Nimmitabel: A Work in Progress: 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