’ll let you know how it turns out.
#3 – Also on the dyeing, I just wanted to remind those of you who’ve bought some floss that you probably should rinse it in cool/lukewarm water prior to stitching with it. I do rinse fairly extensively after dyeing, but there is always a chance of some excess dye left clinging. I’ll add this suggestion into my sale page shortly.

The Employment Stuff
You may remember a bit ago I decided not to take on the offer of a job, as documented here? Well, my lecturer has come back to me with a modified offer – would I like to do some marking? This can (mostly) be done from home, and it won’t begin at the very start of semester, so Small should be 2-3 months by the time I start. I said yes, I’m interested. I’m probably going to slap myself later – my university is not renowned for its generosity s’far as remuneration is concerned. Nor does the time allotted to mark assignments come anywhere close to the actual time that marking takes. But… I figure, it keeps my brain alive, keeps my toe in the water. It could be a good experience.

The Stitching Stuff
Um… no :blank: Must try harder.

Meep. Where does the time go? Finn has been at kinder all morning and I have acheived nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Except a very ordinary blog post. Sigh.

Retail Therapy

When in doubt, spend money :giggle: Yep, yep, yep.

This is not the fun kind of retail therapy that involves a LNS or Lush, mind you, but it was fun all the same. We’re preparing for an upcoming kitchen renovation. I already mentioned I’m not much into home-improving, especially of the DIY variety, but sadly our home-buying budget only ran to the kind of house which needs a good dose of TLC. Luckily my father-in-law used to be a Joiner, and he’s done a good share of house building and renovation, so basically this is going to cost us materials and appliances only. And much nail-biting terror on my part. OtherHalf suggested today that perhaps I should move myself and Finn out to Mum’s place for the duration, and if she weren’t 90 minutes drive away, I might be tempted. As it is, I’m going to have to be elsewhere for the part which involves KNOCKING DOWN A LOAD-BEARING WALL 😯 😯 :shock:. Don’t worry, there’s an extra beam going into the roof, but it scares the bejeebus out of me still!

So today we went ahead and ordered an oven, cooktop (also white, just not in this pic), and rangehood, and brought home a sink and mixer tap. Wheee! We still have to choose laminate for the benches, tiles and paint, and order all the timber required, but at least we’ve started the ball rolling now.

Thanks for all the good thoughts following my last post. I’ve stopped freaking out for now… my ‘education session’ is on Tuesday, so that’s when I’ll learn all about the can- and can’t-haves, and how to measure my own blood sugar levels (fingerpricks, owwweee). Should be fun… :blank: