Delira and Excira

Well, now, the day has arrived . . . and have all builders, decorators, plumbers, and electricians been banned, like St Patrick chasing the snakes out of Ireland?

View from the stairs

We are . . . almost there. It’s little things—only half the blinds arrived for the two sets of French doors—one for each door, in fact—and the new carpeting for the stairs going up hasn’t yet arrived (although the stairs are still carpeted, thankfully). There’s a light in the new bathroom that needs to be fixed. We haven’t found the perfect small writing desk to go into the new room, and it’s currently borrowing a side table and lamp from another room. There’s a wall in the upstairs sitting room that needs to be repainted. The new walls are still quite bare—Tim and I are planning to take stock of what we have and think about what fits best in the new space.

New room--kitchen through the doors

That’s all. After three months of dust, disruption, and delay, our home is very much ours again, and it is lovely. I must say I am still a bit surprised when I walk downstairs to make a cup of tea and find myself in a gleaming white kitchen with green and cream tiles and a red cappuccino machine. I don’t have to pinch myself—I know it’s real, it’s ours—but I still can’t help but smile. Tim is happy I’m happy. And, oh, he’s happy too; I think we’d both agree it was well worth the effort (and cost). Despite any number of contractors drifting in and out, there was quite a bit we both had to do to keep the house liveable and in order. The Volvo became a moving dumpster; the charity shops in the area proudly display some of our cast-offs. And the mileage we both put on constantly climbing stairs to first move and then re-home all of the glasses, dishes, kitchenware, and even some furniture was enough to burn off all the takeaway food we ate for weeks while the cooker sat forlornly in the middle of the kitchen floor.

In fact we hosted guests this weekend—Tim’s mum, who was attending a party in central London and stayed with us for a few days, and one of his sisters-in-law, visiting from Germany to get some material for her book at a few archives here.

Bliss

On the day before their arrival there was a moment’s dilemma—without blinds for both sets of French doors, the new room would be a bit too exposed (one set faces the lovely new kitchen, the other the garden). We have a second bedroom, previously stuffed to the gills with things from other rooms being refurbished though now delightfully uncluttered, and the sofa bed in the living room often used before the new room came into existence, so we had to make due with those and keep the spare room for the next time.

The new bathroom, however, did see a bit of activity. Tim was the first to shower in the new space—only finished on the day before the company arrived on Thursday. I was third in the queue, and I must say I did enjoy the experience. The water temperature can easily be adjusted to varying degrees of hot, hot, hot (Tim prefers the slightly cooler setting), and it flowed for as long as you stood under the adjustable shower head. 

Bliss, a good hot shower is.

We are still adjusting to the rearrangement of appliances and therefore dishes, pots, spices, and other cooking items in the kitchen. I regularly fumble between three drawers before I find the corkscrew, and Tim is no better, opening at least three cabinet doors before locating the right saucepan. LOL, we’ll get there.

Kitchen with light from the front of the house

Now that it’s done, I barely recall the frustration of having been through it all. There are certain points in the three-month “process” that resonate more than others, like making space on the table to eat breakfast only to find the next day it was occupied with builders’ equipment, which often irked me. Or being without the second toilet for a bit—just a slight inconvenience, but I did miss it now and again.

Enough. It’s done, it’s positively gorgeous, and I am looking forward to our first gathering of friends for a spring fling. Most will remember the downstairs as a bit dark, a bit in need of attention. I can’t even conjure up what the old space looked like; the transformation is so striking, with walls and doors and things in different places, it bears little resemblance of the place that was. And that is most certainly a good thing!

New bathroom, old orchid!

I am certain, too, that a little luck of the Irish saw it all magically come together in time. When I first said “March 17^th” it felt like ages away, and yet the weeks passed and time flew so quickly that I hardly recall February at all.

We haven’t cracked open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. Perhaps a green beer is in order?

Happy St Patrick’s Day to you all! Oh, and, by the way, the title is, I am told, a Dublin expression for delighted and excited. I haven't checked with my Dublin-born husband, but I can also hear him say it in a bit of an Irish accent!

Progress!

I am feeling good about my 2013 prediction that our London home will be its lovable, liveable self by the 17^th of March. Having thus far lived through wearing, cleaning and occasionally inhaling layers of dust and a lot of eating out, Tim and I are now living in more than one room and cooking meals regularly, even though the kitchen isn’t quite complete. The cooker is connected, the refrigerator is still in the centre of the room, and finding anything in the cupboards is a bit of a challenge . . . but it’s all doable. (Cue sigh of relief.)

