Wood Oven and more RA 16-18 September 2022

 Justin and I thought we would leave a bit early - so headed off just after 4.30pm

It didn't do us any good, as there were a number of accidents/incidents on the Monash, so we crawled from Burke Road til close to the Calder park service station.  In fact, it took us 1.5 hours to get there, when it should have only taken 1/2 hour!

Anyway, the trip was just over 3 hours.  I had gone to the supermarket at lunch time, and bought some yummy cheeses, cured meats, dips etc - for an antipasto dinner with Chris 

He was also planning on coming up tonight - but was visiting a friend in Bendigo first

We got there first, and unloaded the car, got the food platters ready, and Chris arrived soon afterwards

Had a very pleasant evening - but a relatively early night, as Cam the builder was coming up between 8 and 9 on Saturday morning 

And he did, showed him around again - post underpinning, and he thought it looked pretty good.  He thinks he should be able to start the demolition in early November (depending on his other jobs) - then the roughing in of the services ie electricity/plumbing, and then the good stuff ie new kitchen/bathroom etc 

He did suggest that rather than start in Nov, he could start in the New Year, but we preferred an earlier start - it may turn out to be a new Year start after all - but we'll see.

We'll also see if we need to do the tie rods for the Garden room, we'll take some photos and see what the engineer thinks  

Mark from RA came around 9.30 and miked up me and Chris - to take out the wood burning stove in the kitchen.  

Chris took off the central plaque first and sanded off the paint - I had been able to read it already ie F Pullinger etc - but this made it much easier

And then, to the rest of the surround but of course, it wasn't as simple as that, as it had very tight/stiff screws in it - wouldn't have been removed in decades. We could undo some screws, but not others, so Chris had to get out the Angle grinder - noisy and a lot of sparks

So it went from this

To this

Chris also discovered how flammable steel wool is - he had some in the kitchen - and a spark must have fallen on it.  He subsequently took the steel wool outside onto the back veranda - and put it on the wooden table.  Some time later he moved it, and it was warm to hot.  - and he'd found that it was burnt up from the inside and left a charred mark on the table.  Good thing he moved it!

Anyway, we eventually got the oven out - and it was quite heavy - luckily we still had that trolley that we'd borrowed from Bernie.  And we also had to get all of the bricks out

A lot of mess and dust and grit 

We also made 3 "discoveries"

1.There had originally been an arch before they put a steel lintel across and installed the cast iron surround. We thought about reinstating it - but then Chris reminded us that the we coulnd't reinstall the cast iron surround as that had a square top.

2.Chris hypothesised that there hadn't been a large original range in there before this current Lux one - as the surrounding  bricks we all blackened - presumably by an open fire

3. Chris found a copper pipe on the right hand side of the stove which would have been used for heating water

  

Anyway, this all took hours - Mark wanted to hang around until we had got the oven out, and he then wanted me to talk a bit about the proposed kitchen.

So we did that, and I then went off to have a haircut.

On my return I put a shower cap on - as I didn't want al the grit and dust going into my nice clean. newly cut and styled hair - while I removed bricks

Given that we were busy, I suggested an easy dinner - roast chicken and vegies - and it was delicious

Afterwards, Chris showed us an old suitcase of treasures that he'd got from a farm - the family weren't interested in it.  It had the belongings of a man who became a baker in World War 1 and went to Egypt and France.  He kept all sorts of mementos, tram and cinema tickets, photos, letters, medals, pressed flowers, seeds and seas shells etc.  it was fascinating.  Unfortunately, because the light isn't very bright in the dining room we couldn't read the postcards/letters/diary very well, so by natural light tomorrow

Then upstairs to watch I came By - as recommended by Chris.  It was very good

I curled up on one of our new couches and was very comfortable

Sunday, and more chores - Chris and Justin hung up Jan's portrait (but first had to cut and clean one of the brass rods)

 And they also hung the Asian screen in the red room - as half of it had been obscured by the credenza

