Slush fund trickles down the gurgler

We met with the builder today to hand over all our receipts for any purchases we've made ourselves; taps, lights, the bath, etc. I was keen for him to tally up and give us the final bill so we know how much money we have left over.

As it turns out, our slush fund has been drastically diminished by going overboard here and there. Of our pile of bills, we'll really only be covered for about a quarter of them.
This means we probably won't be able to afford awnings and blinds, fencing, landscaping, etc for a while....but how lucky is it that we all just luuurv baked beans!

We definitely aren't complaining, we know we have got an excellent job at a very, very good price.  Everything has gone so smoothly, we were expecting some snags along the way.

We're not regretful that we got such beautiful fixtures for our house either. We agree that when the dust settles, further down the track, we will never say to each other 'gee, I wish we hadn't got such good quality taps'. 

We could have cut corners til the cows come home, but we believe that the house is worthy of the best job we can do. I'll try not to get on my soapbox here but, I see lots of nasty things done to beautiful Queenslanders in our area. While the Brisbane City Council says all the right things in terms of protecting character housing, in reality it's not unusual to see the side verandah cut off a beautiful old house before it's slid sideways and an architectual eyesore is wedged in beside it. All in the name of a quick buck of course.

While I'm not against new or modern houses, I am against cookie cutter houses that are knocked up in a couple of months and look as cheap as they are. They tend to look good for the time it takes for the sold sign to go up, then the finishes immediately start to deteriorate, rust stains run down rendered concrete and once brilliantly oiled timber trims dry out. They have the substance of a movie-set., and don't stand the test of time. They are disposable housing that is not made to last.

Beautiful, original Queenslanders are not in inexhaustible supply, there are only a limited number of them left and when they're gone, they're gone. Right, that's the end of my whinge.

On a brighter note, Bill finished the tiling today. He wasn't so gruff when he left, and he's done a beautifully precise job. I took some photos but they came out terribly. My husband screwed his nose up when he saw them, but I was going to include them anyway. However, blogger says that the files 'failed' to upload, so I can take the hint.

It's at this stage that I'd normally tapdance to entertain you, but instead I'll include a few more happy snaps of some inspiring indoor/outdoor living areas, the likes of which I will soon be decorating.

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By the end of the weekend the painter will hopefully have the first undercoat on the walls and ceilings which will make a huge difference. At the moment the walls are a patchwork of old and new timber. I decided on Dulux White on White for the interior. Fingers crossed

The ifs and butts of renovating

The builders have all but finished. Someone is coming back tomorrow to attach the locks and handles on the doors and windows, but that's about it.
Once the tiling and electrical things are complete, there will still be some finicky details to take care of, but other than that we won't be seeing much more of the builders.
Craig the painter is getting through the prep work and may start spraying the undercoat on the weekend.
In my last post I said I was sad that work was coming to an end. Well, today I'm not. The end can't come soon enough.
Gruff Bill the tiler has started work. I've not had much to do with Bill, he's only there for a week or so, but this afternoon we had a few words. Bill likes to smoke while he works, then apparently he likes to stub his butts out on our timber floors!!
I gritted my teeth and asked him as politely as I could if he'd mind flicking his butts outside - lest our house burn to the ground!!!
I think Gruff Bill thinks I'm a bit uptight, and maybe I am.

Here are some coloured bits of fluff to calm me down.
This is actually a shower curtain and it's available by mail order from www.anthropologie.com If you think you love it, look it up, but be warned. It's available in other colour stories too. I find when I see something I love and decide to buy it immediately, then find it's available in other colours, I get so confused that I don't end up getting anything at all.

This house above is a bit how ours will look. Black floors, white walls. Crying out for some colour bursts.

The puzzle is nearly complete
I've always thought renovating is like a giant puzzle, juggling concept, design, budget, construction, decoration, etc.  While our puzzle is far from complete technically, all the major pieces are nearly in place.
Work is wrapping up on Euphemia. While there is still the painting and bathrooms to go, and many, many, many other smaller bits and pieces to do for us, our building team will soon be moving onto their next project.

I'm starting to feel a little sad. We've had such fun and this phase at least, is nearly to a close.

On the upside, however, thought you may like to see what's been going on this week.

The bi-fold french doors went on today. They open from our lounge room onto the little break-out deck overlooking the pool. The glass ballustrade isn't on yet, but you should be able to get the picture.

....and from the pool looking into the house.

The large glass french doors have also gone into the downstairs area.

Sorry these are the only pictures I could get. There's still a lot of excess building materials downstairs, and there's a big skip bin just outside the doors.

Although very nippy today, it was light enough for me to be able to photograph the internal stairs.

Above you can also see my tomfoolery, re the external house colour. I think Princess Bling is at the bottom.

