Mission accomplished (almost)!

Last weekend we broke the back on our floor to ceiling refresh of the apartment. As you can see from the photo above it’s been chaos in the living room for most of the week. However, I can now report that we’ve all but finished painting the top floor of our apartment. I’m also relieved to report that our chosen colour palette seems to have worked. Incredibly, even the original (and rather cheap looking) kitchen finish now looks somewhat smarter. Garry has a few minor paint jobs to complete such as painting the doors and the kitchen ceiling. We’ll then be ready for our furniture. There’s no word yet as to when Customs will release our household contents. We remain hopeful it’ll be sometime this week.

Temperatures hit 30C in Sydney on Sunday. Unfortunately the air-conditioning unit for the top floor broke down last Thursday and no repairman was available until today. As a result, our final painting blitz had to be conducted in the sweltering heat. We sweated buckets the entire day. I’m hoping we’ve also lost a few extra pounds in the process. Since our return to Australia I’ve been forced to take my belt in two notches. A few more months of daily exercise and healthy eating should see us trying on clothes we’ve not worn for years.


We’ve also made progress on a number of other apartment refresh activities. Here are a few highlights:

• While the air-con repairman was here today Garry arranged for a new, modern control panel to be installed. The panel downstairs was replaced a couple of years ago when the downstairs unit failed. It makes the original panels look rather cheap and nasty. Our new panel will be installed this Friday.
• Today we had the carpet deep cleaned upstairs. It’s made an incredible difference. I’ve gone from hating the carpet to feeling I can live with it for a couple of year.
• Tonight Garry’s surfing the web looking for new colour coordinated faceplates for our light switches and power points.
• I also want to tile the chipped and worn splash back in the kitchen. This should also give the kitchen a slightly smarter look. We’ve yet to find the right tiles so this job hasn’t progressed.
• Last Friday I had a joiner come in to quote for minor alterations to the base of our staircase. Hopefully this will all be in place before the end of March.
• Last week I placed an order for new blinds throughout the property. They should be also here some time towards the end of March.
• Finally, the cable guy came in on Friday and connected us to the network.

Piece by piece we’re slowly getting the house in order.

Once our furniture arrives the next project we’ve lined up is the purchase of some modern outdoor furniture. We saw some impressive dining suites several years ago just prior to our move to London. We’ve no idea if the warehouse we visited is still in business. As for outdoor seating, three years ago while walking the streets of Berlin I saw a stunning sofa and chair suite. Unfortunately, at the time, I didn’t make a note of the brand or the store it was in.

However, I had a brainwave a couple of weeks ago. Using the magic of Google Maps and Google Street View I located the store in question, surveyed its website and finally tracked down the missing brand name. As luck would have it there are two retailers in Sydney that sell this product. The power of the Internet is amazing. I’m now dying to see if this furniture really is as perfect as I’ve been fantasizing all these years. I’ll let you the verdict.