Category Archives: brico

Tuesday 26th July 2011 – NEXT MORNING …

… saw me in IKEA where they had sold out of everything interesting and so instead I went to Marianne’s.

After lunch we took a pile of my old stuff down to the Charity Shops and then we went to Brico to buy a pile of cable to rewire all of her internet connections, and that took me most of the afternoon.

At 19:20 precisely I left Brussels, maybe for the last time as I now have no reason to be back there, and headed off home.

And I was glad to leave, I can tell you. Charity shops refusing goods, and refusing them with a sneer and an offensive remark, large vans deliberately turning into your path when they can see you coming, and the final straw was the brand-new Range Rover that tried to run me down on a zebra crossing. Yes, by that time I had really had enough and now I’m wondering how that Range Rover driver will be explaining the large size 9-sized dent in his rear wing.

Yes, I was in a bad mood when I left.

The journey home was exciting. The Lady Who Lives In The Satnav predicted that I would arrive home at 03:51, and I was home at … errr …. 03:50 precisely.

And that was quite a surprise, and for several reasons.

  1. She took me down a completely different route – the Mons by-pass, then the N2 via Soissons to the Francilienne, and then round via Melun, Fontainebleu and the RN7. She also wanted to send me via Nevers and Moulins but I took the short cut via Bourges.
  2. old cars panhard levassor franceI made a few unscheduled stops along the way. One of the stops, not too far beyond Mons but in France was this absolutely gorgeous thing that I saw.

    It’s been absolutely ages since I’ve featured any nice and interesting old cars in my postings, so it’s high time that we showed you another one. This is an original Panhard-Levassor and I think that it might be a CS model from the early 1930s – not that I know too much about it. But whatever it is, it is beautiful – it really is

  3. Another unscheduled stop was at Melun where at the ELF garage there – the cheapest in France, diesel was at 129.9. That called for a major fuel-up.
  4. and then we had the road works. The way out of Brussels was full of them, as was the Francilienne. I calculated that I lost about 15 minutes at least in that lot. And there were also road works on the roads between Gien and Bourges and that slowed me down quite a lot as well. In fact, along that stretch of road I started to fall asleep. It had been a long day

But apart from that, I didn’t stop at all – not even for food or coffee (luckily at Marianne’s I had made a big mug of coffee in my thermal mug). I was in a hurry to return home.

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Friday 11th March 2011 – I’m going to be having an early night this evening.

And I’m not the only one either. Terry and Liz are quite exhausted too, and I’m not surprised as we’ve been working really hard again.

I emptied out my bedroom and then Terry and I tidied the garage downstairs so that we could move all of the stuff down there. We also loaded Caliburn with some stuff for the dechetterie, whenever it will be that we will go there. But that’s not going to be for a few days yet as most of the furniture that remains will be going with it.

I came back upstairs and put the second coat of paint on the door frame and the first coat of paint on the wall of the back terrace while Terry finished the walls in the hall. During all of this, Liz was cleaning the bedroom.

While Terry redid the walls in the hall, Liz and I set about the bedroom. What with Liz on the paintbrush and me on the roller we had two coats on the ceiling and one on the wall in no time flat. We even took the radiator off (that’s all of the radiators that have been off now) to do behind it.

We then went out onto the front terrace and scrubbed down the guard rails and the new tiles, and that is looking quite pretty now. And while I went off to buy more paint (we are getting through that rather quickly) Terry and Liz finished off cleaning and waxing the floor in the living room.

No wonder we are all exhausted.

So the plan now is –

  • tomorrow the second coats of paint on the back terrace wall and in the bedroom, and cleaning and waxing the floor in the hall.
  • Monday will be doing everything else that we have forgotten.
  • Tuesday morning will be emptying the apartment of absolutely everything and me going to the dechetterie. But I have to be back at 11:00 as that is when the estate agent is coming.
  • Once he has gone we will be taking up residence in a hotel for two nights and using Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday to clean the place from top to bottom, and then loading up the two vans.
  • Thursday morning will see the Cortina on the trailer and then it’s off back home. I’ve decided to take the Cortina regardless and come back for the Minerva. It’s easier to do it that way round.

