Passage wow

The transition from old to new continues.

The ceiling received its second and final coat of paint, so it is now as Antique White USA as it is ever going to get. 'Why is ceiling paint different?' 'Because you don't need to wipe spills off the ceiling.' Makes sense, I suppose. If you're one of those people not drawing on the ceiling.

The bathroom floor received its anti-water covering. A chemically coated cement sheet, I believe. It, along with the bathroom walls, were then covered in primer. It is totally ready for the next stage now!

The biggest change of the week (the ceilings were already pretty white and the bathroom had floor) was the arches being fitted in the passage. After making the arches to the wrong size last week the new ones came direct from the manufacturer late Friday afternoon and the plasterers were onsite at 7am Sunday morning (heathens!) to fit them. I was onsite a little after 7am and WOW what a difference they made. They are unpainted, as are the walls around them. But WOW! The passage looks as we hoped it would be. And it still has the hanging lights and skylights to be fitted. We'll put flooring in later, whatevers. The point is - WOW!

I'd just like to add that after working super hard all weekend I then ran 15km in 90 minutes (on my treadmill) Sunday evening. Sure, I could hardly walk Sunday night as my achilles tendons shrunk to about half their normal size, and today my hips have crapped out on me, but 15km!! I'd do a happy jig, but you know, crapped out hips and everything...

Also, my car was fixed last week - no more will I have people offering lamentations every damn time I park it in public, and no more shooing lamenters away from it in the morning so I can drive to work. I get it, its worthy of lamentations, torn clothes, ripped flesh, weeping and moaning and singing. But for three weeks? Ugh! I dropped it off Monday morning and picked it up Wednesday morning - pretty good turnaround really.

So many tubs of paint and 'putty' and stuff I have no idea what to call it lying around. 

Saturday, no arches:

Sunday - arches WOW!

Archerific!!

One day this will transition to another room!

15km!!

Danelangelo

A rather transformative weekend for the House. Over the two days a rather large amount of paint was slathered on the walls and ceilings of nearly every room. With the height of the ceilings absorbing more paint than a typical house we ran out and the master bedroom is only half done. The other three rooms, passage, bathroom and laundry are all done. Well, done for stage one of three. This was the first of two base coats, with a third final coat to follow. 

We are painting with a rather non-exciting shade of white. However, the white is very nice, as far as white goes. I believe it is called Antique White USA, not to be confused with Antique White, or Antique White Europe. Those look terrible!

The Antique White USA really has made a difference, even just the undercoat. The rooms are, well, roomy. The ceiling looks really quite high. It is quite great. As The Shadow said, it has transformed the house from the old to the new. The room shapes are still quite similar to those of the original design, but adding the fresh paint - well, fresh house.

Yes, I was a major contributor to the paint slathering. Before I was co-opted to play some ball with the nephews Sunday afternoon in the blistering sun. 

Not many photos of the painted house, just the one below for now. It shows the passage ceiling with its undercoat and the non-painted walls on either side. 

The archways were supposed to have been fitted to the passage but the manufactured arches were manufactured wrong and did not fit. Another weekend.

During the week we met with the cabinet maker. We discussed the cabinetry for the bathroom, laundry, future kitchen and future study. That all went well. He left us with some samples for the stone benchtop and a couple of catalogs of cupboard designs. The benchtop colours had us second-guessing ourselves for a while, there are some standout colour designs. In the end we reverted back to what we were originally planning - more on that another time.

We discussed what we wanted for our study and that seems to be a fairly simple exercise. Prices TBD...

Quiet

Not much to report.

I'm not really sure where we're at, as opposed to where we were last week. I assume the plastering was finished but I haven't heard either way.

We are waiting on a call from the cabinet maker to arrange a meet to go over cabinet-making things.

We re-nominated paint colour yesterday, so presumably that means we are about to have paint painted on the walls and ceiling and wherever else it goes.

Otherwise:

Like totally plastered

It was supposed to be a weekend off. It was not to be. The call (well, text) came in early Saturday morning: attend for rubbish removal, or be destroyed. Ok, maybe there was no threat of destruction, but after a half-decent sleep-in and the expectation of relaxation for the first weekend in weeks, it felt like threats of the destruction were in the air.

I left The Shadow at home to continue writing her essay and went down the house. I spent the next 60 minutes or so throwing plaster off-cuts in the trailer and filling it up. It only just fit, but fit it did. One full trailer, one backyard devoid of plaster off-cuts. Good for me!

Meanwhile, the plastererers kept a'plasterin and the Master continued to add the touches to the House, building in the frame for the robe in the first bedroom and the frame for the cupboard in the laundry.

Yes, the house is full of plaster. I'm happy to say, the plaster is [mostly] on the walls, where it is supposed to be. Good for them! There is some plaster-products in other places, like the floors. I assume that will be cleaned up (probably by me) at some point. A minor, snide remark: wow, could plasterers get any more messy? (I'm tired and snarky after daylight-savings screwed with me yesterday and today. I hate the transition period.)

The house, after being naked on the inside for so long, looks very strange clothed. It both feels embiggened and ensmallened at the same time. The ceiling certainly feels very tall, and each of the rooms feels quite large. I was impressed with how large the master bedroom feels, and how large the walk-in-robe looks. But at the same time, I can't now look down the length of the house, through its naked studs.

It is quite difficult to take photos of the rooms, the camera just cannot capture enough detail for the room to really makes sense. The only place where you get some sense of it is down the passageway. This, too, is somewhat misleading. The two archways just have the plaster in place and dropped to about 6ft from the floor. These will be turned into proper arches, extending their height.

I'm impressed with the amount of light coming in from the glass above the front door. In time this window will be replaced with stained glass, which should create interesting effects as the northern sun passes through it to alight the north-south passageway.

The plastering is not yet complete. The cornices (I think that's the term) need to be put in place. These connect the walls to the ceiling and cover the gap between the two. I think the ceiling plaster does not come in contact with the wall plaster, instead the ornamental cornice goes over the top. This allows the house to move and reduces the likelihood of cracks appearing. I prefer the wall-ceiling aesthetic (with no cornice) - but as my current townhouse has developed cracks in places after only 4 years I'm reasonably comfortable not going for that look. Instead, the passageway, which we are trying to build with a classical look, will have a period pattern, while the rooms, which are contemporary, will have a modern pattern.

I was finished and back at home just after midday, so it wasn't a great deal of time lost. But it felt like it.

I assume the plasterer's are back at it today and will hopefully be finished early this week.

View from the passageway looking north towards the front door:

Bedroom 2/Study:

Future site of Walk-In-Pantry:

Progress

Mini mid-week update:

The plastererers started today. Yes!

Council prepared the advertising signs that are required to be placed at the house for two weeks. We paid for and picked them up this morning and then dropped them off at the house. They will be at the front and rear of the house until the 16th alerting people of the planning request currently before Council. 

Things are moving along, people.