All covered up, part 2

I've been totally distracted all day by textured and grasscloth wallpaper. Found these images in my travels. None of them really represent the look I'm after but they are a source of inspiration. Gawd... I really hope our wallpapering skills are up to the job! Will soon find out. We've been Googling like mad to try and upskill ourselves. Thankfully for me, Stu has so far proven himself a dab hand at DIY. I shall just put him in charge! It can't be that difficult can it? No obvious patterns to match up? Oh dear...

Source: Bill Barr

Source: DelBene Interiors

Source: Belle Vivir

Source: Belle Vivir

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All covered up

We spent the weekend wallpaper stripping. Not an activity I'd recommend but needs must. We're getting to the pointy end of the budget (our remaining funds are now pointing down towards us being broke) and we can't afford to get it done professionally. We're also going to have to learn how to wallpaper pretty quickly because we've also ditched the professional wallpaper hanger. We've chosen a gorgeous range of grasscloth Vision wallpapers, available through Resenes Colour Shops, which will give the walls a lovely natural texture. The whole house is being wallpapered; the only painted walls are in the ensuite and bathroom. Have even gone for a grunty black/chocolate brown in the bedroom we're poshly naming our 'media room' (really just a room with our TV in it). Fingers crossed our wallpaper skills are equal to our wallpaper stripping ones...

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Let there be light...

We have new window frames. We have glass. And yesterday I spent three hours – and what seems like a fortune – sorting out locks and handles and other window hardware so that we can open them. Everywhere we turn there's a new challenge; a topsy-turvy floor (not necessarily a huge problem unless you're tiling it, which of course we are), a rotted window frame, the need for new safety glass for an existing window, an unreliable tile supplier, quotes we thought set in stone turning out to be incredibly fluid, things we imagined to be cheap turning out to be expensive... There are budget blowouts and time overruns. Welcome to a renovation! But we've become so bogged down in the day-to-day stuff that we've almost forgotten to look at the bigger picture: our builders are courteous, helpful and tidy (believe me it helps), ditto all the tradespeople on site. What was once an odd-shaped, dated, kitchen is now a huge and light-filled space thanks, in part, to the addition of floor-to-ceiling windows. We have insulation and a new hot-water cylinder. The house has been completely rewired and enough data cables installed to future proof it so we can keep up with new technology. (When we're finally able to afford speakers we'll be able to change a CD from any room in the house with our Smartphones.) Tomorrow, hopefully, the Gib goes up and Friday I get to see how our new kitchen is shaping up out at KitchenWorks. And I'm currently looking out of the window watching the light-play on the kauris and ferns and I'm not regretting the decision we made to turn our lives upside down one bit.

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Hold the faith

Budgets are being tested, we're sick of cooking in the shed and, to our untrained eye, the work the builders are doing isn't actually showing any result. It's apparently all normal. We're in what seems to be known as the renovation 'icky bit'. "When was the last time you heard someone say: 'Our renovation came in on time and under budget?'" said my good friend Kate the last time I moaned to her about it all.

Rob, the tiler, also tells a similar story. According to him, tilers (who are pretty much the last on site along with the carpet layers) always get short shrift. "You start the renovations and everyone gets beers at the end of the day and it's all friendly. And, by the time I come along, it's pretty much "thank you and we haven't got any money left and forget the beers!"

Rob, who comes to us thanks to Euan the builder, has been helping out on what could have been a tile disaster. A couple of weeks ago I emailed the tile supplier (who at the moment shall remain nameless) re our basalt stone tiles, which were  due. "Sorry," they said. "Flood at the mine in China. You won't be getting them at all."

I was gutted. Flooring was the hardest decision to make re the renovation. To be told the tiles I'd so carefully chosen were no longer available a week before they were due to arrive was a nightmare. All my interior decisions were based around these tiles: carpet, wallpaper, curtains... I've been running around all week trying to find a supplier who can fix us up with 70sq/m of dark grey basalt within a week or two (not an easy task). Rob's been a big help. But it seems like the best solution is to go for a lighter version of basalt in a different shape and size to the 60cm x 60cms we originally ordered from the same supplier. The cost remains the same and we are assured of supply but the grey is a bit too 'mid' for me.

But after my minor meltdown at the kitchen-makers, there's only one thing to do: keep calm and carry on...

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Blah blah blah...

Life is not beautiful. Our laundry is my kitchen. The fridge is in the living room; the freezer in Stu's workshop. We have no wall linings or ceilings in the house and we are living in a room the size of a motel unit. Our dinner has to be carried about 30m (outside in the dark and cold) before we can sit down and eat it. We spent the weekend moving furniture. But worse – far worse – Mouse the very vocal Burmese cries all the time because her home is being demolished and Bob is tied up most of the day because the property is no longer fenced. And we're all getting just a bit grumpy... not such a good thing since we're all jammed into a small space. The only one keeping his spirits up is Euan; on the building front, it's apparently all going swimmingly.

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