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.

Yesterday was another full-on day for the builders. They installed some extra joists and put in the steel battens for the ceiling.

Also we have a door to nowhere

With a 1 m drop down to the garage floor, it’s a bit of a safety hazard. That’s not a fireman’s pole, unfortunately.

We decided to pull out the last couple of metres of Gyprock to make life easier for the electricians when they come in on Monday. It will also allow these outside walls to be filled with insulation That will make quite a difference as they face west and do get hot in summer.

We will be in for a complete rewire of the house. That’s not unexpected, as some of the wires must be 60 years old. There are wires going in all kinds of directions that probably once made sense.

Big day for the sparkies on Monday, and probably Tuesday. Troy is starting the AC installation on Thursday. I guess after that we get the plasterers in, and painters then the kitchen gets installed.

Margaret ordered the kitchen appliances- stove top, oven, range hood and dishwasher. Apparently the range hood connects to the cook top and turns itself on when you start cooking. There’s probably an app so you can connect it to the internet and play music from your phone.

Following the asbestos removal on Tuesday, the inspector came and ticked the boxes mid-morning yesterday, so it was a bit of a rest day. The builders came in for a couple of hours after lunch.

Today was full on with half a dozen men in there demolishing the wall frames. They installed some beams, which turned out to be hard wood instead of steel.

The walls in the lounge room are completely gone, giving an idea of how open the new room will be.

The wall for the bedroom and the half wall for the kitchen are now in place.

It is all looking good. It is pleasing to see the rapid progress they are making.

We spent an hour today looking at kitchen appliances and dining room chairs. Such fun!

Today was one of those invisible days. It was all about the Big A… asbestos. That is removing not installing.

Our house was built in the 1960’s and there is a lot of asbestos. It is not a problem in the normal course of events but when you cut or drill it, it can release fibres. Like most things in our current culture, the dangers of asbestos compared to its benefits are seriously exaggerated. Of course, if you are the person who contracts a lung disease, you will not agree.

Anyway, we had to get in a suitably licensed remover and then have it inspected by the relevant authority. The inspection is slated for mid-morning tomorrow, and further action may or may not occur after that.