And in other news, the Maison des Girrafes is in the process of becoming a Palazzo. The new East Wing is built, though what with one thing and another I haven’t gotten as far with the new kitchen as I’d hoped. This is the kitchen so far:
Notwithstanding inasmuch as which, wave after wave of demented avengers wonderful Norfolk tradesmen are remodelling the house. With us living in it at the time, this resembles a game of Tetris as the Croxii and their artefacts and pets are one step ahead of the demolition and remodelling in their wake. Yesterday the old bathroom was demolished to be replaced by a new one, in part of what was once our bedroom. The bathroom is all plumbed in and useable… but only in daylight, as the electrics aren’t yet live.
Because Crox Minima’s new bedroom is under construction, and Crox Minor’s room is about to be knocked through into the (old, decommissioned) bathroom, the younger Croxii and Mrs Crox are all in our new bedroom, which is habitable but not yet decorated (or wired up), while I am on the sofa in the furniture repository sitting room. (I haven’t yet worked out where I shall sleep when they start bashing up the sitting room. Probably in the Maison Des Girrafes Marine Biology Field Station beach hut).
The astute reader will notice from the photograph above that the washbasin in the bathroom has a non-matching pedestal.
And thereby hangs a tale.
Although the build was competitively priced (I can definitely recommend my builder) we Croxii have allowed a budget for the new kitchen and bathroom of –> £0. This means we have enjoyed seeking bargains, and practically everything has come from eBay or reclaim yards.
Ebay netted us an enormous range cooker, almost new, at a knockdown price, and a lovely bath, for not an entirely knockdown price, but hundreds of pounds cheaper than you’d find in a store. It’s a great big freestanding slipper bath with gold feet, designed to indulge Mrs Crox’s fantasies of starring in a TV commercial for a brand of particularly sickly sweet and messily exfoliative chok’lit.
The bath started with the taps – an old-fashioned gold mixer thingy that Mrs Crox picked up at a reclaim yard for £10. Having bought them, we had to have a bath to match. The same reclaim yard yielded the kitchen sink you see above (£20) and seven assorted second-hand doors, some wood-panelled, some glazed, all fun and funky, for £15 each.
A visit to another reclaim yard found some nice tiles and the washbasin with gold taps already attached (£40). We couldn’t face a secondhand WC but got that in a box from Argos, a catalogue store. I couldn’t find a pedestal for the basin … so had the cunning plan of recycling the pedestal from the current basin, which I’ll box in later. This is now #843 on my list of home carpentry jobs. So now you know.
The amazing thing about the reclaimed gold taps is that as soon as they were plumbed in, THEY WORKED. No leaks, no squeaks. Bootiful, as we say round here.
More later, as it happens.
I’d like to offer a soundtrack for this post. Happy hacking.
Thanks for that, Mike. Probably a bit laidback for me. You’d never hear it over the noise. I’ve just phoned Mrs Crox from the orifice – a chorus of hammering was clearly audible in the background.
Henry – that is inspiring. Good to know it is possible to do this on a budget.
Re. The Palazzo des Girrafes, are you now the Count and Countess of Cromer (careful of the spelling)?
Hah! There was once a Lord Cromer who was the Lord Chamberlain charged with ensuring that London’s theatres maintained taste, decorum and decency…
I think Henry, that an evaluation current of the Maison des Girrafes would increase significantly, sayin an expert (a celebrity Appraiser in Chile).
If only!!
I hope you’re leaving lots of room for your new venture in Celebrity Nutrition Bioproducts.
Seriously, I am highly impressed with your eBay approach. I am far too risk-averse to attempt such a thing, but it’s clearly working well for you. Gold taps that don’t leak. Fabulous!
Also risk-averse regarding home improvement here, but I admire those who can be resourceful and who can build things. OTOH, IKEA exists for lazy people like me. Though I did just fix the tap for the bathtub (not that it was a complicated job).
How is your garden faring, cromercrox? My lettuce all bolted a few weeks ago (Gather ye lettuce before it’s May), and the Chinese long beans are currently suffering in the heat. However, the kale and chard have had a resurgence, the Malabar spinach is plentiful, and I’ll have several varieties of peppers and tomatoes very soon. Two types of summer squash, eggplants, and Asian cucumbers as well. Tonight I’m making a stir fry with kale and chard, using a bit of jalapeño smoked sausage (from Fredericksburg, TX – one of the serendipitous fusions of German and Mexican cuisine here). I’ll serve it over a bed of quinoa, I think.
We’ve harvested the last of the chard, kale and broccoli, and have planted beans, tomatoes, courgettes, lettuces and peppers, all in the one tub. Mrs Crox is growing more and more seedlings and we are running out of places to put them. She’s growing potatoes in buckets, and keeps pinching them off the builders to grow more spuds. However, in part of the spirit of recyclismus, I have a metal frame for a high-sleeper bed which I’m going to cover in plastic and make into a greenhouse, so that should help. The problem here in the Domain Des Girrafes is we’ve had no significant rainfall for weeks, and our water butts are running low.
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Oh, yeah … has anyone been raptured over there in the UK? I know a few of you have telescopes, and thought you might have spotted something unusual. ::snark::
My folks on the other side of the globe had not heard of the rapture (none of the local dailies reported anything about it) and are quite upset that they have been left out..my mom just couldn’t understand why something in the Bible would affect only this part of the globe…
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