Appetite For Destruction

And so we began...

The keys were barely in my hand before the kitchen was whipped out, followed by the bathroom, next came the floor and in the mere wink of an eye most of the walls and ceilings were gone. A veritable festival of destruction was accompanied by the usual diet of nescafe, sugar and dust all set to our favourite soundtrack of Polish radio.

Excepting the odd near death experience due to low flying plank accessorised with rusty nails being hurled from the bedroom above to the kitchen below, by way of none existing ceiling/ floor , narrowly missing head of unsuspecting surveyor below ("erm HELLO, I'm down here!" ....'Oh... Sorry Sara..." ???!!!) all went rather smoothly. Within mere days we were left with a shell of a building, a shell of a building and not a clue what to do with it...

JOKES, joke jokes, obviously! Of course we had a plan, we had many, many plans, more plans than we could  shake a stick at. The challenge was determining which plan to go with, but, after much deliberation, consultation and ALOT of coffee, fags and Polish love songs (the builders, not me) we got there.

Once Upon A Time

Where to begin….? The beginning seems like naught but a hazy dust filled memory. The end? Well we’re not quite there yet…

My prolonged absence has not been due to lack of subject matter, indeed, I have been overwhelmed with the stuff,  it has been the lack of time that has prevented me putting finger to keyboard. Needless to say I have been a busy little bee, working on two renovation beauties simultaneously.

Thus far we’ve avoided blood (it ain’t over yet..) but there’s been plenty of sweat (pity the poor souls who had to lift 13 cast iron radiators into and out of various houses and vans whilst I looked on, quietly muttering… “are you ok?”,  “Can I help?”. “You aren’t actually having a heart attack are you?’ whilst taking reportage style photos of their physical pain), and tears (mine, obviously, all mine, on more occasions and for more reasons than I can begin to convey, but not least joy and relief when it all came together).

Many hilarious anecdotes have unfurled along with a veritable anthropological study in the habits of the lesser spotted English versus Eastern European builder. For now though folks, I will tell this story in the most succinct way I can, through the medium of pictures ( clearly I would prefer dance but I don’t know how to do that on a blog!). 

And so the story begins. 

Once upon a time, there was a house... a nice house that just needed a bit of love

To Be Continued...