Tales of a Rubbish Bin
I was on the phone with my BFF the other day. She lives back in Canada with her soon-to-be hubbie. Can you believe that twice in our hour-long convo she had the nerve to tell me that I was adopting a British accent? Lies, I tell you. Lies.In any case, I'll scratch the above 'Rubbish Bin' and determinedly refer to it as a GARBAGE CAN. As if it's of any importance.
Yet, Riccardo and I have spent the last year or more keeping our eyes peeled for the perfect one. We wanted stainless steel and were pretty picky about the measurements. See, we have this little cubby between where our preformed, wonky kitchen cupboards were willynilly thrown on and where the wall begins; Riccardo had talked about building a wine rack in there, but has never got around to it. Plus, we don't really have another space suitable for a GARBAGE CAN that wouldn't be kind of right in the middle of the kitchen. So yesterday, when we were shopping for paint for the RENOVATION, we found it! Just 24 quid and a perfect fit! Ah, marital bliss.
Right, the reno. I'm actually getting really excited. I'll have to go around here and take loads of 'before' pictures - though I've already posted pictures of the current living conditions back when we first moved in. Riccardo finally trusted me to choose the colours. He admitted to not knowing much about decor (after I bullied him into paint choices when we painted our apartment back in Germany - a huge fight that time!). I've decided on 'Almost Sage' with white trim and doors for the foyer, stairway and landing and 'Cookie Dough' (Mmmm) on the bottom with beige on the top and for the trim and chairrail in the living room and dining room. I chose brown because we already have a oak-and-neutral colour scheme with our furniture. I'm thinking some chocolate brown curtains and accents and perhaps a nice fluffy beige rug will finish it off nicely. I think we'll leave off painting the kitchen and the bedrooms for now; they're livable. We're already getting in over our heads with the renovation as is, I think.
According to the Sales Advisor at B&Q (another DIY store) we should avoid the cost and time of re-plastering our walls perfectly, and just put backing paper (thin, smooth wallpaper) on the walls and ceiling and then paint over that. Not sure about this. Apparently it's the way here.
We have a guy coming in on Wednesday evening to quote us on a new boiler (and fireplace?!). I'm rather nervous about that. I know that replacing the boiler is going to be a major expense, but cutting down our monthly gas payment from $200 to $60 would definitely make it worthwhile. We'll probably wait until spring for the install anyway, since boilers always go on sale when nobody really needs them.
We had a small leak out back. It was the overflow pipe from our hot water tank; it had developed a constant drip because a valve had broken inside the water tank. That cost us a nice $280 to fix. Plus now we'll have to have our (ancient) back door replaced because the leak sprayed the wood so much that it's started to mould. Nice.
Now, having just had the plumber in for that problem a week ago, our electric shower has gone. Stopped working altogether. No showers for us. Thankfully the hot water in the bath still works, so we can still bathe. Annoying though. And will probably be another ridiculous cost. Grrr.
I sometimes wonder if it isn't smarter just to put out the extra cash and buy new and forget about renos and resale profits and all that.
We've had a lovely weekend with our friends Donna and Mat. Last night we all met up with Riccardo's other work colleague, John, and his 3-year-old daughter, Isabelle for bowling. Isabelle was, predictably, the life of the party. SO cute! Then Donna and Mat came over to see honeymoon pictures and enjoy some drinks. Since we have a glorious new bed, they were quite comfortable sleeping over in our spare room, and we enjoyed a delicious breaky this morning before they raced off to Home Depot to buy our kitchen bistro set (they thought it would be fabulous in their kitchen, and I mentioned I'd seen it on sale when we were in buying reno supplies yesterday).
Did I mention that I enjoyed THREE snow days last week? Plus an INSET day (or Inservice, as we Canadians know them); this meant that I actually only taught 3 lessons last week. Crazy! Yet, I now have to scurry off and plan for next week - a busy one with the arrival of Riccardo's parents on Thursday!
Happy V-Day, if I don't blog at you all before then!
xx
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