But back home on Thursday?

Can I remember the way?

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Tuesday 8th March 2011 – I’m going to have another early night this evening as well.

It’s hard work at the moment doing all of this. Terry has been grouting the tiles on the terraces and then sealing all of the concrete, followed by painting the metal guard rails out there. Liz has been painting the ceiling and the woodwork in the living room, and I have been rubbing down the rest of the doors in the hall and then putting on the first coat of paint.

But I’ve run out of paint and so that called for a shopping expedition to Brico, only to discover that the paint that I’ve been using and which I bought in about 2004, has been discontinued. I’ve found some that looks near enough but I hope it’s going to be okay. I don’t want to repaint all of the woodwork in the hall. There are seven doors for a start.

We had some excitement coming back from Brico this evening. I pulled past a parking space, put Caliburn into reverse, the reversing lights came on brightly (as it was pitch dark outside) and as I set off backwards, some kid on a pushbike decided to cycle behind the van. I almost got him as well, and if he tries a stupid stunt like that next time, I’ll flaming well get him too and shan’t spare a moment of regret about it either.

What with crazy kids on pushbikes, old women with dogs tearing down our safety barrier to take the short cut to the grass while we are manoeuvring large, thick and heavy tiles six stories directly above their heads, I’m convinced that everyone here is totally off their heads. I’m not going to be sorry to get back home

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Thursday 24th February 2011 – Happy Birthday to me!

Although you wouldn’t think so. I’ve had one of those days.

Despite my marathon drive in the blizzard yesterday evening, I didn’t have much time to lie about and recover. There was work to do.
First thing was to go shopping (as if we haven’t done enough) Brico and IKEA at Zaventem were the destinations today and it’s another occasion where we saw the marvellous Belgium customer service in operation.

And on the way back, I fell into a police barrage and ended up being fined €50 for not wearing a seat belt. The policemen wished me a happy birthday but I could ell have done without all of that.

We came home to find that the expensive halogen oven hob that I liked so very much has ceased to function, which is a disaster. Luckily, Terry is here and he can give it his full attention.

But at least there is home-made ginger cake for my birthday. Liz defied Global Warming by lighting all the candles and when I tried to blow them out I was driven back by the heat.

I’m glad that today is now over anyway – it’s not been my best day today has it?

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Friday 18th February 2011 – There’s some light …

 now at the end of the tunnel – and we aren’t talking about roaring express trains heading our way.

Terry has made a start on the big terrace, and that’s his last major project (but there are a couple of smaller ones). He’s poured some waterproof sealing all over the old waterproof covering and then stuck some new waterproof covering over the top. That’s kept him out of mischief all day, except that he lost his Stanley knife. We are now expecting to hear a news report of a local Belgian wandering around with a Stanley knife firmly embedded in his head. After all, we are 6 storeys up.

Liz and I started to wallpaper the first half of the living room and despite me having to nip out for an hour for various errands, that part is now finished. Tomorrow morning we’ll be putting the first coat of emulsion on the wall in there while Terry seals the small terrace at the back.

We had to nip out to Brico for a few things too and we were looking at the paint on offer. We need to overpaint the wallpaper in the hallway and some 10 litres or so of emulsion would do the job. Having some properly mixed the colour that we like would be perfect, burt at … gulp … €140 for 10 litres we can forget that and it’s going to have basic magnolia and like it. Mind you, at €50-odd for 10 litres that’s not cheap either. I’m going to start importing and reselling job lots of paint. I’ll make a fortune at these prices.

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Thursday 17th February 2011 – I’m not going to be here much longer tonight either.

Yes, it’s taking it out of me. And early though it is (for us, anyway) I’m the last one up. Everyone else has retired a while ago.

This morning while Terry carried on in the toilet Liz and I uprooted the tiles and cement and sand and everything else from off the terrace at the front of the apartment. And then we took it all down and loaded it into Caliburn.

After that we stripped the terrace at the back of the apartment and loaded that all into Caliburn too. What with the old toilet and cistern and other bits and bobs we were pretty well loaded up.

