DIY & Sunflowers

We eventually started one of the many DIY projects we envisioned when we purchased the house back in March. I have spent the best part of the last week loathing and detesting someone I've never met. A previous owner of our house had some sort of mental breakdown/loss of reason/watched too many changing room episodes for their own good attack. They decided to plaster our walls in an Artex style while adding decorative beams TO THE INSIDE of the lounge, dining room and kitchen in some sort of misguided attempt to make out circa 1990's house into an inside out old cottage.

I must admit that it was one of the things that drew me to the property along with the very spacious lounge, dining room, kitchen, master bedroom & en suite that soooo many houses here in England lack (I'm from down under, I need my space) It is also located in a very quite, almost kid free cuddlisack (cul-de-sac to the uninitiated) backing on to a mass of playing fields that will never be built on. But I digress, now I HATE the country cottage look and long for clean crisp walls. Of course we had the plasters in for their opinion but alas the Artex effect is too thick just to plaster over. We could plaster board over it all but that would mean losing precious centimetres of length and breadth to my room and we can't have that. Also we would need to rip out the ceiling and start again. WTF! No way!

So the solution, me and He Who Shall Not Be Named started scraping it all off to reveal the lovely flat walls beneath the lounge and the ugly swirly artex under the ceiling (which is better than the current cottage look, believe me!) And, as I am not working, I have continued the torture while he is out earning all the dosh we need for future holidays, food, cat biscuits, other DIY projects, booze and our broadband connection.
Are we mad? Definitely
Will I be taken away and committed by the neighbours for all the cursing and mumblings that filter out through the open window? Maybe
Will we still be talking to each other at the end? Possibly
Will I have one arm massively more muscular than the other? God I hope not

Oh, then there is the clean up afterwards..........don't get me started on that - let's just say hooray for my Dyson

So to cheer us all up here are some pictures of some sunflowers I managed to secure from the local shop for only £2.99. They were taken on a rare sunny day a few of weeks ago

I'm not a big fan of yellow, but on a sunflower it is joy
A close up of the centre of one of the flowers
To finish off even thought I know he is not a sunflower - A picture of Oberon about to pounce on an unsuspecting wheelie bin :)