Day 48 - As mentioned... it's the little things

I don't think I'm a terribly unreasonable person. I can be a bit OCD about cleaning, I hate it when people say they're going to do something but don't and I have firm views on bigotry of all kinds. But generally I think I'm pretty cruisey.

But I have been amazed at four little things have driven my WILD with rage in the course of this renovation. Full credit to Charlie who's project managed the whole process and arranged for every single one to be fixed but it's hard to get over that feeling of pure anger. And they're really not ginormous things that will dramatically effect me or anyone I love in the long term.

1. The tap for the bath being at the foot of the bath when I wanted it on the side
2. The window in the front room being painted without removing the curtain rail
3. The drawer in the bathroom cabinet not being put in properly so it sticks a bit and is a bit lob sided
4. The wardrobe doors not being what I expected

When you consider he's pretty much got each of the 3,586 other things exactly right, that's not a long list. Nor is it a list of major things. But as mentioned... WILD with rage.

Day 43 - the innocence of youth

I've just been rereading some posts and I notice that at the start of July I referred to my kitchen going in in around three weeks.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Currently, my kitchen is due to go in in around three weeks. I popped back to the house last night to pick up the post and drop off some tiles and my kitchen is turquoise, my hall and bedrooms are polished and my bathroom floor is tiled. Next week there will be a small break in the floor sanding antics to allow me to move the entire house from the lounge and kitchen across to the three bedrooms and then it will resume.

Can't
Wait
For
It
To
Be
Done

And then (and only then) will the kitchen go in. When I mentioned to my builder that that's a couple of weeks later than I initially thought it would be he mentioned that kitchen guys are always late. So now I'm in a quandary. Do I let him know we're running behind or do I let him keep going and call him the day before he originally thought he'd be installing my kitchen?

So...much...news

I have lots to update on but I have not the time to write it all now. Nor, I'm sure, have you the patience to read it. So I'm going to start at the very beginning and try to keep it pithy and see how far I get....

I Got A Heater
You have absolutely no idea how nice this is and what a difference it makes. I can't wait to have a house that isn't open all day letting all the lovely heat I've pumped into it out.

Literally life changing.

I Got A Flatmate
Some of you will have heard of Claire before. Well she's my flatmate again. This is very cool and means I have a person to wander around spotting house changes with in the evening. Although she's currently trekking around the North Island with her friend.

I Had My First Group of People Over
Ok so we had to uncover a sofa and carry it through to sit in the sun room and we ran out of glasses and we didn't really have enough chairs. But it was very cool having people over again. That's the only reason to own a house.

I Was Broken Into
Now this was weird. I got home last night at about 11.00 and was surprised that the lights were off in the house. I was sure I'd left the porch light on. But I toddled off to bed and it was only the next morning after an hour or so of mooching around that I noticed that my brand spanking new window that has been installed in the wall of the sun room, was no longer in the wall of the sunroom but was in fact sitting neatly on my deck, leaning up against the wall of my sunroom. It wasn't smashed or visibly damaged and my first instinct was that one of the tradepeople had taken it out and forgotten to put it back in. This was not the case.

To make a long blog short as possible, the current theory is that they specifically targeted me because my house is clearly a building site, with 'Danger construction underway' signs and a skip the size of Texas in my front garden. The reason we concluded this is because my laptop, camera and ipod were all untouched. And they really did a very neat job of removing the window. Suggesting taht it was a builder/burglar looking for builders' tools. All they did steal in the end was a couple of beers, some wine, a tub of ice cream, some veggie gyoza and some tinned pulses.

Weird.

I Am Staying With A Friend While My Floors get Polished.
Antonia is having me to stay while my floors get sanded and polished. Thanks Lady! The cats have gone into a cattery for the first time in their lives. Sad. But my floors are gettign polished. Hurray.

It's the little things...

So it won't come as a surprise that I'm saying this but... it's a roller coaster. One day you're high as a kite. It's possible that's the paint fumes, but just generally there are certain days that feel... fun. Then other days you just want to have enough money so you can stay in a hotel for a couple of nights. Just so you have somewhere to hang out that isn't your bedroom. Just so you can shower properly. Just so you can get dressed without having to visit three rooms to get your clothes and another to get into them without flashing the neighbours.

And that's exactly it. It's the Little things that wear you down. The tiny particles of dust, the mucky paw print on your last tea towel, having to reset your alarm clock every single day because the power was switched off at some point for some reason or another, having to shower in the dark because there's only a sheer curtain up in the bathroom.

