Slightly less mess Australia Day Long Weekend 12 - 14 March 2016

Well, we had assumed that the electrics were all done and finished.  Josh had called me during the week, and said it was all good.

Well, unfortunately it wasn't...

Justin and I arrived on Saturday morning with high hopes.

We entered, and there was no switch for the front hallway light yet.  Then tried our bedroom, and the light didn't work, then tried the green room and the light didn't work.  Dining room, bathroom, kitchen; none of these lights worked.

I went out to the new switchbox and found that the switches were in the off position so flicked them up with high hopes.

Once I'd done this - the fridge worked, but still not the kitchen light, and the new light in the cellar worked.  Mark later said "what were we complaining about, if we only had to choose 2 things to work, the light in the cellar, and the fridge would be them."

Anyway, I got on the phone to Josh, and he thought it might have been the builder, driving a nail into a wire while he was putting the boards back down.  AGGHHH.   as it was all working on Thursday when his boys left  -

Lucklily Josh volunteered to come out and have a look and try and fix it up.

In the mean time Justin and I tried to tidy up a bit - as although the boards were back down, it was still very messy, and still very gritty/dirty.  There was a lot of work to be done - moving the furniture back, sweeping, mopping etc.

Karen and Mark arrived an hour or so later, all excited that we'd finally have proper electricity.  We had to break the news to them, that we were actually worse off than normal, ie only one light and one power point for the fridge.  It could have been quite an uncomfortable weekend.

However, we made the most of it.  Karen had brought some supplies for lunch, and we had some bits and pieces, so we sat outside under the tree and lunched.

Josh arrived during lunch, and went and fiddled with the switchbox.  I'm not sure what he did, or what was wrong, but he fixed it.  Therefore obviously it wasn't a nail through a wire,  Franki came by on Sunday, as he wanted to explain about the floor - some of the boards were too damaged to replace, so he put chipboard down.  He also suggested that we replace the bad boards in the dining room with the good boards from the green room, as they would be all the same, and just replace all of the boards in the green room, when it came time to do the floors.  Good idea we thought.

Anyway, back to Josh, he'd fixed up the electricity, so it was all good.  Justin did notice that a curved bit of the bannister base was missing - someone must have knocked it out.  It wasn't on the floor, or anywhere around.  Josh called up his guys and Franki, but they hadn't seen it, so Josh went through the rubbish bin and also the trailer to try and find it.  No luck.  And it would be difficult to replace it too.

large bit fallen out of bannister

Well, of course I had to have a look after Josh left, the rubbish bin as putrid as the workers had put their takeaway boxes in there and the leftover bits of food had started stinking in the hot weather.  I had gloves, but was starting to dry retch.  Not pleasant!

Karen then had the brilliant idea to leave the bin, and go and sift through the trailer rubbish, which was infinitely less stinky.  And yes, I found the piece and was very pleased.

stinky bin which I started going through

The found piece

 So, back to the cleaning/tidying - Karen and Mark helped too.  We managed to do our 2 bedrooms downstairs...and also the dining room

Karen mopping #1

Karen mopping #2

Karen mopping #3

I did some pizza dough in the bread maker, and made up some pizzas which Justin cooked up in the pizza oven for dinner .  Delicious

And Justin also serenaded us after dinner
 

post pizza serenade

 Had a slow start in the morning - but it was more of the same

I beat the carpets outside which were full of dust and grit

dusty carpet

Justin took the awful carpet off the stairs (about time, I'd never liked it)

removing the stair carpet #1

removing the stair carpet #2

naked stairs

All of this dirt/dust is from under the carpet on the stairs!

We also took the lino off the floor in the bathroom - as they had taken part of it off anyway in order to pull the floorboards off, and it just looked silly to put the loose pieces of lino back.  But the backing of the lino was sticky, so we had to put a temporary plastic tarp down (floor boards look good though)

tarped bathroom

 Karen did some more vacuuming and discovered that the powerpoints on the Kingower wall upstairs ie yellow room and red room didn't work

Karen vacuuming upstairs "bathroom"

Fixed up the little yellow room (I since moved the bed back under the window)

yellow room

We did 4 or 5 loads of washing - sheets, doona covers etc.  Luckily it as still pretty hot and windy, so it didn't take long to dry

 Karen and Mark left around 12 on Sunday, and Justin and I continued on.

