Again so much has been done. The progress is getting less obviously visible, but no less important. I’ve been a terrible picture-taker however and don’t have much to show. (And haven’t uploaded anything anyways – so you’ll have to be patient and check back if you want to see the few pictures I did take.) Then again, progress that isn’t really visible, doesn’t show too well in pictures anyhow.

Last Sunday (the 12th) was not only L’s birthday, it was also the first day we ourselves really worked in the new house. So far it’s just been the contractors working their behinds off. Sunday however our friend D came over and helped, joined later by her partner J and even later her son T (who just joined us for dinner, but we were happy to have him over regardless.)

I’d decided I wanted to get going on cleaning before anything else. To me it’s useless to start painting if the frames and such aren’t clean. Old paint and wallpaper needs to be gone-gone-gone before new layers are applied. It was a hell of a job, but we got a lot done.

I also went to pick up my vaccuum cleaner and gave the floor in what is to be my sewing/craft room (yay for purposes for rooms!) a try. The carpet had an icky grey hue and a massive stain right next to where the teenage-boy-who-lived -there’s bed used to be. I can only imagine how many glasses of soda and such went over the floor there and were left to dry in.

After I passed my vaccuum over the floor (with the tiny brush head and me sitting on the floor for maximum effect) the greyish hue started to disappear. The carpet is one of those coconut-fibre-type floor coverings, which really loves to get dust stuck inside. No-one to blame here, that’s just what that type of carpet does, and it’s a pain to keep it clean.
It did however look 100 times better once I’d sucked the grey dust out of it.

I used some spot remover and a steam cleaner on the massive stains – and even though it’ll never come out completely, it’s reverted to a point where I’m quite happy/comfoprtable with what it looks like and I’ll just deal with what’s left. There’s going to be lots of shelving put up in that room, for all my supplies, which means half the stain will be covered anyway. I can and will deal with it.

We’ve also removed wallpaper from 2 walls in that room, so we can cover them with a paint-over-type paper and paint the whole room nice and fresh. I might add a little lavender to one of the walls, and that’ll be that.

L cleaned the sauna. As far as we could tell it was just a little dusty, nothing more, but still. Even though they claimed they’d only used it twice or so, naked strangers were in there, which means I need it cleaned. I know how stupid it is, especially since I do like to go to public sauna’s/spa’s with my friends and naked strangers sit in there too. But still….

L also trimmed the conifer hedge. It was still alive enough to be trimmed back all the way to the edge of the stairs that run by it. This made me happy.

In the mean time, on Friday and Monday, the contractors finished our walk-in-closet by painting the inside. We just need to get shelves put in, but that´s of later worry. They also painted our entire living room and study area, the bedroom walls and the kitchen ceiling. The part of plaster that needs to be repaired over the staircase has been pre/treated, so they can actually plaster it next time they´re over.

And that´s not going to be for a little while. It´s up to us now.
We need to continue cleaning floors, wallpaper and paint.
We need to pick up some linoleum which will go into the pantry and w-i-c (which I have stored at my old-old-apartment) and we need to finish up cleaning other stuff.
Then a couple of days before our move the contractors will come back to finish up the plastering, to saw our countertop to exactly fit my stove, and finish up a couple of other odd jobs we still have for them, but together aren’t more than a day’s work.

All in all it’s starting to shape up. I just called the moving company we chose and we’ll move on the 7th of October. I’d already arranged water and utilities the day we got the keys, but L now arranged for us to have a phone line, internet and tv there from the 5th of October (So if they screw up and do it a day or 2 late, we still won’t be without our life lines.)

I can’t really believe that in only 3 weeks I’ll sleep in our current bedroom for the last time. It’s very exciting!