But on the other hand it's the little steps that get you all excited. My bathroom has plaster board on the walls today and that dappled glass stuff that bathrooms should have. My new shower isn't installed but is at least now in the house, as opposed to in storage in my neighbour's garage (thanks Norman!), there is a curtain nailed up over my bedroom window and I finally have a gas heater connected to the gas mains. It's been running for four hours now and it's lifted the temperature of my house from 11 degrees when I got home to a balmy 18 degrees. No mean feat. And I'm not being sarcastic when I say that feels balmy. I'm LOVING it.

Today is a good day.

Day 31 - FINALLY

I currently have:

Resource consent
Gas piped in form the street
Two fully painted bedrooms
A cat flap
A bora free attic
A new found tolerance for dust

I currently don't have:

A toilet door
A shower
A bathroom door
Bedroom doors that shut
Windows that open

Day 29 of renovations- detox on hold

Now I know what you're thinking- she ditched detox because she couldn't go on without booze. Well you're wrong wrong wrong. It turns out that what I can't go on without is a kitchen. I have no oven, my cutlery drawer and sink is behind a pile of gib board and there is no bench space accessible. This makes it tricky to prepare even steamed veg and fish. I don't even own a microwave. I'd imagine there will be a number of salads prepared on the coffee table in the coming weeks but the depths of winter is not really primo salad season, so let's be honest it's going to be takeaways most of the time.

So detox is out the window until the new kitchen goes in - in about three weeks. Eep.

However today when I left there was an electrician, a plumber, two painters, two plasterers and three builders in my house. I'd imagine the house will look quite different when I get home tonight.

Probably the other big lack is the cat flap. Currently their isn't one. Pinot is a reasonably quirky cat at the best of times which was why it took me a while to realise that her frantic dashing around the house this morning was not just her being a loony. She needed out. Urgently. Luckily I figured it out in time.

Insulation went into the roof last night- such a huge difference!

10 Things I Have Learnt So Far While Renovating

1. Dust won't kill you. But if you endeavour to remove it from every surface every day, it might make you kill yourself.
2. Your neighbours, who seem lovely on the face of it, are sneaky conniving bastards who will chuck stuff in your skip in the dead of night.
3. Stuff being chucked in your skip in the dead of night makes a BIG NOISE and will scare the shite out of you the first hundred or so times.
4. People who have used builders will not believe you when you tell them how great your builder is. This is because they have been endlessly ripped off by trades people and refuse to believe that anyone could have had a different experience.
5. People love to take what you consider flash and exciting and shit all over it. "A good, basic kitchen" (that you've just spent the equivalent of six month's salary on) or "Huh, green paint. I see" or referring to the whole job as "Your little renovation"
6. These people are wankers and should be punched in the goolies forthwith.
7. It is impossible to just tear off a little bit of wallpaper. That shit is instantly addictive.
8. You can live without about 90% of the shit you have in your house.
9. The 10% you can't live without will be packed in an unlabelled box and is probably under a teetering pile of the other 90%.
10. Everything will take longer than you expect... except your money running out.

Day 22 of the renovations, Day five of Detox - Reality Bites

Ok ok ok I know, all renovations go over budget. But do you know what's really frustrating? Mine's not going over budget because of some shonky builder or dodgy contractor. It's not even because when they ripped something out they discovered unexpected or unbudgeted for rot, leaks or any other issues.

It's all my fault. You see I want nice things but what I didn't do is add up all of the nice things to a total to see how much all of the nice things were going to cost me. Outcome = currently I'm $20k short on the expected total spend. $20k!! Oopsie.

Fuck detox, I could go on hunger strike and still not make up that shortfall. so when I went to my dentist today (I bit down on an alleged 'pitted' olive to find out that it had been falsely advertised) and he told me I needed to spend $1500 on a crown, I didn't even blink. Well actually I did blink and then said. "That's a freakin' dishwasher!!!". I'm not sure that made a lot of sense to Roger but he's an amiable sort and he took it in his stride. The point is, that in the scheme of things $1500 doesn't make a huge difference either way. I'm financially screwed.

Want to hear the best part? Because it's a very little tooth, he wants me to get a gold cap because they're stronger! A gold cap!!! Told you i always end up withe the fanciest option in the room.

At least I can develop my gansta rappa career and hopefully recoup some renovation costs.