November 7th. Time to level the floor between old bathroom area, current lounge area and current kitchen. Time to create a room.

 Llick takes her turn at the jarring end of the crow-bar, chipping horrible pink tiles off what used to be the outdoor veranda floor, preparatory to creating our own tiles.

Slick installs the frame for our new floor.

Framed up. Notice that the floor-frame ends between the green drill and the vacuum? We decided to move the wall behind the vacuum forward to the edge of the just-installed floor frame, making that section of floorspace (that the vacuum is on) part of the kitchen-to-be. Confused? Don't worry, it should all become clear eventually. Maybe...

Looking the other direction. We were wrapping the timbers in plastic to protect the pre-applied finish from the concrete and mess. It was annoying. Notice how the floor drops suddenly in the foreground and then slopes steadily away to the furthest corner? I guess, since the bigger section used to be a veranda, they wanted the drainage more than a level surface.

This photo shows the higher level, where the bathroom used to be. (The hole in the middle ground was the sink drain.)

New tiles, here we come. Yes, you are seeing a pile of gravel in the house, and no, we aren't kidding. We were about to create concrete tiles, divided by finished treated pine timbers, for our dining room floor.

This floor, if it worked, would accomplish several things: It would be a great for collecting heat in winter, being on the north face of the building and under big windows, or deliciously cool in summer, since it heats slowly; it would provide another visual cue to delineate the room; it would provide a reasonably sensible and hopefully hard wearing surface for a dining room; and it would be a floor that we could create ourselves without too much trouble or expense.

Mixing and spreading on the spot. Gravel, sand, cement, oxide for colour and water.

Fun stuff! Adult mud pies...


And a surprise ending, just to finish off, because guess what? We didn't take photos of the finished product! By next post (which should this time be much sooner than six months hence) I will hopefully have some pics of the finished floor.

Guess what we found when we took out our kitchen door-frame, causing the hole in the wall to be seen below?

A little bat! I guess it was dry and snug there.

 

 

 

He didn't move much at first - he was probably bleary-eyed after a hard night's hunting - but after a while our excitement roused him enough that he flitted off.

 

Did I ever mention how much harder it is to frame up windows with well-seasoned hardwood? But hey, that's sometimes what comes of recycling. You use what you can.

 

This is the new window, destined - eventually - to open into a new bathroom. It is so painful, expensive and time-consuming to put plans through our local council, that we made a lot of decisions in the renovation influenced by our wish to avoid having to go through that ordeal. After some inquiries, we discovered that - as long as we moved to a room with existing plumbing - we could move kitchen and bathroom without having to put a development application through council. The bathroom could not stay where it was, on the sunny side of the house with the view, but we could only move it to a room with existing plumbing. We decided to slice off the southern section of the current kitchen (which was not going to stay there) and bring in light through the western wall. The new bathroom is the only complete room in the house with natural light only coming from one side. (Though the incomplete en-suite is like that too, at the time I log this post.) Unfortunately, we could not avoid this problem of only one widow; fortunately, it hasn't been much of an issue, though.

 

There it is, the stained glass window Mum had been hanging out for! (And no doorway at the top of the stairs.)

Next up, the installation of the last window in the western wall.

Sorry folks, somehow we missed out on photos of the painting of the laundry. You'll just have to believe me when I tell you that the laundry was originally white...ish and had all the plumbing coming in on the wall where the big double-sash window is now. Thanks to the services of Phil the Plumber, all our water now comes in through the western wall, where you see all the taps. Thanks to Keith and Jon the Electricians, our fresh green walls also sported new powerpoints, and thanks to Llick and Click everything was freshly painted. Thanks to Slick, the room finally had the natural light it had been starved of. For when we first bought the property, there had only been a very small window to let light into the bare, dark room that did for a laundry. And very soon after our arrival even that little window had been removed - along with the asbestos cladding - and closed up for security reasons. It was glorious to see that sunlight streaming through the windows into a fresh, clean room.

Our next step was to tile the floor, and May 15th, 2007, was the day we did it.

 

 

This door leads into the back of the garage/shed/workshop (we call it all these things).Those stacked boxes contain the slate tiles we were about to lay.

 

 The external door, which is almost directly opposite the current kitchen door.

 

To begin the tiling process, we measured the walls and strung string-lines from the centres of each. This gave us reference points with which we could start the tiles off square and straight.

 

They are actually slates, not tiles, bought at a bargain price because they were the last of the supply. We had just enough to do the laundry, plus a box or two left over.

