Restoring the Old Girl

The last supper
To call our kitchen decrepit and manky is to glamorise it somewhat, and to call our stove/oven rancid and vile is to flatter it beyond belief.
However, as luck would have it, the builders are currently working on making the wraparound verandah which wraps around the exterior of the house where the kitchen currently is. The stove recess, which makes a bump on the exterior of the house is getting in their way.
They were planning on just working around it until they could demolish it when we move out. This afternoon though, I had a brilliant idea and told the builder he could demolish the alcove, stove and all, so they could carry on without being slowed down. He was hesitant at first, leaving us without a stove and all, but I finally persuaded him this was the way to go.
Tomorrow, I will leap out of bed, uplifted by the knowledge that today, my arch nemesis, the 'Conway New World' will be ripped from Euphemia and thrown onto the junk pile, never to be seen or heard from again.
Tonight will be the last time I have to cook in our stinking hot kitchen with the western sun beating down on me. Tonight we will sit down to our last dinner to be cooked on the beast, an aptly ordinary  no-name chicken, pumpkin and pasta concoction.
The next meal I will cook in Euphemia will be a fantastical, gastronomic delight - TBA - on my new Smeg 900mm stainless steel wonder machine.

For the next three weeks we will be reliant on our microwave, barbecue, takeaways, dinners out and invitations from family and friends to feed ourselves - always a good, solid test for the most avid of renovators.

Back to the box of tricks I was sorting through in my last post. This is a well preserved copy of The Church Times from London, Friday, July 12, 1935.

Something has been torn from page three, but this leftover section is just filled with church news and advertisments for strange drugs like Andrews Liver Salt.

This is a little stationery box that is now filled with old photos, some great ones of the house, postcards and greeting cards from the 1920s. There's also lots of photos of Noosa, way back, before it was loved to death. I will have to give some of this back to Mr Baby when I see him next. However, I'll keep a few photos of the house which clearly show what the original stairs looked like.

This is a catalogue from a shop called the Gala Furniture Show (seemingly also called The Coupon Furniture Co Pty Ltd) which was at the 5 Ways, Woolloongabba in Brisbane.  By the furniture styles I'd say it's from the 1950s if not earlier. From what I can tell it was the Super A-Mart of it's time with a massive showroom displaying everything from bedroom chairs and complete kitchens to Hills Hoists and floor coverings. A five piece dining setting, with laminate top and chrome trim was fifty pounds.

All in all the renovation is travelling well and so are we. The builders are still in the process of straightening the old girl out. She's bending and twising back into shape, and quite often that's happening at an alarming rate. Last week I went to the bathroom, and the door wouldn't open when I was trying to get out. My husband had to kick it open like a fireman.  I've noticed gaps in the hallway floorboards that aren't there anymore a few minutes later. Sometimes our front door shuts, sometimes it doesn't and ditto for the back door.

Aaah, it's all a process. It's a disaster zone at the moment, but she's going to be so pretty in a few months time. Note to self: must keep eye on light at end of tunnel.