Goodness… I can’t believe we’re painting already! It’s such a weird feeling because in some ways it indicates how far we’ve come in this process (and how quickly) but there’s also a great deal more to do. We spoke to our builder yesterday and when he said “so you can start painting tomorrow”, I do admit to feeling mixed emotions! Thankfully it’s school holidays so Mr Incredible is painting with my dad and a friend and I’m able to stay and have quality time with the kids. We’ll go out to soon to deliver lunch and with our test pots of colour enjoy some painting ourselves. There’s a super cool “painted rock” treasure hunt in our region and after we come home we’ll head out to a park and hide some rocks. We might even find some!

Yesterday, along with the paint colours I was also able to choose the bathroom fittings and the floor for the cottage (the concrete in our 1890’s cottage was too thin for it to be polished so we needed to choose something else. We’ve chosen a wooden feel laminate which is textured and also waterproof. We can ensure this won’t get rising damp which is possible with the thin floors). As I type, I’ve also just chosen the colour for the original cast iron bath to be repainted in and relayed it to the contractor. Hooray!

All of these decisions take energy and we must be aware of this toll. I’m a bit gutted on a few fronts amidst the excitement and trying to work out how to fit in all the other factors of life aside from renovations. I was really looking forward to having people stay with us and unfortunately, some friends need to come up to the North Island and won’t be able to stay with us as…well… we can’t even live there! I am looking forward to showing them around. The other thing is that the work which is intensive for us (painting) falls right in the middle of school holidays. We’d planned to take a week away and we’re just not sure what to do about this. I think we’ll know more in the next few days when we see how fast the paint drys and how much time we need to allocate to this. There’s always good among the blah so we’re trying to focus on that 🙂