Nimmitabel: A Work in Progress: Australia Day week Wednesday 20 January

Back again for another week, and with another plan for action....

I had to take the various light fittings that we had amassed into Bendigo to have them lengthened and rewired if necessary.

I had organised to go into Bendigo on the Thursday morning with the lights, but firstly had to do a bit of an audit to decide which ones would go where, and which ones would need lengthening. Given that the kitchen and study have lower ceilings, we didn't think we'd need those ones lengthened.

I had spoken to the lighting guy and as a rule of thumb he had recommended that the light fittings should be approx 2.2m above the floor. I asked Helen to give me a representation of what it would look like in the hallway, as I needed a practical demonstration. And in the hallway we also saw that the fitting is actually wired up away from the rose, so we thought we would replicate this also, as we very much like the wallpaper on the ceiling, and want to disturb it as little as possible.

Helen doing a statue of liberty impression #1

Statue of liberty impression #2

hallway light wired from outside the rose

existing hallway light

And I also wanted to get stuck into the upstairs room opposite from the red room. My plan was to fill the cracks on Day 1, sand on Day 2, paint on Day 3, and proudly show Justin my surprise handiwork on Day 4 (he was making a long 4 day weekend of it for Australia Day). But of course this was much too ambitious, as it took a lot longer than anticipated....

Mum, Helen and the kids were here again, so Helen helped me dismantle the bed, and set up the scaffolding.

wonderful scaffolding

The weather for the 1st few days was hot and humid, rather sticky, so the sweat was literally pouring off me while filling the cracks. I also couldn't sustain it for a whole day, so frequently joined them at the local pool in the afternoons to cool off.

example of patched cracks #1

pool escape #1

pool escape #2

pool escape #3

And Xavier proudly showed us how he could now swim mainly with a kickboard and Life vest ( but without in the below photo)

look no kickboard

kickboard now #1

kickboard now #2

Michaela in a donut

Helen and the kids, particularly Xavier also wanted to help with the work, so I gave them scrapers, and they scraped off errant bits of wallpaper, that had been left behind from the initial wallpaper removal

Xavier helping

Xavier having a lovely time

He also swept

telling Mum what he's doing

On the whole, (apart from the copious pouring of sweat), I quite enjoyed it. I listened to music while filling/patching, and as I've said before, I find it similar to icing a cake. There were some challenges such as extracting numerous wooden pegs/plugs from the walls, and then patching the holes, and also removing the old gas light pipe as per the photos below. I also thought that it was a great pity that my best work would never be seen - as if I filled in the hole/crack so well, you would never know it was there to have been fixed. Conversely, my less expert repairs would be apparent. Oh well, that's the way it is.

gas light pipe #1

gas light pipe #2

gas light pipe #3

a different hole

And of course I forgot to take photos of the finished plastered holes - I'll try and remember to do so when I go back.

I also wanted to mention that there were some large gaps between the ceiling and the top of the wall, and also the top of one of the arches. I purposely didn't fill these in, as I thought they might be "fixed up" when we eventually underpin the house - ie go back into place.

large gaps in the right corner

So, although I quite liked the plastering, the sanding was a bit less enjoyable, especially on the ceiling, with stuff falling into my eyes, and also getting rather tired arms from lifting them all the time. I tried to alternate between sanding the walls and the edges of the ceiling so that my arms wouldn't get too tired.

And of course I was thoroughly covered in dust, as was the room

I'm tired

looks quite awful doesn't it

had the hack saw (for sawing off the gas light pipe) on the mantlepiece

Xavier's hand prints

Sweeping took ages (again), that plaster dust is so fine

starting the sweeping

Got the floor relatively clean, and was getting ready to mop, but Justin suggested taking up the naff parquet lino instead. Was a brilliant idea, captured the rest of the dust, the floorboards look a lot better, and it's now ready for the electricians when they come in a couple of weeks (they will have to lift some upstairs floorboards in order to put ceiling lights for the downstairs rooms). Luckily, unlike the scullery, it was easy to pull up the lino as it wasn't fixed to the floorboards, and neither was the underlay.

one square of lino gone

the uncovered floor

Justin also found an old Inglewood Bowls Club scoring card - unfortunately not dated, but we might be able to find out a bit more about the player by asking Essie - one of the Op Shop ladies who plays bowls there

Old Inglewood Bowling Club score card

Anyway, because it took longer than anticipated, (and I was off skiving at the pool instead of working) I didn't get around to painting the room. I was also a little unsure about the colour. Initially I'd thought I'd just paint it with the white undercoat primer that I'd used in the upstairs "bathroom", but Justin had said that that would only be appropriate if the top coat would be a similar colour, and he hadn't given any thought for a top coat colour yet. I suggested cream which he scoffed at. Then blue, (blue room opposite the red room), he didn't like that idea either, but didn't come up with anything else. I don't think that we necessarily need every room to be a strong colour, as the furnishing can be colourful. To be continued....

One night Mum made up a garlic pasta (with many many heads of garlic)

look at all of that garlic

preparing dinner #1

preparing dinner #2

Another night we went to the Empire for dinner - and the kids were enthralled by the chocolate one armed bandit - they or rather Justin won them some chocolates

addictive

barflies #1

barflies #2

We watched some films

movies at home

But that room had more bees in it, so J taped up the large crack

no more bees?

Did a bit of reading

bookworm #1

bookworm #2

Went out for coffees

coffee time

And went out for drinks to the Royal - unfortunately was raining when we decided to go

good for the garden

Had a "pajama party" - actually I took the below photo because I recognised those PJs as Madeleine's old ones

Little Miss...

Played with trains

train boy

And also went on more bindi eye hunts - I'm not sure if its fortunately or unfortunately that we found lots more (mainly little ones)

bindy eyes

Given that there was a stop on the upstairs room prior to the painting phase, Justin and I re-started on the scullery shelves/soon to be cupboards.

We gave them an undercoat of paint in order to unify the old and new bits, but first had to get rid of the dust/grit etc - which I did via the vacuum cleaner

cleaning

painting

painted!

Justin also fixed them in - with Xavier watching on keenly

carpenter Justin #1

carpenter Justin #2

carpenter Justin #3

looking good #1

looking good #2

looking good #3

I subsequently filled them with our glassware - in readiness for the electric oven being plugged into a new powerpoint in the current glass cupboard in the kitchen. Complicated I know.

looking really good now

This year Australia Day was on the Tuesday, and David came around with his dog Snowy and her carriage and gave Xavier a lift up to the pool.

He was very excited

dog and carriage #1

dog and carriage #2

dog and carriage #3

dog and carriage #4

dog and carriage #5

dog and carriage #6

There were Australia Day speeches and awards at the pool, and Michaela went in the swimming carnival too

speeches

races #1

races #2

a racer

Meanwhile, back at the house - the fencing people had come over to start pulling down the rest of the fence, and make some post holes using a very impressive post hole digger

down it comes

fence all gone #1

fence all gone #2

fence all gone #3

fence all gone #4 (and piles of tin)

impressive post hole digger

a post hole made by above digger

more holes

temporary fencing #1

temporary fencing #2

And not wanting to just chuck away the old tin, David pout it to good use and came and picked it up with his tractor to be used for another fence

David collecting the tin

Given that we'll be getting new lights soon, I felt a little bit sentimental about the old wiring so took some photos of that

old light switches

another old light switch

the old switcheboard

old wiring casing in the bottom hallway

Took the ladder outside and picked close to a kg of mulberries. I think the secret is to try and tease them off the stem rather than squeeze. That said I still ended up with startlingly bright red hands (even my non picking hand!)