After lunch it was down to the dechetterie with all of the rubble. And €12.10 later, Caliburn was empty. And that was quite astonishing as there was quite a load, as I have said. We then took a few bits back to Brico for a refund and came home to find Terry looking for the drain hole for the toilet sink
“Where did you put it?”
“On top of the old cistern while I cleaned the pipework
“Errr …. ohh dear”
So finishing the sink will have to wait for another day.

We also have a shower screen for the bath and it looks splendid. It really sets the bathroom off. It cost about €80 if I remember correctly but it was well-worth the money just for the aesthetic pleasure. And while Terry was fitting it I went through all the boxes of tools, fittings and the like, sorted eveything into the correct boxes and threw away a pile of stuff.

Me! Throwing stuff away! Whatever next?

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Saturday 12th February 2011 – We just worked half a day today.

Liz finished papering the bathroom and then painted the half that she had papered yesterday. It looks quite nice too. I carried on scrubbing down the walls in the living room and you wouldn’t believe how much dirt and muck and mess there is on them. Mind you, it doesn’t half look better now.

In the corner next to the bathroom is a little alcove where I hang the coats and leave the shoes. Marianne and I wallpapered there a few years ago but the bit at the bottom is quite badly soiled and needed doing again. But learning the lesson from my attic at home, and bearing in mind that we have a box of unused wall tiles going spare, Terry cut off some of the wallpaper and tiled down there. Now that’s so much better and of course if you are throwing muddy shoes about then all you need to do is to wipe down the tiles.

After lunch we had a brainstorming session and decided on yet another change of plan. The grouting of the WC tiles is awful and nothing we seem to do can clean it up. Grinding out the stuff doesn’t work either as it just creates dust everywhere and there isn’t the room to swing a grinder around so we decided that we would take them off and replace them. The sink is fine but the WC has seen better days and so we are going to replace that, put new pipework in the bathroom and change the tap.

And so with all of that, the stuff to seal the balcony, a pile of door handles and so on, we spent over €400 at Brico. The one at Mont St Jean instead, where they have the rudest staff in the whole wide world. And where they also have the rudest customers in the world too and Terry and I can give it back in spades.

At the Carrefour there we spent well over €100 in food for the next week. We’ve each given our orders for meals and so Liz knows what to cook. Spicy bean fallujahs with spicy rice, and rice pudding are on the menu – I can tell you that 😉

Once the shopping was finished the staff expressed a wish to be wined and dined at a Pizza Hut. Their wish is my command, unless I want to finish off this apartment all on my own, and so a good time was had by all.

But seeing how much these renovations are costing me, I hope that we can finish the work before my heart and my wallet give out. I’m not used to spending money like this.

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Thursday 10th February 2011 – I was going to have an early night …

… seeing as how everyone else has retired, but I wrote up my blog and then the computer crashed before it could be published. But never mind – it can’t be helped.

So we are (or were) off to bed early because we have been busy little beavers today. While Terry was sorting out the electrics in the third bedroom I was filling in holes in the bathroom for Liz (who reminded me a short while ago that I have missed one). And while Liz started off the painting in there I cleaned up the half of the terrace that we stripped of tiles. It’s now ready for tiling when I buy the bitumen underseal.

However there is a change of plans there. So many of the tiles are damaged that it’s not really feasible to reuse them and so I approached the President of the Residents’ Council with the idea that we replace them all with some more of the black tiles that we bought to do the edging. He’s in agreement and so I rang up the tile place to order some more. We must have a half-share in that shop now.

So after I had done that, Terry and I started on the floor-laying in the third bedroom and that took ages. Would you believe that it is the same patented system that I found when I bought the flooring to fit in the attic back at home, and how much anguish did I have with that?

Liz finished the first coat of her painting early and so she took over helping Terry while I piddled off for the tiles and a visit to Brico. I ended up at the Brico at the Place Bockstael where I found everything I needed but there was no place to park and there was no-one to cut the glass.

“Glass?” I hear you say. But yes. We decided that the shower screen that we will be fitting looks so nice that we will fit one on the window side. But as they don’t do one the correct size, we will have to make one out of glass and channelling.

But at Brico I encountered a situation that would have delighted Terry had he been there. An old lady was looking for light bulbs and the server there told her that they were in aisle 21 and she should p155 off and look for herself. Terry is continually being astonished by what passes for customer service here in Belgium. I did warn him about it.

