Always in motion, the future is

It will be two months tomorrow since we moved in and we are quite loving it.

Progress has continued at a fairly constant rate, primarily to the exterior. The verandah is in a skeletal form, the front yard and fence have been dug out, and the front window has had nearly all the paint stripped. Still to come are the completion of the window stripping, after which the frame can be painted and age-old glass will be replaced with Awesome-O modern glass. The roof and fancy bits need to be added and then all glammed up with its fancy paint scheme. And then we can put the new fence in.

We ordered blinds, that was quite the ordeal. The guy that was supposed to do the blinds was, shall we say, unreliable. We could also say: didn't bother to attend the agreed upon appointment and then didn't bother to text or call back. His lazy ass lack of business acumen (me: I'll give you money for goods and services; him: nah screw it, I'll live on air!) cost us probably two months and a good bit of running around and trying to find a new place. We selected O'Gorman's in Coburg and are currently awaiting our order to be made and installed.

Window furnishings: wow! Blinds, drapes, roman blinds, new things I don't even know the names of. They have these new blinds that are honeycomb shaped and are partly vacuum sealed to reduce noise and heat transfer. They look pretty cool, but The Shadow and I wondered how they would hold up the first time a cat awkwardly jumped onto the window sill, crashing into the blinds and compressing them against the glass. Probably not good knowing our awkward cats who would probably see such a thing as fair sport and make it their goal to ruin our blinds. Also, they cost twice as much as normal blinds. Of which, why don't they make more colours and designs to choose from? Is a gillion not enough for them?

Black blinds with a slight pattern for each window with a sheer curtain for the front window. We are, of course, loathe to replace the Dave Window Furnishings(tm)  we currently have, which can be best described as thick, black plastic with a wooden beam across the top, fashionably rolled up by hand to allow sunlight to fill the room, and held in place with plastic pegs. Email me now for your orders, but act quickly, Dave Window Furnishings(tm)  are nearly sold out!

We finished putting the oyster coverings over the lights in the hallway a few weeks ago. The two smaller light frames and the oysters seems a complete mismatch, we just couldn't screw them on because the oyster was too thick for the threading. So we went back to the lights store and chatted with the lovely light-woman for a while and discovered that of the 13 oysters we had, only about 3 were really thick. Obviously, the three we tried. We swapped the really thick ones for moderate sized ones and tried again - they all fit nicely. So now the lighting in the hallway is finished and quite marvelous.

About one-third of the weatherboards down the side of the house have been replaced, and they make a rather noticeable difference. That is, if you can spot the difference between paint flaking off, or not flaking off. And they haven't even been painted yet!

The house is, if nothing else, consistently out of square. Each internal room was off, some a fair bit. Thankfully the exterior was no different and the external wall did not run straight but had a buckle in it. This buckle, although barely registering with my eyes, was of considerable concern to The Master who made it his duty in life to reduce the impact of said buckle and thus restore order and a modicum of squareness (even if it is just perceived squareness) to the house. We nodded sagely as he explained his detailed plans to bring about this order, we cheered on his enthusiasm, we gave the big thumbs up to make this magic happen, and then went and played Elder Scrolls Online and left him to it.

Another bonus we have discovered is the resident possum population. Admittedly, the discovery is not so much a bonus for The Shadow and I as it is for our cats, well, our cat. Our little girl cat has taken an intense (dis)liking to the possums, our boy could not care less. Twice Harle has exited the backdoor at a sprint, chasing down the possums, and then proceeded to spread her scent across as many things as possible. She has also spent considerable time at the back of house listening for possums, and communicating with possums. Loudly. Adorable, if a little obsessive. Naz, I don't think he has even noticed them.

Down the side of the house with the new weatherboards and makeshift covering over the vacuum system (also part of the Dave(tm) brand). Note the stepped out boards on the other side of the gas water heater (and note the size of the gas water heater! Tiny!). The system was put directly underneath a broken section of guttering so the water just gushes down on top. Although, with the amount of broken sections in the guttering is was not so obvious.

The front window, nearly fully stripped. Screw you, five layers of crappy paints!

Finished hallway - for now. The flooring will be changed when the extension is built.

Ooooh aaaahhhhh

 The verandah deck from a few weeks ago. More timber has been added since but I don't have a photo of it. If you look closely at the window photo above you can see some of the roofing timber.

Bathroom envy

The room that received the most attention and, to date, the most cash has been the bathroom. 

