Restoring the Old Girl

False alarm
Today was highly anticipated by us as being very exciting, but it has all fallen in a heap. The electrician and the plumber were due today to start installing lights, the stove, taps, toilets, pedestal sinks, the bath poles and taps and the shower hardware.
However, as it panned out, the electrician had a sick child to look after and the plumber was unwell himself. Hopefully, once we overcome this false start, everything will still be installed by Friday.
Craig thinks he will have finished painting the inside by Monday. I have spoken to the floor sander, and he should be right to sand the floors next Wednesday (July 7th?). We have always planned on doing the Porter's Palm Beach Black ourselves, but now we are considering getting the floor sander to Japan and top coat the floors instead. We need to make up our mind about this in the next day or two.
We will probably miss our July 11th deadline by only a few days, which is not bad going. Every Thursday night we perch ourselves in front of the ABC to watch Kevin McLeod and his Grand Designs. We are constantly appalled by people who try to do too much work, with too little money in an unrealistic time frame and end up moving into their house a year after the proposed completion date, with an unexpected 250,000 pounds on their mortgage. We should hit the mark relatively closer than that.
I had A-M from The House that A-M Built leave a message on my blog a couple of days ago. It was regarding my mention of the painter's name and number. Apparently, when A-M was building her house she came across some resistance from people to pass on the details of any tradespeople they were happy with.
I am only too happy to pass on contact details. For one thing, I want anyone doing a good job to continue getting the work, and secondly, it's not necessary for renovators to start behind the eight ball when they don't need to. Most people will only ever do one or two renos in their life, so there is no need to guard these 'secrets' - a good hairdresser, a lovely nanny, sure, but you shouldn't need your plumber on a regular basis.
Today I collected the last of the handles and locks for Val to fit. We got all of these from a place in Albion called Handle This on Crosby Road, telephone 07 3262 1583.
This place is run by David and Andrew. I found it difficult to understand what we needed in terms of locks, especially for the recycled doors we were using. I couldn't answer any of David's questions about door thicknesses and lock requirements, and in the end he came out and had a look for himself.
They are very specialised, they know what they're talking about and their products are good quality, although not overpriced.
We also got a lot of things from The Brass Shop Magins in Boundary Road, Bardon, telephone 3369 7179. They are a small husband and wife operation, but they have an extensive range of older style lights, taps, basins, tiles, light switches, toilets, etc. 
I much prefer to deal with these smaller businesses than say, Bunnings for example. For one thing, I want to ensure that these smaller businesses survive for everyone's sake. I also find the staff more knowledgable and interested, both of which were a huge advantage to us.
The stock at Magins was also better quality than elsewhere. Our nickel plated kitchen lights were made in South Australia, which I thought was a nice touch.
The Restoration Station on Waterworks Road in Red Hill, just around the corner from us, has a similar product range to Magins, but is a much larger store. They also keep a small amount of salvaged windows and doors, etc. This is where we got our pressed metal panels.
We got this pattern for the main bathroom.

It's going on the walls up to the belt rail like this below (although this photo is not our bathroom). We were planning on putting it in the ensuite too, but there turned out to be too many problems with the basin and toilet being fitted to it. Instead, we returned it to the store and I will go back later this week and get some lights for the front verandah. I have seen it used a lot in magazines and counters in shops and restaurants, but the builders were a bit bemused by it at first. They had never fitted it before. I love it, and it suits our house perfectly. Traditionally, it would have been more typically used on the ceiling.

The panels are actually manufactured in Bathurst. You can see their range at www.pressedtinpanels.com

We have two large Jacaranda trees at the front of our house, they aren't on our footpath but at the very end of our street (it's a bit hard to explain). They are perfectly positioned so we can enjoy their colour and beauty without their mess in September.

I found this picture below, which would look so beautiful in our jacaranda trees, but even I know that some things just cannot be translated from fantasy to reality. It's a very pretty picture all the same.