Inspired by the Easter break, I finish painting the hall and then I start on the daughter's room. Once I start I can't stop but then exhaustion hits. Painting with lime wash using the big brush is so much harder than using a roller but the house is now fully painted and I can move on to the furniture.
And then the second Ikea delivery arrives, boxes and boxes of the one large sofa lounge I ordered. They stack them in the lounge room and the daughter and I survey them. Half the job with Ikea items are unpacking them and working out how to dispose of the cardboard and plastic. Especially here where there are no council pickups. You have to be a resident to go to the tip. I have to ask the mountain man again if he'd take the cardboard which almost fills a small room.
I start on the armchair and manage most of it on my own. Stepping back I realise it leans to the left, but I blame the floor and the fact the only 3 out of 4 plastic discs were in the pack (a rare event I have to say for Ikea). It takes me a long time to realise that there are two small legs and 2 larger ones and I have them mixed up. I remedy this.
And then I begin the unpacking of the large lounge, that takes an hour. I make a rookie mistake with the cushion covers. First you unpack the cushion inserts that have been vacuum packed and supposedly take 72 hours to inflate. They lie. I unpacked all nine and left them to their business and we started on the lounge. An hour later, I went to put the covers on and it was almost impossible because they had inflated with apparent vigour.
But I digress. The daughter is an expert Ikea assembler. As I unpacked, I put the implements and tools with the correct booklets. But this lounge was a lounge like no other. It was a bit of a mistake order but I couldn't think of how to change it with my limited Italian so here it was. A three seater with a double bed on one side. Hard to imagine, harder to assemble but we set about it with determination but the booklet guides started to ramble halfway through the procedure.
First we had to assemble the bed part, open it up and then close it, then just after we closed it, it said we needed to open it again and put the mattress on, it showed a drawing of a man lying on the mattress, this seemed like a good idea, we certainly felt that that was something that should be done at this time, preferably with a glass of wine. But we were not put off, even when they then told us to put it back up again!
The third chair was a separate identity and it was then affixed to the end and we finally stood back and watched as slowly the cushions plumped up and out even more, filling the covers and removing all creases. The job was done. The lounge looked perfectly sized and no regrets were aired.
That afternoon the mountain men came and removed all the cardboard and the bulky sofa in the kitchen and we were halfway to completion.
And next to paint the kitchen cupboards and the rest of the furniture.
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