Back home Liz and Terry had finished the flooring and so we started on the skirting board but ran out of time. Now we have 2 finished bedrooms (that I did a few years ago), an almost-finished third bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and toilet ( and they may well be done tomorrow) and which leaves us just the huge living room and the two balconies to do, as well as rewire the main fuse board.

No wonder that we are tired!

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Wednesday 9th February 2011 – We had a bit of good luck today …

…which is just as well, because regular readers of my rubbish will know that it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

At the maison communale, there was just one person in front of me so I was in and out in a matter of minutes. After that of course I attended to the matter of getting myself deregistered and that didn’t take long either. we even had a friendly and helpful fonctionnaire, and that’s a first in Brussels, I can tell you.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Terry got on with grouting the floor of the bathroom and while he was finishing it off. Liz and I took all of the rubble downstairs and put it in the trailer, having first removed everything that everyone else has put in it. And I reckoned that we took out more than we put in.

Once that lot was emptied it was off to IKEA for lunch and a quick shopping expedition. We bought a housing to fit the dishwasher into the kitchen, a toilet seat (we are going for all kinds of luxury here, you know) and a few other bits and bobs. Next door at Brico we acquired a shower screen to fit at the side of the bath, and a new shower head with hose

From there it was back into the city and to this electrical shop that I had discovered the other day. A two-gang box and a handful of circuit-breakers and he asked for €109. Having been asked for €145 just for the box at Brico, I expected him to then ask for the money for the circuit breakers too but no – that was his all-in price and he even threw in a pile of cable connectors. This was a good deal by any standards.

At the tile shop, we picked up a few sacks of tile cement to do the terrace here, and Liz’s beady eyes spotted some tiles that were exactly the same colour as the basic colour scheme of the toilet. Of course it’s a shame to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar and so that’s something else we’ll be having to do. Not that I’m complaining – I want this place to be a credit to us all when it comes to be sold.

In other news, there’s a bookshop in Scottsdale Arizona that wants to pick a fight with me. And as you all know, I’m never one to fail to rise to a challenge and it’s been a while since I’ve mixed it in a good old argy-bargy. It’s also been a long time (8.5 years in fact) since I’ve been to Arizona and I’m itching to go for another holiday.

So watch this space..

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Monday 7th February 2011 – I’m still here

I haven’t been struck down by a thunderbolt for working on the Sabbath, and I haven’t been a victim of Extraordinary Rendition during the night for daring to criticise the Septics either. Mind you, I had a really uncomfortable night and didn’t sleep too well – my guilty conscience obviously – and I’m going to bed as soon as I press “send”.

This afternoon though, I had to pop out to see my notaire about getting the apartment paperwork together. And she sent me off to get a tax clearance certificate, but of course the tax office is closed in the afternoons so that didn’t work out as planned and I need to do that tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I have the makings of a beautiful bathroom now – not quite finished but the walls are all grouted, there’s a sink, there are new taps on the bath and on the sink, and there is central heating again. Tomorrow it will have a new floor, some wallpaper, and be painted if we are lucky, and then we can move the washing machine in there.

I also have a bedroom that is painted now, and there’s a radiator fitted too. And I may well have time to start on the flooring tomorrow as well. But fitting the radiator was exciting – the connector broke as we were coupling it up, so we fitted a spare valve but that meant a trip to Brico for an adapter, and then another trip to Brico for a longer connector for the valve.

It was after 20:00 when we finished, and we are all exhausted. And not surprising too. It was a hard day’s work. I just hope that I can manage to press “send” before I ……

…. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

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Saturday 5th February 2011 – This gale is still howling away

It’s been going almost non-stop for over 48 hours and shows little sign of abating.And here we are trying to cut tiles and paint window frames and we’ve ended up with dust and paint everywhere.

Mind you, I have the making of a magnificent bathroom thanks to Liz’s artistic eyes and Terry’s workmanship. It’s certainly something. It might even be finished by Monday night and that will be real progress.

In the bedroom all of the woodwork is painted, we have wallpapered and there’s a couple of coats of paint on the ceiling, although there will be others as the ceiling is quite thirsty.

