The house painting begins tomorrow. Today my wife and I did a lot more packing of things into boxes and bags and moving them to the garage to get them out of the way. We have a built-in wardrobe, and the back wall of it is wall, like the rest of the walls, so it needs to be painted too. So we had to remove all of our clothes, packing them in large moving bags, and then to the garage. Of course we kept enough clothes out to wear for the week.
I have to say the place looks very empty now, though all the furniture is still in here, and some cabinets and drawers still have things inside, as long as they’re not fragile or too heavy to be moved along with the furniture. All the pictures have been removed from the walls – we had quite a few artworks and photographs hanging up.
The painting is actually near last in a string of spring cleaning mini-renovation jobs that we’ve done in the past few months. Here’s a list of what we’ve done and have planned, roughly in order:
- New blinds installed to replace old ones on all windows and the patio glass sliding door. The new blinds are lighter in colour, to match the planned new paint scheme.
- New ceiling light fittings installed in the living room, study area, hallway, and bedroom.
- Replaced the kitchen tidy bin that occupied part of the kitchen floorspace with a slightly smaller one that fits inside the cabinet under the sink.
- New downlights installed above working bench space in the kitchen.
- Removal of old fluorescent tube that was fixed to the wall with an ugly power cord dangling down to a power point.
- Installation of coat racks on the bedroom wall to hold coats and hats and bags and things, removing clutter from other places.
- Had a stone polisher in to clean stains and repolish the bathroom floor tiles.
- Replaced the laundry basket that was taking up floor space in the bathroom with a new one that will live in the laundry.
- Built a new shelf to go in the laundry above the sink, to hold said new laundry basket. That shelf hasn’t been installed yet – it’s waiting on the painting of the wall behind it to be done before I screw it into place.
- Removal of landline phone socket and filling the hole in the wall with mortar so that it can be painted over and won’t be visible any more.
- Replacement of all power points and light switches with new style switches in a new white colour to better match the new paint colour scheme. The old switches were a more classic (i.e. old-fashioned looking) style and a creamy colour matching the old paint scheme.
- Repainting (beginning tomorrow, lasting five days, maybe extending into Saturday, according to the painter’s estimate).
- A handyman is going to insert a wooden wedge between the cabinetry under the kitchen sink and the granite benchtop to better support the benchtop and prevent the cracked stone from sagging. Then the stone guy (the same one who polished the bathroom floor) has said he can repair the cracked granite with resin to make it look whole again. (This is way cheaper than having the entire granite slab replaced.) The handyman is planning to come do that on Wednesday.
- We’re going to get the old front door intercom receiver replaced with a new one. The old one has yellowed awfully and a new white one will be a better match for the new paint.
- Finally, we’re going to have the wooden parquetry kitchen floor sanded and resealed. It’s very scuffed and has some dents from dropped things, and desperately needs a refresh. To avoid future scuffing is the reason we’ve moved to the new tidy bin under the sink, rather than free-standing on the floor, as the old one used to get in the way and we’d slide it around all the time, scuffing the floor. The sanding is booked in for late November.
- Oh, and after all that is done, I’m going to steam clean the carpets, before Christmas. Since the family is coming here this year for Christmas lunch, so we can show off the renovations. The carpets kind of could use replacing too, but that’s an even bigger job, requiring removal of furniture.
Our garage is currently full of boxes and moving bags, and our car is parked elsewhere for the duration. This evening it feels like we’ve done all the preparation we can do for a week of painting and it’s now the calm before the storm.
In between all this we took Scully for a couple of walks and took some time to relax at a cafe. I don’t drink coffee, but while my wife did I had a blueberry muffin. Oh, we also took some books that we wanted to give away up to the street library along the way. it’s a good one with high turnover. We’ve put about 30 books in there the past few weeks, and they’ve all gone to new owners pretty quickly.
Phew! Here’s hoping the painting gets off to a good start tomorrow.