Plastering. Oh what joy. One, incidentally, that I had not yet experienced. However, my sister, Blick, sweated out most of her plastering apprenticeship in this room.

This room is a monument to her perseverance and resultant skill. It was not an easy room to begin a plastering career in.

Normally the installation of cornice along the top of the wall means that the plasterer doesn't have to concern himself with the join between the ceiling and walls. It is all covered up. However, as we were creating and plastering our cornice ourselves, the plasterer of this room had three horizontal right-angle corners to deal with on top of the four vertical ones. Two concave and one convex. The final surfaces of that cornice consist almost entirely of applied plaster, I am sure. The original gyprock was but the skeleton awaiting flesh!

However painful, the creation of this different cornice effect was necessary and, indeed, attractive in the end. As can be seen, at this point the cornice has been created and half plastered on all four walls. The intrusion of the beam above the door is now invisible. Voila! Three identical replicas built, and the original problem has disappeared.

  

Here you can see that the shower base and tiled 'back' are installed. Two narrow glass panels and a glass door will complete it. The door is destined to angle across the front corner, saving room.

 Yes, our shoddy old 'kitchen' lights are still our source of artificial light in the bathroom. Not long after, the electrician came and installed one of those three-in-one things, consisting of heat lamp, fan and normal light. He also installed a wall bracket light over the bath.

 

And this is the bath. A bath with a history.

One day Mum and Dad headed off to buy a free-standing cast iron bath. Of course, our almost non-existent budget was boasting it's customary several thousand less than several thousand dollars, so second-hand was our only option. Wandering amongst old baths galore, her keen eye on sharp lookout, our aesthetics director could find nothing suitable. That is, none except that ancient bath way down the back, full of ash and rubbish, rusted beyond belief and apparently leg-less.

Lets be blunt: it was a wreck. But, it had the Right Shape. Slick put to use the haggling skills he'd learned in Mexico so many years ago, and bought it. Are we crazy? Well, judge by the photo above.

Did you know that a glossy enamel paint is applied to trains? No? Neither did we, till we started researching places that might re-coat our bath in enamel. It's true, though, and that is what now covers our bath.

It wasn't quite as straight-forward as just rocking up to somewhere for a spray job, unfortunately. First the bath had to be laboriously scraped by the team as someone had hand-painted the bath - and it hadn't worked. At least it showed us how pointless that avenue of endeavour would be. All that paint had to be taken off and even chisels were out before the end. Paint removed, we hauled it in to the enamelers and left it, waiting for the call that would let us know they'd found time for it. The call finally came and we picked it up (including the four odd legs - nothing like a bit of eccentricity!), lugged it home and polished it with the special cloths that were provided. This took off the last tiny nibs.

Finally we heaved into place, connected the plumbing and stood back to admire our new bath.

To be quite honest, our bath isn't the same as your average several-thousand-dollar new cast-iron bath. The enamel is thinner than the original enamel, as our enamel is a two-part paint product. This has meant, in practical terms, that it is much easier to chip or scrape the finish on our bath. Two years later and our bath now bears small scars from clumsily handled metal plugs and various other accidents, but it is certainly in full working order.

Back to the bathroom.

It is now August 22nd. Due to budget restrictions, it has taken a while to actually install the plumbing and electricity. But now it is all just about done. We (unfortunately) had to take the gyprock off that wall in order to run the pipes for the sink and shower. I say 'unfortunately' because it meant more plastering later on.

This photo was taken on September 3rd. The new panelling is on, the toilet in and the sink installed. The sink bowl was taken in part payment for a job Dad did locally and is from a very limited supply. Only one man produces them, and the glaze is their most intriguing (and apparently difficult) aspect. The sink stand was built by Slick. In the above photo it is still undergoing final adjustments. Its surfaces have not yet been finished.

We based the bathroom colours on those to be found in the sink bowl glaze.

 

By September 8th, colour was being applied. The sink was removed for safety, meanwhile.

Perhaps it was because progress was so drawn out that we have very few and scattered photos of this part of the renovation. Even though the successful completion of this new bathroom would act as a removed chock, allowing all the rest of the renovation to go forward, and even though we knew this only too well (every other move we thought of making was blocked by the placement and necessary existence of the old bathroom), we could only go forward as fast as our resources allowed. By the time the above photo had been taken (September 29th), we had paid for the plumbing and electricity work, and bought a new toilet (you will soon see why that was necessary), new lights and a shower screen. All our outlay was over, and only our own time and effort lay between us and a completed bathroom. Finally our urgency for change could be translated into action!

Unfortunately I can find no photos from earlier, when we dug the trenches and laid the cables that we now drew up through our stone columns / lamp-posts. One of the columns even sports an outdoor powerpoint, which is linked directly back to the power box. It is on it's own circuit. Unfortunately, again, I haven't any pictures; however, as the powerpoint is installed later, I may come across photos yet!

On a different note, take another look at the top photo and notice the little bushes along the top of the rock wall. This was our newly planted hedge of Pittisporum. Don't hold your breath - I'm not exactly the most regular blogger - but eventually you will come to see what a difference this hedge makes!

Gradually the stone walls began to grow, carving order out of the wilderness . Mounds of earth, stone and concrete began to resolve into pleasing lines and useful spaces.









Of course none of this would have happened without Dad's landscaping genius and sheer hard work! I assure you, the clay Dad had to struggle with was No Joke.