Changing Burrows #4

 Grrrrreeetings there, good people! It's Amalia here, bringing you some more news from our big house-project!

So! Amazingly, things actually kinda slowed down a bit, in recent days. We'll get to why in a little moment.

But first, let's look at what we've been up to. Well, the early part of last week had all the usual bureaucratic stuff going on, along with two projects around the house.

First off, we took the opportunity to finally go through the downstairs freezer and properly sort out all the expired stuff. It's a big freezer and it was filled to the brim you understand, so it took an entire evening.

The good news is that every shred of food in the house has now been checked, and we've discarded everything that was expired.

There was actually a happy little accident:

We actually caught everything in this nice little meal just days from expiring, so we had to have some rather nice food for a couple of days to save it from the bin!😉

But yeah, the giant freezer is now only about a third full:

.... which means that we had to throw away -a lot- of food, unfortunately. But then, it was all inherited food that we otherwise never would have gotten in the first place, so it's not exactly a loss. I mean, one can also make the argument of "But frozen food lasts well past it's expiration date!", but some of this stuff was even a year or more out of date. I guess that's just what happens when you buy a gigantic, towering freezer and fill it to the brim with stuff.

We ain't looking to make the same mistake, either. We'll use up what's in there now, then we're planning to sell the freezer. It's actually only a couple of years old. We've got our own midsize freezer portion in the fridge we carried upstairs in the last post.

Anyway, the second project was a big one. Literally.

We had this unnecessarily large L-shaped sofa in the upstairs living room. Way too big for our needs, and since this is gonna be the room we do VR in (Looking to get the Steam Frame!) we wanted to make space. So Michael made a start on the thing:

Really interesting project, that. Basically, we had to find weakpoints to attack first, as there weren't any obvious, exposed ones. Proper bossfight, this!

But after getting as far as the picture above, we took a break from the sofa and took care of as much bureaucratic stuff as possible, because we knew we wouldn't have internet for a few days, since the old and new service provider contracts didn't overlap.

So we made sure to get as much stuff going as possible, knowing we'd be somewhat cut off and unable to get anything done for some days, admin-wise.

And then, of course, it happened. The internet disappeared.😱

...... which was actually kinda nice. Gave us a few peaceful days where we could just focus on the house. Gave us a chance to take care of some smaller projects, like finally clearing out all the drawers and stuff in the bathroom....

..... then realizing that we don't really need all that space, so we found.... -unusual- ways of storing things.

And yeah, generally, we cleared out a few storage spaces, specifically so we could actually start using them to store our own stuff, and get some things squared away. Got a tool cupboard, now, as well as a shelf for our pipes and cigars.

..... that microwave is probably gonna go away and make room for more of this stuff. Honestly, we keep too healthy a diet to ever use a microwave, anyway.😜

Another small project was this:

We inherited these flower decorations, which are stuck to the wall on little pips, so you can take them off easily.

Well, we did, and used some spraypaint to give 'em some colour!

Honestly though, we might revisit that and repaint some of them with brighter colours. Some of them turned out a bit too dark in hindsight. But yeah, little art project.

Oh, and then there was a critical step we had to take. We finally found the time to go trough the house and gather up.... all these.

So yeah, uh..... clothes hangers. Dozens of 'em. We kept some for ourselves, but boy did Michael's parents hoard these. I mean, hoarding was clearly a hobby around this house, but this is seriously taking the Mickey!🙃

Then, as the first week came to a close, we took some time to think, and came to the conclusion that this whole project is going to take -much- longer than we'd hoped. Because with all the planning, all the calculations and bureaucratic preparation that needs to happen, by the time we'll be ready to actually get moving on the new heating system, new windows etc, it'll probably be October or November. Obviously, by that point, it'll be far too cold to do that kind of thing, so realistically, we came to terms with the reality that the proper renovations are going to happen next year, probably around spring.

However! This is a good thing!

Because while it ruins our idea of "getting it done by the end of the year", it gives us -waaaay- more time to work with.

