Quick update

Very very quick.

Things seem to be going fine and now that the electricity is almost finished, it should be possible to see some progress soon. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, this:

has become this:

This:

has become this:

This:

has turned into this:

and this:

Now they just have to put it all back together again...

And they're off!

Travaux started exactly a week ago today. I'm staying with various friends, on a variety of airbeds and sofas, so I'm pretty tired and email access isn't easy. Suffice it to say that I'm still hemming and hawing about kitchen lighting, and that I had to water my plants with bottled water at the weekend, and that having felt really quite disoriented by seeing my lovely home reduced to dust and broken plaster I'm now feeling an awful lot happier and really quite hopeful. Pictures to come as and when I'm able to upload them. :)

Exciting times

I've accepted a quote for all my travaux: looks like the dust and destruction could start as early as next week and, even more excitingly, that it could all be clean and beautiful and new a mere four weeks after that! I don't know what I'd do with a proper, functional, hole-free flat but it's a terribly enticing prospect.

I'm going to be spending this weekend finalising decisions about taps (so difficult!) and kitchen floors (so know what I want, so don't know exactly where to find it or what kind of material to choose) and windows and tiles and I'll probably find time to second-guess my thoughts about baths and sinks too.

Just in case there's anyone out there, here's a picture of three ways I might end up doing the high window I'm going to create between the kitchen and my dark, underwater bathroom.

Any thoughts? I know which picture I like best, but I have a feeling that might not be the best real-life choice. The proportions aren't anything like the same, but this is the kind of effect I'm looking for:

Picture: Apartment Therapy

Also, does anyone know about Kludi taps, specifically the Bozz? I've never heard of them but I saw them in BHV, which is a pretty reliable sort of shop, and I like the look of them, but I'm slight concerned that the url ends "...bad-bozz" and that I received a note from my neighbour today telling me off for keeping him awake by running my washing machine at 1am (yeah, I don't have a washing machine... yet) and he is called... Mr Bozza! Subliminal messages or mere coincidences?

Anyway, all of these things to ponder AND I need to drum up the enthusiasm to drag myself out to spend yet more time in the 6-and-a-1/2th circle of hell that is the IKEA kitchen department.

On that note, here's a flower for some cheerfulness. It's one of my long-suffering gardenias, flowering. Those poor babies have been sunburnt and overfed and burnt again and dried out (and, of course, appreciated for their hardiness and sheer stubborn ability to return from the precipice every time). Even after all that, the big one, which had clearly been pumped up on plant food by the garden shop and looked like a goner for a couple of months after I got it home, has managed to produce TWO flowers this year. Here's the most recent:

Smells lovely too.