Drawings into images

I worked out how to do the jpeg transformation! Here's the latest thinking with regard to my kitchen floor:

In other flat-related news, the insurance guy came today about my loo ceiling. Result? I'm strongly advised to leave the window open until May, when he'll come back to see if the ceiling's dried out enough for them to repaper. They can do that when the humidity is at 12%. At the moment, after a full month of drying, it's at 80%. Ouch.

Praise be for the post!

My very welcome guest caught a train to Amsterdam on Thursday afternoon. He came by my office beforehand so we could have lunch together and he could give me back my keys. The lunch bit went very well, the key bit less so. Four hours later, chatting to a colleague about his visit, it struck me that my house keys, office keys and post-box key were all on their merry way to Holland. Ah...
Fortunately, my spare keys were with a friend rather than in a shoebox beside my bed so I've been able to function, but I've been lying awake at night wondering why on earth I told him to post me my keys rather than insisting on UPS or registered mail or even just jumping on a train to Amsterdam for the weekend. I should add that I have the most hard-core five-point dead bolt system on my steel-reinforced door (heck knows what the previous residents have been scared of but they did not want visitors) so getting spares or replacing locks is an expensive business.
Anyway, all this to say that my keys finally arrived at work this morning and boy was I relieved. Probably even beats the Aerobed delivery day in terms of wide grins.

Busy

Busy-busy last week and an unexpected but very welcome guest most of this week so I'm having a lazy weekend to myself. I did a proper clean this morning - crazy dust bunny activity - and have been enjoying mooching and drinking tea in my lovely flat this evening.

In November, I:

- "restored" my sitting room floor:

- hung new curtains (the long, thick dining room curtains of my childhood but, as it happens, pretty much perfect for the room and nothing I would ever have had the guts to choose myself):

- reorganized my furniture with the aid of two conveniently-sized cardboard boxes (not the final layout! This photo was taken in the middle of all the cardboard swooshing):

- bought two bedside cabinets, not a pair, one of which is now doing sterling service hiding all my computer and telephone wires (and the other of which is now clean and will, one day, do sterling service in a renovated non-submarine bathroom):

- wrinkled my nose every time I went into the loo because of the disturbing smoke/mould smell which, I assume, is coming from the ceiling:

- sussed out, I think, the way I'm going to organize the kitchen (but can't work out how to transform the drawing into a jpeg file),

- and made another ginormous pot of soup. :)

Old friends

My best friend from school was over for a flying visit this weekend. I think we must have talked 24-hours straight as we wandered the streets of Paris and ate and drank. It was great to see her properly and I was super pleased with the places we went. Sometimes, it just works out and you land on the nicest, most handsome, most interesting streets by accident. On Saturday afternoon we walked all the way down my street until we reached the Seine, crossed over to take a walk around Notre Dame, ambled up through the backstreets of the 5th to the Luxembourg Gardens then back down into the 6th, where we stopped and bought a mini-macaroon each in an impossibly glamorous cake shop. Fortified, we set off again.
Further through the 6th, peeked into the lovely courtyard of the building where I lived in a tiny 8m2 studio my first year in Paris, headed down to Bon Marché where we took a detour around the incredible food hall to compensate for the Christmas windows not being up and running, walked back through the poshest parts of the 6th and across the Pont des Arts into the beautifully illuminated courtyards of the Louvre.
Stood by the pyramid and waited for the Eiffel Tower to start her sparkling gig (which she didn't), then walked off through the Marais to a café just beside the place des Vosges where we had a well-deserved kir.
Again fortified (but now quite footsore), we walked up boulevard Beaumarchais and the boulevard Richard Lenoir until we got to the canal, where we settled in for a lovely long dinner and lots of good red wine. Home at 2am.
The next morning (the Aerobed was a great success - yay!) we walked down rue Lafayette until we got to the rue des Martyrs, ambled down oohing and aahing over all the beautiful cheese shops and flower shops and everything was just impossibly French and classy. Perfect for visitors. Cut along the boulevard to the Moulin Rouge for a photo op then all the way up the back of rue Lepic into the touristy bits of Montmartre and Sacré Coeur before lunch, coffee and a stroll back to Gare du Nord.
And that was that. Hope I get more visits like that soon.

