Renovations

The small dorm-like apartment Maz and I live in currently has salmon colored walls with yellow trim. It's not exactly my favorite color scheme, but I also didn't want to go through the effort to change it.

And yet somehow I ended up doing it anyway. In both of the apartments I lived in over the past three years in San Antonio, it took me months just to fully unpack, let alone decorate anything. So why is it that I feel such a need to paint and re-decorate my living space in Hong Kong? I'm not really sure. I certainly don't like painting any better than I have before, so it's not that.

Maz and I had some friends over (other team members) the other night, and they started saying how easy it would be to fix the walls and repaint. I took this to mean they would be helping, and didn't want to pass up the chance. These guys do a lot of maintenance, so they would actually know what they were doing. I got excited, and now here I am almost a week later, and my place is a wreck as we work to redo everything.

I spent yesterday with Maz and a guy called Api (in the picture, rhymes with 'happy') who was helping us scrape and plaster the damaged parts of the walls. Api is from Fiji, a rugby player, and despite appearances is very soft spoken and genuinely very nice. He had offered to help, and I wasn't about to pass up the assistance! Now today, the plaster is dry and we are about to put sealer on it, then we can paint. I'm planning to do cream walls with a blue trim. And since I live at a warehouse (how convenient!) I can find some other furniture that will be a little less worn from what we currently have.

So I can't wait until it's done. I really want the result, but I'm not very good at holding out patience during projects like these. I'll let you know how it goes!