We are also sporting our new front verandah, and handsome new stairs. Just what I wanted!

Now for a few hundred litres of paint, a tonne of topsoil and half a nursery!

OTT
Today I went out to buy a new continental quilt, and in my own grand tradition of disastrous shopping, I came home with a curtain rod and a rug instead.
The rug is for the children's room. I'm focusing on red and pink, along with the black and white which is all through the house.
Thus, began my web search when I got home to get a better picture in my mind of a pretty bedroom.
Instead of inspiration I discovered one pompous, exaggerated, fussy, over-the-top example after another.  What becomes of the child who grows up in this....

This one below isn't too bad, but I'm easing you into them.

This one is actually pretty cute too, but I think it could be toned down a bit, as in losing the satin bedspread.

This one below would be cute for the big girl, the modern day Holly Golightly.

Ok, this is getting ridiculous.

I think someone has tried to keep a lid on this one below, by using blue instead of pink.

Very camp!

And of course, for the child who is never required to enter reality - ever.

I think I'll either throw everything together and see what happens for this room, or put a bit more research into it??? Either way I think we'll be going a little more low key!

Humming along
On a weekday I usually call into Euphemia after I have done the school drop off, then again in the afternoon after the school pick-up.
I don't think Val is a fan of me bringing small children to the worksite so often, but the poor little things are used to tiptoeing around nail guns and chartering their course over piles of timber.
Our internal stairs are done, in fact we walked up them for the first time this afternoon. The stairwell is too dark to photograph at this stage though.
Val and Rat (another builder) have been working on the front verandah. They had an issue with some of the wrought iron lace. About four or five panels are slightly damaged, with missing or broken pins. The pins go into the timber handrails to hold it in place. Val thinks he can weld on some extra metal to make the broken pins long enough.
Each panel of iron has already been sandblasted and undercoated. It's so wonderful to have the original iron to put back up. Had we not been able to save it, we would have just used timber on the verandah. I'm not wrapped with that new aluminium lace which looks so light weight and perfect. I can spot it a mile off.

The stairs are in and are awaiting the ballustrade.

The stairs are lovely, large and solid - and they have risers!! They are the same width as the original ones. This is Euphemia's third set of front stairs.  The first ones also had risers like these. I have an old photo of Mr Baby sitting on the bottom step as a toddler. If I can, I'll scan it and show you.

Today I also finalised details with the glass man. I went out to Hartley Williams at Brendale who specialise in glass and managed to find some patterned glass to go in some of the new lights, or breezeways, above the doors. It's quite similar to the originals, some of which are still undamaged and in place. You can see Hartley Williams range of glass at www.hartleywilliams.com.au It's actually handy to know they exist, I have an old floor lamp I need to restore which was in the house when we bought it. They have everything I'll need for that there.

I also wanted to check out some glass to repair the front door. You can see it at the top of the stairs (above). The three very top lights are red and white and all in good condition. However, the two green lights down each side of the door are smashed. The glass man is going to come and have a look at it on Wednesday to see if he can fit thick 8mm safety glass (a legal requirement) into the current rebate. To get the right effect we would have to laminate two paints of glass, one clear patterned piece and one red, toughened glass. I'd love to get it fixed before the painter gets to it.

Speaking of the painter, Craig, he thinks he will be ready to tape up and spray the interior early to mid next week. This is excellent timing as the builders believe they should be finished by then too.

The elusive tiler, Myles, is reportedly turning up tomorrow to look at the job, and thinks he'll be finished it by about the middle of next week also.

Humming along and all going freakishly to schedule. Touch wood!!

Home and the range

Friday morning our range arrived. It was very exciting to see it in place, and I had been so busy with other things I had forgotten, if it all went to plan, how great it would look.
We had handed the kitchen makers a photo of what we wanted, and the range hood delivered seemed to be the twin brother of the one in the photo.

This is what we asked for.

This is what we got. You still have to very much use your imagination. It needs to be vj-ed from the top to the ceiling, and the stove in place, tiling inside the range as well as the splash back either side, and open shelving installed each side. The kitchen is an absolute mess, but it's coming together.

At 3.30pm on Friday afternoon, my husband and I and the stone mason gathered around the island bench. Some of the builders also stopped work momentarily and stood around to watch, hoping for a bit of a show no doubt. He proceeded to demonstrate a little stone plug he'd made. 'That's one possible solution', he said. I disagreed with that.

He then told us about the nickel plug on it's way from Italy to go with our taps, and he presented us with a photograph of our taps.

'They're not our taps.' I told him. The tapware company rep had sent him the photo. I pulled out the bottom drawer of our new kitchen and showed him what our taps looked like. It was a bit iffy as to whether the plug would fit under the poles.

This is what our taps look like, except ours are a nickel finish.

