Almost there!

At long last the painting and carpet laying is nearly finished. There is a bit of a glitch with the paintwork which the painters will be looking at soon and then the inside of the house will have been freshened up after being long overdue for some TLC but I still have to find a home for everything so hopefully there will be a few trips to the Op Shop to donate whatever I can happily live without.

A sunset during this week when the fires were burning at Pechey

I always knew that the week our bedroom would be painted could possibly be quite stressful as we have a lot of things stored in there which had to be put somewhere else for the duration and the fact that we have had fires burning in our region for a couple of weeks has been quite concerning. Each morning we would wake to the smell of smoke and one of the young tradies who was here the other day, who lives not far out of town, said that he had ash on his car when he started off to work. Most Aussies would have seen the fires on the news and some of them are ongoing until we get good steady rain but unfortunately there is none on the horizon at the moment.

The CEO thought that the painters might be able to work around our queen sized ensemble when painting the bedroom so all the furniture was removed apart from that but alas, when they arrived they needed it removed which caused quite a dilemma...where would we sleep? In the end I slept on a two inch mattress in the room being painted and kept the windows wide open overnight but as the CEO has a problem with smells which make him gag he slept in the recliner in the lounge. I have no idea how a person can sleep in a recliner but thankfully it wasn't a problem for him. I somehow survived sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor for four nights too. Unfortunately with the windows open I could hear the birds outside singing at first light around 4.30am or so.

The top of the ensemble was moved out and sat in the dining room right up against the computer for the week so I was unable to use it until the carpet laying was finished and the bed could go back where it belonged. Thankfully the base fitted on the back verandah because if it didn't I have no idea where it would have gone as we have quite a small house.

I was able to move all the furniture except for the bed by myself as I had bought an EZMoves kit many years ago at BigW from memory for about $20 and had never used it. Well, it was worth the $20 as it was fantastic and, once I had the sliders under the furniture, I could then easily slide the furniture into other rooms.

I am not sure if the kit is available in Australia any more but I did see some imitation kits online if anyone was wanting to give this method a try but I can't guarantee they would work like the original.

As I said we have a small house with hardly any storage space and the only 'built in' cupboard we have is in the bedroom where all the linen has to go plus my clothes and bits and pieces so it is usually full so everything is still sitting in boxes waiting for me to sort through and work out what I want to keep. I have old postcards that my mother had kept and many are from her family in Scotland but I am not sure if either of my children would want them down the track. I also have a box of cards that have been given to me over the years on significant occasions but do I really need to keep them? I can see I will have to be ruthless with my sorting.

When the CEO painted the inside of the house well over thirty years ago he used enamel paint and it lasted so very well but apparently it is the norm to use water based paint now which just seems to chip so easily so that has been a bit of a revelation for us and I have to be careful not to leave anything leaning on the paintwork. The colour we chose for the walls was Hog Bristle Quarter which is quite nice with the white trims.

So now it is a matter of emptying out all the boxes and sorting things out and after that there is the issue of LOTS of boxes of fishing gear which needs to be rehoused somewhere.....perhaps at the Op Shop. Shhhh! Not a good idea though as you can be certain that if something 'disappears' it will be needed the next day after sitting in a box unused for years. Does this happen at your place? LOL!

I hope all my Aussie readers are staying safe from the dreadful fires at the moment and that those overseas are keeping warm as winter approaches. Have a restful weekend.