Today was about some cleaning up work that needed to happen.

There were lots of handles, with some still to be installed. We have a total of 65 handles, inclding a dozen or so in the bedroom.

Of course the plaster had to be sanded. After running heaters all last night, the plaster was mostly dry enough, but there were patches that he needs to come back to on Monday. Thankfully, he doesn’t expect us to run the heaters all weekend.

The steps at the doorway to nowhere went in today. This is a new door from the (new) kitchen to the garage. We test drove them and found them very satisfactory.

Skirting boards and cornices went in. 130 holes were drilled for the 65 handles that some lucky apprentice will get to screw in.

The plasterer was distressed to find that the plaster board was not drying, so we have heaters running to warm the house up for the comfort of the plaster. As he said, he can’t sand it until its dry, and in this cold weather it is hard to get things dry.

I paid the first payment to the builder today. It only hurt a little bit 😀

Today it was all about the trimmings- cornices and architraves.

Tomorrow they finish the architraves and do the skirting boards.

Painters possibly move in on Friday, or on Monday if the builders are still working on Friday.

Kitchen appliances are due to arrive next Tuesday.

Happy days!

Today was another day of activity. The most obvious progress was some doors on cabinets.

And drawers…

The old hall cupboard got its new doors, too!

Tomorrow they are planning to finish the cabinets, put in architraves and cornices.

Next week the painters come, and after that the floor coverings, electrician and bench tops.

Today was all about cupboards. With the rain forecast for today, Dan and Richard took a couple of hours yesterday to get all the cabinetry moved from the workshop to here.

This is the huge dining area cupboard which will be pantry on the right. The centre part will have glass doors to show off our various ornaments, teapots, trophies etc. Who knows what will find its way to the left cupboard?

This is a narrow cupboard above where the sink will go. We had to make it quite shallow in order to make sure that the taller person doesn’t bang his head when he does the washing up. It will be ideal for cups and medicines.

Meanwhile in the bedroom:

The oak finish on the doors is an exact match to our bed – the one we weren’t going to move from upstairs. There is nothing special about the top drawer. They just didn’t get the front on yet.

There is something special about this though:

This cupboard features two hanging poles, although the lower one hasn’t been installed yet. The top one can be pulled around and down to retrieve the garments. It is a pretty cool way to double the hanging space. The builders were worried that the springs would make it too hard to pull down, but Margaret seems to be able to manage it quite well.

Outside, the electricians started digging a trench by hand to run the upgraded power cables from the power pole to the house.

Tomorrow, it will probably be more of the same.

The rooms are starting to look like rooms now with the plastering of ceilings completed today.

The doors are also starting to look like doors with knobs and latches attached. This door is an unexpected addition at the bottom of the stairs.

We noticed this afternoon that even though the doors have been open all day, the house is surprisingly warm- the west facing windows used to only warm up the side bedrooms, and the walls were not insulated. Now the house will be much more thermally comfortable.

Monday they get stuck into skirtings and architraves.

The air conditioning was installed today. They were hoping to get it done by lunch time, but the confined space in the upstairs roof made things trickier than Troy expected. The gear is in now, and they just need to put the vents in.

The builders were hoping to get the ceiling finished today, but the delays with the air conditioning held them back. That will be finished tomorrow.

This is the new bedroom, formerly the kitchen.The door overlooks my fish tank, hence the windows. We have a proper sky light which will help to light the place in the day time. This room is about the same size as our existing bedroom, but the built ins will be far more useful than what we have now.

At last, a door in the hole. That should make the house a lot less cold tonight.

Margaret made the mistake of requesting new doors on the hall cupboards to match the other internal doors. Well, you can’t just pull the old doors off and put new doors on. We have to make new inserts to jazz up the inside of the cupboards. We found ourselves hurriedly emptying cupboards that we thought would be left alone.

The old bathroom has a new door, but no latch yet.

Tomorrow the air conditioner goes in and the ceiling goes up.

The builder told Margaret that they should be done by the middle of next week, after which the floor coverings can go down. That was a shock, but we aren’t counting chickens yet. If it happens that way, it will be just 3 weeks from start to finish.

Happy days!

Amazing amount of visible progress today!

We have 3 phase water!

For those readers in the city, we have a separate rain water supply as the town water is not very nice to drink.

We also have walls!

It is starting to look like home again.

Tomorrow there will be more sheeting done, and architraves etc.

Ceilings have to wait until after the air conditioning is installed on Thursday.

It is amazing to me how fast everything is happening.

Today was mainly about the electricicals. The sparkies are rewiring the house. We have more power points than ever, which is quite awesome. When our house was built, nobody needed more than 1 single power point in a room.

The builders continued doing their thing. I believe that they will be sheeting the ceiling and walls tomorrow. That will be good because it will help to keep the house a little warmer.

I didn’t get any actual photos of today’s work because of too many dramas this afternoon. The photos would be practically indistinguishable from the last few days anyway! There should be noticeable changes tomorrow, all being well.