A break in our story...

Just a quick break in our renovation story so show how green the grass is from all the recent rain... and how much the cats are enjoying having their own space to romp around in!

Claude & the Apprentice

Claude came over to plumb in the new sinks, the dishwasher and the laundry, and brought along his bestest apprentice evah... Lucy the Cutie. Certainly not shy! Thanks Claude - you're the bestest plumbah evah!

Lucy helps out

Lil' cutie Lucy decided we were going to dress the tree for Christmas. She's a girl who knows what she wants that's for sure!

[Reece Plumbing t-shirt says "don't risk it, use my daddy"]

cabinets!

The cabinetry is in! The island works well, the pantry space is great - we haven't put anything in them yet, but so far so good! We need the plumber back to hook up the sink, the dishwasher and the fridge, we need the electrician to hook up the dishwasher and the microwave... where will we find one, hmm?

Yay - yet another step closer! STILL packing things up at the old place, but we're getting there (and Christmas really is coming, yikes!)

the shift in time and place

Well, as messy as this might look to you - the other place looks worse!! There's sooooo much packing and shifting and cleaning and moving and sorting out at both places! We still have so many little jobs at Allandale, and so many little jobs at Hillardt. But WE'RE IN! We have officially moved in... as in, we are sleeping at Allandale now. The kitchen comes on Tuesday now, and that will help as we can move other pieces of furniture in to where they should be. Drew bought a new BBQ as his old one fell to bits when we moved. We could get another frame made, but as that could take some time and we do use it a lot, we decided to get a bigger one anyway.

Ah yes, the fridge. Juuuuust a little too wide to fit through the door! OMG! After much ranting and raving (the salesman was supposed to tell us this, and the delivery driver was supposed to help get it in), Drew managed to remove the door and beading with minimal damage and get the fridge through. Yes, at least any burglars won't be stealing the fridge huh?! It's only 611L and Choice advises 300L per person for the first two, and then 50L for every person thereafter (from what I remember reading). Anyway, it's in and it's sexy! And we're in and we're sexy (okay, I was on a roll!). :D

I'm ready!

Despite looking like he's happy to pack up and move on, Boston wasn't too impressed at having his comfy cosy alpha-male life turned upside down. At least he's ventured out from under the bed at the new place... unlike Musashi... but he's not real happy.

5,000 litres

Bit of an ordeal getting the tank onto the site - couldn't drop it off at the top of the block, and figured since there was rear access no problems. After the driver dropped his trailer off, he tried his best to manoeuvre close enough to the edge of the block - but Grandpa's crappy concrete leftovers and wet grass got the best of him. Plus his crane was too short, so there was no way the tank was making it onto our property. The only solution was to leave it at the fence-line of the neighbour's and hope he didn't get pissed off - or have our tank disappear before we got it into place!

Later on Josh and Drew 'walked' it up the back yard, closer to the house. We need to level out the side with an excavator, and then we can position it and plumb it in to the mains for toilet and garden use (and the government's rebate).

clear solution

Shower screens are in... this time not cut short! See, yet another delay of a week and a half due to someone not doing their job correctly - d'oh! Now, if it weren't for the hole in the wall, we might even be able to take a shower soon!


We chose this style so we didn't close the bathroom in toooo much (it is a small space after all!), and hopefully we won't have a lot of spillage to test the waterproofing :D

watching paint dry...

See, it's fun isn't it?! Watching paint dry. Paint on wardrobe doors. Paint on wardrobe architraves. Paint on the bathroom window. Paint on the bathroom architraves. Oh, and some sanding in the 'cluboard' too. It doesn't look like much, but it still takes time.

Drew's been doing TAFE studying so he was out of action for a day and a half, but he whipper-snippered and mowed, while I weeded and took to the ivy hedging, growing like some Doctor Who monster, with another power tool, the mighty hedge-trimmer. Ah, the power!

little bits 'n' pieces

Brian the floor guy finished on Friday for his touchups and a new coat - so we had to wait till Sunday before it cured and we could move around on it without freaking out we were going to gouge it or whatever. We're probably being overly protective, but it does look sensational!

Seems like we've got a hundred small jobs to do! The weekend involved: skirting board touchups, notch out window for showerscreens, more undercoating, moving some stuff over, moving things around downstairs, buy more paint (and an electric planer, chisel, silicone and so on - Bunnings should do a loyalty card), wipe down walls, wipe down bathroom and start prepping for sealant, bash in some more architraving, put in 'cluboard' light*, clean out cluboard, get free council plants, go shopping for sinks and ovens and stuff so the kitchen cabinetmaker knows sizes for cutouts, buy a new bed, buy a water tank (so we can take advantage of the sale prices and get it for free once we get back the rebates), more weeding and planting here and there. And there's still a bunch of other jobs that need to be done! Ah, but we're closer!!