We stood around for a while, no one saying much. My husband had to go off and talk to the glazier who had shown up at the same time.

I stayed with the stonemason, arms crossed, trying not to scowl too much. I felt sorry for him actually, he'd tried really hard to come up with some way to fix the problem.

He excused himself and went outside. I went and talked to the glazier for a while about the glass to put in above our doors. Some of the original glass lights remain, but they are an etched pattern, which is unavailable now.

The stonemason came back in, looking a little sheepish I thought. He'd been on the phone.

'We're going to replace the whole thing. I've managed to get another piece of stone from the same batch.' Music to my ears. I immediately felt guilty for not letting him off the hook.

In order to replace the whole top he had to get another piece of stone from the same batch as the other two benchtops in the kitchen. If it was from a different batch, there may be more or less grey flecks, etc.

He said that the faulty piece would probably end up being thrown out, but I'm hoping he was just saying that to make me feel bad.

On Friday I also took a trip out to a tile shop to find something to put on the workbench in the pantry. I needed something in stock because it will have to be done soon. I managed to get a metre of 15mm grey Cararra marble mosaic tiles. They are very extravagant for a pantry shelf, but I got the last metre they had for just under $200. They normally retail for over $750/metre. I love a bargain!

The painter worked on Saturday too. He had some peace and space while all the builders were gone, and he brought along three painter friends (who owed him a favour) to help. They cracked a carton of cold beer and away they went.

I'm happy to say we're very impressed with his prep work. He's also a very likeable person.

While the house was being prepped for painting, I went over to Dulux and got a sample of virtually every white paint that's ever been produced.

I've now got some paint on the walls to check out the real colour. At this point in time, I'm looking at Princess Bling for the exterior and possibly Whisper White for inside...but nothing's written in Caesar stone yet.

This coming week should be eventful. By next Friday I foresee the french doors will go in near the pool, the glass may go in on that deck, the internal stairs should be put in, the front stairs and verandah balustrade may be finished and the massive french door for downstairs should arrive.


Aah! Breathe.

What a difference a dongle makes....
Well, I'm back on-line thanks to my new dongle. That's what my husband tells me they're called, doesn't sound quite right to me? I had no idea they existed until someone told me about them this week, and I was straight to the computer store.
My return to the world wide web is very timely actually because Euphemia is on the cusp of having all her special bits installed.
The new wraparound verandah now has a roof and ballustrading. The small breakout deck is on overlooking the pool.

 The front verandah has new decking, and Val has been busy making our handsome new stairs - old school style, from scratch, on site. He even mocked up a couple of ways we could re-install the wrought iron. We can't put it back on as it was originally, because the top rail would be too low to meet building regulations.
Inside, at the heart of it, the new kitchen benchtops arrived. I was so excited to see them until I noticed a hole already drilled near the sink. 'What's that?' I asked.
'That's for the tap'. I was told.
Apparently, somewhere along the line, someone assumed we were having a mixer, but our taps have two poles, hence two holes are required.
It's a massive slab of rock, perfect in every way except for the damn hole in the wrong spot. We could drill another hole, but the taps will be off centre and the spout will barely reach one of the bowls.

This is the incorrect hole in question. The stone mason is coming to visit us this afternoon to look at possible solutions. I don't know what the answer is. It's such a shame.  Apparently he has already phoned the company where we bought our taps, and the rep just happens to be going to Italy today and can bring back a nickel plated plug next week.

It's our first mishap really, and it's right in the middle of our kitchen, which is right in the middle of our house. I'm going to see that mistake everyday, probably ten times a day. If it were my mistake, I think it would be different, I'd just live with it.

We'll talk to the stonemason this afternoon and see what we can come up with. No one has mentioned the obvious yet.....

On a brighter note, the painter has started, which to me signifies that we are suddenly so much closer to being able to move back in. Although really, he is having to dance around the builders very much. From what I can see, he's doing a fab job of prepping.

Besides a misplaced hole, everything is coming together and looking better than I could have expected. There's only one forseeable complication remaining and that is Myles, our tiler who is yet to show up to even look at the job. He's currently still missing in action. Myles where are you??

The story of Pietro

Before I go, have a look at this. My daughter has a mystical, magical type ability to seemingly hypnotise and domesticate butterflies.

This is a photo of the latest one, whom she (rather oddly) named Pietro.

Pietro stayed with us the rest of the afternoon and all evening, but alas by morning he had passed on. He was put into a glass jar and taken to school, but left in the car by mistake. Later that morning I was at my regular playgroup and one of the mums was lamenting her after school job which required her to help her son catch bugs in the back yard to take to school. '

"I've got a dead butterfly in the car", I volunteered.

"I'll take it!" she said.

And so, Pietro, went on to help children even in the afterlife.