I think I previously recited this story, but it is worth repeating because it establishes the intention. When The Shadow and I were in Germany a few years ago we stayed for a few nights in the Black Forest in Schiltach. Schiltach is the home of the Hans Grohe company, who, we discovered, are the manufacturers of bathroom products. In their factory they have a bathroom museum. It is structured as a chronological journey through the history of the bathroom, which is actually a lot more interesting than it sounds. Through it they espoused their philosophy to bathroom design, which is not just functional, but that the bathroom should be luxurious, relaxing, etc. Some of that is just marketing guff, but like the kitchen, the bathroom receives a lot of our time, and we wanted something like Hans Grohe described. Something that we experienced in many, many bathrooms in Europe, and very few in Australia.

For years we, like so many of you, have suffered through terrible bathrooms, small and cramped, lazy hotwater, showers that either sting you or sludge over you and refuse to take the shampoo with them, poor or missing bathtubs. We swore that when we had the chance we would do it how we wanted it.

So, how is it?

Totally amazing.

The physical size of the bathroom is not large, and the ceilings are quite high. The Master's advised on dropping the ceiling down to a standard height lest it feel odd. We did not hearken to that advice, but ploughed ahead, both The Shadow and I loving the high ceilings too much. Instead, we pushed the shower back a little and ate up some space in the walk-in-robe behind it. This reduced the square-ness of the room, and enlarged it a little. Also, we added large mirrors, one for the basin/vanity and one across the entire width of the wall behind the bath. The non-square room and the mirrors and the lighting all work together to make it look bigger than it probably is. Those that have visited the Palace of Versaille or Catherine's Palace in St Petersburg will know that the monarchs of old (at least their architects) well understood the value of mirrors and light in enhancing space. To our eyes the room does not look or feel squashed, but feels right. There is not the space that a bathroom might command in a 40sq home, but it feels better than any house we have lived in, and most display homes we visited in the last 2 years. (Display home people if you're reading, I'm available for design ideas.)

The obvious choice for a modern showerhead is the rainshower - it is huge and luxurious. But with dreadlocks, not convenient - I can't have water running over my head and hair everyday. So we needed an every-day, dread-friendly showerhead. But why should The Shadow miss out, and why should I miss out on hair-washing days? So we put both in, an everyday shower head on a rail and an overhead rain shower. And we had them plumbed separately so they could both be on at the same time. 

The everyday shower head has three settings: pressure, soft massage, ultra-massage. The rainshower has just one setting: bliss. 

Totally amazing.

The showers present everything we tried to achieve: space, luxury, pleasure. 

The bath: we wanted it to be a feature as well as functional and we are well pleased with both aspects. The waterfall bath spout is also as we wanted. From a functional point of view, we are impressed with its overflow thingy. If the water level gets too high it just catches it and dumps it. I'm sure this is not a new feature, I know basins have had overflows for a while, but it was new to us. We were used to the overflow catch being the floor and a couple of towels. I am happy those days are behind us.

Heated tiles in the floor. I don't know who loves them more, The Shadow or our two cats who are frequently found sleeping on them. I haven't found The Shadow sleeping on them yet, so I assume the cats love them more. But Winter is coming...

The basin and tap are quite functional and we find them quite attractive. The cabinet, too, is extremely functional with deep, soft-close drawers and a power point hidden behind the top drawer. This means the hairdryer can stay plugged in, in the drawer, and doesn't take up bench space.

The design of the bathroom matches our current tastes, and the quality and longevity of the products is a little difficult to judge after just 10 days. What the design and the products both create is an experience. So far, the experience is totally amazing, and what we wanted when we set out. 

None of this happened by accident, it was planned exhaustively by The Shadow and I and we spent many hours thinking and talking about what we wanted, planning how to achieve it, shopping for the products we wanted, and thinking and talking about how those products might work, or might suck. The bathroom and the kitchen are important rooms in the modern house, their design and implementation will contribute to the measure of relaxation, enjoyment and function that can be obtained. 

The hardest part of it all is the tiling. With a product like a tap you can look at it in its totality and imagine it in its place. You can draw it to scale with the basin to make sure the height is ok (yes, I did that). But with tiles you have a small square of colour that you need to extrapolate over entire room. Very difficult. I wish I had had 3-D rendering software so I could have taken my minds-eye and turned it into something tangible. I'm reasonably happy with the tiles we selected, but not ecstatic. The walls are 90% white so at least it is not obnoxious, but I am left wondering whether a different tile may have been better. They floors are dark grey and I am quite happy with them. Especially the warm one.

T +10

The big move occurred 10 days ago so The Shadow and I are now firmly ensconced in our new home.

I suppose I should catch up, let's do it in two logical phases, pre- and post-move:

Pre-Move:
The weeks before the move were hectic. We had to get the house in a position that we could move in, and then actually move in. Packing, cleaning, building and cleaning. SO much cleaning.

