Concreting mess on his birthday

Dear Family & Friends

When we bought our village home, the seller was just starting his rennovation plan. Nothing was finished except for some wood flooring and tiled floor in the hallway. We moved in quickly as winter was about to start. First thing was to create a kitchen. We decided to just cover the wood floor with temporary linoleum flooring till we have more time to lay a more suitable flooring for a kitchen use. Years went by, so many other things needed our attention. But then, we noticed our kitchen starts to have some smell - we had our suspicions and when we rolled up the linoleum...our nightmare turned reality! 

a rotting wood flooring is a big nightmare!

The soft wood floor was rotting away - it was gross! With a busy schedule, our CEO thought he could deal the situation till spring time. But, the thought of putting us through this misery for a bit longer was not fair...so, that very day, the wood floor was ripped out!

a shabby workmanship - we need to rectify this!

The previous workmanship was not of standard. The wood flooring was literally just sitting on top of damp dirt. It has to be rectified. So, the dirt was excavated deeper, lay damp proofing,then concrete the floor, so we can lay floor tiles afterwards.

all needed preparation works done - before pouring in concrete

Our CEO learns the trade as he goes. He finds it easier than hiring people to do the job - because from our various experiences, they give us more headache as they don't do good job - ending us re-doing things all over again. He did hired help for extra helping hands for this project.

preparations were made to concrete a pathway in this part of our garden:)

As we were concreting the kitchen floor, we also took the opportunity to concrete a pathway under our grapevine area that leads to a little hut - at the same time.

here comes the cement lorry mixer to deliver the goods

The day came when all preparations were done. A concrete lorry delivered us the quantity of cement we needed. They just pour it onto the roadside and this was ferried into the house by wheel borrow load.

the cement mix is just poured onto the street in front of our house!

Our neighbor also helped in, along with two hired helping hands to ferry the cement to our kitchen and the garden. It was a very messy situation. It would have been a quick home project, but as you know, our busy CEO also holds a job as the breadwinner, in between all these. He is a smart hero!

A traditional chinese birthday meal - 'misua' noodle with boiled egg

On this unplanned Saturday, it was also our CEO's birthday. What a great way to celebrate a birthday with a non-stop, urgent home rennovation to tackle with?!! But there was a box of chocolate 'bon boni' to share with the workers as is the usual Bulgarian practice for birthday celebration. With that, everyone was happy!

Doesn't look appealing, but pizza hot from a box brought so much celebration joy!

We are one very enduring family....content with what ever comes our way. With good attitude, everything becomes a joy. I wanted to cook for him a Chinese traditional birthday dish - a noodle with boiled eggs, using a special noodle called 'misua'...but as it wasn't possible to do so with out a kitchen:( The following day, we just went to a pizza place and the whole family was so happy with the small celebration treat, as if we won a lottery:)

That's us during our trying times....Hope you are staying happy whatever the situation too.

Yours