Husband Kills Wife Over Elephant’s Breath

House renovations folks, just say no….it’s definitely less stressful to just bite the bullet and move.

Mrs. Clough and I decided however that we loved our house in Glossop and felt we could do a makeover that would restore the house to its former glory.

I now look back and realise that the money spent and the anguish caused were far more than could ever have been created by a much simpler change of property.

I also find myself remembering a song my father used to play for me by two blokes called ‘Flanders and Swan’ – the song in question being called ‘The Gas Man Cometh…’ . the song starts with a house owner calling the gas man to fix a repair to the boiler.

Whilst fixing the boiler he damages some pipe work and the plumber is called. The plumber then blows all the fuses and the electrician is called. The electrician damages the paintwork so a decorator is called. The decorator paints over the gas main so the gas man is called back ….and round and round it goes.

This very much sums up the work on the Glossop house.

I can safely say, it would have been cheaper to blow the house up and start a new build… than go about it the way that we have.

We started by having a new log burner installed in the dining room. This led to finding a problem with the chimney.

The chimney was re-lined and new brickwork installed.

This led to some damage in the adjacent downstairs bathroom which then needed re-plastering.

Whilst re-plastering we thought a new sink and toilet and cupboards should be installed.

This made the kitchen look shabby.

When the kitchen started to look better – it made the hall stairs and landing look shabby.

This led to the bedrooms and upstairs bathroom needing to be sorted.

And don’t even start me on paint colours.

Mrs. C decided she wanted the kitchen walls in a certain shade of white called ‘Farrow and Ball -old white’ – how many shades of white did we look at to end up with this??? I lost track (and the will to live) after about 30 shades of white were produced and my opinion requested.

Elephant’s breath, mouses testicles, chalk white, white white, perfect white, not quite white, all right white, lime white, apple white …. who knew there were so many …?

Then we moved on to the kitchen furniture itself which was originally duck egg blue. We looked at about a hundred combinations of colour before eventually end up painting it – duck egg blue.

Because we’d done the rest of the house, we decided to do the front room as well – which is now covered in leopard skin wall paper – this may have been my fault as I thought she was joking when she said…. ‘what about this one…’ and I said…. ‘yeah right’.

Also, the front and rear doors were looking tired so they both got replaced.

Blinds, shutters, curtains all binned and replaced – we have more sample colours swatches than an interior design studio.

I do suspect that I may not be allowed in the newly upgraded property without showering and going through de-contamination before entering.

It should also be noted that now the house is looking good …

…the garden needs a little work.

 

Mike C