It's that time again

So, it seems that our vision of weekly updates has officially degraded into monthly postings. Sorry about that - it seems I am just as lazy here in NZ as I was in Canada. I likely should have seen that coming.

We are moved in and have been here for a month. That is long enough for us to begin fixing the things that bother us about the place. There are little things, like a running toilet, a wonky faucet in the bathroom sink, that still require attention. There are also more major things, like adding insulation, a heat pump, and window and door seals, becuase despite what you might have heard, it's bloody cold here all the time. We have also removed all the wall paper from Merrett's room in an effort to rid her of an annoying smoke smell. We have removed all traces of leopard print paper and drapery in the master bedroom and about 1/4 of the wall paper from the lounge area.

I think that it is inevitable that a new home owner will always think that previous homeowners are idiots. This can be for many reasons, such as interior design choices, poor workmanship on renovation projects, and questionable building materials. In our case all of the above reasons apply. Allow me to explain...

The Lounge - there are two coats of wall paper in the lounge area. This makes it difficult to remove the paper. When you choose to put up new paper, don't be lazy and take to old paper off first. However, to add to the problem, there are also two coats of paint covering the wall paper. Why would you paint over wall paper? Why? Especially when you choose these colours:


In order to remove the paper, we had to remove the crown molding. This sounds like a simple task, but we were hampered somewhat by the previous owner's decision to use 3" (yes, three inches!) nails for the job. When we finally did get all the molding off, we discovered that on one wall, the wall board stops about 1" short of the ceiling. At this point, I don't think anything will surprise me about the house.

Each room in the house has been wall papered (and painted), so it will be interesting to find what other treats await us under there.

In other news, we are all fine. There was a lengthy battle with headlice, but it appears they have been vanquished. Christmas went over well - we went swimming! The kids are enjoying the holidays and having a dog. Koreen went back to work last Wednesday and I start my new job on the 15th. It will be good to be back in a lab.

I'll post a few more pictures in a bit.