I hate Ikea!

So Jenny and I got up early this morning and headed off to the Sunshine Café for breakfast, we needed a big and hearty start to the day, as there was going to be plenty to do.

After that we filled all the cracks in the first two rooms we were doing (Master bedroom and Angel's room).

I then called Dave (who was one of those who promised to come over and help out) and asked him when he would be arriving. It was about 10AM and he said he would be arriving within a couple of hours.

This gave Jenny and I the (at least) couple of hours we needed to go to the Edmonton Ikea and purchase the new sofas, and hopefully arrange delivery for tomorrow, when the rest of the Ikea stuff would be arriving. No such luck!

But all was not lost, I knew when Dave said he was going to be a couple of hours, he would be at least four or five hours, this is just a fact of life with Dave.

So we then went B&Q to collect some more things that we needed and then went on to Ikea to order the sofa and the kitchen unit... This was the first time I had been to the new Ikea, and we got lost, so it took us an hour and half just to get there. Ah and of course the sofa was not in fucking stock, it seems that the sofa is never in bloody stock. And in fact it is always a 'special order' item. If they had told me that at the other store, I would not have been there today! So anyway I ordered what I needed in the sofa sense and then ordered the kitchen unit.

As a brief aside, because the sofa was a 'special order' and the kitchen unit was a normal purchase, the transactions had to go through separately, and as a result I was charged two 70p Visa charges! Its not my bloody fault that their system can't collate orders is it? So why the fuck am I being penalised, they have already had nearly four thousand pounds from me over the last two days, surely they could soak up a 70p charge of their own making? And another thing (while I'm on a rant, sorry) the new store charges £1 to use the car park. I have no problem with this, all of the money goes towards local environmental projects, and the charge goes towards giving incentive to purchasers to use local transport*, both good things in my opinion. What I do object to, is people like me, who have no cash on them, being unable to over pay a pound at the cash register and getting a pound change, so that I can put the money in the fucking parking ticket machine, which doesn't take fucking cards!

But no, they cannot charge me the extra quid, nor give it back to me, nor give me back the over charged 70p, without it being a big fucking hoo-ha to do so, so I gave up and bought a hot dog each of Jenny and I, then we sodded off to the new place.

Oh, and in the confusion of the extra charges and what not, I managed to pay for the kitchen unit, but I never managed to collect it, nor arrange delivery. So I'll have to go back there yet a-fucking-gain tomorrow!

We ended up getting back five hours after we set off, but fully tooled up and ready to go.

Let the painting begin... er, well not really.

See, the lock on the front door decided at that point to fail on me, and lock itself closed! So the locksmith that I had planned to call out later in the week, ended up coming (in about 10 minutes, how is that for good service?) and drilling out the lock's barrel, then replacing it. He also replaced the other mortice lock on the front door, making the observation that the hole in the door for the lock, was for a Chub seven lever lock (meaning a good one), and even the cover plate (if that is the right term) was for the Chub lock, but that the lock that was in there, he wouldn't even have used on a bedroom door!

He'll be coming back on Monday hopefully to replace the locks on the door to the terrace when he has a little more time.

So we are now in the house.... Let the painting begin... er, well not really.

See having never done any painting before, what I didn't realise is that the actual painting is the proverbial tip of the iceberg, before you can paint, you have to:

• Wipe the walls with a damp cloth
• Fill the cracks,
• Sand the cracks,
• Fill any gaps in the skirting board with caulk (which as far as I can tell is flexible filler), finally
• Wipe everything with a damp cloth again.

And after you have done all that, then you get to paint which is pretty easy.

Finally we started to paint Angels room, in the Disney colours from Hell.

At about this time Karl turned up to help out, Dave finally arrived (only nine hours late, pretty good even by his standards), and very shortly after was followed by Sandy.

With our five pairs of hands, Angel's room and the master bedroom really started to take shape.

One quick Indian meal break later (Chillis of Crouch End is the best!), and progress was made in leaps and bounds.

Dave quickly proved himself to be utterly useless at anything involving painting, but when it came to destroying stuff (removing the remainder of the shower stall) and putting stuff together (with the little Bosch rechargeable screwdriver that I bought, that looks like a 50's ray-gun), and he was in his element!

We all worked together until after 2AM, then I dropped Karl off home, and came back for the rest of the crew, who are all bedding down at my flat.

We have done about half what I thought we would have done, my misplaced optimism has been discarded, now that I am more aware of the huge amount of prep work required to paint a room, I'm hoping that by the end of the weekend, we may have completed three rooms. With the first two rooms requiring second coats of paint and second colours to be applied, and Angel's room needing some gloss (a paint I am reliably informed requires a whole different set of skills) and a whole load of Disney stenciling. The third room needs a couple of coats of paint in with different walls being each of one of the two shades of pale blue chosen for the room.

The exhaustion has come for me, time to snuggle up to my beloved and get some shut-eye.

* Yeah, I can see people using the fucking bus to buy a flat pack sodding wardrobe too... The irony is not lost on me, that a furniture store is telling people to use public transport!