The kitchen in transformation

I took the day off from work today to sort out those cupboards—first to clean them top to bottom of the dust that’s been collecting in and on top of them for six weeks or so, and to start thinking about how to rearrange the contents. The cooker has moved across the room, and there’s still a bit of indecision about where the electric kettle and toaster will go . . . and we have the addition of (I'm excited!) a cappuccino maker, a present from Tim’s mum, that also needs to find a bit of counter space. Everything else will hide neatly in drawers or behind closed doors. I am looking forward to a bright, clean, uncluttered space. It’s not like it was wildly crowded or messy before, but I think we’ll both be more cognisant of putting everything in its place.

I can’t believe how exhausting it’s been today! Once Tim left this morning I got started with emptying and/or wiping down every cabinet, preparing for this weekend when I expect—I hope—we’ll move most of the spices, glasses, dishes, cooking “stuff”, pots, pans and other assorted kitchen items into a permanent new home. I already cheated a bit—I’ve moved the dishes and glasses into a glass-fronted cupboard. I also placed a few spices and cooking ingredients in the cupboard nearest the cooker; it made sense at the time and can easily be reshuffled to another cabinet. I realise two of the new cupboards don’t have shelves in them, and need them! (A trip to Ikea may be in my future.)

The reception room

I’ve also made a few decisions, awaiting Tim’s consent, of bowls, mugs, and glasses that can find their way to the charity shop. We certainly have more than we ever use, even with guests, and I’m anxious to have a good chuck out rather than simply put everything back. We’ve been doing quite a lot of that over the last two months—I can make the first cut and Tim assesses the going-out pile, occasionally rescuing a pewter mug or a carpet croquet game. Slowly but surely the clutter is diminishing. This weekend will be an opportunity to do another blitz—poor Tim, I think it exhausts him emotionally, but he has found the multiple trips to the dump cathartic. Certainly there’s less stuff and nothing that’s been otherwise given away or tossed has been regretted. Possibly the old Tonka truck, but it was in terrible shape!

The reception rooms are now back in order, save for a bit of plastering / repainting that needs to happen around the new electrical outlets. Fortunately most of them are hidden behind something, or will be, so it doesn’t look glaringly awful.  The new wooden floor looks lovely, as I’d imagined, and the cleaner has been around to remove this week’s layer of dust—I’d been trying to keep up, knowing it was largely futile yet wanting to keep it liveable. I dug out the photographs and dusted those off as well. I know Tim is happy having his “office” back, though I’ll try to keep the ever-growing stacks of briefs in some hidden cabinet rather than on view as it’s the first room you see when you enter the house. (I’ve yet to win that battle, LOL.)

The office

It’s nice to have a comfortable chair to sit in and no longer need to live out of the bedroom, formerly the only untouched room in the house (though I might add the dust still managed to proliferate on everything in there). The second bedroom is, well, a tip; still lots of stuff from other places piled up, with its own layer of six-week plaster and other dust lying atop every inch of space. I have a narrow walkway in there to get to the two wardrobes that hold my clothes and shoes; I’ll admit to occasionally knocking into china or wine bottles and cursing under my breath! I know it will all be over soon and Tim will be serving drinks in honour of St Patrick before too long.

Speaking of events, I read that the groundhog saw his shadow so we’re in for six more weeks of winter. We are experiencing a very mild season here in London; it has barely reached freezing more than a handful of times and always in the late evening or early morning, and while the days have been wet, wet, wet, they have been mostly mild. I know the Northeast has been pummeled with snow, ice, and generally horrid conditions; I can’t imagine that anymore after six winters in England where the snow has come, but not every year and usually just with one occasion every other winter. Sure, I miss it a little . . . but not as much as New York pizza!

The new bedroom being painted

I’ll look forward to posting a few photos of us sipping something bubbly when all is said and done . . . the list seems never ending but now it is filled with for the most part the small things. Replace the carpet on the stairs; find a small writing table and chair for the new bedroom; get blinds for the new French doors.

March 17th. St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, yes, and also of engineers . . . I’d like to think we’ve  applied the principles of math (there’s been lots of measurements) and science (OK, that’s a stretch) to develop a solution to a practical problem—how to make the best of the space we have . . . with our patron saint looking down and smiling on us. We have chosen green (and white) tiles for the kitchen, after all.

And just think, it’ll be just days short of the vernal equinox! I know we’re all awaiting the return of spring. Bring it on.