The first weekend

We have a lot of work to do in our new house.  Lots and lots of work.  If I stop too long to think about it, I get just a little daunted by the task ahead of us.  And I don't think I shall be making a list of all the jobs and projects to be done because it would just be too long.  In short: a new kitchen, new bathroom, new central heating boiler - all of these will be installed by local tradesmen, although N and I will be doing all the preparation.  The house requires decorating throughout - new flooring, painting/wallpapering, curtains, etc, which we will be responsible for.  We would like to convert the integral garage into a workroom and utility/storage area, but that is dependent on the budget we have set aside.

Then there is the garden.  Gosh, there really is a lot to do.

We peeled back one carpet, to find another carpet underneath!  Both had to go.

So we didn't waste any time.  Within an hour of walking into the house on Friday - and having sorted through all the keys, trying to work out which key was for which door - we had set to work taking up all the carpets.  Unfortunately, the backing had perished on several of them and it disintegrated into fine black dust as we pulled the carpet up.  It was just like soot and got everywhere; thankfully we had taken the precaution of wearing dust masks but it was still quite unpleasant.  Some of the carpets were fixed to the floorboard with staples, so all those had to be prised out as well.  By the time we had swept up the worst of the mess it was late afternoon, and we loaded the car with carpets and took them to the local tip for disposal.  

This is what was left behind after we took up the hall carpet - all that black dust is the backing that perished.

Yesterday we awoke with an assortment of aches!  Another full day of work - I was busy with the vacuum, getting rid of all the dust that had settled from the previous day, whilst N carefully removed some mirror wall tiles in the hall and bedroom.  We had been concerned that they might all be stuck on with grout or plaster and therefore be extremely difficult to remove without breaking so it was a relief to find they were held in place with sticky foam pads which proved much easier to deal with.  I took all the curtains and rails down - my thrifty mindset is wondering if the fabric might be useful for something else, but it all needs washing and then storing, so I'm wavering slightly.  We then tackled the bathroom, pulling up the carpet (up the side of the bath, too) and removing the medicine cupboard, various plastic holders and rails.  The cupboard we will keep; cleaned up it can be used in the shed.  To finish off the day, we spent half an hour in the garden, just pulling up some of the huge weeds from the veg plot - we filled a dust sheet without any effort.

Grand-daughter No 1 told us she wanted to keep the buttercups in the veg plot because they were so pretty!

Today began with a trip to the tip with the remainder of the carpets, and a bit of shopping to collect some decorating items we had ordered.  Then back to the new house.  We started out today with a work plan.  We have come to the decision that we work best if we set ourselves a goal for each day.  Not a list of 20, or even 10, things to do; we are being sensible and making our goals realistic and achievable.  So today our target was to strip the wallpaper in the little bedroom, and have another session of weeding in the garden.  And that is what we did.  The wallpaper, of course, decided to come off in two layers, top and backing, and it took us till mid-afternoon to finish and clear up.  

The weather this weekend has been glorious, so it really wasn't a hardship to spend some time in the garden, weeding.  The soil seems quite sandy, but there are lots of worms which is always a good sign.  Unfortunately there are loads of ants' nests, too, which is not so good.  We need to be vigilant in dealing with them as we find them.  I'm afraid it's the old-fashioned 'boiling water' method, using an old kettle and water from the water-butt - needs must.  We filled another dust-sheet with weeds and there is still so much more to do.  We are just going with the attitude that every little bit helps.

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I think we quite quickly realised that we were going to have to pace ourselves.  It's physical work that needs to be done, and whilst we are perfectly capable of doing the work, we can't tackle it with quite the speed that we could 20 or 30 years ago - we came to that conclusion by the end of Friday!  Instead, we have the sense to stop for a breather if we need to, rather than push ourselves too far.  We want to be able to enjoy the work, not wear ourselves out in the process!

One day at a time, one job at a time.  We'll get there. 

Photos to follow.