The rooms are dressed

OK, so at last the kitchen and dining lounge are completed - well, almost everything that needs to be done, has been.

Courtesy of Gary's help about 10 days ago, the lounge dining now has its roman blinds up, and the paintings, large new mirror, the clock my dad gave me for my 50th birthday and china plates are affixed to the walls; and in the kitchen the plates are up over the bay window and the clock given to us by David's mum is in place.

No standing on the Rhino platform for Gary - just a simple lift to just past head height ... I did most of the drilling and he was on screwing in the brackets and pressing the blinds home on to them. We worked together on where the paintings, plates and clocks should go, and then he did the measuring and hammering.

First blind is up and it works!

Look back at the previous photo and see the height difference ...

Gary is standing in front of the Rhino platform, and he can still reach above the window-frame. I, on the other hand, can reach where he is only if I stand on the platform ...

And they all line up at the top and the patterns match cross-wise!

Paintings, prints and mirror up. Bookshelves are empty still.

My jug collection in place on the dresser and The Return of the City Imperial Volunteers at the Guildhall is up on the wall. My great grandfather is in that picture - he was an alderman in the City of London.

Now that the plates are up and the tiling is done, the kitchen feels complete to me.

And if I say so myself, it all looks fabulous!

A number of friends have said they have been amazed at how much work we have done in the time since we moved in, but to me it seems like not that much really.

I guess I am measuring it by the work we had to do when we moved into Cherswud - as it was a concrete house (one of the first continuous pour concrete houses in NZ and fully reinforced to the same standards as exist today) that was unlined when we bought it (back when we were young and foolish and had no idea of the work/money/time involved ...) every room needed to

• be battened with 2x1 roughsawns - David drilled 1500 holes into concrete 
• be re-wired
• be lined with gib board - I cut and nailed 120 sheets of the stuff 
• plastered professionally
• have all window frames stripped and sanded of about 8 layers of paint and filled - my job and after each room, I had no fingerprints for some time 
• have architraves and skirting boards fitted - done by my dad  
• have decorative scotia fitted by the plasterer 

 before any decorating was possible.

So the work we have done here in stripping off wallpaper or painting over it, and sanding window surrounds and skirting boards didn't seem such a big deal to me.

Having Dee's and Joe's help has, of course, made a huge difference to me - not least in having company while the work was occurring and sharing the delight in getting things done.

Joe is a boon because he is so strong and can move things around so simply - what I struggle with doesn't even rate as a real task with him. He put 2 coats of sealer paint on the lounge dining walls and painted the ceiling - all of which saved my right arm, shoulder and my neck from RSI and injury from the weight of a filled roller being moved constantly.

Dee is wonderful to work with - she's intuitive, encouraging and thoughtful, as well as being just as pernickety about detail as I am.

And Gary - well, Gary is great. At 6' 7", nothing is a stretch for him, and he's handy! He had offered to help me with the dressing of the rooms and he was a gem. Getting the blinds up (all 6 of them in the lounge dining and one on David's office) would have taken me about 3 days to do on my own, but we had them done together in a couple of hours. As you saw in the photos, it was a doddle!

David's role is to tell us all how clever we are and how much he likes the results - in between times, he's busy in the office earning the money!

Since that day, I have fitted the roller shade blind in the office - as per the kitchen one, it too required cutting 3 times! But, better it was too large twice than too short once ...

All that remains now is for me to get the boxes of books in from the garden shed and get them into the bookcases. It's finally raining here today so I am not going out to get them at present. I am enjoying watching the garden soaking up the much needed moisture!