Suddenly, everything doesn't need to happen all at once. We can take the next few months to focus on clearing out the old stuff, getting ourselves properly settled in and taking care of the household as it were, then a few months on, maybe in autumn or even Winter, the planning and paperwork stuff can all be brought into order, and then eventually, around the first half of next year, we can properly renovate the big stuff, eventually getting everything ready to rent out the downstairs apartment.

It's far more drawn-out than originally hoped, but it means that everything's -way- less stressful. Still got plenty to do of course, but things just feel much more manageable, now.

And with that thought, we got on to our internet-less weekend, still getting a few things done, but also taking some time to.... rest.

Though after all that, while we had a good time, we did decide to pause our flight-simming altogether until we get a new desk in here. Currently using an inherited glass corner-desk, and affixing our HOTAS-setup to it is kind of terrifying.😶

Still, after the weekend, we got busy again, wanting to get some more stuff done around the house while all the paperwork was on hold due to lack of internet. And Michael finished what he started, continuing the epic bossfight against the great grey sofa:

Which got smaller.....

..... and smaller.....

.... and smaller...

.... until....

Et violá, we have some actual, usable space! And in case you're wondering, that white cable running all over the place was a TV cable. Michael removed that too, because.... well lemme be frank, Michael's not watched TV in like, 15 years? And as a result, i have never watched TV in my life.😛

Don't wanna wave that hipster flag too high, but TV just seems like a bit of a redundant relic in this day and age. We're planning on selling any TVs we have around the house, too.

Anyway, we quickly filled some of that space by bringing Michael's old cross-trainer upstairs!

Had to disassemble and reassemble it, 'cause it would have been quite awkward to get up the stairs, otherwise.

And speaking of things that were awkward to carry around the stairway, let's not forget about the fact that the huge sofa we disassembled didn't just disappear.

It joined the giant, growing pile of bulk rubbish that we've assembled downstairs:

..... had to climb up on a chair to take that second picture.😜

And this also represents the second reason why things have slowed down a bit, at this point.

For one, there was the realization that everything's gonna take longer than anticipated, so we don't have to take care of everything all at once.

And for the other, there's the practical fact that if we wanna keep going, we need to get rid of some stuff, to give ourselves space to work with. I mean, besides the giant mounds of bulky rubbish in the pictures above, we've also collected unholy amounts of small detritus that had amassed in drawers, on shelves and in cupboards over the years and decades. Look at all these boxes!

Thankfully, towards the end of August the removal-operation is really gonna get underway. We've got a bulk rubbish collection coming up, and a good friend of ours is planning to come by and help us out, transporting a bunch of this stuff off to the local recycling/waste collection depot. No doubt we'll still have some of this left over (there's just too much to get rid off all at once), but we should definitely manage to clear enough space so we can properly keep working.

Though this upcoming week, we'll probably start setting stuff up for selling whatever household items we have that are worth something. Or gifting away stuff that isn't worth much, but is too nice to just throw in the bin, anyways.

Oh, and there's also a third reason why things have slowed down a bit:

As soon as we got our internet set up, I (yep, taking credit where it's due.😉) went into an absolute paperwork-frenzy, wrote about a gazillion emails, took care of business and generally squared away bureaucratic stuff like nobody's business!

I mean, much of it isn't actually -done- as such, but y'know, everything's one step further along, and all the plates are currently spinning.

Unfortunately, with me having done so much last week, it means that across next week, there'll be a ton of replies that'll need us to take care of yet more stuff and jump through various fresh hoops, but hey, at least progress is being made. Plus, at least -some- bureaucratic issues are genuinely starting to be fully resolved, where things are set, on track, and functioning as they should be. So that's nice.

And with that said, with things having slowed down a little, and us having a bit more wiggle room, we're finally finding some time again for..... other things.😉

... not saying you should expect a return to our usual schedule just yet, but yeah, we're starting to establish a normal life again, in the midst of all the chaos. So you -might- see some signs of that on our channels. No promises, though. Not yet.😉

So yeah, i hope you enjoyed today's little look at what we've been up to, and that you look forward to slightly more activity on here, again! For now, we're definitely looking forward to a nice weekend, and to getting some stuff moved out of the house, soon!

We'll let you know how it goes! And until then, stay safe, stop hoarding all your old stuff, and have a good one!😉