*cross between linen closet and cupboard

The Man, the House and the Wardrobe(s)

So the house isn't as level and square as we were initially led to believe! as Drew found out when fitting up the framing and putting the wardrobe doors in. He had a cow of a time trying to get everything to at least kind of square (or not so obvious that it wasn't). 

Pretty much all the skirting boards are in, so now we can paint them and the wardrobe doors. (*sigh* I hate enamel paint). Then we can get the floor guy back in to do the floor touchups. Closer...

Pirate Plumbers ... the sequel

So knobhead B&N Plumbers (the second plumbers called in) have three strikes:

1. fitted the incorrect size waste trap - in the old days, sure 50mm was okay, but today's standards and regulations specify 80mm, and 100mm is better. Uh... it's been this way for quite a number of years now guys. Catch up.

2. put the toilet pipe in the wrong position, despite having the toilet right there? Not new technology fellas.

3. aaaand they put the pipes for the diverter (bath/shower) too far back, which has now meant ripping the tiles off, breaking into the villaboard sheet, extending the pipework. Now we have to re-sheet, re-waterproof, re-tile and re-grout, and cross fingers it's all good. 

Thanks guys, your level of ineptitude was matched only by your bill, and our disbelief. Yes we needed some plumbers in a hurry as the first guy screwed us around - we just didn't think we'd get screwed again and have to pay handsomely for the pleasure. So don't use B&N Plumbing!

skirting boards

skirting the issues...

So we've started on the skirting boards - a stepped profile to tie in with the cornice. Drew's been cutting and sectioning, then me undercoating, then him glueing and nailing them in. Slow and still a bit torturous as the profile meant some detailed fret saw work, but he does a beautiful job.

And the wardrobe guys came in and did a quickie install of simple racking. Another step closer!

ooh... floors!

Garth the Sanding Dude meets me this morning: 

"Do you know what you've got here?" he asks incredulously.

"Um, Crow's Ash?" I respond indifferently.

"Exactly! You can't buy this anymore, except second hand, and here you have it in pristine condition. Beautiful. I'm telling you, when you sell the house, take the floor with you!" he passionately responds.

Apparently it's about $18/lineal metre, so I'm told. It's come up beautifully, a honey-golden colour with a lot of grain and variations. I also got the half hour lecture on the care and feeding of timber floors, which scared me! It's great to see someone passionate about their job. 

Now, onto the next bits - skirting boards, paint touchups, wardrobe innards, wardrobe and bathroom doors, cleaning the bathroom down, mortaring the loo down, and a host of other minor jobs. Whew!

Crow's Ash

Apparently our floors are Crow's Ash, a blonde yellow/brown timber that was grown in northern New South Wales and considered a native teak. It was prized commercially due to its hardwearing, durable nature, and was often used for dance floors.

first layer gone!

After saying they'd start Wednesday and finish Friday, it seems the floor sanding will be Wednesday to well, Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe, whenever... but at least it's started!! yay! 

So they punched the nail holes and have done the first sanding pass, with the edges yet to do. Funny, the boards look really light... not what they originally looked like when we pulled up the carpet (remembering that they've always been covered up from the very beginning). But hopefully they'll darken and redden up with the sealants etc. Interesting.

Some grout guys indeed!

Scott (aka 'Frodo')(front), and Allan (aka 'Muriel') hard at work grouting the bathroom. Fantastic young guys - finally some good tradies!!

but finally...

... Drew had run out of patience and swear words, and having to work on the house next door as well as Chris' place had left him exhausted with just the hob and under the vanity to go. As luck would have it we finally found a young tiler with great ethics, a conscience and a great attitude. So Scott and Allan came in and finished off the tiling. They said Drew did a great job, with only a few minor technical glitches that only the professionals know about. But they said everything was incredibly well done for a non-professional!

and the tiling continues...

So the tiling continued last week - finishing the top row of tiles and most of the pebble frieze... except for when we ran out. The tile place apparently kind of guesses at how many tiles you need... it ended up taking three trips to get the right number of tiles. *sigh* Drew's done a great job getting everything flush and lined up.

STILL going...

