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.
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