Getting plastered...

Well, we are finally getting our kitchen sorted out. We got an extension to Chéz H about four years ago and our kitchen, with its authentic 1980's chic was in serious need of a facelift. It wasn't until our kitchen fitter's wife, a long term employee of M&S commented that the wallpaper looked like such and such a range that Marksie's used to stock, that the awful realisation dawned on me. It was, indeed, the same design that was on a pair of tea trays that I bought when we first married - some 25 years ago! Later that evening I began to tear bits of the paper off the wall to ensure that there was no going back.

The job is not wildly straightforward. The kitchen was once two small rooms, a kitchen and a breakfast room, on two levels. The floor had been levelled off but the ceilings were still different heights and there was a dip in the corner for the stairwell. Added to this, when the extension was built, we moved the boiler into the garage. This meant that we had horrendous piping (à la ship's boiler room) over the dining room door which had to be boxed in, leading to a somewhat pig's ear appearance. All of these different levels on the ceilings and walls tended to cast a lot of shadows and darken the appearance of the room. This has all been levelled off properly now and so even now it looks brighter.

We also, rather impulsively, decided to renew our sofas in the back lounge. But if you are going to do that, you might as well freshen the room up a bit. So we are going to give it a lick of paint. Hopefully we can manage this before the sofas arrive! To dull the effort and monotony of such chores His Lordship likes to treat himself to the occasional little gift. This time it was a disposable boiler suit. On Saturday he merrily donned himself in his new acquisition. I naturally thought he had intentions to do some work in the lounge but there was not a great deal of evidence of this. This morning I asked him, "So, when you got changed into your paper boiler suit, what did you do, exactly?" "You mean workwise?" I nodded and he mumbled something about the loft and lots of dust. "So, you were just poncing about in it?" His embarrassed laugh said it all. Well, if you can't dress up in a paper suit and pretend to be a forensic investigator in the comfort of you own home...

Of course, what usually happens when you are up to your eyes in muck and bullets? The boiler packs in. We spent a week with no boiler, the front door open all day, holes in the ceiling of the (uninsulated) kitchen ceiling and arctic winds. And £200 for the pleasure of it!

Busy and expensive times.