We found the bathroom accessories we wanted, we finally selected them from Roger Seller. We picked out a glass shower shelf, rather than the typical glass-y colour this is black with chrome fittings.

We struggled to find a suitable light for above the bathroom mirror. With so much polished chrome in the bathroom the usual assortment from commercial companies just was not up the scratch. We found a light shop in Armadale, Custom Lighting. They had a wonderful selection and we eventually chose a non-chrome led fixture. The material is hard to describe, it is probably a type of plastic, but a modern one. It looks great and the light it throws down the mirror is amplified very nicely.

The carpets were installed two weeks ago. When we headed to the house after work to see them I was quite nervous about how they would look: the colour, the pile... I was a bundle of nerves. Thankfully they look great! And they feel great. We're very pleased with how they came out. It was also incredible just how transformative the carpets were: they really made the rooms feel like rooms, rather than just being spaces.

The cupboard doors were put on the cupboard in the front bedroom and the cupboard above the laundry bench. These, along with the carpets, made the rooms feel complete.

Finally, the oven and stove-top were installed and the hot-water service was installed. The blinds were supposed to have been measured and installed but the blinds-guy suffered a loss in the family.

And then the move happened. Boxes, sweat, labour: I hate moving house.

Selecting a removalist is not easy. There are a lot of companies and very little to aid in the selection process. I called a couple and the prices were quite varied. I had though to hire Man with a Van, but their rates were just too high. Instead I hired Transcorp Removals. I used them last time we moved and they were good. This time, also good. I would like to say they were great or excellent but it was a two man gig, one man was excellent, the other was average. Thankfully, the lead man was the excellent man and his instructions and packing skills were high.

I also had to select cleaners for the old place. Selecting cleaners is probably worse than selecting movers. I figure that the cleaning industry has fairly low barriers to entry, which means there a lot of them. They need to differentiate themselves somehow, but on the web that is not easy with so many competitors, and the prices are all similar. In the end I took a punt with Tydii. They had probably the best rates. The two guys they sent did a very good job. Our townhouse was large, larger than a standard 2-bedroom, so it took marginally longer than the base time, but not much. The additional time was well within a margin, so I was happy.

Post move:
After the move our hall lights were installed. The three lights all look great and we are very happy with them. They give the look that we were going for. For some reason the oyster globe covers do not fit on two of the three lights so we will need to head back to the light store and figure that out. For the time being the two lights have exposed candle globes, which still look ace.

It has taken some time to sort things out, move things around, unpack what is needed. As we still have the extension to build before the house is complete there is still a lot of work to be done.

The house, too, feels like two houses. The four rooms, the three bedrooms one of which is our lounge) and the bathroom, are all finished, polished and perfect. But the hallway has not had its flooring laid yet, it is just the core building floor. So you step out of the plush pile onto the rough floor. The kitchen, being a temporary kitchen, is surprisingly useful and easy to use - but it is not quite right. Again, the flooring makes it feel a little off, but so too do the inconsistencies. The cabinet that was built for the stove and oven is different to the rest of the kitchen. That is entirely fine in the short term, but because the finished rooms have consistency it does feel weird. A perfectly-acceptable-in-the-short-term-until-the-extension-is-built weird.

But that weird feeling pales in comparison to how good it feels walking into our home each night.

Sadly no photos, I will post new photos shortly.

T minus 28 days

Another busy weekend both at the house and beyond.

At the house, The Master was busy with painting, painting and some more painting. The house is quite white now. When he wasn't busy painting he was busy assembling the kitchen cupboard, which will hold the stove and oven-top when they are installed.

The Shadow and I were very impressed with how well the cabinet came out. As well as housing the oven it also boasts four drawers and a cupboard. It will certainly do an excellent job for our temporary kitchen - which, once again, will be better than the once we have in our townhouse.

On Saturday the Shadow and I went shopping for bathroom accessories: soap holder, toilet roll holder, towel ring, etc. We saw some items we liked the week before at a store in Richmond but wanted to look at some other places before deciding.

First was Schots, in Fairfield. If we were building a period-styled bathroom then Schots would have been useful. Why anyone would build a period bathroom based on Schots designs is beyond me, I really despite the design. As our bathroom is modern, Schots was not helpful at all. We were able to pick up some cupboard handles, though, which was good. Some designs from the past still look good - bathrooms is just not one of them. Nor is kitchens.

Second was E&S Trading. We were fairly unimpressed with their range. We just couldn't find anything that really suited what we wanted. After a delightful lunch with my mum we headed home via Camberwell and Hawthorn and happened to pass Elite Appliances. We stopped and were quite impressed with their range, both for bathroom products (taps, basins etc) and accessories. We are waiting for their quote to come in.

