So close, but yet so far!!

Well the tiler came, the tiler saw, the tiler asked many awkward questions (staggered or straight? Size of gap? Colour of grout? ... for the love of God man I don’t know, just stick the tiles to the ground!!) and somehow we muddled through. Luckily the weather held off because the poor bloke was both terrified of Red and also massively allergic to dogs in general, so our house must have been a living nightmare for him. Anyway, as the sun stayed out, we were able to leave the dogs in the garden all day which Harry took as license to cook himself, and Red took as license to sulk.

We had one tiny bone of contention with the tiler, and that was around the hallway, which he had included in the quote when I phoned him and had therefore massively underestimated the work needed to finish it. Turned out he hadn’t the time to do the job during the three days he availed himself of our hospitality, but very kindly offered to wave the “clearing up fee” instead.

Hold up - records scratch to a halt, piano players close the lid and scarper, darts halt in mid air - the, errr, clearing up fee? And what would that be then? Turns out the poor little pickle has to pay to get rid of the rubbish he generates on a job, but rather than leave it for us to take to the tip, he was willing to take it with him when he left. Right, so if you go to a restaurant and pay for your dinner, at what point do you generally discuss the “washing up fee” then? No? Didn’t think so. Keith being Keith dealt admirably with the situation while I foamed at the mouth from the safe distance of the office and the tiler both cleared up his rubbish *and* gave us money off the bill.

As a parting gift though, he reminded us that once the grout had gone off, we would need to spend a while washing down the tiles to get rid of that nasty white film that appears. This being Friday, I earmarked Saturday morning for the job which would still give me the afternoon to bake some cakes for the village fair and for us to get the furniture back in the lounge in time for the evening.

Turns out that was a bit of an error on my part. I stopped counting after the 8th time I went over the floor, and made the decision as day slowly turned to night that any white film still remaining would just have to come off in its own good time.

We are currently still sporting the minimalist look to the lounge, with sofa cushions on the floor and the TV in the corner because none of our friends have been able to make it over in the last week. One, who shall remain nameless, failed to appear due to a slight run in with the good men of the local constabulary after he decided to take his light aircraft out for a spin and then held an impromptu red arrows audition. Local residents were less than amused apparently.

On Your Marks ....

These are trying times at FTC. The clock is counting down to the start of the mayhem and we have now run out of space to store 'things' which means the garden is being used as a temporary storage depot complete with upturned slipper bath which I'm frankly glad isn't in the house or I would be very temped to try it out for size, no doubt resulting in much "turtle on back" hilarity until Keith took pity on me and heaved me back out.

Anyway, first up is the new floor in the lounge. After 3 years, with a small sob of acceptance, the carpet was given up as a lost cause in the face of Harry's endless shedding. Instead I went online and found these delicious tiles which for some reason really reminded me of melted caramel and which I thought would look really lush with all the wood we have in the lounge already.

In order to lay these little beauties, we enlisted the help of a professional, as I had clearly run out of both time and talent on that front, and his instruction was to lift the lounge carpet well in advance to make sure the concrete slab underneath was level. Very sensible approach I think, one I should probably take in the future if I had any sense.

The one slight problem standing between us and a lifted carpet was of course the copious quantity of heavy furniture, none of which I am allowed to lift, so of course, we had to rope in some help. Bill and James who thought they were coming to ours for a weekend of relaxing at the local cider festival instead found themselves working off hangovers shifting bookcases and chests.

Luckily for us, the slab does seem to be in pretty good working order so the tiler is all set to start on Tuesday. In the meantime, I'm finding the new echo and student-esque lounge a bit disconcerting, especially as I don't have any slippers and concrete isn't so toasty on the tootsies. I have promised myself a sheepskin rug to go down in front of the fireplace once the floor is in place though, and be warned, come winter I will fight for occupancy rights with all my hormone fuelled might!!

The other piece of prep work that happened this week was the marking out of the feature wall in the nursery. The photos of the nursery being put together are being held captive on Keith's laptop at the moment, so you will have to wait to see the overall results, but this is a quick look at what will soon decorate the end wall.

I borrowed a projector from work and by making a tower of various pieces of furniture finally managed to get the image high enough on the wall to start drawing an outline in pencil.

Curious George was not my choice I might add; it seems that I led a sheltered and somewhat deprived childhood free of the adventures of the cute little monkey and his yellow hatted friend, but luckily my sister in law was well versed in the ways of the George and suggested him as the basis of the design.

Please excuse me dopey look in the photo. Having realised that the projector wouldn't enlarge the image to the size of the wall, I was busy trying to work out how I would extend various bits of it to fill the available space. The end result (of which I am extremely proud) basically involves a damn sight more fish.

Now I just need to get some tester pots and start blocking in the basic colours before the real artist comes along to make it look good!!