In the nursery it smelled of paint, but not annoyingly because Elly kept the window ajar all day. Elly greeted them warmly. She had just finished a few poppies and was cleaning her brush.

"We put your petals from the bridal suite back in the box. Rosanne and Angelique had kept them in the drawer of a nightstand."

At the same time, Margreet looked at the wall. "Oh how cool, those poppies! I love poppies, and I'm always so sad that they only bloom for such a short time. But here they will always stay beautiful, amazing!" Annerieke and Lisa also showered Elly with enthusiastic cheers and compliments.

"I'm still getting all embarrassed by this..." blushed Elly.

"Oh Elly, it's so obvious that this is your talent." thought Annerieke.

"Yes, it is, I love to do this. It's a bit exciting every day, but most of all it's great fun."

"Give us a sign when it's completely finished Elly, then we'll come and see it again right away!" urged Annerieke to her friend.

"I will. I suspect in a few hours, sometime mid-afternoon I think."

"Agreed, then we'll leave you alone with your work again now, I'll go home and do some more work."

.

Annerieke went back to her own house, while Lisa and Margreet went to check on Huib.

Lisa looked at the website and reacted: "Quite special, it's so simple and clear, but the more pictures you put on it the nicer it gets."

Huib agreed with her, and excitedly explained that he had just received a commission from Simon to make furniture for his study.

"He has started moving. Today he's bringing the small things here in moving boxes. Tomorrow he wants to try to bring the furniture from his study here. To be honest, I have a bit of an idea, that he has no one to help him with that. With the moving boxes it can be done, but not with furniture. I have just consulted Sjaak. If it turns out that Simon has not arranged any help, we will go with him tomorrow morning to carry it."

Margreet and Lisa nodded happily. Lisa responded, "It's nice that you want to do that for him. I think he has always had to do everything himself, maybe he finds it hard to ask for help."

"That is indeed the problem, I heard that just now as I was walking past their house. That gave me the idea of helping him and I immediately told Sjaak. We actually had fun together too, that we were just going to present Simon with a fait accompli. He will get to know the Bloemenhof family!

.

By two o'clock the mural was finished. Elly decided to clean and pack her things first. Then she walked downstairs, where Margreet was putting the finishing touches on her knitting.

"Are you ready yet?" asked Margreet, and when Elly nodded, "Would you pick up Annerieke and Simon? Then I'll pick up Sjaak and Lisa."

They walked out together, where their paths immediately parted. A few minutes later, all the family but Simon was in the nursery. Everyone admired the whole thing and the fine details.

"Those buttercups and daisies, so cute."

"And there those lilacs, you can almost smell them!"

Huib and Sjaak stood smiling as they listened to the enthusiastic cries of the women.

Huib added: "Elly, it really is a beautiful picture. Here we will see new elements again and again, or be surprised again about what we have seen before. It is so real, so alive. Are you absolutely sure you don't want to charge money for this? I mean, besides material, you've put a lot of hours into this."

"No Huib, really not! The expenses of the materials are my gift to you and to your baby. And the work has been a celebration for me, a rediscovery of what I enjoy most. In the future I'm going to ask for money for my murals, of course, but not for this one. The fact that I was allowed to do it has given me more than enough."

Margreet turned to her: "I am so happy about that Elly, for yourself, that you are going to pick this up again, that you like it so much. I totally feel for you, it's so relatable!"

Elly put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against her for a moment. "Yes hey, I think that's so nice for you too. And you Lisa, with your music and your fight for women. You're just at the beginning as far as those women are concerned, but you've felt what you want. Actually we all have, I think we've all found our way. Special..."

Huib came up with something else in between: "Sjaak, shall we get the commode from the work shed and put it in its place here?"

"Yes, we will, then we can immediately see the whole thing!"

In the shed Huib quickly pulled a cloth over the commode. "I had already cleaned it, but in this space it's always a dust mess!" The men grinned at each other, grabbed the dresser next to its legs and brought it home. Going up the stairs was a tough job, but they soon forgot that when it was placed against the wall in the spot Huib had marked out. He took an eraser from his pocket and carefully erased the lines he had made on the wall.

"So, this is it... a few more things in there, the baby on top, and the picture on this side of the room is complete!"

Everyone shot up in laughter. "That baby is going to be a while," Lisa thought, "Margreet still doesn't have a bulging belly."

"Luckily not, I'm still in the first month, the little one is still so small! But no kidding, it's a beautiful set though! I'm really very happy with it! And now it is finished. Doesn't that feel empty to you, Elly? Or do you already have a new assignment somewhere?"

Elly smiled: "No, I don't have any new work in the pipeline, it's not going that fast yet. Next week I'm going to take it easy. I'm sure I can take a few books with me from Annerieke?" She looked questioningly at her friend, and when Annerieke nodded in agreement, she continued: "Then I'm going to calmly put things back in order at home and read a lot. And I think I'll take care of some business things in the meantime, an email address for the website, and a set-up for an invoice, and an overview of the expenses I'll be charging for wall paintings. That last one seems like a pretty tough job."

