REVIEW: Renovating & Moving 2005 Part III

In December we finally moved but the day started with some bad news.

The moving truck was supposed to arrive at our old home at 8am. At 7.30 we got a call from the moving company to let us know that the truck got involved into an accident and was stuck somwhere on the A1. They tried to organize a new truck and crew but it would take a few more hours.
Oh no! It always irrates me when a schedule planned well in advance gets turned upside-down.

But at least that got me some extra time to say goodbye to my mother again and grab a good breakfast over at her place. Finally, at 1pm the movers showed up, with two small trucks instead of a large one. We were lucky that they somehow managed to squeeze in our stuff completely, but not without damages as we should find out later. So, time to say goodbye to the old appartment.

Screechy Bird's stuff almost needed a seperate truck on its own:

Let's go. Two trucks, six guys, two cars, eight birds and MisterT and me. 250km and a few hours later we could finally say welcome to our "new world"!

Almost all those lousy boxes got ripped apart as it rained heavily and they soaked up the water.

The main damages ( we did get a refund for the boxes and the damages, of course ).
Cracked washing machine:

Broken glass lampshade:

Several scratches on our brand new kitchen chairs:

Damaged upholstery and dinner table:

Hooray if you made it through this whole post! You get 10 sympathy points!
And you can earn 10 extra points if you are able to tell the name and episode of the TV show we watched while packing boxes:

I know it as the same episode aired just a few days ago. Isn't that a funny coincidence somehow?
I'll give you a little hint, it starts with CSI...

REVIEW: Renovating & Moving 2005 Part II

This post is mainly a massive overload of boring photos from our first renovation.

In 2005 we had to move from our small home town to a major city. Wow, what an adventure!
MisterT found a pretty appartment in the classifieds, so we made the two hour trip to visit the city and the appartment and decided to rent it.
It was affordable and close to MisterT's new school. However, it was old and needed lots of renovations. We had to renew absolutely everything: paint every wall, remove the carpets, lay laminate, etc.

For one or two months we drove there every weekend and renovated and renovated and renovated. Ugh, i wonder how we survived.
It was exhausting, not only because of the physical hard work but also because we did not have the time to relax. We left early on fridays right after work, returned back home sunday nights and went to work monday morning.
It was hard, a race against time and a real challenge, but also so much fun and a wonderful feeling to create our new nest. It made us realize that "we" can reach everything.

So let's start with the bathroom, we didn't have enough time to renovate it; there was so much other and more important stuff to do. The only thing we did was to replace the shower head.
Pretty in Pink:

We did not renovate the storeroom, but rearranged the cabinet and squeezed in our washing machine and dryer.

The hallway was the hardest part because of its L-shape and the muddy green-brownish Latex paint on the walls. Have you ever tried to coat Latex paint? It is a PAIN and almost impossible to cover it with a lighter shaded paint. We painted the walls three times until we were satisfied with the result.

A few weeks later we sold the massive wardrobe and replaced it by a bookshelf:

The kitchen was a nightmare too, again that terrible Latex color but this time with obvious smoker's remains.

We replaced the carpet by PVC floor coating and painted the walls in a matching blue shade with metallic silver sponge technique. I would never do that again but it was trendy back then and we really liked it and did a great job.

Mold in the window frames, yuck

My stylish "Renovator's Outfit", haha:

And MisterT hiding:

The bedroom got another 2005 trend, the wipe technique:

We bought an old cheap waterbed:

The Living Room before:

MisterT built a new aviary and it turned out amazing!

The Living Room After:

 

A few weeks later we re-arranged the furniture:

We used the second bedroom as a study and converted it into a bird-room a few weeks later. I will not share many pictures of that room because it has always been in constant chaos.
We decided to paint the walls green, but instead of a warm pastel green we got a color that can most likely be described as "peppermint". It looked terrible and my metallic silver wipe technique made it even worse- god, what was i thinking?? We repainted after a few months.

That was our "bed" during the renovation weekends:

 

Finally, the balcony:

After weeks of hard work and eating microwave junk from plastic plates we rewarded ourselves with homemade burgers and another gift from the previous tenants that we had saved for a special moment:
Two mini bottles of schnaps :)