A weekend away from the paint brush

So, since I've been in Sweden, I haven't published many entries. Marianne now tells me that she has put a link on the Bombadil website to m'blog, so I am endeavouring to do a little better. Especially as it's the weekend and I'm not painting her huge living room!

I've been looking around the Relaxation Suite for Useful Things To Do. I've drawn up the plans for the stud walling that needs to be put in to create the bedrooms, but this is awaiting the approval of Marianne and Niklas, who will arrive on Thursday. I was going to paint the ceilings, but having looked up for the first time I've discovered that they're all covered in insulating tiles. Quite tasteful and attractive and they certainly cannot be painted. I'm not going to paint the kitchen/hallway etc until Sara has chosen the paint (it's her home as well and I don't want to get into trouble for painting it the wrong colour). So I decided to do some work on the West Bedroom. Well, what will become the West Bedroom once a short section of partition wall is erected. The are two little rooms each with a toilet and a wash basin in this area; the plan is to position the wall so that the door to one of the WCs is within the bedroom, creating a sort of an ensuite. Not the sort of ensuite with a shower or a bath, just one with a bog and a basin. But useful none the less. The problem: The wash basin in the toilet that is to become the ensuite has no plug. The plug wasn't missing, it was never designed to have a plug in the first place. The basin in the second WC however, did have a plug. So I set about swapping the plug holes. An easy job, or so I thought. I fitted the new plug hole in the ensuite and all was well. Then I went to fit the plugless hole in the non-ensuite WC; it was too long. Being of different designs they were of differeing lengths and the position of the waste pipe meant that it wouldn't fit. Grrr! I toyed with the idea of swapping the basins over, not because this would solve the problem (it wouldn't) but because the one in the non-ensuite was more compact and took up less space. I decided against this course of action as they were both fitted with monoblock mixer taps which are a swine to fit in the first place, let alone trying to reposition them once the supply pipes have been cut to length. So I swapped that plughole with another in the bathroom (from one of the 8 washbasins), tightening up a few compression fittings which stopped a few slow leaks in the process. It seems that things in a Swedish house are the way they are for a reason. Well never mind, I won in the end.

I went for a bit of a walk today as well, around the lake until I could see Bombadil Towers from the far shore. I hasten to add I didn't walk all the way round the lake; it's very big! I took some rather wonky photos on my mobile phone, which I will post as soon as Marianne arrives with the USB cable. I must buy a proper SLR camera - this place is so photogenic. I think it's the light.