The painters are here! Poor Lexi got quite scared with the noise so, after chasing her around the flat, we put her in her favourite place, under the covers on the bed.
They have the coolest and most practical tools that I have ever seen before. Our Canadian painters could make use of these I'm sure.
A ladder which can be mounted on both sides. It has a pouch at the top between the rungs for carrying things. The painter can then use the ladder as stilts. He sits on the top rung and "walks" it along the floor to reach high places. Great idea!
A small round brush on a stick that corners and does wall to ceiling crease. Very efficient.
A painting tape and paper machine that applies both at the same time to light fixtures or other odd shapes that can't be removed.
My favourite is the ladder though.
They have been here since 08:30 and it is now noon and both the living room and spare room are painted, including both ceilings. They spent about an hour taping everything and applying new plastic to furniture and floors. Now these two rooms are the least complicated, still it is fast work. More later as this unfolds.
Our comfort is important to them. Before going on I should name them - the owner is Raphael and his partner is Olivier. (from now on R & O) They come from the area around Strasbourg, France and speak French to each other. Our partners D & E sourced them for us and the estimated quote was for 4 days work which they finished in 2! The entire flat including ceilings - done!
Back to the comfort thing, we work at the dining room table and when it came time to paint that area they moved the table into the living room and set up our chairs for us to enable us to continue working. Then they proceeded to paint the kitchen, dining and hall way. They cleaned up including sweeping the floor, looking for bits of paint. They put everything back in it's place, drapes, furniture, rugs and left about 15:30 (3:30 p.m.). I am using the 24 hour time system because that is standard here, luckily I learned it years ago while working for a cop shop.
Painting Project Day 2
Today they did the bedroom, two bathrooms and the ceiling of the winter garden, that glass enclosed area we have. Lexi went back under the bed covers as soon as they arrived and since they are doing the bedroom today with en-suite we moved her complete with covers into the office area, she hasn't moved a muscle. Much smoother for her and us this morning! R calls her the Tiger.
The winter garden looks amazing now, the ceiling and low wall below the windows are painted and now the room looks like it fits with the rest of the flat.
They completed everything, including cleanup and presentation of the invoice by 14:30. I really can't say enough good things about this team. Can you tell?
Pouring rain right now, coming in sideways. We got back in from the shops just in time!
This was our view one day this week - how threatening looking is that!
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| Stormy to the Max! |
The doors are coming, the doors are coming! I'm not talking about the music group. We have been months without two closet doors in the bedroom. One got cracked (they are glass) and through no fault of our own and much frustration on our partner's side. They came, they installed, they wiped fingerprints off and left. Looks very nice and feels like our "chores" are getting done.
So we took the tram past Gunterstal and on to a bus to get to the longest loop cable car 1,284m in Germany. Took 20 minutes to "Lift me up"! "Lift me up" is their tag line. The website for more information and great pictures. http://www.schauinslandbahn.de/en/ . So it is definitely a tourist thing to do but locals can buy an annual ticket. There are many hikes around the area and if you are a skier you'd be in seventh heaven! We passed wind turbines and were able to look down on them which felt a bit weird. The view from the top was, as expected, fantastic! All of Freiburg, the Black Forest, the French mountains ... Here are some pictures that turned out better than I expected.
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| Freiburg from 3.6 km up |
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| Car on it's way up, we're going down... |
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| Wind Turbines |
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| Surrounding area, farming villages |
All and all a very great day even though cloudy it didn't rain. Do go to the website noted above, it's worth a look and you'll get more information. I don't want to spout facts and figures but it is certainly an engineering marvel!
Oh, our cows came home! They came back into the farmland this week, minus the older calves but there are still a couple of small ones in the herd. Instead of looking at the ocean, we look at cattle and horses. I do not consider it a trade-off, it's just completely different.
Cheers, Bx2 & Lexi
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