Because I have no more photos, I communicate the rest of the process by text. By completing the  room systematically, working from the quarter of the room furthest from the door, we managed not to trap ourselves into a corner! We had tiled too many times before to make that mistake, and finished the tiling by the end of the afternoon.

The next day we grouted with dark grey grout, and it did look good. Once the grout was dry, we washed the floor a few times to remove the remaining surface grit and oxide. Clean and well dried, the floor then received a coat of smelly, but effective, slate sealant, which brought out all the subtle colours in the stone as well as seal it from the water that it would later have to endure.

From raw concrete, splotched with old white paint, industrial and ugly, to an attractive, dark floor that set off the bright walls and brighter ceiling - the effect had to be seen to be fully appreciated. This room was no longer a rough afterthought or a dark little utility hole in which clothes were supposed to become clean, it was now a sunny room with a character and feel all of it's own; a place that felt clean and businesslike, without jarring the senses. The laundry was transformed, and now all that it needed was its furniture.

Our washing machine was brought back in, a set of sorting shelves built for the dirty laundry and a deep sink installed next to the washing machine. We were in business!

On April 11th, we celebrated one year's ownership and development of 'Lizard Rock'.

Llick holds up the cake (probably made by someone other than Mum, judging by the lack of height). We are dining in the area that used to be veranda till we installed the windows, clad the outer and took out the inner sliding doors. The bathroom is still on the other side of the plywood behind Mum. Do you see the stains at the bottom of that wall? Water from the shower on the other side sometimes leaked through and drained away under the window.

And on the same day this photo was taken of the shed/laundry wall, opposite the kitchen. As you can see, not only is it clad, but at some time during the last three or four months Slick has installed a new door and two new windows. But more on this project later.

The renovation had been hard - emotionally, physically and mentally - but it was wonderful to contemplate what we had managed to accomplish, by the grace of God, on an almost non-existent budget. The application of much hard labour, time, initiative and innovation, combined with some skill, to materials from the local dump, various jobs, friends and a unexpected places, gave us results that many people pay much money for. It would have been much easier to take out a loan, but we were determined to use our skills and the materials available and to come out the other side beholden to no-one. We saw this house as our God-given opportunity to work our way further out of morgage debt. Once finished, we planned to sell it and move straight on. As it turns out, two years later, we have not yet arrived at the right time to sell. The house has been on the market, and then been taken off. But I am jumping far ahead of myself. Look out for the upcoming laundry post!

I know this post really doesn't have anything to do with the renovation, but if you keep your eyes peeled you'll see bits of the shed, house and front fence.

At our previous address, the people on our street used to decorate their houses and hold a street party in December. We never bought into the whole 'christmas lights' thing. Instead, over our fifteen years stay on that street, we devised nearly fifteen different displays for our front yard. From a simple paper mache snowman (eminently ironic in our blisteringly hot Aussie christmas season), to the complexity of Rachael's Tears (strong political comment), each and every one of these displays had a message. Some were obvious, others subtle; all of them pushed people to re-evaluate, re-asses, re-think. Maybe change.

This year, we might be in a completely different location and season, but we (that is to say, Slick) decided to take advantage of our street exposure and carry on our tradition. We believe that absolute Truth exists and is so important that it should not be concealed, but revealed for all - whether comfortable for people or not.

It was Thursday the fifth of April. The next day would be so-called 'Good' Friday, the day on which Christians officially remember Christ's death. Inspired by God and orchestrated by Slick, we set out to portray two scenes: Christ's dead body in the tomb and, three days later, the lack of Christ's body in the tomb.

 

First we wrapped Slick snugly in chicken wire. Recycled, of course. (Did you doubt it?)

By the way, notice the stack of recycled palings leaning against the shed? They have been taken off the hands of a local fencer (still in panels), disassembled, de-nailed and stacked, and are currently waiting to be turned into new fence panels.

Looks a bit weird, hey? A friend arrived at a slightly later stage (when he had his hands crossed over his chest), walked down the drive from an angle behind Dad's head and just about freaked out. She saw us all standing and kneeling around a body on the ground and thought he'd had a collapse or something. It was kind of funny because it was an unexpected reaction and yet a close interpretation of the scene we were creating. At least, it was amusing to us because we have a warped sense of humour.

Looks kind of freaky, even though you can tell it's just a wire frame.

Slick and the younger three did the angel wings, which involved a take on an old Slick-developed artistic technique. Rather than creating wire frames, as we have in the past, and semi-melting plastic for the outer covering, Dad used branch off-cuts and the same plastic wrap he used on the stone pillars. (We had used our only chicken wire on the body, you see, and didn't have much plastic hanging round, either.) Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, and it has certainly proved so to us many a time.

