Renovation Day 14

The Friday, the last day of our holidays, the last day of decoration.  The carpet layers are due about lunchtime, so that gives us time to clear out the lounge, in an almost "we are on holiday" approach.  Of course we didn't, we both worked and pottered and placed and organised and cleaned right up until they arrived.  In their usual fashion, the lads (Chris and Ryan) got stuck right in and within the hour my new office was all carpeted and ready for me to move in. 

More cleaning - my desk that was out in the carport, the credenza's, also in the carport.  My PC, the printer, files, office stuff - all needed a dust and wipe over.  If I never see a chux again, it will be a fine thing.  But it was oh so lovely to have everything shiny and new and clean and fresh.  I am vowing to keep it this way - surely I am old enough now to be able to play grown ups and keep my house nice.

The carpet in the lounge was looking lovely ... until ... we had a minor, well major really, disaster.  the carpet layers use a very hot iron to melt the strips that hold the carpet to the edges and to make joins.  He usually kept the iron in a (plastic ... weird) box with layers of old carpet to insulate it.  That morning he has cleaned it out, but something very wrong happened, the iron overheated and burned a hole through 4 layers of old carpet, a plastic box, out new carpet and the underlay.  Eeeek.  Poor Chris, he was so stressed, it was 4pm on a Friday and there was no time to get another batch of carpet out to us before the end of day.  There was nothing for it but to calm Chris down, give him a beer, order new carpet for tomorrow and commiserate with him that he too is human. 

The only real annoyance for us was losing an evening to put the lounge back together, and we spent the night on the patio where our lounge chairs and outdoor heater and TV were.  We huddled under blankets, with the dogs and cat and watched the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.

So much for a sleep in tomorrow, the new carpet will arrive at 7am.

Silver lining?  We have some bargain carpet for our bedroom which we were not planning to do right now, but may as well re-carpet the whole house. 

The yucky, stained, mottled, old (no not Mr K!) carpet in the lounge.

Minty's 'wee' patch.  And the elephant in the room aka the Server Cupboard

Chris the Carpet Layer - had to make him pull up his pants as he was looking more like a Plumber!

Chris - just before disaster struck.

My new office - before it gets filled with stuff

The lounge - fresh and clean and streamlined