Laundry room 2015

from no sink or work surface to 'a working area' with the recycled, repaired, repainted oak kitchen cabinets, circa 1985, painted in Dulux Quartz Grey.

I don't think I shall be able to store food in here if that red central heating oil fired boiler ignites!  Nor will I be place chocolate or jams on it!  In fact, I think I don't have sufficient knowledge about how it will affect the room which was incredibly rustic when I bought the house.
I heard it roar once when it was lit to prove it worked on the day that I became the owner occupier!  EEEKKK... Do I know what I am doing?
In July I reported on the Laundry Room called in France un buanderie....
So if you go HERE you can see pics...but close that window and then return here to finish reading.....
On the fourth wall is the 4 to 5 year old water boiler chauffeau thermodynamique,  costing in 3k to install, the compressor of which is dead because the installer has not installed it with sufficient venting nor in a room the correct size!!!!!!! and !!!!!!! and !!!!!!! So I currently have no hot water and the problem started October 2014.
THE PAST
Oh and this was some of the state of the laundry room in 2010. A concrete floor that let in water. A old doorway screed render on a bit of cardboard and wood! I shall make a posting of the exterior of this room ... searching through my blog, I can't find reference to any of the exterior or interior of this room being 'improved'.  I went out whilst a friend's son blocked in the doorway!!! No tying in at all! I was not happy! Now, it is well rendered over on the inside and behind the vacuum cupboard. 
 
I have no idea why there was green matchboarding on this part of the original render (cement possibly !!! ggggrrrrrr ) There it is!!! 
If you look at the ceiling the plasterboard or whatever was held up at the edge by timber lengths.  we had to re- do the ceiling but unfortunately did not investigate what was above it! 
I am wondering if this will have to be done as the thermodynamique boiler in the position of that yellow and black thing may have to have a ventilation unit going through the ceiling and the roof! 

Kitchen past, present with future not yet planned!

 THEN and GONE

The wall tiles allowed water to seep into the plasterboard on which they were stuck. The dishwasher and under sink cupboard died four years ago. Kitchen was built in 1985 - an excellent oak cabinet quality. The four 60cm doors and cabinets were recycled to the laundry room. The extraction unit stands in the garden ready to be recycled ... not sure how, but the copper can be cleaned and maybe used as a work surface?  The pretty 40cm deep wall cupboard can be separated and awaits helpers to repaint it, or me to find coincidental time and energy to do so.

The single glazed windows have been double glazed without battens. These small battens on brown woodwork blocked out light from the west south facing room as does the wall. Thank goodness that tree in the courtyard has gone as well so that light came into the room. The walls were stripped of wallpaper in 2010.  Here's a final fragment!

There used to be a fitted fridge by the door which used to work as a freezer until I inherited the former joint owned freezer in May 2014.

 

The oven died the day we finished painting the room! GOOD! 

Dark beams bore down oppressingly, now they are light and airy! I couldn't do the sanding and prep work but I did paint the ceiling and beams. The lampshade is an early IKEA.. it has a label which I never noticed until now. I am going to sand and repaint it!

It is amazing that someone who knows what they are doing can recycle kitchen units and has saved me hundreds of euros!   I AM GRATEFUL!!!
MIDWAY

 Up goes new plasterboard

NOW- the kitchen room in F&B Strong white over Dulux Indian White and Roman White! Woodwork in F&B Skimming Stone.  The walls need one or more coats because we ran out of time!

Central heating piping needs to be replaced above the door and window. We cut the pipes out because it covered the architrave around the door and window frame. It was not aesthetic.  I think I shall keep the 1985 tiled flooring. It has a rustic rural French retro feel in the modern world that I dream of! Grouting could be cleaned and perhaps re grouted!

Pics Bordeaux

Bordeaux...

 

 La Porte Cailhau built 1494

Bird box and bag colours...

Playtime Bordeaux

I was fascinated by the sunshine yellow dress and the red ball or lollipop in the distance having fun!

Quite honestly

I've been exhausted from my involvement with stripping out a kitchen aged 30 years.  Since the start of June a friend recycled, repaired, repainted most of the kitchen units for the Laundry room. I emptied the rooms and had to reorganise the contents so that I could have workable kitchen space in the living room.
The kitchen room has had two new plasterboarded walls and many layers of paint on all surfaces exceot the floor! Soon I shall provide comparative photos.  I am extremely happy with both rooms.