"Maybe it's not so bad," Huib thought. He took his ruler out of his pocket and measured the mural. He quickly calculated how big the surface was. "Look Elly, this is the surface. If you write down for this surface how much you have spent on materials and how many hours you have worked on it. Multiply those hours by your hourly wage... and add your material costs. Then you have the total price for the surface you painted in this room. Then you can calculate a standard price per square meter. And you take that as the basis for determining the price for each new job, a base price. You can then make a list for yourself with the prices for different surface sizes, half a square meter, two square meters. But on the website you just have to put your base price per square meter.

If someone wants to give you a commission for a mural, he will measure his wall and then using your base price on the website, calculate how much a mural will cost him. If he agrees to that price, he will give you the commission and you will then calculate once again what the whole thing should cost. If the both of you come to an agreement, you make a quote in which you briefly describe the assignment, including the size of the wall and the basic price, and finally the total price. As soon as the customer signs the quote, it is fixed. So on the quote, and also on the invoice, you only put the total amount, no breakdown of hourly wages and material costs. Do you understand how I mean it?"

"Yeah sure, that's definitely going to help me, thank you! By the way, do you think it's crazy if I charge for new pots of paint for each new job and still start with the old ones?"

"That seems only natural to me! You could start with new pots of paint every time, but then you'd have your whole house full of half-full pots. That is also one of the reasons why you should not put a description of your material costs on your quotation and your invoice. It's your job to make something beautiful out of it, nothing else!"

Elly burst out laughing, "Yes, that's true, but I find it quite difficult to deal with people in such a businesslike way. It's nothing to me, but if I indeed work with two lists next to each other, one for hourly wages and one for material costs, and also make a standard for a quote and an invoice, then it should be alright."

Sjaak stood thinking along while Huib explained. Now he asked Elly: "Can you do that yourself? Putting that quote and that invoice on the computer together, so later you only need to fill in the prices and details of the client? Otherwise I want to help you, I myself once learned on my training."

"Oh really? Something like that on a training for gardener? Well, of course you had to learn such business stuff as well. Thanks for your offer, Sjaak, if I don't succeed I'll come back to you!"

"I'll hold you to that," Sjaak winked.

"So you won't be bored the next week," smiled Margreet.

"No, definitely not! And we'll keep in touch, for fun and for the business side, the website. I'm kind of dreading it, but I'm still looking forward to it. Kind of like starting my own business, actually."

"Good thing you put it that way, we should probably include VAT. And I think it's good if we register at the Chamber of Commerce first." Huib looked at Elly and Margreet: "Shall I work on that next week? Find out how that works?"

"Please, then I'll leave that open in the set-ups I'm going to make. I think I'll do it in Excel, I've worked with that before, and I liked it."

"If you already know that program, it sure is handy!" thought Sjaak.

"Yes, just make a standard outline, and copy that every time for a new assignment. Child can do the laundry!"

"That reminds me of something..." said Margreet. "I'll just go hang up the laundry in the guest house and put the next load of bedding in the machines."

"And I'll help you out, maybe we can pick up the laundry of the towels already."

Lisa and Margreet said goodbye to Elly with a cheerful greeting and left for the guest house.

.

Huib got out his mobile and took pictures of the dresser and the mural. Together with the others he went to the computer to put them on the website. He also downloaded Elly's photos and discussed with her which ones she wanted to use for the website. He merged the chosen photos into two collages, one collage of the process and one collage of the end result. He placed both on her page and placed the photo where the dresser was also there, below the collages. He also placed that last photo on his own page below his collages of the commode.

Sjaak, Annerieke and Elly admired how Huib had set everything up, and also had organized everything in his computer, how he had made folders to store photos and texts per person.

"It looks nicely organized, Huib. I never knew you were so handy in those things too!" Annerieke was genuinely surprised.

"Indirectly, I learned that from Dad, when I had to start figuring out the administration of the guest house. The way he had set it up gave me the idea to do the same here. Everything is easy to find. The only thing I find difficult is to keep the system up. When we get into the swing of things, which I expect we will, I already got a couple of orders from Simon this morning for his study, and I also have to make a cabinet for here at home, and flower boxes for the guest house, it's going to be a lot. And then I think, knowing myself, I can easily let things slide. So it could be that I temporarily park the photos and the bills somewhere. Then everything is on the computer, but mixed up. On the other hand, if I do sit down for a couple of hours, then it's just a matter of tidying everything up into the various folders and putting the photos on the right pages. I'm sure it'll work out!"

They laughed at his nonchalance. That was Huib all over: very good in organizing, but still nonchalant, or actually just relaxed. Annerieke knew, that it had always worked out well until then and expected that it would again. She grabbed him by his shoulders: "You are a beauty! I trust you, it's going to be all right! And now I'm going to the guesthouse. The new guests will be arriving soon and I have to work in the kitchen in the meantime, otherwise we won't have any food tonight. See you later youngsters!"

"Yes, see you later, young lady!" Huib jested to his mother.

"And I'm going home. First get my stuff." Elly went upstairs, picked up her bags, greeted Huib and walked to her car. She breathed the fresh air deeply. Working with paint was great, but breathing in that fresh air afterwards was also wonderful. Satisfied she got into her car, waved to Sjaak, who went back to work in the garden, and drove home.

To chapter 160. New guests

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