We worked out pretty quickly that we were going to run out of pebble frieze up the top, so went back to CTM and of course... Murphy's Law... they had some but not all. How the girl originally calculated it all out and got it quite wrong we'll never know, but anyway, more is ordered, but of course that holds us up for longer, doesn't it?!

We finished two and a half walls at the top, and started filling in the bottom row - which of course had issues as we happened to start on the high wall... which fitted one tile and one frieze... but then on the low wall we have a gap of somewhere around 10mm. So we have a 10mm fall in the floor, and a 20mm wider back wall at the top than the bottom. Oh the swearing! 

Ah well, another day closer!

STILL tiling...

During the week, Drew jumped into some more tiling - by himself, without his young apprentice by his side to anticipate his every tool requirement. But he did very well, getting all walls (except the tricky bit beside the window) up to one tile and one pebble frieze from the top to go (and the tricky bath hob etc).

and some more tiling!

oh joy, so much fun! and the fun takes so long too!

Drew bought a dumpy level (yes, another power tool), and he's verified he's already got a great eye as his previous work (the first wall) is nice and straight. And we got stuck into the next wall - initially it went up very quickly (first pic) and then the small cut tiles took forever! Eventually we got through the rest of the that wall (well, the first two-thirds, like the first wall), and started into a little bit of the window wall.

Then yesterday, Drew attacked it a bit more - finding out that the tiles lined up beautifully with the top of the window trim. Yay! So, some more down, and still twice as much to go. *sigh*

 

another power tool

Would a power tool help the job get done better? Why yes! Okay then, let's go buy yet another power tool!

Maybe we should run an equipment hire shop from the garage once we move in. We've still got to buy a cement mixer for all the landscaping. Oh what the hell, huh? You can never have enough power tools, right Tim?

spacer, tile, spacer, tile, spacer, tile

Thus, come Sunday, started the laborious task of tiling. Ugh. We finished off the floor and also put up the pebble skirting board frieze - and then started on the first wall. Yeesh, it takes longer than you think. Kudos to Drew for his talents in accurately cutting tiles and keeping everything level and evenly spaces. It's a messy cow of a job, and it's going to take a few more weekends to finish off. *groan* bloody tilers / tradesman pulling out

let there be light!

Adam and Drew worked through the week and on Saturday to get us light! Yay! so the switchboard is changed over and everything is safe now (grandad Hillary's could have fried us, posthumously!). We have power and we have lights - it feels weird to plug into an outlet and we're all good to go - or it starts getting a bit dark, oh, just turn the light on. Nifty, huh? 

...but then Ethel turned up

So Joe is now Joe, but then his mate turned up and we think she's a girl, so we've christened her Ethel! She won't hand-feed (yet) and is a little more skittish.

sex change for our maggie

According to our expert sources (thanks Dad!), Ethel is really Ethelbert the Saxon King... but that's a liiiitle too long, so we re-christened him Joe (after Hillary Joseph the grandad, Ethel's husband).

Anyway, Joe saw Drew outside the house yesterday and hopped right up to him! (Joe hopped, that is, not Drew). Just as well we bought that mince on Sunday! :)

Ethel comes to visit

So there we are, having some breakfast at the house before Drew went back to Adam's place to fix his garage in a quid pro quo arrangement... when down pops a magpie about a metre and a half from us! We tempted her (gender unknown, but it's 50-50) with some bacon from our Maccas healthy breakfast (!), which she snavelled up, and even grabbed a piece from our fingers. So now we may have ourselves our first regular popping around for feedings! We've christened her Ethel after the nanna who lived here for so many years.

MSB time

With some pointers and assistance, Drew launched into wiring up the Main Switch Board. Not something he's been exposed yet, so this was a great learning experience (a positive one, as opposed to the tiling frustration). A neat freak and detail oriented in this regard, Drew ensured the MSB was perfect!

There's some more RCD, RCBOs and security PIRs and other interesting acronyms to be sorted out, as well as the intermediate switching plates to be sourced and fitted, but the majority of the electricals is now done. Later this week some testing will be done, with Adam, and then the changeover between the downstairs MSB and the upstairs MSB. Closer!

switch it up!

Adam came over, in a trade for services - he'd help Drew with the switching and the switchboard fit-off and change over, in exchange for Drew's construction skills in fixing up his shed/garage which came off second best with a neighbour's vehicle (with no handbrake engaged!). So all the light switches are done and ready to be tested - thanks so much Adam for your time and expertise :)