This has been one of those eventful/uneventful weeks that sometimes seem to happen. You know the one: where for you, things seem to be happening but to a casual observer nowt much has changed.

My maternity leave has started a bit earlier than anticipated, thanks to recurring colds and viruses. I finally decided to ‘give in’ and see the doctor; thankfully, she agreed that I needed to stop now. But what an anti-climax! I still just feel like I’ll be back at work next week – it’s a very odd feeling to think that nope, I won’t.

I’ve had this cold for over a week now. Last week, I basically ignored it and kept going as we had the dreaded Ofsted in school. Then at the weekend, it hit me and I’ve spent a large proportion of this week in bed. What an exciting life! The best thing I did for it though was to help Aidan with wallpaper stripping – the wallpaper steamer did wonders for my snotty nozzle!

The house is really coming along now. Aidan has worked like an ant colony, all by himself. (Guess that makes me the Queen Ant… hmmmm, quite like this metaphor…). Upstairs is basically done with just furniture needing to be put in, pictures hung, general tidy round and a few touch ups.

The walls are all actually grey – apart from the Hi-Vis wall – but the ‘Chartreuse’ colour reflects off the other walls!

That picture probably shows the true colour more effectively. The lampshade we bought from Germany; the seller told us it was by Arne Jacobsen, but I’ve not been able to track it down. We’ve ordered this bed by Ercol to go in here. Unfortunately, due to the odd L-shape of the bedroom, a king-sized bed won’t fit in there properly. So, it’s back to a double size. The brightly coloured wall is probably going to become a Mid Century Picture wall, a bit like we had in the spare room of our old house. I think the Tretchikoff pictures should look quite effective with that as a backdrop.

The baby’s room is also nearly done:

It just needs the shelf putting up, and a set of drawers to put everything in. Hopefully he/she will like it! Oh, we need some wall stickers too. The funny little cardboard person in the window is one of a set of four that we have, again purchased from Germany. They used to sit in my classroom and at least once a week, a student would ask, “Is that one you, miss?” No. No, it’s not.

This week, Aidan’s parents have been round helping to prepare downstairs for the final stage (hopefully!) in our decorating run. His dad also sanded most of the wooden floors throughout the house which was a massive help to us. We’ve pretty much decided on how the living room will look; well, we’ve got the wallpapers, but we need to decide on the exact colour combinations. For the study, we need to decide on what wallpaper to go with.

The two different wallpapers are here and here. I think I’m erring towards the grey and mustard teardrops by Nono Storm; I think the colours look better against the floor.

Re-reading this has made me realise that it makes it sound like it’s all been plain sailing. It hasn’t, not by a long shot. We’ve encountered leaking chimneys, leaking radiators, damp walls, random damp patches, blocked chimneys, peeling plaster, random wires, light switches that don’t work, bulbs that don’t fit, flickering bulbs, wonky walls and doors that don’t shut properly. But, it’s nearly done. And hopefully, before a certain little someone arrives, we’ll even get a weekend to ourselves without any DIY needing to be done. Aidan has worked wonders in this house since February and soon, all the late nights, tiredness, sweat and damp will definitely be worthwhile.