My my, how things change.

Demolision

There is nothing more satisfactory than kicking a wall down and that’s what we have been doing.  Initially we were just going to remove the walls in the side bedroom of the house, as they already were substantially damaged, then we had to remove part of wall in what will now be the open lounge, kitchen, dining.  Then we found a look that we want and decided “lets remove the plaster in all the open areas of the kitchen and lounge and the ceilings”.  Even now, I write this with a croaky voice from falling ceilings dumping dust and insulation all over the floors.

Kitchen with no walls and ceiling

Timberrrrrr.!!!  Or was the call Plasterrrrrrr?!!!  After Andrew had delicately cut the cornice off to preserve the ceiling,  the first ceiling came down in one piece and one crash.  Not expecting it to fall in one piece, I could see it starting to give way and made a run for it, but Andrew, clutching his beloved multi tool, copped it, with ceiling breaking its fall across his back.  Fortunately a ladder also broke the fall and took a bit of the force.  Andrew was ok, he braced for it.  The ceiling had mould damage, so it was good to remove.  We could smell the mould after Adelaide experienced 70 mm of rain.  The humidity really brought out the smell.

Andrew and the fruits of our labour

We are a planning to line the space and the side bedroom with pine lining boards and paint these, similar to the interior of a Queenslander house.  The ceiling will now be lined with galvanised iron.  We have seen this done in blogs and through google image searches, and it can look good.  My sister was a little concerned, she said it reminded her of some dodgy pub renovations.  The idea of a corrugated iron ceiling makes me think of an old Leunig cartoon and the significance of corrugated iron in Australian society.

Michael Leunig’s ideas on corrugated iron.

Another reason for the pine lining and galvanised corrugated iron ceiling, is that we don’t need to do any plastering or employ any plasterers,  no destroying vacuum cleaners from vacuuming plaster dust and we also are able to personalise the place for us.

Huh!

Your probably wondering why we are personalising, wasn’t this going to be “a renovate to sell” project.  Well yes it was till last week.  I got very sick with tonsillitis last week and was out of action for the week.  Andrew managed to fit in a day, but we are limited by school hours to get this work done.  In the midst of my illness we received a call.  The agent for the property we have rented for the past 9 years, advised us that we were required to leave the house at the end of May, giving us 3.5 months notice.  We have gone through the five stages of loss and grief with the news, and then we agreed that we would move to our house in Willaston.  This means our 12 month renovation has been put up a gear, so we can have it liveable by the start of the next school term, April 28^th.  So we are frantically renovating part of the house, looking for a school and kindegarten and we have to get a shed ASAP.

Shed…..sigh!!!!!!

We were wrapped to get paid for a new contract for our business, which freed us up to buy a shed.  Andrew was keen for a 6x9m or 6x12m shed and we went to the preferred to shed supplier to buy us a shed.  We knew it would take 3 weeks to a month to get the permit from the council.  What we didn’t plan for was the 8 weeks wait from the shed manufacture and any delays associated with the permit.  The shed salesmen advised us it was a minimum of a 3 month process to get the shed approved and manufactured, before we even put the thing up.  Bugger!!!!  So what we can do? We need a shed yesterday.  Most councils do not require permits for structures 15m²  or less, so it looks like we are getting a 15m² shed and we will invest in a carport down the track.  If we want to get a bigger shed in the future, we’ll just have to increase the footprint of this shed.  Hopefully Andrew will make the order today.

Pleasant surprise

We were pleasantly surprised to find the hotwater service works, but there is nowhere on the switchboard that enables for us to switch the hotwater between day rate and night rate.  Is this an old idea, or do modern hot water systems have this built in, we don’t know, so we have to find out.

Shopping

While the ceiling is open, we have decided to purchase an evaporative airconditioner, as it will be much easier to install the ducting and vents with no ceiling.  I know some of you are wondering why are we putting and airconditioner in, given the energy use.  Adelaide and Gawler are very hot places in the summer, and when you have weeks of 40 degrees, you need to have a house that can stay cool or you need to the cool house down.  As I grew up in the semi arid climate of the Victorian Mallee, which is similar to the Gawler, you need an airconditioner to survive.  Hopefully we may be able to plumb it with rainwater and offset it’s power usage with solar panels.

We also need to buy a new oven.  I have put my case forward that now we are living in this house, that I want a decent oven and stove.  I don’t want a pokey little stove top and tiny oven.  I bake regularly, especially with school age kids, and we have home cooked meals nearly every night, so a good oven and stove is a blessing.  We are also trying to get gas connected, so we can have gas stove top.  For years I have toiled with electric stoves and I just want to cook with gas.  Again, now the house is for us, lets get gas.  If anyone can recommend a good freestanding cooker brand, around $2k, let me know.  I’m after a 90cm freestanding cooker.  I know Miele are great, but that is a bit beyond my budget at the moment.

I have found a fantastic woodheater that I want to buy, it has a built in bakers over and optional hotwater heater.   We need to wait on how the budget is going before we make this purchase.

My fantasy woodheater, the Nectre Bakers oven

http://www.nectre.com/index.php?page=baker-s-oven

Anyway, next blog is next week (hopefully), with news of a builder, kitchen, shed and tools.  Big spend ups in and we might even update you on the actual proposed layout of the house.   We will also get started on the yard and garden.

Till next post …adios

Miriam (and Andrew)

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