King's birthday weekend - mad cleaning/primping Thur 6 - Mon 10 June 2024

Well, I was back in Melbourne briefly overnight, and then back to Inglewood the next day with Justin for the long weekend.  We thought it a better idea to go up on Thursday afternoon, so Justin could work from "home" on Friday, rather than go up on Friday, which would have had heavy traffic from at least lunch time onwards.

Right, so Friday morning Justin got down to work in the bee room upstairs, and I started around 9am in the toy room/ little yellow room upstairs.

Hid the 2 x bean bags out of sight behind the bay window couch in the bee room - so if we have lots of people watching tv - there is somewhere for them to sit

Pivoted the Coffey family cot, to the other wall, and the kimono box to the previous cot wall. Filled the kimono box with surplus curtains, a shopping basket of electrical/computer cords, surplus computer speakers etc.  

Took the little bedside table out, and put it in the music room for additional storage

Put camp chairs, the wi exercise board (maybe we should just get rid of this), and other bits and pieces under the bed.  Finally this little room was clear!! Hmm, forgot to take a photo of it - next time.

I should also mention that my CWA friend Connie who has a house in Bridgewater came to help me clean/tidy up, which was just lovely of her  

She vacuumed/dusted the parlor (downstairs green room) and arranged the pillows/cushions just beautifully, and she also did the dining room and the red room - such a good worker

Steve the new handy man also came by and started painting the front windows - he had already taken away the fly screens to fix up/paint

He also showed me that the original colour under the awful pink was a dark red/brown - so similar to what we're doing

And a couple of Shane's workers came by too, and did some edging at the kiwi fruit/ and a bit around the olives.  They also capped those star pickets,  as I'd mentioned how Justin thought they were dangerous if someone fell on top of one it would go right through their flesh

Anyway, Connie stayed most of the day - she even brought her lunch.  We offered her dinner, but she had other plans, so declined

I flitted around doing other things - ie cleaned down the front door and windows - filthy

 

Then weeded a bit along the front path - want a good first impression

 And after Justin had finished work - he set up the music room - put the speakers on the stand - took this photo

The IGA was doing a  local wines - tasting from 2pm - 6pm - so we went and had a look and taste.  Saw Dave from Black Wallaby, David 9and then Arlene) from Old Kingower (Blanche Barkly), and there were also people from Passing Clouds and Water Wheel.  Friends wise we saw Damo & Nicole, Maile & David, and Greg (artist). It was all very festive and fun. Chris from the Loddon Herald was also there - taking a few snaps - some of these ended up in the paper on Thursday as per below 

Back to the house, and after dinner I felt like something sweet - and found this in the pantry - caramel and gingerbread cookies - delicious. Except it was a caramel and gingerbread candle!! Was very disappointed   

  Anyway, Saturday and more cleaning/primping 

I took the doorknobs etc that Fraser had stripped and cleaned them a bit more - scraping off more paint

Justin tried his hand at, and successfully took off the painted green push plate in our ensuite.  Terry had thought it was too tricky, so I had planned to paint it like some of the others

We took down the crappy old venetian blinds in the parlor - they were so dusty!

 And chucked them away - too far gone to keep them

I then de-cobwebbed the area, and then had to de-cobweb the broom

Justin hung some paintings - a mosque schematic in our ensuite, to go with the Turkish feel.  

He also hung some paintings in the upstairs green room.  I had laid some out in suggested configurations.  Thought the green room could have an Australiana vibe - ie landscapes/animals (but he didn't put them all up)

 And he put up some paintings in the upstairs hallway - I had suggested some other law type paintings for around the desk, ie portrait of his father, print of Lord Denning, but he only wanted this one

I thought these two paintings would look good opposite each other - both being grey mountain scenes (and had taken out that little display cabinet from the green room last time with Fraser, when we had put the chest of drawers there in its place) 

Justin tried pricking the paint bubbles (Steve's suggestion) in the front door - but it didn't seem to do anything

  

And he also mopped the parlor floor

Meanwhile I noticed that this alcove area upstairs hadn't been painted - whoops, and told Fraser, but it can wait, it's not that noticeable.  The upstairs hall skirting also needs to be painted at some stage

Justin started rebuilding the below architrave  - putting on layers of putty, shaping them as per the ridges on the architrave, then sanding, more putty etc 

I got rid of another venetian base plate in the veranda doorway

 

And started getting rid of plaster on doors and architraves, and generally just cleaning them down

I also gave the kitchen new plaster work a quick sand so that Justin could paint it - before Chris put up the shelf

I cleaned off the penciled door numbers  - looks like some kid had numbered the rooms

Got the mortar sprays off the windows

Cleaned the banister - big job

Justin fixed one of the cracked bannisters by gluing and using a vice to hold it in place

Justin painted the new plaster work in the kitchen

And we tried to resurrect the old rug from the parlor - there were old moth casings on the back of it - but no more moths - so tried to sweep them off with a stiff broom.  I then heavily sprayed both sides with insect surface spray

Justin installed the door stop for the powder room

I cleaned the below dining room door knobs and the rest of the door/frame - but didn't take an after shot 

I also wanted to get the organ upstairs - so that it was out of the way, and Justin could hang those black and white John S Turner pictures which I'd bought 4 years ago - when I went to the exhibition with Michaela.  Two are local - ie Melville Caves and the Loddon River and the third is Delphi in Greece

 Anyway, I was out in the front garden, and heard some young men's voices.  I thought I'd go out and see how many there were.... 

There were four young guys crouched down by the front passenger wheel of their car - a stick had been caught up in there, and was making quite a racket.

Anyway, I approached them and purposefully and humourously flattered them by saying that they all looked like good strong young men - which they laughingly agreed with.  I then asked if they could possibly move something for me - upstairs - and given that they had agreed they were strong, they said yes.  I did also offer them a slab of beer, or a whisky etc - as it was heavy.  They laughed it off, and said they had been doing plenty of drinking over the long weekend, and didn't need any more.

Ushered them in, (Justin was very surprised) and showed them the organ, hmm, wondered if they wanted to back out.  But two of them went for it - it was a bit tricky for the 4 of them to get purchase on it.

So the two of them carried it to the stairs - and we sort of nervously watched as we didn't want it scraping the mural

They took a few rests - and got it up there (with Justins and a 3rd guy's help)- hooray - we will never move it again!

 

Justin had also cleaned the bedroom doorknobs,locks etc even more - using steel wool - so  they looked fabulous, and he reinstalled them.  We forgot to take a photos of the now re-painted bit of bedroom door architrave - looks pretty good though

So, we felt like we got a lot done - yep, I would have liked to hang more paintings ie in the kitchen, and downstairs hall, but we'd run out of puff, and so left around 3pm.  We went home via Sutton Grange to pick up our olive oil - I was hoping for 30 litres, but Macca thought it was approx 22L - so I was a little bit disappointed, once again he said it was because we had big olives, and the smaller ones have more oil

And our Restoration Australia reveal is in less than a week .....

I had said I would go to a CWA fundraising event on Wednesday, and also thought I might get myself a new outfit for the show on Tuesday, so planned to come back for a last big push on Wednesday afternoon  

Justin was planning to come up again on Thursday afternoon, and take Friday off to primp/clean/tidy some more also.  and Connie had said she might be able to come and help again on Thursday - so fingers crossed, we'll be ready....