Monday, August 29, 2011

Flooring puzzle


Since we bought our house a few weeks back, I have ripped out all the carpet, vinyl, curtains, blinds, some shelves, a half-height brick wall and a wheelie-bin full of enormous recessed downlights. 

Then I had a uteload of new power points and various other handy electrical bits installed.  I had the many facebrick walls (more appropriately called brick-in-your-face) either roughly bagged or smoothly plastered.  I  had the interior of the house painted.  I had the existing beige bath and shower box resurfaced so they are now gleaming white.  I bought a houseload of new light fittings.  I bought new curtains and curtain tracks and selected blinds.  I had the roller shutters mended.  I had various locks replaced or fixed, though not without first being locked out. 

I also excavated 16m x 20m knee-high front "lawn" to unearth the reticulation system in preparation for delivery of a truckload of mulch.  I trimmed various trees so that they don't cause the gutters to grow roof gardens.  I trimmed various shrubs so that the postie can visit without losing an eye.  I removed piles of inorganic rubbish from the garden and in the process I found that our garden is home to a bobtail lizard who looks like this,


and a quenda, or bandicoot, who looks like this.


I also had the gobby glue residue ground off the concrete pad ready for new floor coverings to be installed.  But there I hit a very puzzling and frustrating double-brick wall and sadly I still have a) a big chunk of my renovation budget sitting in the bank, and b) a whole house with bare, unsealed concrete floors.  This situation has not resulted from a lack of effort on my part; over the past few weeks I have developed cauliflower ear and callouses on my fingers from the number of phonecalls, texts and emails I've made to various flooring folk begging them to measure, quote and sell me their products.  I'm starting to wonder if they are just fronts for drugs operations.

So at crack of dawn today I started the whole sorry process again at yet another flooring retailer.  I left all my contact information and exact details of what products I want to get installed.  I've been waiting hopefully all day to hear from them about when they can come and measure and quote - and install.  This is my top priority as we can't move in until this piece of the puzzle is in place.

However if they want to swing by tomorrow they are out of luck.  There will be no renovating tomorrow because then I get something more far more important and exciting than even a houseload of floor coverings - though how this particular thing has managed to arrive so quickly is also somewhat puzzling.  See tomorrow, I get a teenager!

[Pics at top of Katrin Sonnleitner's version of a persian rug from here.  Best of luck getting that in Mandurah!]

1 comment:

  1. No! That's just not possible.... Happy birthday Matilda!
    Not 13 already?
    love louise

    ReplyDelete