Building up and Building out.
W/S of course!
This is turning into quite the series!
The house is little more than a building site at the moment. Why we decided it was a good idea to do it up ourselves, I don't know. I've just finished plastering the ceiling, and it actually looks like a ceiling. The walls are barely standing, and the kitchen has no running water or gas supply, but ladies and gentlemen, we have a ceiling. Three cheers for me, and I'm off to have a cold beer.
It's hard not to feel proud of what we've managed to do in…oh six weeks. After all, it has a ceiling. And no, that's not all we've managed. Sara's in the next room, in what will eventually be a study, banging something that sounds scarily like the whole house about to fall down.
We've managed to pretty much make the upstairs liveable. We don't actually have a bed, yet, but we have a room with four walls, that's even got curtains hanging at the window. The second room, the spare bedroom also has four walls, and a ceiling, and nets at the window, and it's purple. It's empty, but it's a start.
There's a loud curse next door, followed by a loud crash that sees my beer bottle on the floor, and me running. It seems my fears about the house falling down have been founded as the floor has more ceiling on it than the actual ceiling. Sara is standing on the top of the step ladder, covered in plaster dust, chunks of plaster board decorating her hair, a furious look on her face as she looks through the rather large hole in the ceiling.
She sees me standing in the doorway and throws the plasterer to the floor, sending up another huge cloud of dust. 'I hate this house!' She growls. 'I hate this stupid house that is falling down around our ears. I hate plaster board, and plaster, and paint, and any other stupid thing you need to put up a ceiling that won't even stay up when you put it up.'
I can't help it, in the middle of her rant, I start laughing.
Rule number one on the rules of living with Sara. Never, ever interrupt a rant with a laugh. Or more general, just don't laugh at her.
She gives me this look. You know the one. Eyes focused on you, about half the size they usually are, a frown the size of Everest on her face. The one that should have stopped me laughing dead, and made me all remorseful and apologetic. It didn't. In fact, it made me laugh more. Which is a bad thing.
The look Sara gave me could have frozen fire. In hell.
Unfortunately, the laughs had taken on a life of their own and not even Sara's look could have stopped it then. I walked forward, trying hard to sober up a little, knowing otherwise the mattress would be very cold tonight. I stopped at the base of the ladder, looking up at the hole now residing in this ceiling, seeing right through to the second bedroom above. I thought about asking how she'd managed to put a hole through both sets of plaster board, but thought better of it. I shifted my look to Sara, and smiled.
'It's got a hole in it.' Sara said flatly. I could hear the catch in her voice.
'It doesn't matter. Most of the house has got a hole in it.' I pointed out to her.
'This isn't how it's supposed to be!' She said, looking frustrated as she looked up at the hole again. 'We're supposed to get it all looking like we want it to, not giving ourselves more work.'
Sara doesn't get worked up about many things. But it's been a long six weeks, and considering we're still sleeping on a mattress, and don't have electricity yet, and only just have some (cold) running water, it's hard to keep optimistic. I reached up to her, pulling a chunk of board from her hair, throwing it into the heap on the floor. My hand lingered at her face, as I waited for her to look back at me. 'It will get done. It's just gonna take a while.' I tell her.
She smiles slightly.
'And when it's finished, it's going to be perfect, and we can look back and say we did this.' I finish, reaching up to brush my lips against hers.
'And you taste of plaster.' I add.
'It's my new look.' She jokes, as she slides forward on the ladder, and I help lower her to the floor. She stoops slightly when her feet touch (relatively) solid ground, and before I know what's hit me, I'm surrounded in a cloud of plaster dust. When the dust clears Sara's grinning at me. 'His and hers.' She explains.
'Oh, you so didn't just do that, Sidle.' I tell her.
She just grins more.
I stoop, pick up a pile of the dust and throw it in her direction. She ducks, and runs, heading for the lounge, the sound of her laughter following her. I follow, the room seemingly empty until I felt something wet hit me from the side and realise I've just been hit with a bucket of water.
With water dripping over my nose, I search her out, following the sound of her retreating laughter. I stop once, before stalking around the lounge, into what will be the kitchen when we get round to it. I find her standing in the middle of the room, next to the old breakfast bar, looking deceptively innocent. My hands are empty and I see her relax.
'So, where are we going for dinner?' She asks casual as you like.
I wander forward to her as I shrug. 'What do you fancy?' I ask, coming to a stop in front of her.
She shrugs as well. Eating out, or eating takeaway as we've done for six weeks gets fairly old fairly quickly. We're struggling to come up with places, and this is Vegas. I lift my hands, cupping her face. 'Do you know how beautiful you are?' I tell her honestly as I slide my hands down slightly, trailing in it's wake blue paint that I was painting the front door with.
She scrunches up her face. 'Your hands are all sticky.' She tells me, reaching up running a finger through the paint on her face.
The look on her face is priceless, as she reaches behind her, and soon her hands are on me, and I remember the paint tin on the breakfast bar in purple that the second bedroom was painted in just as her hands come to land on my hair, sliding down my face, cupping my face in them. I suddenly know the meaning of great minds think alike. It also counts for devious minds, apparently.
Her hands, though, don't stop at my face. And soon much of my upper body is also purple, as she kisses me long and deep, leaving me breathless. She steps away, assessing the damage, a smirk on her face. She goes to leave, but the kiss has given me ideas and she doesn't manage a step before I grab her, crushing her to me, the kiss I hope leaving her breathless, not that I leave her much time to say or not.
We haven't done it in the kitchen yet, but that's soon rectified, and there's nothing quite like doing it in a pile of dust. On a breakfast bar that creeks as if it's about to collapse in on itself.
As we lie there afterward, all surrounded in dust, and paint and goodness knows what, both severely out of breath I remember why we are doing all this work. So I can be with her. It's as simple as that. She looks so beautiful laying there, this gorgeous smile on her face.
The phone went before I could tell her this. Sara untangles herself and grabs my shirt for some reason as she goes to hunt it out in all the dust. I just lie there, because I know who it's going to be, and I know what's going to happen.
'Sorry, Warrick, I've got to go.' She tells me from the doorway, still looking gorgeous.
I stay downstairs as she goes to have a cold shower, gets dressed, trying not to think that this was meant to be our weekend off together. She leaves with a single brief kiss before I slowly get dressed, going to start the ceiling Sara pretty much demolished.
I know work just called again.