Surreal Georgia

One Of Those Rare Wonderful Days

I feel like having already summer break, but only one other day and I have to be back to normal. Sigh! Life can be so good!

We spent a lot of time outside in the garden today, eating and drinking coffee, wathing the birds and the aeroplanes, relishing the mild sun.

 

 

 

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We also managed to get Anna's hallway done. There were most things already done, but we cleaned the room and tidied everything up, which was enough work for one day. I think the result is as good as it could be with all this wood on the walls. Painting the wood white made the room so much lighter!

Look!

 

 

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In front of Anna's front door there is a little herb garden now.

 

 

 

Still Alive And: What A Difference A Color Makes

Yes, I'm still alive. but there are loads of work behind me.Because renovating is not the only work I did, you can imagine that I nearly drowned of work.

Today only a short glance on the progress with Anna's hallway. Do you remember, this totally wooden room, dark and nothing but brown, brown, brown. OK, I don't like brown very much. This is true. It makes me feel sad.

I have been painting every free minute and this is the result so far:

I'm always surprised what colors can do to a room. I painted the entire wood white, the walls in a light vanilla yellow and wallpapered the base of the walls with a wall paper in a silvery white and vanilla yellow with golden ornaments. Even the front door is now painted in a light cream color tone. OK, the floor is ugly with it's dark green. But as soon as we have a little money there will be a new one in sand beige.

Um, and this is the other side of the room:

There is still much work to do: Hanging wall lamps, painting the little cabinet and the front door for the second time, painting the stairs with shellack (the have got a lot of scratches from all the activity during the past two years), hanging curtains and of course cleaning everything.

 Just for comparison:

 

Starting With Anna's Rooms

Today we preapared the next big chapter of remodeling the house. Anna's rooms will be done one after another.

OK, we already renovated her two bedrooms and her study she will use before completely move into her part of the house, so the headline isn't quite right. 

For my readers who aren't familiar with the renovating progress:

Green are the rooms that are already done. These are - at least in the first story - also the rooms for me, but until Anna will be done with her study she is going to live also there and will move later into her part of the house. At the moment she still enjoys me making the household, cooking, cleaning and whatever there has to be done day by day.

In the second story the green rooms are also done. A thick red line means that these rooms are belonging to Anna's apartment. A thick yellow line means that these rooms are used by both of us like the guest room, the laundry and the barn, which will later be a library and living room.

Red is Anna's hallway, because this is the room which is currently remodeled. Later this month the laundry will follow, which therefore is pink.

Blue are the rooms where we are currently living.

Today we tidied up a lot and moved  a lot of furniture, so Anna's hallway (the red room in the maps) is prepared for painting it next weekend:

Anna decided that she wanted to have the desk of her grandmother. Here it is. It's from the 60ies and the wood is birchtree. The front door of her hallway will get a  light and friendly color, not that dark brown. Later also the floor will change: sand beige floor tiles like everywhere inthe house. But with this floor project we still have to wait, because we need the money for more urgent things at the moment. In the center of the picture you see the stairs which are leading upstairs to Anna's kitchen and living room.

Another view with a new dresser made of birch wood like the desk.

This little cabinet will be painted in light cream. Anna wanted to have it, because there is a very stylish music stereo equipment in it which allows to play old vinyls. The doors are currently removed for painting them.

Um... the staircase is very wooden. But here we can't reomove the entire wood without destroying too much. So the wood has to stay. With a lot of pictures, stylish and bright lamps and decoration it will do. We can't remove the wood everywhere. It's also in Anna's kitchen and in her upper hallway, but there we are going to paint it. Here we can't paint it, because I am not able to work 5 meters above the ground on a shaky ladder which is placed on the steps. I would die of fear!

So be curious about what will happen to the room the next weeks and how we solve the problems.

 

By the end of May the next big project is waiting, the laundry. This is how it looks like after we tidied the room up this morning:

It's a LOT of work!

The color will be light cream and orange in the laundry. I looked for some fabric for sewing curtains, cushions and so on and found this so far:

The pattern should be something with small flowers and something that fit's to a country house. My favorite is the American fabric No 3. But maybe there is a better choice? What do you think?