The best fun time was a short break in July, camping and cycling whilst he looked for a liveaboard boat to buy.  
The next best time was seeing cupboards and a dishwasher installed in the Laundry Room.  Better than washing in cold water in the outhouse sink whilst waiting for the electric kettle to heat water and walking back and forth with dirty, wet, clean and dry crockery, cutlery, pots and pans in buckets!
There were jolly moments in long hours of hard work. One has to laugh at Life!
Best times were appreciating someone who starts work at 8, who is motivated to not flinch until the task was achieved to the satisfaction of a high, high standard despite his own exhaustion levels. 
Bad times were me feeling exhausted, depressed, deprived of solitary time, all the while telling myself that I would only feel more lonely and sad when the helper had left.  One can feel lonely even in the company of others.
Worst times were spent with bizarre emotional buttons being triggered, pushed and pulled and me wondering why, how it happened and what had I done right or wrong!! Three months passed quickly by!
Having returned from two weeks on the English highways visiting three cousins and a friend plus going on a two day art course I am shattered.  I KNOW that.  I know I am re-adjusting to living alone!
I spent a week in between sleeping, crying, aching, yearning, cleaning, re-organising and packing.  Packing too much again!  I must pack that in! I must just take a backpack! There was art stuff which I didn't need to have taken, and wine as gifts to appreciate 'herbergement', and winter clothing and shoes and coats, but mostly I stayed in summer clothes layered with a winter jumper and a favourite shawl.  I slept so well everywhere without waking in the middle of the nights. Everyone was so lovely. People generally are!
In all I drove 1100 miles and 400 I think it was to Bordeaux and back the week before!
However, I must get a car with GPS or a phone with GPS as I spent an hour and a half driving up and down and around and around the outskirts of Dieppe before I found a public place in darkest rural France where I could ask HUMAN BEINGS the direction. Eventually at midnight Hotel Kyriade was discovered behind the road I'd been up and down at least six times the night before.  It was so, so, so comfy that I slept for nine hours.
Back home, after another pair of driving glasses had been lost en route, I had a fabulous meal with friends at the closing of the lovely Auberge with traditional seasonal menus! Ending of an era!
I'd left the spectacles on a meal tray .. yes it was my fault .. and when I returned the tray was there with plates etc but NOT the glasses... so some ******* had stolen them... not even given them to the PAUL restaurant or the cash desk at The Aire of 'Les dentelles d'Alençon'.   I made a big song and dance about the fact that someone had taken them ... There were plenty of Brits and French in the seated area! The spectacles were GUCCI and 20 or 30 years old!!!  Ggggrrrrrr!
The following day as well as all the unpacking I managed two or three hours mowing.  The next day three hours of courtyard weeding / re-organising garden pots etc, plus two to three hours more of mowing in order to have it done before the rains came! So it is no wonder I am tired. THIS IS SOUNDING LIKE A DIARY ENTRY!  Quite honestly, I don't mind revealing daily dramas but the summer of 2015 passed me by and now 'tis Autumn with just a few more dramas to be solved before the end of the year!  Quite honestly it was good to be away from the computer! 

A month later

than my last posting, I write today about a phrase that is 'bugging me', as in, 'irritating me'.
On the return ferry of DFDS, Newhaven to Dieppe, I ate fish and chips.  The chips were dry but the fish and batter were excellent. I rarely eat fish and chips.  BUT, I had to eat something 'to get me through', as in, 'to help me fall asleep as soon as I had finished my meal yet keep me awake to drive after 23h that night'.   I'd eaten a delicious M&S chicken sandwich for a late lunch on the three hour route to the ferry port. Breakfast had been late with freshly squeezed orange juice, a fried egg on toast and mushrooms (cooked breakfast for me is unusual ), tea, coffee, toast and marmalade.

After my meal washed down with ONE glass of red, the cork going back into the bottle and driven home in both senses of the phrase, the naval waitress came to collect my tray.
She said, "Are you done?"

I am not at all ever perfect with my own spoken or written English and certainly am not strong on knowledge of grammar but I found this colloquialism difficult to accept!  I understand that English people, British people and other nationalities use this expression, but in this context I had to say something!

I explained that in my opinion it was better to say "Have you finished?"  or  "Have you finished your meal?"  She was very good to not take offense.

I also explained that there is a phrase used in UK that I cannot abide. When one is in a shop or elsewhere, the server/shop assistant, etc, says "Are you OK?" or something similar,  and I stand and say, "Yes I am fine thankyou", whereupon they look a bit surprised. If they don't lead on to ask how they may help me, then I continue to say, '...but if you are asking how may you help me then...'dah de dah de dah...', explaining my needs!

There's also another annoyingly weird East Anglian or English expression which for the moment escapes me!

However, I love linguistics and the use of vocabulary.  I realise that the usage of words and phrases has developed over time.  English is very much a living language and I like that.  French is becoming progressive too.  There are borrowings and conversions of spellings, grammar, definitions and the rest every day from international countries and cultures and this is what makes Language so very fascinating and 'the devil of a job' to learn and master!

Now... "I'm done!!!"  ... as in, "Now I have ended my posting of rambling thoughts, as well as ended my one month sabbatical from such efforts!" 

N.B. Maybe the word DONE, also being used by GOOGLE BLOGGER on a button to click to say, 
'post is ready to publish'  is another area from which words and their meanings are evolving!

P.S. Words and communications are often inadequate, fraught with misinterpretations!