Thursday 10 November 2011

Halloween, Cats and Brick Dust...



 As you can see from the photo, this year's pumpkin, although hastily done, had a cat theme. The teen drew the shapes and I cut the pumpkin.




 The teen gets on well with the cat, who lives rent free, does as he pleases, is intermittently crazy, grumpy and completely self obsessed...



Hang on, I have lost my thread... was I talking about cats or teenagers? Hmmm




 Moving on then, the cat above was discovered in Wivenhoe Station. Popping in to use the facilities whilst dropping artwork off locally, boyfriend and I were delighted to find a real big old station cat; living in the waiting room, with blankets, food bowls, scratching post and sleeping chair, all just feet from the platform where trains roared past. How wonderful!


Back home and the building work continues at speed, frequently filling the downstairs with brick dust. I am cleaning about 10 times more than usual and yet the house is at least 20 times dirtier than normal. In the words of the teen: Fail.



Foundations done, walls and roof are built.



For the first time it starts to resemble a building:



When the new back doorway goes in, it is time to brick up the old doorway and replace it with a window. (Cue dust)





 The front begins to resemble the garage it will become:




 (Note the front door looking somewhat the worse for wear...)


Internal door frame goes in, along with outrageously expensive electric Velux window (it comes with a dvd to instruct on the use of, I kid you not, despite the fact that I only need it to do two things: Open and Shut). The plumber re-routes the gas boiler to exit the garage roof (more dust). Next morning the builder does not realise that there is a gap round the flue and uses an angle grinder setting off a massive cloud of dust and flakes of wall insulation that shoots into the kitchen and spreads through the downstairs. What fun, more cleaning, lucky me.



In order that I don't miss the dust at the weekend, boyfriend kindly sets to moving the sink to make way for a door into the extension, and re-sites it temporarily under the new back kitchen window:




Then he sets to digging up the kitchen floor to bury some electrical cable and pipework, to be continued this coming weekend. So I haven't seen the last of the dust yet, not by a long way I fear...


You will notice there is very little artwork being produced! I have been doing some printmaking but despite having a seperate studio the constant dust, builders-tea making and car crash of a kitchen is taking it's toll on work production. Still the end is in sight, I can just see it through that cloud of brick dust.




4 comments:

  1. Great pumpkin though I'm a bit wary of cats, they scare me a little bit and I'm allergic!
    Hope the building work is done and dusted (pardon the pun!) soon.

    LH
    x

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  2. It will be great when it's all finished, Michele! (I bet a lot of people have said that already?)

    The electric velux sounds like a brilliant idea! I had three veluxes put in when I refurbished my house, all of them far too high to reach. The downstairs ones aren't a problem - I just don't open them but the one in my studio is necessary because of the heat up there in summer. And, over time, the stool I kept up there at first, has got buried under varous pieces of art equipment . . . I'm sure you'll get the picture!

    Lovely station cat, BTW!

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  3. It will be worth it in the end Michelle, I'm sure! I hope you manage to keep your head in all the brick dust. Let us know about the window dvd: plot, suspense, visual effects? If it's any good I'll rent it from Lovefilm!

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  4. Very good. I think the Velux DVD has quite and open and shut plot. (Apologies, couldn't resist). The dust continues as the builders have knocked the doorway through into the house now, happily undeterred by the fact that the extension has no heating, and large holes in the wall... it is a little chilly shall we say :-(

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