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!