Michael stopped by to bring a charger to charge my car battery.  I'd stupidly left the lights on - Josh had noticed yesterday, but it was too late, the battery was basically flat.

checking on the battery #1

checking on the battery #2

We didn't really feel like cooking on Sunday night, so Justin went to GGs for some takeaway - brought us back some souvlakis - not bad.  And he had borrowed Sicario from the IGA, as he's wanted to see it for a while.  Had a very exciting start, but I think it went downhill from then,  Not a great movie.

Put the red room together on Monday (Labour Day) , and we think it looks pretty good.  Remember, it has Alex's "old" king size bed, with a very good mattress and topper.  Justin was saying that he wouldn't mind sleeping there now..so watch out guests  - we might appropriate this room

one half of the base 

the floppy mattress

2 halves of the base

red room made up #1

red room made up #2

red room made up #3 (cups from Karen)

red room made up #4

red room made up #5

red room made up #6

We also moved that pesky green couch - pesky only that it is pretty heavy and a bit unwieldy to move as it's a sofa bed, and when put on its side the bed part tends to come out.  However we managed the easiest move ever, by putting it on the furnture trolley.  Was a piece of cake, and put it in the bee room - in the bay window.  Good spot for it I think.  We won't need to move it for a while

getting ready for the move

the final position

the trusty trolley after the move

So, having the couch out of the way we were able to clean up the end of the top hallway - and position the chaise longue there.

vacuuming the desk

mopping the floor

sadly no time to sit and realx!

So that was pretty much it for upstairs - the yellow room was put back together, and so was the red room, and the hallway.  We tidied up the bee room as best we could - but it still has the "blue room" bed head and mattress in there.  The "blue room" has some more odds and ends in it, but is ready for painting, and the "bathroom" still has the scaffolding.

Back to downstairs -  the oven has been moved from the back hall into the kitchen

"new' double oven

and is working - although we are not sure about the tricky Ilve controls.  I thought there was an instruction manual, so either it was thrown out by the workers, or there never was one...

The smaller (non fan forced ) oven has easier looking controls

However, as we all know the internet is a wonderful thing, and I've found a rosetta stone to translate the Ilve hieroglyphics

 

And, given that the oven was moved, I also tidied up the back downstairs hallway.  We can see the the 2nd back door for the 1st time!

And what with all of this sweeping/mopping etc - I got a blister - how ridiculous!

long blister on my pointer finger

And at the end of the day, I went and did an electrical audit of what was still required, ie most of the cords were too short - so we wanted them lengthened, the cords in the kitchen and the study were too long, so we wanted them shortened, the switch in the scullery didn't work, the switches in the bottom hallways were operational, and the Kingower facing upstairs powerpoints didn't work.

We hope all will be fixed up by the next time we come....

Mess 5 & 6 March 2016

What a mess!

I had decided to come up and have a look despite there being no electricity, and a 40 degree celsius forecast!

I wasn't completely mad however, I did ask some local friends if I could stay over for the night in case I found the house too inhospitable.  Because it wasn't only the lack of electricity, I could have lived with that with torches and candles, but it was also lots of floorboards up, furniture moved, a fine red brick dust over everything (well maybe not quite everything), and lots of grit and other stuff from under the floor, and the holes in the walls and ceiling.

And the reason that the floorboards were up was twofold.  The floorboards upstairs were up in order to put in ceiling lightfittings for downstairs.  The floorboards were up downstairs because they thought they would have been able to go through the walls for the powerpoints, as upstairs the walls are triple brick but with a space inbetween .  Unfortunately it wasn't like that downstairs - it was all triple brick. So they had to lift the floorboards and push the wires around from underneath.  Josh the electrician also told me that the study represented  a challenge for the light fitting, as there was no way to get to that roof space from the rest of the attic.  They had to be very inventive there.

Anyway, as to how it all looked....

The hallway looked ok - as Josh  had told me that the tessellated tiles were basically just laid on a base on the ground, there was no getting underneath them.

front hall light

However the rest of the downstairs rooms starting with our room had floorboards up, and furniture moved around to allow for the floorboard removal

Floorboards up in our room

floorboards up in our room

our room

And in order to get the floorboards up they had to lift up the lino.  They found some old lining papers and newspapers underneath 

some film lining paper?

more lining paper

the back side of the lining paper

one of the lining newspapers

However, at least the lights looked good

lights in our room

The hearthstone in the fireplace is cracked and sunken , so I thought that Franki (the bloke pulling up the floorboards might be able to fix it up).  I had suggested that he prop it back up which would also straighten up the mantle piece which is leaning out a bit too

our sunken hearth

another angle

and another angle

and another angle

and another angle

our room

hole for the powerpoint

We'll see this weekend if he's (Franki) been successful.

