Week 30, day one hundred and forty-two

Monday, 15 August 2011

Five days to go, and the pace (for me, at least) is frenetic. 

Re-sanded, re-oiled

Lots of late nights sanding and oiling window reveals as we attempt to get all the messy stuff out of the way before furniture is plonked in the middle of it all on Friday morning. Sanding upside-down with power tools is bloody awful work, I've decided (what a surprise), but the better result gained than my previous hand-sanding is worth it (another thing I've learned from Richie – had no idea what an orbital sander was until a couple of weeks ago). Just the really high window and pelmet still to be sanded (thinking about how to do this – you may call it procrastinating if you wish), but now all the others have a first coat of oil and need a final coat over the next few nights.

Stainless bench side

Richie has been back into it this weekend after a week at uni (the cabinetmaker will soon be a chiropractor) and we now have kitchen, laundry and bathroom cupboard doors on, and very gorgeous they look too (if I may say so myself). He's back to uni again for a few days but will hopefully make it back into the house to get going on the loungeroom cabinet before Friday, tho' not sure if this will be finished before we're in. Then he's taking a bit of leave from Bell St to do some work for his brother (who is opening a cafe in Church Point and needs tables), so the other bits and pieces (kitchen high shelving, desk with shelving, window seat, our wardrobe doors etc) that he's doing for us will happen later in the year...which is financially probably a very good thing!

Before...

...and after

Laundry laminex and cupboards

Island bench back

Island bench front

Water feature

Meanwhile, the newest biggest worry has been the mudpit that currently surrounds our beautiful abode – the focus is shifting as a short downpour weekend before last again brought to our attention the fact that the front door area turns into a swimming pool at the slightest provocation. Peter the Digger Man was booked to again return to the Block, this time in the hope of creating some new levels that might work in with that fab landscape plan (which suddenly scares the living daylights out of me – it was all so far off in the distance and airy-fairy up until now...). So he pushed dirt around for a couple of hours and took a few big bills off me for the privilege, telling me in his laconic Blackheathen way (add your own expletives) that he did what he could and that we should have made the house a foot higher so he had something to work with, or something like that... 

Spot the difference (same mud, different levels)

So then we had newly sculpted massive piles of mud, and storm clouds threatening: I went into emergency landscaping mode on Friday and ordered four tonnes of coloured roadbase for the driveway and front path, some garden edging, a pile of stakes and a big whomping compactor for a day's hire on the weekend (the supplier talked me out of getting the recycled sleepers for now and just get a basic path in, for which I am eternally grateful – I was having enough trouble with roadbase let alone cutting and levelling sleepers). After shovelling it all around for an hour in the fading twilight of Friday, I finally admitted defeat and called in some garden-savvy friends to come and advise the next day as to whether my plan to create a mud-free entrance to the house before removalists descended was utterly without any basis in landscaping reality. The consensus was that the main focus was getting into the house on Friday mud-free, so a basic coverage of roadbase along the general area where a path will someday be and a bit of mulch anywhere else they might tread was the priority. Order a pile of mulch to cover the rest of the mudpit until we get planting and we'll have an quick, basic, concrete-the-lot-of-it landscaping solution for the short-term.

So that was Sunday, the whole family in there shovelling, raking, compacting (a few more expletives involved there) and gettin' creative with not much. We're still utterly plantless (just get me in that house first) but hopefully the neighbours can now live with us for a couple of weeks as we gather ourselves. Ordered some leaf mould mulch this afternoon to be delivered tomorrow and hopefully, bingo – instant drab garden!

Jem's rock feature

Mat whomping

Slightly wonky driveway

Rosie and new barrow

The (barren) fruits of our labour

Pelmet lights to be finished

Tomorrow we'll have all builders on deck one last time, in theory. Lots of last little jobs to do, like installing the stainless steel bench and kitchen/laundry appliances, putting up the pelmet lighting ply, fixing the odd window latch, cleaning up this and that, getting the all-important bog-roll holder on, etcetera. It'll be like a party!  

Meanwhile, have only managed to pack two small boxes – I'm assuming the moving fairies will be making an appearance sometime towards the end of the week...

Jem and little friend who adopted us for a day this week – he fell in love and called her Pipsqueak, but turned out his name was Rocket (and lived round the corner)