As good as it gets

One of our pain points is the basement.
You need to be a dward to walk in it, the floor is definitely uneven because we wanted to secure water flowing through it in the only drain, the lighting is not cosy and there is some extra ceiling mysterious stuff in one of the rooms that is questionable in choice and beauty.

On top of this, I have the bad habit to try to save as many things as possible that could be reused. In the specific boxes and emballage have got some space in one of the basement rooms.

In the last years instead of having things in order, I have just thrown everything in a big pile, making the room even worse and any chance to play ping pong or fuzzball endangered by boxes or refreshened by some cats "leftovers" (as the cats have felt threatened too, I guess, and decided to mark the territory).

I therefore tried to made it at least accessible and cleaned.

Fuzzball and pingpong. Now visible and accessible through the boxes piles

A room with a view. Not showing much of the room I cleaned but how potentially it could be nice to play pingpong now that there is space

At the same time this season is challenging. Spring cleaning (that for me last the whole year) should peak now, painting and windows renovation is at this best while the whole garden needs attention before the ground elder will take over everything....

Grape hyacinth in a flowerbed spared from ground elder

Gilding

I think I have definitely underestimated this art as I thought it would have turned out almost as doing some standard DIY.

Anyway, for some reason the blacksmith didn't take/couldn't fix the right metal for some of the small things I did request him to fix for us once upon the time.
When I explored how to fix it, so it would look as they were supposed to, I found out that I could use this gilding technique.

I did buy all the material needed and, after waiting few years to mature, I tried it out...

One of the metal details (a small ball) from Oscar's bed as the blacksmith delivered it to us. Few were missing, so we asked him to make them. 

This is one of the ball as the bed came equipped with. Unclear if it is the metal that is golden or it is painted or what. I actually haven't put effort in trying to understand it.

The result after gilding

A better close up

Putting the gold leaf was far from easy. For some reason it wasn't covering as it should so I had to apply and apply and apply. 

It doesn't look too smooth, but I thought that in this case the result was acceptable.

I did the same (but this time by applying a silver leaf) to a handle for a tray that the blacksmith made. The handle should have been probably cromated or something to get the right appearance, but he couldn't do that.

I thought we could use the gilding technique again and I was at least ok with the result on the bed, but when I did the work here, I wonder how can I save it as it now looks as I have put on some foil....

The tray handle is not impressive.

I guess I need to look at some more tutorial to get it right... 

Vinyls

Sometimes also Mattias has his moments to fill the house with stuff and this time he decided that he got passionated in old vinyls from the 80s.
He first actually managed to buy a record player (and he didn't matter that I wanted to try to get home the one from Italy).

I don't understand anything of record players, but he was thrilled of the purchase despite the plastic cover being completely cracked.

The record player

After, somewhat creating a space in the living room for it, he managed to get home 500 vinyls (!) as a bargain. It is mostly music he likes (poor me) and I have actually no idea where to put it. I am wondering if the ping pong table should go out for accomodating all of this...

Boxes full with vinyls

Cute ;)

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...