when we downsized to cute little cottage, one of the puzzles was
where to fit ALL OF THE THINGS??!!
there was a little cupboard under the stairs that we thought we’d use for the computer,
so once we’d unpacked and set up all of the important stuff, there wasn’t much room to, like, move or stand, but it was fine temporarily.
of course it wasn’t really fine at all.
it had a cold concrete floor, painted in an attractive maroon lead paint.
the walls were so wet, that after the plaster started crumbling off (everytime i accidently brushed against the wall – difficult to avoid in a shoebox – my pyjamas clothes got covered in a thick white paste), we could see that the brickwork was disintegrating.
no electrics, so we were on wifi and one overloaded extension cable.
and no heating of course, so it was arctic. and it stank.
unsurprisingly, computer went r.i.p.
and there was NO WAY i was putting a brand new one in that shithole.
we started off by stripping out wet plasterboard, chipping off damp plaster and gluing the walls back together again.
unless you’ve done this in your spare time too, you won’t understand the frustration & inconvenience of ongoing dust everywhere, the breathing woes, the grit in your dinner, tripping over tools
and all of the other things that you had to remove from here before you even started and there’s nowhere to put them except in a big pile in the centre of the lounge and then you can’t even clean in there so that there’s somewhere to sit down at the end of the day… *rant-reminisce*
plus THE STINK! 300 years ago did NOT smell good.
after the walls, we tackled the floor.
first drilling and smashing up the concrete, and then digging up the crap we discovered beneath (mostly builders rubble – Beneath had been a tiny cellar at some point in time – but also glass and bones), all of which had to be bagged and removed.
on this weekend ^ our neighbour hated us, and we got banned from the local dump.
*inconvenience-reminisce*
oh yeah, we also hung a suspended wooden floor with an airgap under and plenty of insulation. electricity, modem wires, and central heating also occurred.
typically, the weekend we’d intended to plaster, coincided with the snowpocalypse of november 2010. there was 3 ft of snow outside and temperatures had plunged to -16, so we abandoned that idea.
oh mixing plaster is just the best!
early 2011 then, we eventually had smooth dry walls and alcoves for future-storage.
i got the walls painted, treated myself to a print from (my new friend) caroline rose art as a reward. and called on daddy to build me a desk (and a load of other woodworky things. “since you’re here anyway”)
Husband and i had laid a new pine floor, which i planned to colour in & varnish so it’d tie-in with all the olden wood… 
…the first thing i did was kick over the brand new tin of woodstain
*disaster-reminisce*
but you can hardly tell :)
and that brings us up to date with how the room looks now…
still too small for cat-swinging, but clean, dry, warm, functional & tidy.
(please use eyes-photoshop to disappear all of those offensive hanging wires)
EXCEPT! some bastard rat moved in(to the walls) over christmas.
i could barely hear my supernaturals over the sound of his persistant chewing in the evenings, and my late night facebook sessions were disturbed by his crazy games as he raced under the floor and scrambled up and over the under-the-desk cupboard (built into the stairwell).
AND NOW HE HAS DIED IN THERE!!!1!$$*11%!
i can’t tell you how bad it smells. seriously.
and there’s no way in to retrieve a corpse, not without a sledehammer.
plus THE STINK! 300 years later does NOT smell good either.
fml.
words from fiona's brain 