I admit, we did do some more fun house accessory shopping even though our walls were crumbling. There is some urgency when your walls are crumbling, yes... but there's also urgency in the small touches that can make a home feel more like a home in the meantime. I'll get to those later and let's all just pretend we worked on the walls right away like good home owners!
So surrounding almost the whole house, at the bottom of the walls in these older homes, you'll see the wall bubbling out just at the bottom. In one area in our hallway, I curiously touched the bubble, and poked right through the wall, dust and pieces crumbling to the floor! We called maintenance.
They came through and crumbled all the walls back and re-cemented them. There is a lot of moisture in the air when you live in the jungle! And the walls are made of cement, and then painted directly over with paint. The water fills the cement and collects at the bottom, and the paint seals the top layer that bubbles out. Every once and a while new cement is needed.
We had to be out of the house for the weekend so they could work. (And so we went to Kigali and partied too much and did more shopping of course!) And when we came back the walls were all cemented up, and they had done a weird paint job around the house. Our walls used to be 'soft white,' and our bathroom was blue. When we came back, they had already painted the 'brilliant white' that we requested, but in weird spots around the house. And the bathroom was just painted on the bottom where they made the fixes.
Not to worry! I asked them to come back, they did a couple more full coverage coats of white over the walls, and they primed the bathroom. Believe me I was scared when I saw the first coat of primer. Paint quality here doesn't seem to be quite the same.
Yeah.
But after more and more coats it all seemed to be OK. Luckily I stopped the re-painting of 'soft white' again!! See how nasty that color is where they started painting? The thought was they had more of that paint color though!
No more blue bathroom!!! Yet still so much more to be done...
We also got a ceiling board replaced in the bedroom.
Meanwhile, while all the work on the crumbling walls was happening Patrick and I went out dancing with friends in Kigali and then had a nice brunch at 2:00pm at a restaurant called Heaven.
See how I'm all hungover and green? ;)
And then we got to return to our beautiful home. Patrick did some yard work, and I supervised! It's always great to be back. :)
A little bird :)
Love,
Teri