Month: January 2017

Lesley’s coup! The chimney is up and painted.  You’d have to say it makes a statement–can’t miss it. She wanted it to be a welcoming colour.  I understand there is something called ‘aesthetic shock’, which awakens and enlivens! . .I like it, anyway. Her idea is now to get some wooden steps from Bunnings and paint them the some colour, to give it balance.

 

It’s been a busy few days over the New Year period, with Cat and Simon, Loise and Mitch, and Olive down in Robe and kindly giving up their time to work on the house. Much has been achieved.

Simon and Cat finished the Vastu fence, which looks wonderful and now only needs a gate. It’s been a big project, with many little construction challenges to be solved. It really is very straight and on the Vastu line, as it’s supposed to be. Because of the way it steps down to the east and north you get uninterrupted views from the big windows–which Lesley had in mind, it turns out, all the time. They also did most of the window seals, a messy but necessary job.

Loise and Mitch dug out the path around the base, freeing it up for the final rendering and for paving stones–a hot job in the summer sun. Roper, their new kelpie pup, helped dig–not always in the right place but giving it a shot. Olive helped out with that work, and also helped Mitch with oiling the inside wood framing–a mixture of linseed and gum turpentine–it looks very good, and brings out the quality of the wood in the windows, which were custom built so well in Mount Gambier.

I have been oiling the outside frames and helped Simon trim off all the Vastu fence posts–which we ended up doing with hand saws (sources from Australian Forestry, so good saws which cut on the pull stroke, the best way to get a clean cut). And generally pretending to be supervising, which everyone is very good humoured about but sensibly take no notice of it.

[I see I haven’t captured a pic of Mitch or Roper–apologies to them, they both worked very hard–coming soon.]