My feet never touch the ground around here. There’s always something going on, someone coming to the house to do something, someone who needs their mouth fed or their bottom wiped, an errand to do outside the house; that kind of thing.
The house is currently surrounded by scaffolding and bricklayers are in the process of repairing our hundred year old bricks and mortar, some of which is in quite bad condition; as you might expect after a century of Dutch winters. They’re two weeks in and are going to be here for about eight weeks in total, a period I’ll be happy to put behind us, because they make a lot of noise with their drills.
Our electrician continues to deliver sterling work and this week reconnected four M & S Systems in-ceiling speakers in the kitchen and dining-room, plus a further four in the walk-in wardrobe and bathroom on the first floor. I had originally thought we wouldn’t be able to reuse any of these speakers, so I’m very pleased.
Our two remaining Sonos ZP100 units have been seconded to create two new listening zones, bringing our total back to six, the number we had in the old house. Whilst it’s nice to now be able to use the Sonos whilst lounging in the bath, it’s especially pleasing to have music directly overhead whilst eating dinner and washing up. It’s also very satisfying to be able to reuse more of the equipment previously built into the house, because, let’s face it, we paid handsomely for it.
The new couch for what I’ll pretentiously call the media room on the first floor arrived on Monday. It looks lovely and is very comfortable. The room is immediately considerably more inviting, thanks to this addition.
November will see us add a plasma screen television and surround sound system to the room, which will make it a rather more practical place to hang out. I’ll also install one of Sonos’s new ZP120 controllers and turn the room into a new listening zone.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Old houses have infinitely more charm than their modern counterparts, but you certainly pay the price, both literally and figuratively, in upkeep. It’s enough to make you long for the bad old days of renting; well, not quite.