Oh dear. I guess getting home after a couple of glasses of wine and attacking your kitchen wall with a scraper maybe isn't such a great idea:


But then, it's difficult not to be suspicious of your walls and attack anything that looks vaguely damp or mould-concealing when your afternoon has revolved around this:



And when you've been dealing with that the previous day, what you really don't want to notice when you're getting out of the shower the next morning is a big ol' crack that runs the length of four tiles halfway up your bathroom wall and corresponds perfectly to the big ol' crack that your excavations revealed along the kitchen wall.




There are times I really really wish my Dad lived up the road.

Blowing up a bed was never so much fun

My experiment with the worryingly backstreet website Triway / Boutique TV has turned out Just Fine. Last Thursday, I clicked "send" on the page with my credit card details and wondered how long it would take until my account was cleaned out. Turns out old style sites that rely rather too heavily on "As seen on TV" to convince you of their merits can be trustworthy. This afternoon, a big fat box was delivered to my work and, one rather heavy walk home later, I unpacked my first ever Aerobed. So much fun. There's a super-powerful built-in motor so my king premier inflated in two shakes of a lamb's tail and I was able to spend a happy few minutes lolling around, lying on the edges to try (and fail) to make them squish and tip me off. Looks like my old school friend who's visiting in a couple of weeks will get a decent night's sleep after all. She'll never know just what a narrow escape she had from "snuggle up on the other side of my bed, darling, don't mind if I kick you".

Even better news, I'm a soup-free zone. Five of my workmates bravely trudged through the rain up to mine yesterday lunchtime and polished off the whole pot. Nice friendly little lunch. Oh, and my friendly Pole phoned yesterday. He apologised profusely for being late to send his quote but at least he's still in the picture, which is a relief. Here's hoping I get electricity before Christmas.

Soup

Mmmm. My lovely friends gave me a kickass blender and a shiny toaster (with toasted sandwich option - hurray) for my birthday/house-warming.
It's been kind of grey and chilly today so I figured it was time to overcome my illogical acclimatisation issues, at least for the blender, and make some soup. I have no idea why, but I very rarely use things right when I get them. Instead, I sit and look at them for a period that usually lasts several months, if not a year or so. No problem for me, but for people giving presents it can look like good old-fashioned "don't like it".
Seeing as I do like my presents, very much, I thought I'd make a special effort. I unpacked them after only three weeks and today, three months to the day after I received it, I put the blender through its paces. It's great.




I'll be checking the quantities more closely next time though. Smooth, velvety sweet potato and white bean soup is a good thing but that is a LOT of soup. I think I'll be inviting my colleagues round for lunch tomorrow....



And now, time to show a little respect for the blender and do the washing up. J fixed the kitchen light last night, working out that it had died because the connection was rusty then being a good trusting fellow and sticking a knife in to scrape it clean, so I have proper light for the first time in three weeks. Next step will be working out why my bedroom light is so skittish.

New chair, good news

Miserably busy at work at the moment, so lots of very late nights (regular 11pm finishes, getting home at 2am was the record) and general blues as I try to decide whether or not I can stay with the company and what I'd do if I left.

Fortunately, I got some Very Good News about the flat. I've been wondering where I'll find someone to do the plumbing and electricity work. The lovely Mr Kitten appears to have left his company. Every time I called to ask when I was likely to get his quote I'd receive an evasive response. Finally they just sent someone else. Still no news from him either. The other two companies did send their quotes, but one is very expensive and the other is expensive and goes way beyond what I want done and doesn't include some kind of important elements.

At that point, in steps a friend with the phone number of a Pole. Said Pole comes round later in the week (7.30am after the aforementioned 2am finish) and proceeds to wrap me round his little finger. He's a young bloke, late twenties I think, with the cool gelled hedgehog hair of the moment and a blue jacket with 'Daredevil' written across the back.

