Here are some photos (finally) of the finished bathroom:

 The above photo is taken from the doorway into the bathroom.

  

  

 From the doorway, only this time down close and personal with the floor.

 

 A view of the various light sources. The candles are more for decoration than anything, though they come in useful in black-outs, which are not an uncommon occurrence here.

This photo was taken while standing on the edges of the bath, facing back towards the door. (Obviously!)

The sink, using the flash. Did I mention before that the washbowl has a special glaze?

Standing on the bath still ...

So, this is our bathroom. Since I just took these photos today, I can say 'this IS our bathroom'. And it WAS our bathroom too. Over the past two years since its completion, not much has changed.

The completion of this room represented the conquering of a stage in the renovation. It was the first room to be completed and it was the room that had to be done before anything else. Completing this room meant the beginning of the rest of the renovation.

So you can imagine the relief and excitement we felt due to these reasons, but cast back to my post on our old bathroom and you will understand a little of the wonder and appreciation we also felt for this fresh, clean, light-filled 'water closet'.

Next post will reveal the Demolition of the Blue Bathroom...

June 16th found Slick framing up the wall that would close the room off from the living area. Some thought and discussion had to go into this step before he could proceed, as the original builder had (for whatever reason) interrupted the ceiling surface with a low beam. You can see it in the picture below. It runs along behind the top timber of the wall frame.

This beam didn't run in line with the wall of the room to the left. (Of course not, that would be too straightforward and logical.) Instead, it was set back a little more than the width of the wall. This meant that even though we set the wall frame on the outside of the beam (so the beam protruded into the bathroom) the new wall still wasn't quite flush with the old. This caused plastering challenges later on.

 

Inside the bathroom, after deciding on framing up the wall outside the beam, we were left with the problem of resolving the beam visually. It looked really odd, one wall jutting out at the top. We ended up figuring 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' and built look-alike boxes along the top of the other three walls. This transformed a problem into a stylistic distinction and advantage, saving us from the cornice issue and giving the bathroom an individual look and feel. However, it was painful to accomplish, as anyone versed in the art of plastering could inform you. The next picture will give you a glimpse of what it looked like in progress:

You can see that the box cornice surfaces consisted largely of plaster by the time we'd done two concave corners and one converse, with very little between. Blick learned to plaster on this room and she did a good job. (Those lights were the kitchen lights. We were a little short on light in the kitchen for a while!)

 

As you can see in most of the above photos, the bottom timber of the wall goes right from wall to wall. Eventually the door into the bathroom was to hang on the right-hand side, so after the wall had been built and secured Dad must have cut out the section of the base plate in the door area.

You may wonder about the pine two-by-fours. They are new, bought cheaply from the discard pile at our local building supply store. The timbers were too full of big knots and other weaknesses to be sold to construction builders who would use them in load or stress bearing situations. The timber was fine for our purposes as we were able to cut out the imperfections and use the timber in relatively low-stress applications. The walls, for instance, basically held up the gyprock, pine panelling and insulation. No major load bearing or lateral strain was being taken. Thus they were ideal for us.

It is June 15th. Our kitchen has suddenly shrunk. As readers of previous posts have already seen, first a door has been removed, then a window installed. The wall separating the kitchen and dining area has also been removed, unfortunately without a photographic record. Now a completely new wall is being built, cutting the kitchen almost in half.

 

First, the kitchen was half cleaned out, then the wall framed in. Shelves had to be made and furniture, such as the pantry cabinet, fitted back into the remaining kitchen so the cook didn't go quite crazy. Then the panelling was nailed on. This tongue and groove pine panelling was actually bought new. Gyprock recycled from other walls in the house and gyprock bought for a song off the 'damaged pile' then clad the upper walls.

That night, Dad got out the (new) tin of Tongue Oil/Polyurethane mix and put down the first layer of floor sealant.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Speaking of the floor and sealing it, obviously the floor had first to be sanded back. The floorboards, fresh and new when we took up the linoleum fifteen months before, were by now darkened with a layer of ingrained dirt. In shifts, we painstakingly sanded off that fifteen month layer of our life story with a palm sander. Dad's belt sander died ages ago, so, going through many sandpaper pads, we worked the floor with a little, zippy hand sander. It was slow and numbing. After finishing a shift, your hand/s would feel fat and clumsy - as though you had pins-and-needles - and itchy, as well! But it was soon done, being only a small space, and resulted in a floor that looked and smelled almost brand-new.

