The Interior Decorators from the 1970’s have a lot to answer for. And they need to answer to me.

Today I spent a vast amount of my time, along with my husbands, steaming wallpaper off the walls in the bedroom my sons share. This has been a long time coming.

We bought this house nearly three years ago. Three years, I’ve been allowing my sons to live in a room, where we found festering mould underneath the lovely retro green lava-lampish designed wallpaper. God only knows if the paint underneath all that is lead based. Presumably, yes.

See this is what we’ve had to do, or more so I guess, what we’ve chosen to do. We could have gone to other suburbs and brought a fairly new house, if not new but no, we went to one where, I guess, at the end of the day, we thought we could make more money in the long run.

And this of course, is nothing new in the world of real estate. Take a house, in a good area, that is, in classic Real Estate speak, in need of a little TLC, give it a bit a paint job, update the bathroom and wooskha – you make a trillion dollars.

Well, at least, make it to the next rung on the property ladder. Actually, we are shite at making plans. All three kids, unplanned (much loved mind, just not planned). Most of our life changing decisions, UNPLANNED. So, this renovation was our first plan. Do this one, do another and another and another and maybe one more and then, ideally, own our own home. Have no mortgage. Except we stalled at the first “another one”.

More than likely, this is mainly because we are just lazy bastards. I’d say it’s a toss up between that and a higher force that is out there just giving us the giant Forks. (Peace sign backwards to all the Gen Y’ers)

So, back to the fact that we still live in a half renovated, teeny house with no storage. Oh, have I mentioned lately that we only have 1 bathroom. Let me rephrase that, we only have ONE TOILET. One toilet, 5 people, you do the math. Not a day goes by that that thing isn’t double booked.
To be honest, we have done a lot. We’ve rendered, we’ve fenced, we roof restored, we’ve done up said bathroom (no small feat and yes, there were a few “emergencies” that went down in the backyard). We’ve ripped up the shagpile and put down timber floors, we’ve built a deck that came in major handy on Christmas day. We have done stuff, yet still, it is still nowhere near ready, and as a result, most nights, right before I go to sleep, I make a mental note of all the stuff we still need to do, and I get very overwhelmed. This was way more massive than we anticipated.
Sometimes, I wish Scott Camm & Shelley Craft would just turn up, send us on some holiday by the sea and return us to a brand new home (and award me a no-strings attached massage for good measure) but alas, there are far worthier couples out there.

When mum got sick, we immediately went into fight or flight mode and decided to build that elusive second bathroom and extra room so Mum could come and live with us. It was kind of always the plan, but I’ve explained to you about our plans. So almost immediately, we drew up floor plans, made arrangements and added three new rooms. I think it became abundantly clear to us very early on, that Mum would need more than a spare room and a bit of cheer from her grandkids to get through her illness. So even though the extra area has continued, it hasn’t really, barrelled along. And yes, as of today, we still only have one toilet and five people. Did I mention that my husband is a plumber? Just checking.

But today, we did make progress, after talking up the wallpaper steamer for quite some time and then listening to my husband’s protest to this tool ("oh, my painter mate from work, says just wet it down and wait") I made him hire one. Made him, as in, I said, “I’m going to Kennards and I’m going to hire a wallpaper steamer”. The threat to his male domain was too much. He left and returned and we steamed. And it was joyous. I made him admit it. Admit how easy it was and admit that, sometimes, even in Bunnings/Hardware related matters, his wife knows best.

So, tomorrow we do the other room and the hallway. And then, well, we get a new toilet. You just know there will be updates on that particular day.
Footnote: My husband is wonderful, in so many ways. On Wednesday, we celebrated our 15th year of being together. Well, we didn't celebrate, we totally forgot, but you know.