Decisions is our Word of the Week

So this week is a half-term break for many students in the UK and as we are teachers, we tend to also take a break at this time too. Well, usually we do! We were toying with the idea of having a staycation but then with our frugal hats on we decided that there were a number of considerations to bear in mind.

Before the half-term break, we had decided that we were going to do up 2 more rooms in the house and we decided to do them ourselves. So, in this regard, the consideration was: do we spend to go on holiday instead of using some of that money and time to do the rooms? Well, after much thought we decided to work on the rooms and delay the staycation for some time.

Because the work kept us so busy (we really had no idea it was going to be so hard!), we had another decision to make. We have a live chat with our YouTube subscribers every evening from Sunday to Thursday at 6:00 pm. We usually pose a topic for discussion and we try to be upbeat and lively. Should we put off doing the live chats because by 6 pm we were drained of energy or should we go ahead with it?  Well at first, we thought it would be ok so we decided to go ahead, but it was not good. The vibes just were not right and we don’t ever want to seem that we are not giving it our all, so after the first live event of this week, we decided to postpone the live events until next week.

So as we progressed with the work, we came across 2 major hurdles.

• How do you remove radiators from the wall to decorate? That was one consideration and an even bigger one was
• how to remove a very large wardrobe to get behind it to decorate and also to lay new flooring? It’s not just a regular wardrobe. It’s a massive heavy stuff that was bought at Dreams several years ago. It’s fiddly and complicated to put up and also to take down!  Well, although we watched YouTube videos on how to remove the radiators, we didn’t think we were fit for the job so we decided to outsource that job. Saying that the said radiators are still on the wall at this point because the person who promised repeatedly to come and help with that job has not turned up. So disappointing.

Similarly, the other gentleman who offered to pull down the wardrobe at a cost of £40 and set it back up after the renovation at a cost of another £40 kept saying he would come. And then, he would not show up. Then one night, he called to say he was on his way to us, when we had no arrangement for night work. That was the last straw. We decided to cancel with him too.

So at this point, the wardrobe is still up and the radiators are still on the wall. What should we do? What would you do? Well, I decided to arrange for someone who did some decorating work for us years ago to come back and help us with those jobs. He has promised to come later today so for now, we are waiting.

As I have said before, we never thought this work would be so hard for us. We aspire to be really good interior designers and in fact, I personally think I am. I’m just frustrated at having to do the hard labor and also having to depend on others to keep their word to carry out parts of the jobs. I wish we had friends nearby who could do the jobs or could recommend reliable people. We are willing to pay but we also don’t want to go with complete strangers

Help us to make the decisions, guys. Do you think we should ask this new guy to just quote us to finish the jobs that need doing and then we just do the styling? That’s a new big decision we have to make. Frustration could easily be our word of the week! Let us know in the comments below what you would do.

One thing I do know, I would never want to put up wallpaper again because getting them down is too much of a hassle. Another thing, I would like to learn how to do certain things that trade people charge an arm and a leg to get done.

Thanks as always to Ann who allows us each week to join her linky in summing up our week.

We hope that you’ve had a less busy half-term week. Catch you all next week.

Cheerio,

Jo and Leisa