Another Room

Today is a milestone: The old main house is done so far apart from floor tiles. But you know, they are expensive and we can't lay them all at once therefore. So there are still some rooms without a new floor. Sp please don't look at the floor!

Today I finished Anna's study or better, what will become her study once. 

And here some pics from the bathrooms. I went on decorating them a bit:

 

Here you can see what there is already done:

downstairs; green means "done"

 

upstairs

 

I think I deserve a glass of red wine now! Prost!

Big House Tour

 

Because the last weeks were filled with too much work we decided to have very simple and relaxed Easter days. We started the day late with a simple breakfast. When the pic was taken I was just boiling eggs and making coffee. The luxury was not to have any duties and this was wonderful.

Then I made a little film of our house how it looks like after the bathrooms are done now. I hope you can understand me. My accent must be terrible. I proudly invite you to follow me on a short tour through the house:

 

The morning was sunny, but very cold. Direct sunlight came into most rooms. The bad news is that the camera couldn't manage the high contrasts in the house. So many parts of the film are pretty dark. Therefore I additionally made some photos of the new bathrooms. Look!

Bathroom downstairs: washing area with bathtub. One wall lamp is missing. I need an electrician, because there is something wrong.

Little dresser. It has to painted for the second time and it has to be painted inside and the door knobs are still missing. Do you see the metal plate and bowl? They are from Pennsylvania, a present of my Aunt Louise of Erie.

And this is the toilet area- There is a wardrobe missing in the right corner. We have an old one from about 1880 which will be painted in lavender and will complete this part of the bathroom.

Bathroom upstairs, the small bathroom with the glass shower.

Little dresser with old chair. It's from about 1830. Here you see what the cushion is for.

The sink.

The window. The picture is a bit dark, because it was much to bright sunshine outside and I forgot about using the flashlight.

It's still sunny outside, so we are going to go to the cemetery now. Bye!

 

 

Broken - Photo Challenge

The consequence of fragility can look like this:

It was a valuable Venetian crystal lamp - was, until some of the craftsmen destroyed it. And this was not the only thing they destroyed. There was a lot of damage on my interior.

This is the reason for being so quiet the last to days: Removing all the damage and cleaning the house, which was covered under a thick layer of dust was a job all around the clock.

Sorry for being late with this task. I cleaned until midnight yesterday to get the house done and clean until Easter. But now it looks like MY house again and not like a place which is reigned by craftsmen who don't care about my things, use all my things without asking and leave my stuff dirty and broken.

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Regular participants are:

Ree

Lisa 

Taia

and me. Feel free to join us!

 

Repetition (Photo Challenge) And What Else Happened Today

Repetition, um.... let me do it in three pics which are telling the story about my day on this April 2nd:

Yes, this looks quite similar, but these are three different sinks. Three times the same kind of sink in my bathrooms. This means that they are done today, at least according to the work that has to be done by craftsmen. Now it's my turn to finish the bathrooms and I'm going to start tomorrow by wallpapering and installing a lot fo things and making closets for both bathrooms.

And this is how the bathrooms look like this evening:

Bathroom upstairs with a huge glass shower.

Bathroom downstairs, washing area.

Bathroom downstairs, toilet area.

And this came today via mail: A parcel with a lot of cute things for decorating the bathrooms. Look!

Curtains, rugs, cushions and furniture knobs for the closets! Yes, we chose lavender for both bathrooms.

I'm pretty tired now, because I stood always behind the craftsmen, with a pistol in my hand. No, not really. But whenever I went away nearly nothing happened on the construction site, because they worked so slowly. Whenever I was there the work made good progrress. So I stayed until all was done. My dear uncle was also here for a visit. I always appreciate very much seeing him. And he brought me some Easter candies.

All in all we made good progress today. But I'm going to go to bed now. Good night!

 

************************************************************************************************

Regular participants are:

Ree

Lisa 

Taia

and me. Feel free to join us!