Notice that there are new windows installed in two of the laundry walls and that most of the nearest wall has been clad?

On to the next stage: The Wrapping of the Body (with strips of a not-too-stained drop-sheet). Each strip was glued down, but not with a strong glue. This body was to become a life-size representation of Christ's dead body in the tomb.

Slick positioning the first angel's head. This head is plaster, hand carved by Dad for one of our past Christmas displays. Most things from past displays haven't ever lasted more than two years, but this head and another are truly works of art that can and will be preserved. This head was put on the pole for this specific purpose.

You can see, by the way, that some progress has been made on the fence. The front gate used to swing to the left of these panels.

Part Two of the Easter installments coming soon.

Remember how we had a long, boring, dirty white picket fence along the front of the property? As you know, we decided to pull it out and replace it with our zigzag recycled paling fence. We at first considered selling the pickets as they were largely in good solid condition, due to being treated pine. But then we began to consider what we were going to do up the back of our property in the interests of security, property definition and privacy. Those scorned pickets, far from being sold, ended up individually de-nailed, scrubbed, painted, trimmed and turned into our fresh, cottage-y back fence. Even the long horizontal (hardwood) rails from the original front fence were recycled. Only the posts had to be bought, and they are treated pine as well. They will last a long time.

As usual, we had a goal - we wanted merely to build three fence panels and two gates, and hang those same gates in one afternoon. Well, we wanted to go away the next day, yet were loath to leave the property unsecured at the back. Remember what I said about our goal setting habit in 'Snapshot: The List'?

The original fence.

The first panel of pickets is installed and Slick is glad-wrapping the freshly mortared top section of the pillar so it holds firmly together as it dries. I don't know where he got the industry strength plastic wrap; I think either he salvaged it or someone gave it to him. It has come in very handy for various things. Note the new garden, which is basically cow manure from the saleyards and kitchen compost rotting down together. The old drive was so packed and gravelly beneath that we gave up on the idea of trying to dig into it.

The Klick, Alick and Glick Painting Squad. As you can see, the pickets have been cut and nailed to the rails, already. As you can't see, the pickets actually all have an initial coat of white paint, so this is just touch-up time. The day was beautifully warm and as soon as the panels were dry we were able to lug them across to the posts they belonged to, chock them up and screw them on.

Slick outlining the process necessary to install the fence panels.

This photo was taken approximately from our back door. By the end of the day almost the entire fence was up ...

... except for a few last pieces. However, by nightfall all was finished, including a clever bolt to secure the big gates. We could go away the next day in peace and satisfaction.

Our front fence as it was when we bought the property:

Dirty, boring and wobbly. Ridiculous from all angles - this was our fence. It had to change. Our resident designer (Mum) cleared the drawing board (found a space on the handiest scrap of paper), the resident carpenter ordered the materials and generally figured out how to translate the drawing into reality - while the remaining innocent residents waited to be transformed into resident laborers.

Voila! The laborers appear and the picket fence begins to disappear.

 

It was a jolly hot day.

Visitors. What a shame.

 

The First Panel.

The boards (old recycled fence palings) were cut square, lined up along the centre diagonal board, nailed on and then trimmed with a circular saw.

 

Notice the washing line in the distance? It was not going to stay there much longer.

Standing at the top of the kitchen stairs, in the doorway. The panel is three quarters done.

Success. The first panel is installed and the highland mist is rolling in.

Note the long, narrow trench: our plumbing according to laundry, kitchen and bathroom plans...

Remember, back in April, when I posted Front Steps Pt 1? Approximately six months later and I have progressed all of about four months in the history I am trying to document! Yes, the photos below were taken between Christmas and New Year, 2006. (27-30th)

So far, Dad has dug out the old sandstone steps and replaced them (with recycled concrete slab sections). Now he has dismantled the old sandstone dry wall and is moving it in, so the edges of the steps are concealed and locked in.

Notice the steel bars? It's amazing what you can do with a trampoline.

Can you see the reason for the steel?

Da daa! The handrail. Yes, it is a eucalypt sapling - specially chosen and chopped, out on a friend's block.

No laughing, you have no idea how many comments and complements we've received in regards to this handrail!

The only object that has been more commented on, amongst our friends and within our community, is our new front fence - but you'll just have to wait a little longer to see that structure for yourselves! Watch out picket fence: you won't be standing there much longer.