He won instant brownie points for being the first guy to ask me to turn on the tap so he can see where the leak is. Next thing, he was halfway under the bath, wrestling with the pipes. He emerged two minutes later with some plastic joints in his hands and said that, as he thought, the plastic pipes linking the plughole to the evacuation have sprung apart because the pipes were cut too short so there wasn't enough of an overlap to take the strain when the bath dropped. He was appalled when I said that everyone else had said I'd have to rip out all the plumbing and start again. Seeing as the quotes I'd received for doing that were around five thousand euros, and he was telling me I could fix the problem with a tenners' worth of plastic, it felt like winning the lottery. He then disappeared under the bath again and spent the next fifteen minutes trying to sort it out. He was clearly frustrated that the pipes had been cut so short that he couldn't completely fix it, but since his work, I've been emptying an eggcup of water after each shower instead of a fruit bowl, so I'm a happy customer. I haven't received his quote yet either but I'll definitely be going with him and his band of Polish plumbers and electricians and heating engineers if I can.

In honour of my newfound less-poorness, I went to the brocante at Chatou with some friends and bought a comfy chair. Little bit tricky getting it home on the RER and the train but I had boys to help. Nice chair, I think.

Shroom 2 (actually, 5 and counting)

Another bathside mushroom yesterday morning. At 9am, as I was leaving for work, it was just a little nubbin:

By 9pm, when I got home, it was like this:

And that's a pretty slow growth pattern compared to the other guys. The work I did on Sunday must have reduced the amount of damp in the general vicinity, but clearly it's still enough. Sigh.

A dark day for silverfish

I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck into my bathroom today. After my mushroom discovery yesterday, I decided I couldn't play the ostrich any longer. The time had come to break down the rest of the tiled bath front and investigate what lay behind...

And the answer was: silverfish and rubble. Lots and lots of silverfish, lots and lots of rubble. The silverfish did what they could to scarper - and generally did it very well, in classic hectic silverfish style - and I took care of most of the rubble. I must have hauled about 12kg down to the bins in a selection of unobtrusive, "this is normal domestic waste" plastic bags. It was pretty hard to smash the tile and chipboard combo that had been put in front of the bath, but I got there in the end thanks to my new hammer and my trusty screwdriver.

This evening, I went back for another look - I knew there was still some rotten wood in the area and I couldn't resist. I spent another merry half-hour prising wood out of the wall, steadfastly ignoring the little voice that was telling me it maybe wasn't such a great idea to be digging the guts out of my wall. The result? Much better. There's now clear daylight between my bathroom and my kitchen, but I think I've got rid of 90% of the rotten wood (the stuff that didn't immediately turn into powder was as light as paper) and, even better, it looks like the wood was just a frame around the useless ventilation panel and not a wood frame for the wall itself.

My bath as it's appeared for the last month, complete with attractive damp patch:

Halfway through the demolition. Along the bottom, where it had been damp, the chipboard was like paper. Along the top, it was sturdy enough that I thought it might beat me.

Yay! All done. This is all that remained of the wooden post which was meant to be supporting the bath. The bottom had completely rotted away - same story on the other side.

And here's the bit of wood which the back-right leg of the bathtub was resting on. They managed to prop the other legs up on mounds of cement and broken tile and the like (as can be seen in the background) but this leg? nah, bit of wood'll do. I'm guessing this is the real culprit in the whole affair. The bath has dropped around 1cm at some point, probably because this bit of wood rotted, and that must have put stress on the pipes and created the leak fiesta I'm now dealing with...

My kitchen wall, as it's been since Mr Kitten cleared away the dead skirting board and knocked this hole in the wall by removing tiles from the bath front:

And my kitchen wall as it is tonight. I can remember when that was rotten wood, as far as the eye could see...

Shroom!

Ow. Just discovered another mushroom, under the bath by the kitchen wall this time. Here's the bad boy in all his glory:

Not bad, seeing as he wasn't there this time last night.

And here are a couple of glam photos of my bath. I updated my leak-capture system on Wednesday night (this is the old one - I now have a tray/pizza-tray combo on the go) and am catching more water than ever. Still don't think I'm managing to catch it all though.

One day, this will all be a memory...

Korean windows

The table is finished! Well, almost. I finished all the sanding and waxing and screwing last Saturday night at about 1am but still haven't tracked down the glass for the top. I went into Mr. Bricolage yesterday morning to get some cut only to be told that I should use safety glass and that it's only available on order. Fingers crossed for next weekend.