Justin also cleaned up/oiled  that old drinks trolley that we had, to put between the two couches

Placed the the raven lamp just so

And took a photo of the large cracks in the Garden room to send to the engineer to see if we still needed to put in the tie rods

In the mean time - I pulled some strategic weeds almost obscuring some of my shorter fruit trees

So from this 

 To this

Had lunch in the dining room - chicken (from last night's roast) sandwiches with a glass of rose.   

and then a bread and butter muffin from the Bakers Wife via Fraser

And we also had a better look at Chris's suitcase of treasures

I actually didn't take the below photos - we were too engrossed at the time sifting through all of this history.  Chris sent them to me later

After this, I went back to filling the book shelf - and here's a photo of the little yellow room looking much emptier - all the boxes of books are gone, and a lot of the furniture too

And I've now filled the book shelf 

While I was doing this, Chris was  being very clever and working out how to grout between the dining room fireplace mantle , and the bricks behind it.  WSe had thought to ask Vic to do it, but then thought he might make a bit of mess, so he worked out how to do it himself.  First step was getting some chicken wire - which Terry provided. And then twisting it around to make some body

Chris then made up stuck it up in the gap, made up some mortar, and filled it in

Lastly, he cleaned up the hearth stone as some mortar had spilled on it 

So, yet another successful weekend - where we got more done - feels good!

Bee Room Friday 2 -Sunday 4th September 2022

Argghh

I just wrote a whole lot of this, went away and did something else, came back, and lost it ....

Hadn't saved it - more fool me, so here I go again 

My brother in law Alex loves coming up to Inglewood, so he wrangled his time to work from home - up there - from Wednesday through to Friday  

So, he was the first of us to see the results of the underpinning - ie muddy kitchen floor and back veranda. The clean bits are where the floor was cut out.  You can also see that they got rid of that terrible kitchen sink cabinet - not sorry about that 

And Nick also restumped the floor in here - so we don't bounce around anymore - a vast improvement!

Alex kindly mopped up the kitchen and re set it up

He also rescued part of the cupboard frame to support the sink

 

During his stay he took some nice garden /external house photos.  Looks like Spring has finally sprung

And a lovely sunset over the Town Hall

He captured 2 x cheeky corellas at our air vents, and a perhaps innocent rosella on the roof 

He also took a couple more inside photos - ie of a light filled stair way, and a glowing Bee room  with its newly polished floor

And some town shots - ie site of the new ambulance centre and the main street

Justin  and I arrived on Friday night in the ute with the couches.  No rain forecast, so all was clear

Alex came and helped us unpack the couches, and Justin mentioned that they seemed to have moved a bit.  

They put them in the downstairs hallway - couldn't be bothered taking them upstairs tonight - we wanted our dinner!

When we were done, Alex asked if  there was one more cushion - as one seemed to be missing, or maybe I'd put it somewhere else.  I thought he was joking/trying to pull my leg.  Sadly he wasn't.  We were one large back cushion short.  I tried texting the lady we'd bought them from, and also called up Fraser to ask if when he picked them up with George - if it was possible that they'd left one behind.  Fraser said definitely not, they'd counted the cushions when they packed them up, and then again when they'd got home - just to be sure.  That meant we must have lost them on the trip up.

What a nuisance, and it certainly put a dampener on the rest of the evening.  As we now had one useless couch  

On Saturday morning Justin and I decided to drive as far as the Calder (about 50km on way) to see if we could find it.  Justin had a hypothesis that it could have been blown out by an oncoming truck on the Calder alternative- so we thought we'd give it a shot.  Justin was driving and I was the spotter. During the drive I also decided and then said that I would be willing to drive back to Melbourne and then back to Inglewood to see if I found it (I guess I didn't really think we'd find it now)

However - we did!

Yep,  just outside of Marong, by the side of the road, surprisingly undamaged, and only a little bit damp, from the overnight dew.  We were ecstatic and very surprised, because even though I like to think of myself as an optimist - I guess I didn't really think we'd find it. 

