The Day We Had No Bed
Added at 7:46pm and filed under Offline
We decided a few months ago that when my back-pay showed its face, we’d invest the money wisely. For some people, investment means doing something with banks and building societies and acronyms which, if I’m honest, are utterly meaningless to me. For us – well, me - it means doing something with, to or for the house. I love my home, and I love DIY and – somewhat surprisingly for me – I also adore cleaning and decorating and making it pretty. It’s fun and constructive and presents a useful, perfect sort of therapy – for where else in your life can you throw paint around or hammer the fuck out of something and not go to prison?
In this instance, we’re doing the whole works – new flooring, curtains and rail, bed (ours was broken)(not to mention a gorgeous orange pine circa 1996), bedside tables and to top it all, we’re ripping out the gross, cheap fitted wardrobes which were here when we moved in five years ago. We’re replacing the carpet with laminate floor which, if I’m honest, I’m not too enamoured with, but as our bedroom is roughly the same size as a family bathroom sans the taps, I think we both reached the glum realisiation that laminate would be the only way to make the room deceptively lighter and larger. We don’t have floorboards to lovingly strip and stain (how cheaply was our house built, eh? WE HAVE CONCRETE FUCKING FLOORS the TIGHT ARSES), so we’re going to have to make do with the cheapo plastic stuff instead. We’ve also bought light-wood furniture which will also – hopefully – give an impression of light and space . . . yeah, that’s right, I said light and space: yes, I bloody do watch those TV makeover shows.
Anyway, today was D-Day – D meaning destruction. With three days off work, M set to task and – after blowing a stupid amount of money in B&Q (he went in for a roller and paint and came out £100 lighter – wtf?) – he began the dismantling. As I write this, we have no wardrobe (well, no doors or frame, although he left the rails for tonight), no drapes and, most amusing of all, no bed. We do, however, still have bedside tables – although I’m wondering if we’re still allowed to call them that when there’s no bed to put them on the side of.
When S and I got home, we were ushered immediately upstairs to survey M’s handiwork. S ran into the room, stopped cold, eyes wide, and cried “Oh no!” before falling theatrically to the floor and crying plaintively, “Mum and Dad’s buh? Mum and Dad’s buh?” He took the words right out of my mouth.
So tonight we sleep on the inflatable bed (’sassa’s bed’, as S calls it) and will continue to do so for at least two evenings whilst we whip through the re-decoration and replace the flooring. The idea is that M finishes all of the paintwork tomorrow, and then – as I’ve taken Annual Leave on Friday – we both spend Friday sorting out the floor in time to construct the wardrobes and, in the very least, the new bed.
Words cannot convey how unoptimistic I am about this.
Although Ikea is the prince – no, king! – of friendly and clear DIY instructions, things never go that smoothly. For one, we’ve never laid laminate before and for two . . . well, M hates DIY. And kinda sucks at it. I’ve managed to put together Ikea furniture on my own and I think M could probably do so too if there was a gun at his head, so it’s fair to assume that it isn’t that tricky. However, put us together in a room to do it and it all goes to hell. We fight, we scream, we throw things and mutter and curse and threaten – no, promise - to divorce each other.
And the worse thing? I now don’t even have the luxury of kicking his arse out of bed and making him sleep downstairs; I’ll be using the only spare bed we have.
V xx
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On 29 March, 2006 at 8:41 pm, nicoleross said:
The joys of redecorating/remodeling.
*We fight, we scream, we throw things and mutter and curse and threaten – no, promise – to divorce each other.*
That soooo sounds like Tyler and me when we try to tackle a task together. It’s bad.
I hope everything works out the way you want. You’re much braver than I for taking all of this on at once. :)
On 29 March, 2006 at 8:47 pm, Vixx said:
We have so little free time, we *have* to take it on at once! If we didn’t, it would take us about three years! :)
V xx
On 29 March, 2006 at 10:32 pm, Sasha said:
Hahahahaa Sam is SOOO cute!!!!! Hehehe – awwww. *dies of cuteness*
Also, how cool is it that he still refers to it as “sassa’s bed”!!!! :D
Wishing you good luck with the DIY!!
On 30 March, 2006 at 7:55 am, stelly said:
I think Sasha has a home for life is Sam has his own way ;)
Good thing is that my dad is a carpenter by trade… wooden floor dont scare him ;)
Stelly
On 30 March, 2006 at 7:56 am, stelly said:
IF, I mean IF, god damn my spelling and short attention span :( :(
On 30 March, 2006 at 10:44 am, Jem said:
Good luck, and I promise I won’t laugh if it all goes horribly, disastrously (sp?) wrong.
Much.
On 30 March, 2006 at 4:20 pm, scarlet said:
You can’t discuss those things with M? He supports you when you want to re-decorate your place??? He actually helps and give ideas???
What do I have to do to convice F to do the same thing?????????????
Good luck hon! ;)
On 30 March, 2006 at 5:41 pm, Ally said:
We put down laminate floors in our living room a couple months ago. It’s not that hard, all you really need to be able to do is measure and cut. Though, yes, we are the same in that we argued and made remarks about each others lack of skills… but when it was done, we were proud of the results.
Here’s our after picture:
http://static.flickr.com/31/102200514_cbc12f710d.jpg