This is where things stand at the moment. No bad, huh? I'm pretty pleased. It's very stable and it scoots around quite happily on its little castors. The legs are just pine and were super-white when they started but three layers of coloured wax have done the trick - they're still a little lighter than I would have liked but the difference is barely noticeable in daylight and the windows themselves are made of at least two, if not three, kinds of wood anyway.

Today, it was sewing. I inherited a pair of old white(ish) muslim curtains from a friend and finally set to doing some much-needed repairs. Several buckets of soap and water, some new tabs and an attempt at ironing later (the plug doesn't fit properly in my ancient sockets and I realised after a few minutes that the metal connections were so loose that they were blackening and starting to burn - time to unplug, learn to love the wrinkles and obsessively check the wall for burning for the next few hours), they were good to go. The new tabs at the left are cream rather than white but I figured making them a bit ugly was a good tactic for making sure I replace them reasonably quickly.
In the meantime, the bathroom trauma continues....

Photo op

My camera was finally delivered today. The day was a big ol' exercise in delayed gratification, but I finally got home around eight and opened it up. It's beeeootiful - black and shiny metal and the very epitome of sleek. The battery's busy charging but should be finished by the time I've ploughed through the instructions. Can't wait to play!

Wax on, wax off

I've had such a grand week, even with the teeth and cheek situation. (Visited the dentist today - the inflated cheek is, in fact, an inflated cheek. I blew my nose VERY GENTLY after my post-op lunch of yogurt and apple purée and my right cheek suddenly flooded with something liquidy, to the extent that when I gave it a gentle squeeze, whatever fluid it was came out of my eye. Nice: the mind turns to blood, gunge, apple purée... what's going on in there? Anyway,the rest of the swelling has gone down and I'm feeling very chipper but I was starting to wonder if my cheek might be infected, hence the dentist. Turns out the root of my wisdom tooth had grown into my sinus canal (ooh, nice again) so when I blew my nose, all the air took a short cut through the opening in my sinus and blew up my cheek. I didn't know I had space in my cheek for extra air supplies but, apparently, I do. Just got to wait for it to disperse.)
In the meantime, visits from another two contractors, more progress on the table-windows, might have managed to buy myself a little camera, and definitely managed to buy myself a little gardenia, which is sitting beside me smelling awfully nice.

A whole week to think

I have the luxury of a whole week off work. An enormously swollen cheek and cute little black eye, accompanied by occasional nose bleeds (all four wisdom teeth out yesterday morning) is a small price to pay.

I'm taking advantage of my housebound status to finish waxing the Korean windows which are all set to become a coffee table as soon as I find a good leg solution and to do some thinking about colours. I'm going to have to make colour decisions about the bathroom pretty soon.

At the moment, the floor is dark grey marble-effect tiles and everything else is turquoise. We're talking floor-to-ceiling, surround-sound, ovalish tiles in deep-sea turquoise, set off by a turquoise door. It's an indoor bathroom too, so there isn't even a window to remind you that you're not twenty-thousand leagues under the sea.

Clearly, I'm going to be taking a break from that particular shade of blue. White tiles around the bath are in. For the moment. Floor will be... um? Untiled bits of wall will be... er? I'm on a bit of a beige vibe at the moment but by tomorrow I'll probably be back to green.

Make my mind up time is on its way, however. Another contractor came round today to give me a quote on the plumbing and electrical work that needs done and the third company is coming tomorrow morning. Once I've got the quotes in from them and the charming Mr Kitten - who came a couple of weeks ago but has still to send his doubtless terrifying quote - it'll be time to go cap-in-hand to the bank and get started as soon as possible. Even taking short showers I'm having to empty about half a litre of water from the leak under the plughole, and that clearly isn't the only leak on the go as the raggedy concrete under the bath is still wet and getting wetter. Oh, and mushroom number three popped up today - just time to say hello to the contractor before he got his marching orders and disappeared binwards.

First post

Five weeks ago tonight I was busy packing, ready to sign and move the next day. It didn't quite go as planned, but I'm here now.

Other than the wooden floors, the cornices, the green chimney and the great windows, almost everything's going to change. It's gonna take time and it's gonna take money - a whole lot of precious money if the mushrooms in the bathroom are anything to go by - but the flat has lovely bones so it's going to be worth it.

In the beginning, there were dirty windows and not a lot else....