Basically the floor is only about 20 or 30cm above the ground, depending on which room of the house you're in.  In some rooms the joists seem to be straight on the ground.

In the others where there's a bit more room, there are piles of bricks, not stumps supporting the floor joists.

I tried taking some photos under the floor, but they didn't really work - just black.  I didn't find anything under the floors either

The Green room was also a mess

green room

new light in green room

floor in green room #1

floor in green room #2

floor in green room #3

floor in green room #4

floor in green room #5

As was the dining room

doesn't look too bad there

or there

here are some boards up

boards up

and a cracked joist?

powerpoint hole

There was also some white ant action in the dining room, but no sign of current nest luckily

white ant action #1

white ant action #2

white ant action #3

white ant action #4

white ant action #5

Bathroom likewise had boards  and lino up

bathroom #1

bathroom light

And you could see that the bath was just supported by some rough concrete underneath

bath on concrete #1

bath on concrete #2

Scullery was good

scullery

scullery light

And they had put wires through the cellar

cellar  #1

cellar  #2

Onto the back hallway

back hall light

back back hall mess

No change to the kitchen

no change

And a lot of noisy flies in there - and a really huge one on the window

it really was huge!

Up the stairs to the study, and more disruption

study #1

study #2

Into the top hallway

top hallway #1

top hallway #2

top hallway #3

top hallway #4

top hallway lights

view through top hallway

old top hallway switches

old top hallway switches #2

Bee- room /library/ dormitory

another mess

floorboards up

Good thing I did go up, as I found they had pivoted the book shelf (which Justin had fixed to the wall) and put a powerpoint behind it.  Given that we mean to keep those bookshelves there, it seemed a bit mad to do this, as the powerpoint would be useless there.  Anyway, I was able to call Josh up, advise him that it had to be moved, and he told me he's done so  (apparently there was a lot of gunk/dead bees etc  in the wall cavity between the bookshelf and the fireplace where we had wanted the powerpoint, but I believe that they have now cleared that out and put the point there (let's hope)

bookshelf moved aside

Powerpoint behind the bookshelf

power & tv point

in close up

bit of a mess

new light

a new powerpoint

a hole for a powerpoint

I also thought it was interesting that the Victorians had bothered to have fancy routing on the  old wire casing under the floor boards

Fancy conduit

old wire wooden conduit

powerpoint position

the lath and plaster under the floorboards

The little yellow room

more disruption #1

more disruption #2

more disruption #3

yellow room light (don't know why the walls don't look yellow!)

yellow room floor

counter weight light fittings

dead wasp!

pull down light switch (not undone yet)

future powerpoint

And everywhere as you can see fine red dust from the bricks.  Poor Justin, he spent such a lot of time on the floors in the top hallway, yellow room and red room.  I hope that we're able to mop them up and get them looking good again.  Maybe another coating of tung oil?

The prospective upstairs bathroom that I painted last time

bathroom to be #1

bathroom to be #2

The Red room

red room #1

red room #2

red room #3

red room #4

red room #5

red room #6

The "Blue" room

Blue room #1

Blue room #2

Blue room #3

Blue room #4

Blue room #5

Blue room #6

Blue room #7

Blue room #8

powerpoint #1

powerpoint #2

Even the veranda had a board up in order to lay wiring for the downstairs outside light

veranda

They also found an old pocket knife - which must have been under the floorboards.  Joseph Rodgers and sons 

With a bit of internet research I've found that Joseph Rodgers and Sons were cutlers to the English Royalty 

So, as you can see, I could have stayed, and made myself a little island of serenity on my bed in our bedroom, but then again I thought - what for?? Maile and David had already very kindly invited me to stay the night after the monthly Kingower get together on the Village Green,   So that's what I decided to do.

Once I'd done a bit of tour of the house, I had to unpack the ute.  I'd brought up a couple of bedside tables, some lamps, and chaise longue which I needed assistance with in carrying.

