Week 8, day thirty-eight

Thursday, 17 March 2011

As expected, bit of a slow week. The concreters came back from hols and have propped some very well recycled bits of timber around the edges of the steel mesh (I believe this is known as formwork, yes?) that will sometime next week hold masses of wet concrete in place to form a slab - seems kinda hard to believe it'll do the job, but apparently they'd know better than me how to achieve this.


Termite bloke has popped some blue plastic rings around the waste pipes and added some stickers warning one and all that these are now termite proof - again, presumably he is well across how this actually achieves said aim. And I think we have the electrician popping in on the weekend, and perhaps even the brickies back tomorrow to start on the low garden wall that will also form the side of the carport in the front yard.

One of our early Blackheath loves: Romaine St

But the real highlight of the week has been having our colours done, and I'm not talkin' auras. Anita the Colour Consultant came to chat yesterday, and quite fun it was too - made me feel all Mosman. I had done lots of homework in anticipation (with those hourly rates, I didn't want to be hunting around looking for anything) and had plans, concrete and roof colour catalogues, garden designs, my scrapbook of ideas, print-outs of houses that inspired us and more all laid out for her to peruse. As I whizzed through them at the speed of light, Anita took the lot in with aplomb, making all the right noises about our fifties/sixties influences, favourite colours (there's this particular shade of green that I seem to be mildly obsessed with) and a million other details. We did a quick site visit, and she even packed a brick to take home with her.

And the other wannabe: Murcutt's Zac's House

Just as I thought we couldn't agree any more (she liked our floor colour, I liked her roof choice, she loved Charlie's idea re the internal doors being a gloss splash of bright colour against an otherwise mostly neutral background of wall and floor), she hit me with her suggestion for the main external colour... I'm sure this won't be the last time I compare building a house to having a baby, but for some reason I'm reluctant to even mention the proposed external colours here now (much as we kept our ideas for kids' names to ourselves before they unleashed themselves on the world, just in case someone said, 'Jem? You can't call the poor kid Jem...').


Suffice to say, the main colour wasn't what I was expecting. But Anita talked me through her reasons and, given how much I liked just about everything else she'd suggested in our little mutual appreciation society meeting, I decided to take it on board, have a look at the couple of houses she could remember recommending something similar for, and letting it simmer...


So that was today's homework. I spent an hour stalking houses in the Upper Mountains and taking snaps (no arrests yet), and I have to say I'm almost coming around to the idea. And with that titillation, I'll leave someone else to kick off the online bets.


James the Plumber should be back from his spa treatments Monday, then maybe we have a slab Tuesday or Wednesday! Our friend A-L came to stay on the weekend and, having recently been through her own renovation hell, told us that the slab being poured is definitely one of the better bits of fun to be had in the whole process.


Remember the tree destumper? Still hasn't shown up!