family – chez nous N°21

Wonderwall (Noun)

“A barrier which separates the mundane from the Transcendent Reality. A true Wonderwall will always have a crack, or a slit or an opening which allows anyone a glimpse of what lies beyond the Wonderwall.”

Do you ever catch yourself staring at a project, an unfinished wall perhaps or a gargantuan pile of ironing and say to yourself will this job ever be finished? I love my old house with its rough edges and all its imperfections, but living inside a project does take its toll: I get fed up of clearing up fallen plaster, let it collect in the skewed corners around the house and I tire of fighting the armies of spiders we share this house with, allow them to conquer the contours of our stairwell and erect their flags in the ceiling. The work never ends. Priming a wall can take a week when the moral is low.

This is usually when my husband strolls in with a new gismo and I rediscover my enthusiasm of painting and decorating. To battle my growing apathy towards home improvement, last Monday he adopted a wallpaper kettle and come Friday, I have already given it a name and a place around our dinner table – that’s how much I love it.

Our new wallpaper kettle and my mum in action…

For those who have not had the pleasure of seeing one of these babies in action, a wallpaper kettle is a simple gadget that makes stripping wallpaper a joy. It looks roughly like a petrol canister fitted with a hose and a plastic tray. James told me it was around thirty euros in our local Bricomarche – money well spent I thought. As water boils in the tank, stream is directed through the hose and into the shallow tray that is kept pressed against the section of a wall ready to be stripped. Unlike my fingernails, the steam will penetrate several layers of paper at once. The old adhesive is melted away, allowing big sheets of wallpaper simply to fall off with a gentle pull or a scrape – all in a matter of seconds. On top of all this, the device is fairly light weight and using one is easy as pie.

If only it made tea, I would elope to Spain and marry it.

Conveniently, the purchase of our latest toy coincided with the visit of my mother, who, when faced with a choice between a relaxing trip to Benidorm or being sent to a Gulag, would choose the Gulag every time. Like a good daughter, I thought, if working like a beast is how she likes to spend her vacation, who am I to stop her.

So now, in five days, she has managed to be done with Mount Everest’s worth of washing and ironing, pickled enough cucumber for an army and walked the dog around the globe. Twice. Last but not least, it was she who picked up the spanking new kettle and stripped, single handed, the walls of our entryway that were grotty and unfinished after past half-hearted attempts of wallpaper-removal, going back to the days when we first moved in. Embarrassed to see how easily she had turned one of our biggest failures into a success, I may need to step up my mother’s day game for next year…

Despite of my personal feelings of inadequacy, the results are superb: plaster that was hiding under the stained 90’s wallpaper turned out to be painted light green and in surprisingly good condition. It was always evident that whole sections will need to be replaced, especially from around the front door and in the back where previous occupants had tried to half-arsedly cover up old damages with floppy sheets particleboard, but the rest is pretty solid. To see these walls for the first time without scraps of paper was both weird and wonderful. Although the old paint job is in a dire nick, you get a good feel how the space could look like once fully restored.

Having a partner-in-reno, or a fabulous mum, to share the workload with every once in a while, is helping me to stay motivated. When I find myself lacking in energy, nothing feels as good as a helping hand and some hearty progress. My mum will spend a total of three weeks here, this being her whole holiday allowance for the summer, and I must admit, I was dreading it. No matter how much I love my mother, three weeks is a long time to cater for any guests, including family, on a building site. Luckily we seem to work very well together and she loves our house as well as Mazamet. With her help and whirlwind like enthusiasm, I even found myself with a bit of free time for the first time this summer. In a week I have managed to catch up on work, make a pretty summer dress and see attractions and events all around Mazamet and La Montagne Noire. To summarise, I have managed to relax.

I can concur, la vie est belle! Seeing my mum adore the pace of life by the foot of the Montagne Noire is making me incredibly happy. And as she happens to be dead afraid of spiders, I have a new reason to brake truce with the cobwebs brigade. God knows, it’s about damn time!