I think it sounds like a challenge you are more than up to given how sensitively you dealt with the Popstar Pete situation.
And there will definitely be grunt work here so you can cancel the gym subscription. What you need is an old house which has at least 3 layers of wallpaper per wall.
And it is not for coming off. Very Serious Sue and Father-dearest ended up jumping in her car and driving to the nearest tool hire firm. They came back with two industrial wall paper strippers (all that were available) and once we had worked out how to use them things have moved on significantly faster. We had managed to get two step ladders in the back of the Landrover so between us all things were moving apace.
The house itself doesn't have any free standing furniture. That had all been cleared out pre sale I think. But there are lots of fixtures that I am not going to be keeping. So Fastidious Faye had me stickering up everything that I didn't want to keep (which was most things to be fair) and then she and Father-dearest started dismantling and removing and piling up the debris outside ready for the skip. Which arrived very early yesterday and was quickly filled.
As an aside it is quite interesting to see how wallpaper tastes have changed over the years. Not sure what date the first layer of wallpaper in the rooms we've done so far would have been but some I would guess could have been the 70's. One room had been wallpapered with something that had really large feathers on it. Mother-ship said that was a style very popular in the 90's (hence the title). But it was all coming off - which was good - including some plaster - which was bad. But to be expected according to Father-dearest who knows about these things.
So Sunday we worked all day and quite late into the evening and then yesterday we were all back there again, except for Very Serious Sue who had some work to do before having to set off back to the city.
So everyone (except for Very Serious Sue) got to meet Reliable Rob, Electric Eddie and Piotr the Protective. The advance party.
Piotr the Protective is apparently the man who knows about security. So Father-dearest quickly monopolised him to discuss, as far as I could make out, the advantages of camera doorbells.
Electric Eddie moved through the house taking notes (something I am now associating with competent professionals) and spent ages in the cellar (oh yes I have a cellar) with the fuse box and then up into the attic roof space and then sat down (we brought folding garden chairs with us after having spent the previous day sat of the floor or stairs) with Reliable Rob to go over his findings.
When Piotr the Protective managed to extricate himself from Father-dearest he and Reliable Rob started measuring windows and doors and then disappeared up in to the attic roof space to presumably measure my beams.
Electric Eddie thinks the wiring for the most part is fine. He needs to update the main fuse box and it would be easier to accommodate modern light fittings for him to do something with the light fittings but it isn't going to be a big job and, more importantly, isn't going to be very expensive. And it isn't going to be a full rewiring which I was fearing.
He asked me whether I had any fixed ideas on what each of the rooms were going to be used for so he could get an idea what might be needed in terms of additional sockets. There is a small room just off the kitchen (Mother-ship thought it might have been used as a parlour) so I said I had thought that might be my office. And then what was the sitting room I wanted to use as a games room so needed plenty of sockets for PC and consoles and screens and the like. When it came to the kitchen he pointed out that there were far more worktop gadgets these days so he would need to add sockets in at that level but he would leave that to last because I haven't yet decided on what to do with the kitchen.
I wouldn't say that I'm a disorganised person. I think on the contrary I'm usually very organised. But all this is making me think I may be delusional on that front.
Anyway before they left Reliable Rob sat me down and walked me through where they were at and what kind of timeframes there would be in terms of items being ordered and arriving. He was so reassuring and so calm and patient. So I told him how at sea I was feeling about everything that needed doing and he said in his experience everyone felt like that but as far as they could they would give me a steer. So he said for now I needed to carry on clearing and stripping walls and things but I perhaps needed to think about getting the kitchen and the bathroom sorted next. That way, when the doors and windows were in, I could think about moving in because the basics were there.
Which was a very good point. And he has a couple of joiners that he uses but wasn't sure on what they had on at the moment so to decide on kitchen furniture and layout and he would see when they might be available to do the work. And he would send me links to a couple of companies they use that would come out and plan it free of charge. One of them also does bathroom fittings so perhaps look at them first.
So that has all been added to the list.
For various reasons I stayed on alone while the others headed back home. I said I wouldn't be too long and then would lock up and head back to the parents. I'm not sure it was a conscious decision but I realised that I wanted to see how the house felt when it was just me and it. So I wandered room to room (though I didn't venture into the cellar) and just sat and listened.
And it is so quiet here. You can't really hear the noise from the road - not that there is a great deal of traffic at that time and Farmer Jim had probably checked on his sheep for the last time that day so no sound of any quadbike or anything.
So when I heard noises outside it seemed louder, amplified, because I was alone and there were no other sounds to hide it. And then I heard hammering at the back of the house. Something into wood? I thought about you training these actors and really wished at that point that I had perhaps had a few lessons myself.
And of course short of steaming them with the wall paper stripper I had nothing to hand if I needed to defend myself.
But I couldn't hide in the house. There was nowhere to hide if it came to it anyway. And calling the police seemed a little excessive without knowing what was going on. And I thought I might actually be safer outside where I could make a run for the Landrover (although I quickly remembered I had parked that at the bottom of the lane because I had been poking around in the barn first thing and decided to walk up to the house).
So I made my way out the front door and tried to sidle around the house to see if I could get a look at who was hammering and why. And I crept around a corner and that's when I literally bumped into Piotr the Protective - hammer in hand.
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