Eternal projects

We are specialists in starting things and let them take their time, occasionally years.

So, let's praise Mattias, who has found the battery charger of the drill and can finally make some holes in the heating room. The heating room is also the "tools" room and hence we need a nice tools table to gather in order most of the things we have got.

The tools table

We started to fix that room last year and I think have cleaned 1/3 of it...

At the same time, I have started to work again on the windows, the ones for the pool house. So, that maybe we can finish the pool house this year and start with some other "bigger" project. 

Anyway, the problem I am having is that I need to refresh my windows renovating skills as I haven't done much about it lately.

Step 1: remove where necessary the paint

Starting a task always takes a toll, but I hope that now that I have done that I can put myself into "production" and have a flow.It would be nice to be able to finish off also other windows that have been waiting for renovation for a while now.

There was no much paint left to remove here

Firewood

Cutting down stuff can be fun, what to do with the accumulated material can require few years before being handled.
In the past years, we have cut bigger branches and minor trees which have resulted on a lot of wood just piled up in a corner of the garden waiting to be chopped up.

Half of the wood pile that has been lying around for a while

I even remember that a certain point, the company working with the pool area, took that with them for some mysterious reason - I guess they wanted to use it themselves for something!

Nevertheless, the plan has been to have some form of firewood done out of that. We have some still around from the previous years, so there is no shortage, but it is all wet.

Firewood ready for storage

So, finally, after few years, the wood has been cut (at least good part of it) and some of it is stored for being dried.

Our poolroof can fly!

I must say that it is quite interesting when you all of a sudden get pictures of your pool roof which seems to have been flying around in the garden.

Two sections of the pool have been  dislocated by the wind and thrown over a hedge

It is scary and also quite annoying. Fixing this back will of course take time and, in this case, also a big chunk of money.

One of the profiles broke probably when flying over the hedge

Anyway, the 12th of March a storm passed by with gusts of wind of about 26 m/s. Possibly, around our pool it got a bit extra power, it managed to get hold of the two side sections of the pool and eradicated them from the rails to then throw them on the other side of the hedge, thankfully stopping before reaching our neighbors garden.

The wind was so strong that it broke the construction

Watching the roof flying must have been scary. Luckily for us, noone was home or nearby. 

The two sections after moving them and securing them in a better position

It is a bit scary to know that this have happened and might happened again. Hence, I think we need to think of a strategy to secure that there will be less wind hitting the pool. Probably, some form of barrier on the southern side.

What's left of the pool today (with some radioactive water)

The water gauge

Few weeks ago, VA syd (which delivers water among other services) sent us a letter that it was time to change the water gauge. On the back of the letter it also provided instruction on how the water gauge needs to be installed and so on.

I went in our basement and checked the status and I noticed that of course, all those "requirements" stated there were missing from our installation.

The old water installation

The old water gauge and one of the valves

Basically, the water gauge needs to be mounted on a console and both valves around it needs to be of an approved type.

The water gauge we have had been installed 2009. I wonder why now all of a sudden they had all these rules and so on to respect.

The other valve and a little tap

It sounds almost as they are enforcing a change just for the sake of providing extra additional work and material: afterall, my valves and the rest of the piping had been there probably from whenever running water came to the house (1920?) so, it lasted just hundred years afterall.

It reminded me on how they push to change windows....

The new installation

So, now we have a bunch of new valves. A console that is properly attached to the wall, with a new, fancy, digital water gauge and a couple of new pipes.
Forced modernization...

A step forward in the poolhouse project

Finally we have some progresses in the poolhouse, for the missing steps that would declare this project concluded.
One of the parts that were partially done regards the metal sheet. Some protection around windows, doors and the terminal part of the downpipes.

The parts for the windows and doors became correct (I am sure plenty of people will stumble in the door stuff), in aluzink, so I will be able to paint them.
While, sadly the parts for the downpipes were wrong. I wanted again to have aluzink and we got them prepainted.

Window #1

Terminal part of the downpipe #1

Door #1

Downpipe #2 

Window #2

Last, door #2

One can be lucky

The retouching of the walls is almost completed. I am a bit dissatisfied that the new color has turned out to be a bit lighter than what there is on the wall and I have still some minor retouching to do.
I hope that lightness will disappear with time, but right now it is not very fancy.
Except for that and for the eternal house cleaning, I always keep the eyes open to try to improve the home feeling with items to complete the furniture.

As we have barely curtains and few carpets, the acoustic can be quite challenging, especially with a horde of small kids around.
I have always thought we should try to focus on buying carpets, but I have never come around to it, fully.
Though, the other day I did see an advertisement on some selling group on Facebook for a big carpet. I am not sure it is fully original or a copy or what, but it was big and beautiful and I thought it would have worked just fine in the dining room.

The carpet, while we are placing it

I think the result looks promising - we can surely adjust the positioning in the room, but size wise it works as a charm.
It feels very strange though to have a carpet there, where we have never had it. The best is that finally all the marks of Oscar's cars been thrown on the floor to play are hidden under it!

Carpet, point of view #1

Carpet, point of view #2

Carpet, point of view #3

Same day, although time was not on our side, trying to do too many things at the same time, as always, I did finally manage to get hands on a table to put the mangle. 

A mangle is something that Italians have no clue what it is. However, it seems a "must" in a Swedish home, especially with a touch of retro. 

I have started to use it, although I am not yet having a full proper technique with it, I am afraid, but I didn't even have space where to have it when I am ironing or folding the laundry. 

The pink painted desk

Not that our laundry room is fancy in any way, but having a good surface for the mangle and for handling laundry was needed, although it is a bit on the way for the drying rope right now.

The laundry room is getting crowded

Our unfancy laundry room

There is plenty to do here and probably I need to adjust these things several times before finding the optimal position. But a good start would be if I manage to sell/give away the wooden panels that were in the kitchen in the 90s. Should I keep one for "memory" of the house at least?

Everyday life

I will never stop repeating that living in our house means having constantly something to do house wise.
Even something so trivial as a "spring cleaning" is a major task that takes the whole year (as we don't have a maid differently from the first owners of the house, plus I am working full time). Sometimes some of the rooms just don't get cleaned properly that year and it is not a big drama.
I have now replanned the activity (of course, I like replanning...) so I am prioritizing the kitchen which I had half done more than a year ago.

The kitchen cabinet from 1906

The other day I was focusing on cleaning the inside of the lower part of the kitchen cabinet from 1906, which is located in what once upon the time was the serving "corridor". 

The cabinet is painted with many layers of white and it is possible to see some other fancier color underneath. The original seems a "forest green", which I wouldn't mind to have in my "new dream kitchen".

One can see the original paint of the kitchen

The lower part of the cabinet is constructed in a very interesting way. There is the list on the wall side and the bottom is constituted by floor planks. 

We finally also got the last isolators to have where we had installed some wall lamps some time ago. We had already placed two on a lamp and now we finally got the second.

Detail of the porcelain isolator and the twigged textile cord

Finally, I have kept going on retouching paint in the different rooms and realized I had to retouch some holes, which will mean additional work. But I guess it is about time as they have been around for few years, as most of our tasks.

There was an alarm sensor there

Some of this retouches can be a bit more complicated, as for example this one as the device was not moved when we painted/put mikrolit on the walls. So there will be more putty layers for smoothening up the paint layers

How it looks now after closing the holes at least

I have also finally sand the work done last summer to patch some digging done by the electrician on the wall for finding the ringbell cables. 

When doing that I noticed that my retouches of paint on the wall didn't really work good. The color seems lighter than what I have which is a new interesting problem to solve.

Creative electrical work and the wall patch that I sanded