Sunday we took a quick trip to Bunnings for some temporary glass splashbacks for the temporary kitchen and laundry. The kitchen splashback is dark and the laundry is pale. We are not sure what we want in our future-kitchen, so we are road testing the two styles. May the better splashback win. The Shadow has already laid 400 quatloos on the dark one.

Finally back at the house and while the Master slapped paint on the walls we spent a few hours Saturday and all Sunday afternoon stripping paint from the window in the front. When the Shadow told me during we week we would be involved in Project Window Strip I was quite excited. Then she told me what it meant and I was not so excited. Having spent about 8 hours stripping back the paint, I am what the exact opposite of excited is. However, we were left with a reasonable finished product and the Master was able to lay down some undercoat on Monday. Like everything else, it will look quite ace when it is finalised.

This morning we handed in our intention of vacate letter, so 4 weeks today we will be handing in the keys for our townhouse. The countdown is on!

Go with the flow

We are now four measly weekends away from our new home. Can I get a 'woo'?

WOOOO!

I may have previously mentioned, we have had a make a few design changes to the back of the house. The old bathroom is a laundry and the temporary kitchen has been expanded for longer term use. It continues to surprise me just how well this is all coming together.

We asked for more kitchen shelving, so we now have more kitchen shelving in our temporary kitchen than we have in our townhouse. And the shelving is far more usable than in our current kitchen, which has quite low usability. We are quite ecstatic about how the temporary kitchen is shaping up.

We were going to purchase a cheap, electric upright cooker and use that until the extension is built. After looking at the range we quickly escalated from cheap to lots. The state of low-end cookers is appalling. So we are now installing a temporary cupboard that will hold the induction cooktop and oven we actually want. A small payment for a cupboard is totally worth it, a cheap stove is not.

Which brings me to the bathroom. The bathroom is all but finished. And it is grand. The basin + tap + cupboard, the bath + features, the shower. It's grand. Grand! GRAND!!

We are very happy with the way the bathroom design has worked out. We spent a lot of time looking at features and also sizing and moving objects around in Visio. We knew how big the bath was compared to the wall length, how much space was left for the cupboard, how much bench space the basin consumed, etc. But those are all lines drawn on a Cartesian plane. Although The Shadow can easily turn 2d into 3d in her minds eye, others are not so inclined. Thankfully I trust The Shadow's mind.

One of things she insisted upon was a mirror the length of the wall where the bath is. We debated the height of the mirror (floor to ceiling, tile, mirror, plaster, etc) but we always planned on having it take the entire width. Similarly with the mirror behind the basin, it needed to be big. The two big mirrors really enhance the feeling of space, as they are designed to do. There was some thought that the high ceilings with relatively small room size might back the bathroom feel weird. I don't find it, and I think the mirrors play a significant role.

Another assistant in making the bathroom work is the skylight. Without it the room is completely dark, with it the room has sufficient light for simple tasks. A little light goes a long way.

Just tilt your head to the right a little and you'll enjoy this SO much more.

Basin + Tap + Cupboard = Glory

Basin + Tap = glory

Bath + spout 

Shower with one head. The other shower head hasn't been added yet.

Note the twin taps for turning both shower heads on at once.

I'm environmental when I feel like it - when I'm in the shower I take time off from politics.

Bath: 

Temporary kitchen shelving: 

Continuation

It's been some time since the last update, that is for various reasons. In short, there have been delays in the construction, some of those delays are behind us and some will be with us for a while. Building is hard.

So, where are we at?

The bathroom is basically finished. The tiling, heated tiles and mirrors are all in. The fixtures, the bath and toilet and basin, are going in this weekend.

The bedrooms are basically finished. The walls needs another coat or two of paint and then flooring and fixtures.

The hallway is the same: paint and then light fittings.

The laundry is the same, although it has had some extra attention as there have been delays with our planning permit and the extension will not be built straight away. So we are doing a bit more work to make the future-laundry area suitable as a kitchen, and move the actual laundry features into the old bathroom, which we have patched up to make it a suitable laundry - like giving it a floor.

The house is fitted with back-to-base monitoring, which our plumber discovered works quite well a few weeks ago when he tripped the alarm. As well as an ear-splitting siren (two sirens in fact) the security company is notified which in turn notifies me.

We're connected to the nbn, which on its lowest speed contract is giving me 11.5Mbps (rated at 12Mbps). Conversely, my adsl2+ gives me 7.5Mbps. Interestingly, I got just over 8Mbps when sitting on the corner of La Trobe and Swanston on my 4G phone last week.

Lot's of little things to go, but combined the little things take time.