Luckily an old mate Alex popped by - to give me an old light fitting that he had promised me from his shed.  Perfect timing, the balance weight  is better than our ones, as our ones have been painted on.  He also helped me carry the chaise longue up the stairs.  If he hadn't happened along I would have gone up the street, and asked one of my mates.  This was just easier.

new chaise longue for me to relax on after a heard day's work...

, 

some new bedside drawers

counterbalance  weight from Alex

Now, the other thing was that I could have also cleaned and swept and tidied up, but then again I thought, what for?  It would just be a wasted effort, as they hadn't finished and it would just get dirty again.  Rather do it at the end.

So, I went and visited my mates down the main street, bought some eggs, and watered my extremely parched garden (even the olives looked a bit wizened).  There is now virtually no grass, just dust...(I did find another 10 or so bindi eyes though.  Gordon obviously won't have to come and cut the grass for a while.

just dust #1 

just dust #2

some bits and pieces outside

And the front fence is looking good - all completed.  

front fence

And Grant & Francine also put up a new fence - looks great

new front fences 

And the outside of the house - Josh advsied that they will make a powdercoated cover to hide the wires

new wires

new wires #2

bit of advertising

Anyway, it was hot, as I said, so after watering the garden and having some lunch I just read the newspaper inside and snoozed a bit on the couch in the dining room.  (I'd been up early to drive Fraser to school for sport by 7am).  It was still relatively cool in the house, so at least that was something.  I contemplated going to the pool for a swim also, but decided against it, as I wouldn't have been able to have a "hot" shower afterwards (no electricity)

Maile and David also dropped in, and I showed them around, and told them how I had considered staying.  Maile pointed out that something could have come up from under the floor.  I initially thought that would be nothing until I remembered that Arlene had had a brown snake in her pantry, and we did use to have mice when we first moved in.  I didn't like the idea of reptiles or vermin in the middle of the night, so yet another reason not to stay the night.

Had to work out when to go and buy the ice to keep my drinks cold.  Thought around 5.30 would be good.  The Kingower do started at 7pm, and I was there pretty much right on time.  Sat by myself for a little while, and had no problem opening up the bottle of bubbles and having a glass by myself while waiting.  I'd also brought up some cashews, olives and sundried tomatoes which I nibbled on too.  (didn't bother opening up the chips)

Maile and David arrived next around 7.10, and we wondered where Terry was.  He came over around 7.20 or so, and then a few others came also - Arlene & David, June, Daniel, Chris, Helen & Alex and Bev also for a little while.  

Terry gave me a wooden Yacht Club plaque for Justin - he'd found it amongst his Mums' stuff when they were tidying up  Remember, Justin wants to start up an Inglewood Yacht Club 

Yacht club plaque

Anyway the small group of us had a pleasant night, and then I followed David and Maile back to their place.  Saw lots kangaroos, and drove quite slowly on the unmade road as a lot of dust rose, and made it look like fog - a bit eerie.

It would have been around 11pm when we left Kingower, but we ended up staying chatting til around 1am.

They gave me a nice room, and it was so quiet.   Just nothing.  Also in the morning, I was waiting for them to get up before I did.  But they have tiled floors, so you can't really hear any foot falls.  I did eventually hear Maile open a door, so got up then.

Had a quick breakfast, and then back into Kingower as we were supposed to be there at 9am for the annual Clean up Australia Day

photo from the internet

  

I was about 20 minutes late, so they had already started.  Caught up with Terry down the road, and we picked up bottles, cans, discarded tyres, cigarette packets etc.  Took about an hour.  And it was hot, very hot already.

Terry invited us back for a coffee  in his nice air-conditioned house , and after that I went back to the house and watered the garden again.  I was surprised to see that the olives were now plump again, yesterday's watering had refreshed them

There was also some progress on the Town Hall

Town Hall

Progress #1

Progress #2

Progress #3

Anyway, that was my messy and hot visit.  I was glad to get back to Melbourne and have a shower.  But, I'm very much looking forward to going back up to Inglewood today (12/3) and seeing it all done (or just about, as Josh had said that the old light in the dining room had to be re-wired, and so did the old drop down light, so they've just put temporary lights there)

So it will be the end of an era - of long extension cords going upstairs so that the kids can watch the tv, or play a game.  No more extension cord hooked up to a lamp in the bathroom at night.

As they say, we won't know ourselves!