Restoring the Old Girl

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!!