And neither did Alex - who had been busy helping us in other ways. He'd done a reverse Google image search and had established that it was made by a Melbourne furniture manufacturer - Sulfaro, so we probably could have had another cushion/cover made up

So we drove back triumphantly to Inglewood and very much surprised Alex with the found cushion

And then it was time to set up the Bee  Room

First, to reinstate and vacuum the large rug

 Next was to carry the couches upstairs (luckily they weren't too heavy -ie they weren't sofa beds) 

Then to position them in the room

Quite pleased so far

Next was the large and very heavy television cabinet. Luckily we were able to borrow Bernie's trolley again.  And also luckily, Nick the underpinner showed up at this time  - so I asked if he could help a little bit also

Took a while to centre it under the airconditioner

I then went downstairs with Nick, and video called Cam the builder - to see if he wanted Nick to hammer back in those kitchen floor squares.  Cam said not to worry about it, as he would be pulling up part of the floor again anyway.

So Nick explained what he had done - and also gave me a couple of bottles of his rose that had been made from his grapes at his place in Avoca,  How nice was that?

Meanwhile the boys moved more of the furniture -ie bookshelves, table/chairs etc 

We also didn't put in as much furniture as we'd had in there previously - ie the music paraphernalia will go in the Garden room above the kitchen. So, in my opinion, the room looks a lot better, and the table and chairs are further out from the bookshelf - so both are much more usable/accessible now.  

By this stage it was lunchtime, so Alex set up an array of antipasto, cheese, dips etc in the dining room  

Then it was my job to fill the bookshelves - I wanted to do it properly, so cleaned each book before placing them in certain categories ie fiction, war, history, travel, gardening, law, family etc 

After this, it was off to WaterWheel to pick up some wine for the CWA raffle, - had a good chat with Peter there.  He's always good value

And then onto visit Connie (CWA) at her place in Bridgwater.  Rhonda was there too, and they came over to our place later to see what we had done

Given that it was the first Saturday of the month, we mosied on up to Kingower

  

Was a pleasant evening, and then back to our place for a light dinner and a movie upstairs for the first proper time in more than 2 years.  Alex chose "Hand of God" - an Italian movie which had very good reviews, but I was starting to fall asleep, so just went to bed about 1/2 way through

Sunday, and a bit of a sleep in.  I forgot to say that I'd gone for a walk with Alex yesterday morning. And I hadn't done that for at least a year also - because of my hip. It was so lovely to be able to walk freely and without pain again.  Anyway, didn't do it again on Sunday, read the paper in bed instead! And then got up and had toast and coffee for breakfast in the dining room.

More book sorting - takes ages, and I found a lot of "family" books ie those that had belonged to Justin's granny, grandpa, dad etc. Quite a few of his granny and grandpa ones - were ones that they had won - either in Sunday school, or regular school - and they had fancy frontispieces

There was also a book (Captains Courageous) that had belonged to his Uncle Michael - not sure why his dad had it

And obviously I was emptying out the little yellow room as I emptied out all the boxes and bags of books into the bookshelf

From this 

To this

It's actually better than the below photos now, as most of those book boxes have gone.  I forgot to take another 'after" photo.  Will do so next time 

I suggested that Peter's nice old roll top desk be positioned up in the top hall (where the kimono box had been).  It was currently languishing in the dining room

So Alex and Justin took it upstairs, and Justin spent a bit of time polishing it up til it gleamed

Justin also gave another coat of French polish to the table in the bee room - as somehow it had gained another watermark (asked Terry how to do it last night)

He made it look a lot better

And he (or Alex) also vacuumed the chaise longue

Justin also refurbished the dining room table as it was looking a bit dry 

The three of us then went around to Steve and Denise's to look at a fire fender that I had seen a few weeks ago - but it was sold - luckily was too small - so didn't feel too bad 

We then went around to the train line as Peter from Waterwheel had told us that an old steam train was going by at 2pm.

Luckily, we drove -as we just made it 

Justin also took a nice photo of me in the garden