Beautiful Morning

What a difference a little sunshine can make! It's a beautiful Sunday morning and life energy is coming back slowly.

I was just outside my door and this is what I saw, our little street in the sunlight! It's so beautiful outside!

I looked after the work we did in the flower beds in front of the house:

This is flower bed no. 1; we planted a lot, also some herbs for preaparing tasty meals.

 

Some colorful spring flowers near the entrance...

And this is flower be no. 2. It's always in the shade and very dry. I hope the plants will make it there and once cover all the soil there.

Even the bathrooms look a lot better after I worked a lot on them yesterday. I didn't manage to wall paper, because I had the wrong paste, but it looks better as you can see:

 

 

See you later with the photo challenge!

Grey Day And Grey Feelings

It's grey outside, big grey clouds are covering the sky. It's cold after a period of time with summer-like weather, it's rainy and a bit stormy.

This is what I see looking out of my window: The roofs of our garages, a piece of our garden and the street behind our house, but above all: Grey!

I should be glad this morning, actually, because there are two weeks off ahead, Easter break. But I'm feeling as grey as the weather outside. Maybe I am simply exhausted, but I have been sleeping for 15 hours this night after I fell in bed yesterday afternoon after our shopping tour. And I woke up with a bad migraine. 

Sometimes I think my last power is gone, sucked up by all the things that happened over the last years. And I'm afraid that it won't come back. I'm saying for years that there must be urgently more free time in my life, but it grows worse from month to month. To save a little bit of my energy I called craftsmen for doing the bathrooms, but I wonder if it would have been better doing all by myself, because they left so much crap, so much dirt and demolition, so much things I have to correct and redo that I wonder if their work is worth a single Cent. I did not learn all these kinds of work, but I do it much better than they do. And I'm angry and annoyed when seeing the results of their work. Hey, and it costs my money!

Monday the plumber will (hopefully, you never know if he really shows up) come for the last time and install the sinks and toilets and after he is gone I won't let in any craftsman again, I swear!

I'm sitting here, powerless, but having so much to do. The ceiling of the bathroom in the upper story has to be painted today, the floor (which one of the craftsmen layed yesterday) needs a major redo, because it's all not correct what he did, the floor in the bathroom downstairs - same mess, which has to be re-done today. The walls in the bathroom downstairs need to be wallpapered before the sinks will be installed and I have to paint and sand both doors in the bathrooms. These are my tasks for today.

Maybe I'm feeling better after a good cup of coffee...

The only good thing that happened is that Anna did her last difficult test before she can make her Bachelor of Arts. She did it well and it was a difficult test which most of the students don't pass and which could be the end for their study at all. We have been suffering a lot until the results were out on last Thursday. She passed the test very well and this was the last obstacle before her exam. You can't imagine how glad I am about her success! The next week she will decide if she does her exam at once or if she needs another seminar to make her grades one percent better for doing her Master of Arts. I'm proud of my daughter. She is a wonderful young woman.

Well, I should get ready for my work today and do my duty to get the bathrooms done before Easter. And I want to have a clean house again until then. So I should get my ass out of the chair and do something. Sigh!

Update On Our Horror-Bathrooms

I have got a pneumonia. I', pretty ill. It began last weekend. It's not infectious. I think it's from the dust the craftsmen made by tearing down the walls. My lung is full of dust and I am feeling very week.

In the meantime (I can't do more than reading a bit) the craftsmen did some work on our bathrooms. They promised me to finish the bathroom of the first story tomorrow and to start with the bathroom of the upper story. It's hard to believe when you watch the two videos I made. They promise a lot. The bathroom downstairs should have been done today as they told me yesterday.

 

 

 

The second video I made is from the bigger bathroom downstairs and the first one is from the bathroom upstairs. The craftsmen are just gone, so I had a look on the progress they made. The tiler did a good job, the plumber, well, after we did not think that he would show up again at all, he came this morning and finished his work, but he made a lot of damages. I have to paint a lot in the already renovated hallway and he made some damages on the newly made ceiling of the bathroom upstairs. I'm not very amused.