An Uninvited Guest and Progress in the Kitchen, 29 Sept. - 04 Oct.

 

Tuesday was a warm day today – typical as we now have the central heating running. Mind you, I suspect we’d feel a nip without it.

Sally continued prepping the kitchen and got a first coat on two walls. Tomorrow’s Ikea delivery arrived a day early. Pretty sure that happened when we had another Ikea order delivered a year or two back. Not an issue – but would have been annoying if we were not in.

That gave me my evening’s work (the day had been spent 'at the office'. First assembling a ‘boudoir’ chair for the bedroom. What could be easier? It basically consisted of fitting 4 legs to the seat. I messed up though. Hadn’t realised there were two different lengths of leg – and of course I had them mixed. Initially I was less than impressed with the wobble in the product – then realised my mistake.

Next a 9-drawer set of drawers. If I messed up a 5-component chair, how was I going to get on with a product that had components spread across 5 boxes – all heavy and two large?! As it happens, despite a couple of mistakes (almost obligatory given Ikea instructions) it went incredibly well. It took a long time though. The cabinet is done, but the drawers themselves can wait until tomorrow.

And I nearly forgot, we had an uninvited guest this morning, sitting on the wall immediately behind my pillow. This fellow’s body is about 40mm long – not including the legs and antennae. Sally spotted it, but I had to get rid of it. Not knowing what it was, I wasn’t going to scoop it up in my hands and throw it out. I used the vacuum. It is a powerful vacuum, but this chap hung on to the wall rather impressively. In the end, however, the suction prevailed. I later learned it is a house centipede and the bane of other insects, so perhaps we should have left it – like Sally would allow that to happen!

Before

2nd coat of white for the Kitchen by Sally on the Wednesday and then stripping/filling the two remaining walls on Thursday.

After

In the evening we did a shop and then I set about moving the first electrician’s quote received yesterday, onto a spreadsheet. Each is going to be slightly different so I’m hoping, by having them on a spreadsheet, I can do some analysis that allows me to get somewhere towards comparing apples with apples. This first quote appears very reasonable – about 2/3rd of what I thought was an optimistic hope.

Friday saw Sally finish the walls (2-coats) in the kitchen. Saturday was  a lazy day; a trip to the decheterie and a few odd jobs including fitting a loo seat and a carbon monoxide detector. Sunday we were busy again on the kitchen, getting the ceiling cleaned, flaky paint/plaster removed and a first coat of paint. We did the same I the study – where there was more damage to the ceiling, though we didn’t get as far as applying any paint – that will need to wait until next weekend, as will the second coat in the kitchen.