in the vicinity of little dip
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.]
A sea mist came in over night, a cool, fresh world to wake up to on Xmas day. Up north it’s going to be very hot, but here we have the north wind coming over the bay, so providing some natural air-conditioning.
Some photos of the mist over the lake:
The first real summer’s day in Robe, still with a cooling breeze, ideal really. I walked down to Hoopers Beach–hard to resist taking some pictures.
Tony, who very kindly donated his professional services to do the internal painting of the house, is a founding member of the Brains Trust which has morning coffee at the Union. He is at heart a woodcarver and now that he is retiring from his painting business has been getting his workshop going full blast again. I’ve been wanted to see it and today had that opportunity. Here are some pics of it–remarkable pieces of wood he’s gathered from everywhere and some pretty remarkable things he’s doing with it. He recently won one of the prizes at the Southern Ocean Art Prize.
Some really big, beautiful rocks turned up today–in two trucks, with a very large Bobcat, on tracks (I wasn’t out there to get a photo of it, but that’s what it was). So they have been arranged artistically/strategically around the house and will form the centre-pieces of the garden. Pretty impressive, aren’t they?–and these are not all of them. Also the boys have finished framing the chimney box, and you can see here the trial colour that Mum has selected for it (she wanted it to be welcoming). And then work has been going on in rendering the kitchen benches. You could almost say the end is in sight! (well, just around the corner, anyway).
Well, with a week of fine weather things have moved along. The render is pretty much done, only some work around the bottom to go. It will then need to cure for a couple of months and probably will be painted to be a uniform light grey, depending on how the colour of the render itself finishes up, I understand. The kitchen benches are in–with the sink moulds and top stove to be installed and the surface to be polished. The oven, hot water system, fridge and washing machine are in place underneath. The interior work on the flue is in and now the outside casing is being done–with bright orange Colorbond to be welcoming, I’m told. Anyway, some pics to bring you up to date.
With all that’s going on the onset of the muntries flowering may not be a big thing, but it’s nice to be reminded how Nature renews itself, and so beautifully. They are late this year, because of the wet and colder spring, but here they are–they know when it’s right–and it looks like a good muntrie crop.
Some serious work this weekend putting up the Vastu fence. Catherine and Simon came down to do it and worked incredibly hard across the two days, including Sunday morning rain–we are very grateful to them both. Apart from the physical work it was also quite technical, working within the Vastu requirements for exact measurements, alignment, height and so on. The corners took some time to work out, as also the spacing for the gate on the East side (yet to be made), the spacing of the rails, and so on. The posts also had various knots and protrusions so it was necessary to work around that. Gary was out there finishing the preparation for the render and spraying on the first base. Altogether a lot going on! We think the fence is going to look excellent, with the big native cypress planks.
