The chantier: the new addition

I haven't mentioned our chantier for a while, with good reason since nothing has really happened. But things are starting to move at a snail's pace. As the 6 year old daughter of a friend said a couple weeks ago, "you really need to paint your house." Out of the mouths of babes...

With the arrival of child n°2 in mid-August (and a new kitten in mid-May), things have to change. Suzanne will be moving into her "big girl" room ie the ex-office/guest room/low-level priority room which suddenly is top priority. Luckily, we only have walls and ceiling to paint, window frames to paint and bamboo floor to lay since the original wood floor is beyond repair. Suzanne would like a green room but I think parents have the right to veto, am I correct?

Next is the garden which is currently being looked at by a friend/landscape architect. In fact, our "garden" is only a pile of dirt and cat droppings at the moment and will be more of a large patio with plants climbing the walls. I am sad about giving up my very own patch of grass, but let's be reasonable here: 4 square feet of grass is not worth the hassle. And while we're at it, we have decided to do the minimum to the really lowest level priority part of the house: the future mutli-purpose room that leads into the garden. We decided it was a bit idiotic to finish the garden yet have to walk through the room which has crumbling brick walls, a broken cement floor that sometimes smells of sewage and a make-shift outside wall made of various doors and windows taken from the inside of the house (and in the middle of it all is my mother in law's dining room table that we still haven't figured out what to do with). It's interesting to say the least...

As for the finished parts of the house, the kitchen and living room (despite being the depository for the ex-office from Suzanne's future room) is coming along. Jerome spent his day sewing curtains with a sewing machine (yes, my husband knows how to use a sewing machine). And yesterday, the finishing touch arrived in my dream kitchen what you mean I still need a back splash behind the sink? Pshaw...)