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Settled

November 8th, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Life · 2 Comments · Life

I think we are just about settled in properly now.  Over the weekend we got some lamps for the living room and we are happy with that now – even happier when the new dining table and chairs arrive on Friday to replace the temporary ones we have, but still happy enough.  I haven’t actually connected the amp up to the DVD player, but we can live without surround sound easily enough.

I also sorted out all the bookshelves and put everything into some sort of order, put some pictures up on the walls and stored the rest in the loft.   Now all the frantic work is over I have put all my tools away and that makes a big difference. Still got a lot of our clothes in cardboard boxes until I decide whather we can afford to build a fitted wardrobe.

So we are all happy and cosy.  Just in time for the house to be turned upside-down this week when the electricians arrive mob-handed to re-wire the place.  Apparently it will take about four days and I am assuming the worst – like being left with lots of wallpapering and re-tiling to cover up the destruction, but it will be worth it in the long run if we get more plug sockets in more convenient places.  We also have a carpenter coming to look at a dodgy bit of flooring that could involve a bit of destruction, somebody measuring up to replace the bath, and somebody to do an asbestos inspection.  The fence in the back garden is also being replaced.  There may be something else I have forgotten about.

It is going to be a hectic few days, and electricity may be hard to come by at various times.  Hope the asbestos test has no nasty surprises though, given the number of holes I have been drilling.

A few surprises during the unpacking and sorting:

  • I didn’t realise I had so many cuddly toys.  Six, including two Wile E Coyote dolls and a meerkat hand puppet.
  • Found a Japanese phrase book that I have absolutely no recollection of buying.  I have never been to Japan or even had a trip there planned or considered.
  • Noticed two CDs missing: Green Day’s American Idiot and Manu Chao’s Radiolina.   I am now starting to think that I never had them in the first place… I think I downloaded them instead of buying the CD, but I have spent the weekend interrogating everybody else about whether they have seen them.
  • Found a poster from the first play I was in after leaving school.  A bit tatty, but it has gone up on the wall.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was just before we moved when we emptied our coin bottle.  It is a big plastic beer bottle that I have been dropping coppers into , as well as 20p and 5p coins.  It has been filling up over many tears until it reached the point of being hard to lift.  It seemed a bit unfair on the removers so Frankie and I took it to the coin-counting machine at Sainsburys.  Even with the larcenous commission that is taken, I ended up with over £200 which came in very handy indeed at such a time.

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2 Comments so far ↓

  • skud's sister

    So, how destructive was the rewiring? I’m thinking that B&Q vouchers could make an acceptable Christmas present without loading the two of you down with more ‘stuff’!

  • Skuds

    Not as bad as it could have been. A lot of the old wiring was done in such a way that the new wires couldn’t be pulled through, so we have a fair amount of trunking and surface-mounted boxes now.

    I can live with that. When we do redecorate a room we can have the wires channelled in and power points dug into the wall.

    The nearest we got to a crisis was when they cut through a water pipe upstairs with a circular saw and had to drill holes in the ceiling to let the water out… all patched up now though.

    Now we just have to wait and see if the bath replacement can be done as smoothly. A bit worried that it can’t be done without wrecking some tiles which can only be replaced with standard white ones.

    B&Q vouchers might not be such a bad idea after all.