But we did anyway. The end of last week and the weekend and the beginning of the week were the kind of days where you sweat sitting still and you keep the windows shut tight for fear of letting in waves of heat. The weekend was particularly bad. So, of course, we started a major home improvement project in the middle of last week. (Of course.)
Last year the apartment above us had an unnoticed flood (the owner doesn't live in the apartment so it went unnoticed) which filtered down the walls and made our bathroom and living room walls lose big chunks of paint and plaster to reveal black mold polka dots underneath. It was lovely. When we called the agency that takes care of renting the apartment to us for the owner, they said call your insurance company and send us the bill. The insurance company said, "Do you want to do it yourselves? Here's 600 euros". We said, "Ok."
Romain started by scraping the loose paint Wednesday and I spent all of Thursday and Friday spackling and sanding the walls and the ceiling to get it back to a flat surface. On Thursday, I thought I hated spackling the ceiling the most out of any activity in the world. Friday, I knew it was actually sanding the ceiling I hated most.
The point is after a final long day of finishing the work and cleaning up, we have a clean white bathroom. It is suddenly a spa and it may have been the delirium but at one point, I seriously thought there must have been a window added to the room (it is windowless). That's how much brighter it is.
So that up there is just a glimpse. It hard to photograph since it is small and has no natural light but with a few finishing touches, I might just share the finished product. It has only taken me four years to get it close to how I'd like it to be!
This lovely piece is one of the finishing touches. I found a blurry photo of it on the French version of craigslist and saw the price 10€ and nearly hunted the seller down. I wasn't sure what we would really find but it is so much lovelier than I could have hoped for the price!
Look at the detail! I kept peeking at it on the metro ride home. And Romain, who "didn't really like it" from the photo was pleasantly surprised, "It looks steampunk!" Whatever you want, darlin'. I just have to wire it up and hang it (from the cement ceiling, ugh.). But I'm taking the finishing projects a little slower to recover from the heat and DIY marathon last weekend.
Some of us are taking the recovery process more seriously than others.
xo,
A.