This afternoon I took Liz and Terry to the battlefield at Waterloo but there was far too much wind to make it possible to climb to the top of the Butte du Lion. And at the huge Carrefour at Mont-St Jean we did a week’s worth of shopping and spent a fortune. But it was worth is for I even found a supply of vegan cheese. And that doesn’t happen every day.

Then off to the big Brico where we spent another small fortune, but now we have all the wallpaper and paint that we need for here. I needed an operation for the removal of my wallet, and was given oxygen afterwards.

A major disappointment was that Chi-Chi’s, the really good Tex-Mex restaurant in Overijse, had closed down. Terry suggested a pizza, Liz fancied a fritkot, but once I had Tex-Mex on my mind that was that and we fought our way into Brussels city centre for the other Chi-Chi’s. Terry was suitably impressed with the roads in the city, of course. He reckons that they wouldn’t be out of place in Ougadougou or Dar-es-Salaam.

And what a good night it was in Chi-Chi’s – excellent service (none of the staff is Belgian), really good food, and a couple of South Americans entertaining the diners. It’s been a long time since I had such an enjoyable evening. Liz enjoyed her Mexican coffee and Terry loved his deep-fried ice-cream.

And so that was our day. And a good day it was too, with a good time being had by all. Tomorrow is a day of rest of course, and then back to the grindstone on Monday.

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Thursday 3rd February 2011 – So how did we do today then?

We made buckets of progress today.

This morning I had to go shopping to pick up the tiles that were now in stock. We also needed some tile cement (and lots of it), a new tiling trowel for Terry, some more white gloss paint and a couple of other things. While I was away, Liz put a coat of paint on the bedroom ceiling and Terry made a start on the tiling in the bathroom.

Once I returned, Terry launched himself into the tiling and kept at it all day. Liz and I painted all of the woodwork in the bedroom with the white gloss. Yes – me – painting things white. Whatever next?

Towards the end of the afternoon Liz started on a second coat on the ceiling and I began the wallpapering. I’m using that fibreglass wallpaper as I can do that – it doesn’t take much effort – and it hides all of the defects. I’ve put three drops onto the wall before the light went so I’ll finish it off tomorrow. And when it’s all done, the plan is then to paint it with emulsion. Once that’s done we can refit the radiator and do the floor and that will be that room finished. We can then move the living room into there and then do the living room.

Terry kept going until 18:45 and he’s done an impressive job in there. The wall is about half-done, so I gave him the rest of the day off and we finished by demolishing a pile of Liz’s lentil-burgers..

Tomorrow we’ll all be back at it.

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Wednesday 2nd February 2011 – You will hardly recognise this place now

Liz and Terry decided that we ought to empty some more stuff out of the apartment here today and so we had another mega-packing and sorting session. First thing that we did was to empty all of the stuff in the garage where the 2000E estate lives, check what I ought to be keeping, and then bin the rest. That was quite exciting as I discovered all kinds of stuff that I had carried about with me in my company car and which I had had to empty out when I handed back the car when I retired.

So with a comparatively empty garage (I say comparatively because you know that my idea of empty is different than everyone else’s), we had room to start moving more stuff downstairs. So while Terry was moving stuff downstairs and Liz was sorting, I was dismantling furniture and so on. Then we had a mega-bagging session of all kinds of bits and pieces and all of that has ended up in the garage too, and another pile of stuff has ended up in the trailer ready to go to the tip. You can actually move around here now, which is definitely progress from how it was 10 days ago.

We had a break at lunchtime for food, and as what with one thing and another we didn’t have time to send anyone for bread so it was to Carrefour at Berchtem St Agathe and the restaurant there. Just for a change there were nice, friendly and helpful staff – something I’m not used to in Belgium.

Brico couldn’t come up with a new lock for the other garage, which was a disappointment. No sense in breaking off the lock if we can’t replace it. But we did another load of shopping in Delhaize ready for the rest of the week.

And back home again we carried on with the sorting.

Tomorrow we may be starting on the third bedroom, and Terry will be attacking the bathroom, if the plastering that he did yesterday is dry.

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