The results of building work, painting and shopping

Remember when hubs went into hospital and we had the builders in to put in some Velux roof windows above our dining table and above the kitchen?

And then the windows weren’t spaced out right, so they had to be removed and then a bigger hole had to be made in the roof and then the windows had to be put back again.

And then the plasterers came and the end result of that looked like the plasterers were plastered while plastering our ceiling. So they had to come back and do a lot of it again.

And then the electrician came to put the spotlights in the ceiling and above the windows. But the holes for the spotlights above the windows were too big for the lights. So the builders had to remove the plasterboard above the windows, put new plasterboard in with smaller holes, and then the plasterers had to come back to plaster the new plasterboard.

But apart from that *sigh*, everything went well and the end result is pretty nice.

 

before (windows too close together)      after redoing that                               

End result: lots of light above the dining table. I’ve painted the fireplace in a Histor colour called ‘Pizza’ and chosen the extra mat paint from Flexa, mixed in the Pizza colour. Very happy with the colour and the finish. It’s almost velvety.

We’ve painted the wall on the right side in a Farrow & Ball colour called Joa’s White, which doesn’t look anything like the colour on the colour card nor like the block we painted with the tester pot, it is much lighter, but we still like it. It’s a very warm, yellowish off-white. And we bought metal radiator covers (Sentimo) for the hideous radiators. You just stick it to the radiator with magnets. Great solution if you don’t want the wooden, more traditional radiator covers that I do like but hubs doesn’t. And this modern look does go better with our modern interior. It’s available in every RAL colour, but we’ve just chosen white (and I’m not even getting paid for promoting all this stuff. They should pay me though. So if Farrow & Ball, Sentimo, Flexa or Histor read this…)

And as we were on a roll, we also bought two luuuve-seats. I luuuve the luuuve seats. Luuuvely to snuggle up in, in front of both telly and fire. Let winter come.

Need a new coffee table now. Or just have to put this one’s twin (we do have another one, but it has a job elsewhere in our house) next to it. Looks a bit tiny now, in front of the huge luuuve seats and the sofa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

<—black thing is dog on sofa

 

 

(I’ve taken all the ‘after’-shots with my iPod)

A close shave

written by Naloma (let us just pretend)

Look. My human says that I look like a Shetland pony, but behave like a thoroughbred. I don’t know about the thoroughbred, but I am way above a Shetland pony.

And then she said: “We’re going to do something about that incredibly furry coat of yours today.”

So she and the man human got out the clipping thing and started clipping my nice, shiny and warm coat. Oh, I don’t mind. I quite enjoy the tickling sensation. But I’m not sure they know what they’re doing. What do you think?

Does it look anything like the picture in the book yet?

There didn’t seem to be a method to their madness. Clipping a bit here and then a bit there. Handing the machine over to each other. And she kept giggling and taking photos with her iPod. I didn’t have much confidence that the end result would be something I could be seen with in public.

Oh man! I don’t want to look.

I don’t suppose it can be glued back again?

I feel so… naked.

But it could have been worse. It could. Couldn’t it? With a bit of imagination one could think I’m wearing sexy stockings. This is my sexy walk.
I can tell you are impressed.
They even managed to do the other side of me almost exactly the same. Okay, you’ll have to believe me on my word.

Sunday Selections

Thought it was time to join the Sunday Selections meme after having been away for quite a while. It is a fun meme for people who enjoy taking photographs and need a reason to post them. The wonderful Kim from Frogpondsrock gives us that reason every Sunday.

Here’s my selection for this Sunday, the 42nd episode of Sunday Selections.

a beautiful Autumn day

A late summer’s evening on the water near Zoutkamp

Here’s some great advice. Again. For free. You can thank me in the comments section.

So, here it is:

If you don’t own a boat, make sure you have friends who do.

As you perhaps know (I’ve posted photos of boat trips before) we have friends who do. And on one of the last beautiful summer’s evenings (although technically it was already autumn, but it felt like summer) in September, we were invited to join them again on said boat. You’ll realize how great my advice was if you see the photos of that trip:

 

Check out some other great shots of this trip on my photoblog.

Lyme update and some Autumnal lovelyness

First of all I would like to thank you all for your lovely, kind and caring comments and emails about my Lyme disease. Although some of you apparently thought I'd be dead within a week or so, I'm happy to say that I'm not.

Yet.

Actually, after spending most of last week horizontally (lying on the sofa; I didn't know someone could be sooooo tired), last Saturday I felt much better. The dreaded red circle is still visible, but has decreased in redness and in size. Coming Wednesday I'll probably go to the doctor again and ask for a second dose of antibiotics, just to be on the safe side, but it looks and feels like I'm recovering. We'll see if the doctor agrees. Since I felt so much better, Sunday morning two of my friends and I went on an Autumnal photohunt. We are doing a photography course together and wanted to see if we are really understanding everything we are taught so far. So we went into one of the forests close to our house and had a great time. A whole 50 meters walk took us about an hour, because every interesting looking leaf had to be photographed by my friends. From about 10 different angles. *sigh*

I saw some lovely leaves, but also some very different things on our walk:

an alien invader

a farmhouse, typical for our neck of the woods

beautiful isn't it?

how cute are they?

some lovely young ladies

Hope you enjoyed the little Autumn walk through our 'backyard'.