Then the sealant poured on and transformed the pale honey pine into rich, warm tones that deepened even to black over the knots in the timber. Shame about the smell!

 

Photos: May 28th, 2007.

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.

We seem to have developed a habit of setting ourselves near-impossible goals and then busting ourselves to reach them. This method gets lots done in short periods of time - and appears to be the most efficient way for this family to work - but it can be stressful and annoying! This is where our tried and true List comes into play. Let me introduce you:

 The List.

Reader, The List (yes, that's right - the board angled away from us, to the right); List, the Reader.

This photo was taken on Saturday, October 13th, 2006, and you're right: I don't look very impressed or enthusiastic. None of us do. As per our usual (unfortunate and awkward) habit, we were undertaking not only to organize and host a sports day (involving the usual hosting-in-a-small-house-during-renovation major scrub and tidy campaign), but also remove the big sliding glass doors from between our living area and the now-enclosed veranda area. We needed to cut these doors out so that we could shoehorn in fifty-odd people and feed them, after we'd run them around after various sized balls, wearing them out and honing their appetites.

Enter The List, all tasks recorded down the whiteboard, each tagged with the name of the person responsible to complete it. The Writing of The List was (and is) essentially General Slick outlining the battle strategy while the lower ranks stand around negotiating or advising according to station. For most of us (in the pictured instance above, anyway), The Writing of The List was our last chance to express our reluctance, sleepiness, dissatisfaction with life in general and assigned tasks in particular, and/or injured dignity at the inference that work had to be assigned to one in the first place! Moments later and we would be scattered to our various tasks and further complaints promptly squashed.

However, there is this gorgeously satisfying sensation to be experienced when wiping a task off the whiteboard that almost makes up for having it written there in the first place. Seriously, scratching items off any list gives one a good feeling, but whiteboards offer extra as you can literally wipe it clean - no messy scribbles! Okay, you're right: it's harder to see just how many things you've completed, but on the flip side, it's easier to see exactly what still remains.

The doors coming out. Thankfully we were able to mostly leave that to Dad while we busied ourselves cleaning house. The doors were actually quite heavy, as they were double glazed.

It seems like a very insignificant space to add to one's living area, but I can assure you that this made a huge difference to the way we were able to use the space in the house. (And to the logistics of feeding fifty-odd hungry people!) As we didn't end up making any major change to our living space for another eight to twelve months, this ended up being an important move for the sake of our sanity in the days to come.

I'm glad to report that everything came together (the battle won), the sports day was a rousing success and the house space worked better than ever before - despite our morning attitude!

Sounds profound, doesn't it! What it refers to is the tortuous path we took to arrive at the exterior cladding and appearance of the house.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the appearance of the house was wrapped up in the shallow pitch of the roof. Being a romantic and heavily influenced by North American architecture, I prefer a 45 degree pitch most days of the week. This place didn't cut it.



In our original discussions, we planned to ameliorate the pitch by raising the centre third to a second story, with a gable running front to back and the existing roof line remaining to present a barn like structure.


Unfortunately, our resources wouldn't stretch that far. The compromise was a board on batten
effect which would draw the eye upwards on the front and back of the house. On the two shorter sides of the house, we played off a house 3 doors down which had corrugated iron running vertically on two of its walls. (The fact that Steve got a good deal on iron which was second hand - oops, recycled- may have had some influence on the decision as well!)


The colour scheme was the source of much despair. Having traveled through the province of Quebec and seen the wonderful colour schemes of their houses, my greatest desire was to paint the house a deep raspberry colour. We played around with some paint pots but most required a grey undercoat before the red was applied - and all the reds were a bit garish. We then turned to our store of mis-tints and tints we'd inherited or picked up cheaply. The brown and the grey/blue trim are the end results of our playing. I must admit that for me it was second best, but, in hindsight, my dream was probably not suited to the Australian landscape. Besides, I used red inside the house instead.

The end result was quite satisfying on the back of the house where it is level with the ground, but at the front of the house the exposed brickwork of the foundations caused a problem. Visually, there still seemed to be a squat house on high foundations - the house did not look settled into the landscape at the front. Two things eventually improved the situation. The first was the addition of an attic bedroom over the dining room; the 3 diamond pane windows under the eaves draw the eye up. The second was as simple as painting the brickwork a slightly darker brown (which only happened between Christmas and New Year '08). This removed the horizontal line across the house, It is amazing that so much discussion and angst could be summarised in such a short post!



The final efforts to connect the house to its location and provide a transition area between inside and out will be discussed in greater detail when we get to them.