Adventures in Demolition

Saturday evening after work I drove to Ekkersrijt, the nearby business park / shopping plaza where you can find everything from hardware stores to Ikea. I started out in the Gamma, where I looked at tiles, thermostate showers and showerheads. When Nachtvisser arrived, I already knew what tiles I liked, what thermostate would do it for me, what shower cabin I wanted and all I had to do was pick out a showerhead. I picked a Grohe watersaving (-50%) head with three types of jet stream and ordered a Tiger thermostate (Boston, € 199,-).

Nachtvisser went wild in the copper department, picking out pipes, couplings and end caps. By the time it was ten past six we were almost literally thrown out, but we had what we needed to start working.
We had dinner at Ikea and browsed the showroom. I showed him the Ektorp couch I fancy, the kitchen I ordered, and we bought new pillows since I am always fighting with my pillow. This is pillow #4 I bought in a year's time. Pillow 1 is agreeable, pillow 2 is too thick, pillow 3 was returned, but I am hoping this final pillow is a lot better than the previous ones.
We were also thrown out of Ikea at closing time (8 pm) but I picked up a bathroom folder so I can check their washbasins.

We drove to the Oudaen where Nachtvisser started by disconnecting the water (after setting up the coffee maker for the next day) and disassembling all pipes. I vandalised the old kitchen cabinets to a degree and we broke the countertop in our enthusiasm. So far for my father's plans to re-build the old kitchen in the downstairs storage unit.
We left by 10pm, all water disconnected and most of the old kitchen demolished.

On Sunday morning I baked a few eggs and we set out around nine to go to Eindhoven. I had hung up a flyer warning my neighbours of impending doom the noise we would be making, and at 10 am it would be open season. While I was still lugging kitchen cabinets and old water pipes to my storage unit, mom and Luc arrived. I gave them a set of keys and I showed them up. Mom hadn't yet seen the apartment, but she was loving it. "I can understand why you would fall for all this light!" she exclaimed at seeing the living room. It is an unseasonably balmy winter, and we had the balcony door open all day to let the dust out and fresh air in, which is probably unheard of for January. Who gets to work on home improvement in January with all their doors open?!

I asked Luc to inventory the electrical groups and outlets connected to them, so we could make a start on the electricity scheme for my kitchen. The combi-oven-microwave needs to be on a separate group, or at least on a different one than the washing machine, and with the saw that would gut grooves in concrete we might even be able to make a start on moving the electrical outlets.
Mom and I started working on the tiles in the kitchen, and Nachtvisser was making a lot of noise with the saw in the bathroom. All of us were wearing earplugs, so I was not too impressed with the amount of noise we were making -- but I doubt the neighbours would agree with me.

Half an hour later we made coffee and I assessed my progress. With a hand-chisel and hammer, I had done perhaps three whole tiles from the concrete wall. My mom had started on the bathroom-side wall, which went a lot faster. When Nachtvisser saw the progress, he got out his big Bratabrat (Hammer-drill? Thingy?) and showed me how to use that. After coffee, I continued work with that, and it went a lot faster. And it was fun to do too!
The chips of tiles went flying as far as the opposite wall and I found tile chips in my bra when I got home. The scattered pieces were sharp enough to draw blood (Nachtvisser caught one on the forehead, because he likes to catch things there, like hydraulic pumps and the like) so I very quickly pulled on my vest.
I tapped Nachtvisser to take over but I never got the drill back until the work on the tiles was done. We took care of those tiles in an hour or two, max.

I sweeped up all the scattered tiles in the hope of saving my floor at least somewhat, and mom continued on sanding the remains of the old fiber wallpaper off. Luc had returned with supplies, and Nachtvisser tackled the connection between kitchen and bathroom with a huge drill. He made a hole in the wall that would nearly fit a head, but it'll be fixed in a later stage.
After lunch mom and I moved to the bedroom to remove more wallpaper there, since Nachtvisser would be cutting the waterline grooves in the kitchen wall. Supplies, clothes and everything that would not withstand the dust was moved to the hallway. Afterwards we opened up all the doors and the dust could blow out.



We got pretty far for a long day's work, I am impressed! The kitchen is tile-free now, and I just need to call the installation company to ask if this level of demolition is sufficient. Otherwise I need to get someone to egalise the wall for me, as there is old tile glue left on the wall.
Nearly all the grooves for the water have been cut, but we'll need an additional day for cutting all the grooves for the electricity.
We cleared out by four-thirty, dragged some more large trashbags down the stairs and drove off into the sunset. I was just in time to return the saw to the hardware store where I rented it, and reserved it for next weekend too.

By the time I was home, I was so tired. I couldn't hold a hammer any longer, and even lifting a slice of pizza up to my face made my hands shake. But we're getting there.

The search for the perfect wallpaper

When I first went to my dietitian here in Boxtel, I was impressed with her office. One wall was wallpapered with a lovely striped wallpaper, and the rest was bland white and standard office equipment. (She also had an electric menorah on her desk in December, so I'm guessing she doesn't mind standing out).
Last time I was there, we were just starting on the work in my apartment and I told her I really liked her wallpaper, and where she had bought it.
"Oh, that one paint store near the double railway crossing." she said.
I Googled it and paid the Joosten Paint & Wallpaper store a visit today.

Little did I suspect that my one picture of the office wallpaper would unleash a hunt for the Right Thing. I had no idea that there would be over a dozen books filled with wallpapers in that store, or that wallpaper books have an expiration date (luckily none as fleeting as fashion, but still...)
The man helping me in the store browsed through the books for me, but we couldn't find the right wallpaper. I was bummed. I hadn't expected the search to be this hard, although I don't really know what I did expect. From my browsing the hardware stores, I expected just 30 different kinds of wallpaper, ranging from white to grass green and from red to black.
But what I had told both my parents rang true: once you find something that you really fancy, anything that's not quite comparable just doesn't cut it anymore. None of the samples I had brought back from other hardware stores could quite live up to the lovely, lively swirly stripes with a little glimmer that I had seen at my dietitian's office.

After looking through all the books and not finding them, I was ready to give up and settling for any old hardware store wallpaper that would do, but another store clerk came to help us out. She offered to look through their records to find the old order form. I didn't know how long ago the wallpaper had been put up, so there was no telling whether the paper in question was still available.
"What did you say your friend's name was?" the woman asked me.
"Tolen." I said. "She has a dietitian's practice here in Boxtel."
"I do have a Thoolen..." she said. There was an order for three rolls of 5209-11 from a certain brand. We looked through the books again, but found that the wallpapers were not sorted by number, and there was no telling if the book had been renewed recently. The order for 'Thoolen' was from february 2011, and I figure 3 rolls of wallpaper would be suffient for the length of wall.

"Let's give her a call." the first clerk said. There was no answer. "Voicemail of Saskia and Dion..." he said, after hanging up the phone.
"That could be. Her name is Saskia Tolen." I replied.
The second clerk Googled the phone number she had. "Registered to a different surname;" she said; "but if that's the other person, that could be. It is a number here in Boxtel."

In the end they called the manufacturer to see if they could get a picture e-mailed of the wallpaper. I left my contact information and went to Eindhoven for some more wallpaper scraping (the stuff in the bedroom is proving to be mighty resilient!)
And then I received a phonecall from Joosten, the paint store. They had forwarded the e-mail to me, and also the person they had phoned had called them back and said she had opened the practice a few years back and that was when she had bought the wallpaper.

So I guess we do have a match. And the best news is that there are 11 and 14 rolls from 2 separate dye batches still available, which should be more than enough for my apartment.
And I'd like to nominate Joosten for Efficient Store of the year!