Choices made without you!

The paint shall be Resene 'Haystack', a little richer than it looks on my monitor, but it sits happily between the probably-going-to-be-polished floors and the dark chocolate of the vanity, and it makes the whites sparkle.

The tiles shall be enormous rectangular glossy white things, and I shall have to cut each and every one of them so they fit in the desired manner, and they shall look fabulous of course. I'm going to lay them (do you lay tiles on a wall...guess not!) in a brick pattern, or subway style as they would say in New York.

The tiles go on the front of the bath (the apron...ha ha) and above the vanity.

The beer is just lovely, and I've earned it! It is a difficult thing to paint a bathroom. A very time consuming and difficult thing.

It's also helping me chill out, cos I was going to show you a picture of New York subway tiles, but I can't find the disc they're stored on. Shan't panic, shan't panic.

Stuff...

I'm filling in time (can you tell?) waiting for the plasterer to turn up. He said he'd be back this morning to sand back his fine work. Rather him than me, but I can't paint til he's done that.

The big news that I haven't blogged about so far is that I have a new job.

No more road/rail safety for me. Did you guess that was what I did? Well I don't anymore. So make sure you bloody well drive safely, don't speed, do up your seatbelt, don't drink and drive, rest when you're tired, put the cell phone down, and STOP at level crossings. All right?

I left that world with a heavy heart, but the new job is a great opportunity. So off I went to save the world from something else. There were heartfelt farewells that moved me to tears (but I'm a soppy kinda girl I guess), a gorgeous clock and photo frames, very nice letters of thanks from important people, and then a welcoming ceremony (a mihi whakatau) at my new place which was beautiful and humbling (me? they're talking about me?).

It was weird being the newbie, going from being the expert surrounded by friends, to knowing sod all, surrounded by strangers. So after 5 weeks of getting settled, sorting out my chair and the printer drivers, reading everything ever written about the subject in question, and getting to enjoy the company of some great new people....they seconded me to another job.....for 18 months. Which is a long time.

So now I've been at new job no. 2 for two weeks. And again, dealing with figuring out where to get off the bus, what to wear, who to have coffee with, plus how to deal with two email addresses, and two diaries. I thought scoring new job no. 1 was pretty stunning, but new job no. 2 is going to be fabulous. I have a gorgeous office with a great view. There are high profile movers and shakers filling my days (and turning out to be just lovely to be hanging out with) and best of all there are deeply philosophical and academic questions to be researched and debated and written about. I am, quite frankly, pinching myself, this is a dream job for a policy adviser in this little city. It's a bit of a bugger that I can't tell you what it is, but we don't blog about work, no we don't.

Is it any wonder I'm feeling a tad worn out and weepy today! I should've gone swimming, but I was saving my energy for painting, which will be an all day/evening effort. I shouldn't talk with that handy man into the wee small hours either.

Bloomin plasterer still isn't here, so I'm going shopping for tiles and test pots. You may be called upon to decide the paint colour.

found it!

I found the fabric that I talked about in this post.
It's by Anna Maria Horner.

Lookee!It's from her 'drawing room' range. The whole range is gorgous, but that one at the bottom right, that's the one I've seen skirts made of. I could make me one of those (if I wasn't too busy painting of course!).

and look what the designer herself does with it...

It's called the cookbook apron, and like she says "you would look so good in it! Really! Totally your colors and would look great in your kitchen". ha!

Do you wear aprons, dear cookists out there? You'd think your sewist buddy would stitch you one up sometime, wouldn't you? (AOF, Sagittarian, Flea Girl I'm talking to you, I'm just too lazy to link).

Here is Anna Maria's blog.
and here is her website with fabfabric (that was a typo, but I like it!).
Santa can bring me one of her rugs, any one will do just fine. I'll base my bedroom decorating on it.

I'm going tile shopping now. The ones I love the most so far are only $20 each. So yeah, I'm still shopping.

Friday bathroom

Friday

Loving the shiny taps, shiny shower walls, dark chocolate vanity...

Not happy about the scratch on the brand new bath, a few holes in the floor, a stray nail sticking out of the window framing (looks like I hammered the nail in, not a builder). Sigh. I'm getting to be 'had-enough' of this process. I have got painting to do all weekend. Lucky I can start with sealer coat and undercoat, and take some time with choosing the colour. Buying the test pots tomorrow. The tiles will be white. But what size?

That vanity is great though, isn't it? It's got drawers, not cupboards, and look at all that storage!
Yay!

more bathroom

Thursday

The plasterer came today. He talked with me about my bedroom too.
That's a whole other job. Sigh.

Wednesday

It didn't look like much happened, but the electrician came, and they also relined and plumbed the laundry.
Lovely.

The bathroom

You should read this post from the bottom up!!

Tuesday

New walls, new toilet, new bath.
They made sure we always had a toilet. Most thoughtful. We went to the pool for showers today.
I have to choose paint and tiles.

Monday

The house is full of men. They cleaned up as best they could and took lots of rubbish away.

Sunday

Really, the bathroom was much worse than this picture shows!

The stairs

How did I do it? Did I do it myself?
Did I ever!!

I pulled up the carpet. It was hard, I had to do 2 or 3 steps a day to look after my hands.
I removed the carpet tacks as I went.
I sanded the stairs. 3 times. 3 different grades of sandpaper.
I put four coats of polyurethane on them.
I sanded the skirting boards.
I painted them, 1 undercoat and two top coats. They need another. I'll get to that.
The black and white wallpaper came from Resene (who have a great website and even better sales!).
Because the wallpaper isn't as wide as the stairs, I had to cut the strips from the length rather than the width. There wasn't enough repeats in one roll to make them all exactly the same so I cut two different versions and alternated them. I like how that made a new pattern. I used it all up though, so I think I might buy another roll, in case I need to make repairs.
I pasted the strips to the stairs, and I'm thinking I might seal them somehow to make them more hardy.
I still have skirting boards and a couple of hall walls to finish ....

The handyman came to visit for the weekend and he said I'd done a good job. He said it more than once. He's incredibly fussy, so that's high praise from him. I think he meant it!

The house is full of men this week. Builders, plumber, electrician......I told them they had to look after my stairs.

and you wonder why I'm not posting...

I have the prettiest stairs in town!