1st August; FINISHED!!

Physical work began in the 8th of October last year, so roughly nine months later (eight and three quarters actually), I can declare that the build is finished and that this blog can end.

Last week, Greg and Richo spent a couple of days fixing the little things that needed adjusting; cupboard doors, taps, tiles as well as laying the timber decking. Then on Friday the painters came and gave the deck and the front of the building a second coat. They also patched little things inside which needed  attention.

So, the Grand Design is officially finished. Now it is time for us to confess to Kev (Mc Cloud that is) that we nearly went mad and broke and would never dream of  renovating or building again. Wrong! This has been an excellent and enjoyable project and the outcome is better than imagined. Sure, we fell into some traps but nothing that can't be explained away. We are just impulsive and extravagant by nature and happily ceating a new lifestyle in a new space.

Some observations:
The space is actually much larger than we thought it would be, even though we are managing to fill it will clutter already. I thought it would be a very narrow  space but it isn't at all. Playing in several places with wall mirrors has also created the illusion of spaciousness.

I am pleased we decided to go ahead and  develop the roof garden. It has turned out to be functional (although Sally is not too keen to be left out there - which wasn't the plan). It is a nice place to entertain too...when the weather isn't too rainy, hot, or windy!

I am not sure that our dealings with the AMP Building next door are over. In the torrential rain last week we realised that the paintwork on their wall is breaking down and leaving white powdery marks on our roof garden. We have adopted a wait-and-see policy. The thought of more work is exhausting. I suspect, too, that the front facade will cause problems in the future because the tiles are breaking down.  Wait-and-see about that too.

Living with the stairs (all 45 of them) is not a problem aerobically. We are used to them and my leg muscles are bulgeing. How many times am I at the front door and have to run up right upstairs for something I've forgotten?  What could be more problematic are the places where there are  one or two steps to a different level. I am well-trained in looking before stepping (having lived with vertigo for twenty years now) but I know I must be careful.

The noise and the dirt  from Hunter street are not as bad as I thought they would be. The neighbours are all very friendly and there is a lot of activity over in the Lock-Up Cultural Centre over the road which I have stumbled upon.

The neighbouring restaurants and walks are great - we tried out the Thai place in Scott St last week , (we are preparing our palates for Bangkok and Hanoi in eight weeks time.) Surprisingly, we find Darby St unnecessarily distant as food destinations now.

However, I do miss the ships. I can hear them over in the harbour but I miss not being able to look up or to feel the shudder as they  pass by. I also miss the bird life. The pigeons here drive me nuts with their infernal cooing and the currawongs sound gorgeous but they are so aggressive to other birds and each other, it's like living with a teenage family.

I just went back and read the first few blogs and looked and the pictures. What a transformation! Here are the last photos. They are a bit out of order...and there are some duplkications .  This is the first time I have had difficulty loading and editing photos on the blog but I have run out of time.



Our front door. Painted in grey metallic paint. We originally hoped to have a custom made art-deco style  metal door, however, we decided to keep the bars and make it look  least  like a front as possible. People just walk straight past and never look in. Occasionally, children  peer in because they see a doggy lying  just inside and feel sorry for her!





Scarry dog shadow

Doggy corner!!

Detail of the  artifically weathered paint

Sally guarding the front door

The view  from the top floor. The  white muslin curtains have arrived  and help to separate the  spaces  more.



At last I have a picture of the outside of the building without cars parked outside. Of course there are always cars parked in the 15 minute zone outside. The Heritage objection to our removal of the (1980's aluminium) windows in the first place was that we would create "unsympathetic voids". Well, here they are and they are and I'd like to say that whilst they might seem unsympathetic to the streetscape, they are most sympatico with  inner city living. We decided not to put the SURGERY letters back and just leave a white space. Everyone who needs to know, knows where the surgery is.

 The roof garden - still have to get my plants from Hilary's but at last the structure is finished.

 Washing day!



 

The far wall had now been repainted and deliberately rusted so that it is pale green

Thanks to Steve and Greg Baker and all the BRW Constructions crew, to Brendan Smith (architect) and David Moir (landscape architect), Ian Smith (wirer) and Bernie and Kieran (advisers).



22nd July

There were some developments this week on finishing off the house, however, gigantic rains have once again stalled the finishing.

Greg and Ritcho came down and sorted all the little things like putting a weather strip on the front door, straightening up a couple of kitchen doors. They pulled up the green, outdoor, soggy carpet and began to lay the timber decking replacement. It was funny to see them lifting the long timber up the front of the building.

I have spent a few hours tracing the history of this building and have found several more photographs of it. It seems the property was owned by the Kemp family, then Edward Parnell had an interest in it. He sold it to  Joseph Morris who was the hotelkeeper at The George Hotel - the old hotel that was pulled down after the earthquake on the corner of Scott and Watt sts. In the 1925's he built a structure on the site (a hotel?) and negotiated the party wall with the AMP Society. By 1935 it was owned by the Queensland Insurance Company (started by Burns and Philp - later QBE) and the architect William Jeater altered the building and used on its face four inch thick glazed terra cotta which had been the fashion on banks in Martin Place in Sydney but not previously used in Newcastle. Some time in the late 1950's or early 1960's the building was purchased by MacDonald Hamilton Shipping Agents who were the agents for P & O Lines in Australia until the late sixties. The building may then have been directly owned by the P&O Line as the sign still sits out the front. I don't think the re-modelling of the front into a shop-front occurred until the late 1980's or even later. It subsequently housed many shops, including The Wilderness Society headquarters for a long time. Then we bought it...and turned downstairs back into offices and began to re-modelled upstairs...the rest is history ...as they say...!

6th July

Well, dear readers, I hope you have not been concerned at my absence! Nothing has happened on the renovation front which made updatng progress, obviously, redundant.
Life continues to be very comfortable in our new space. We are still awaiting the removal of the green outdoor carpet and its replacement with timber decking. Steve has moved on to other jobs and has made a few tentative dates to do the work but so far, no luck! Winter makes the usage of internal spaces quite interesting and afternoon walks pretty exciting. The other day I walked Sally up to the park and saw 20 dolphins, one whale and a complete rainbow - all in twenty minutes. Pretty spacial.

We particularly like the  ethanol fire on these wintry nights. It is most effective, however, it uses more juice than we were led to believe.
Our wonderful  downdraft extraction fan in the kitchen bench were loopy a couple of weeks back. It developed a mind of its own and would  rise roboticaly out of the bench randomly, day or night. I wrote to the manufacturer in America, received a reply within 24 hours. An Australian contractor in Melbourne sent a replacement part and his brother, who happens to live in Warners Bay, to install it within a week. Not bad service. It seems that there is a common fault where the  mechanism picks up radio vibes from elsewhere which was setting it off. We wondered if it was the lift in the AMP Building next door!

Yesterday some cushions arrived. You may recognise that they are made from the same silk fabric as the bathroom blind was made from in Stockon. I like left-overs.

10th June

Steve came today and measured up the decking. It won't be done for a fortnight but at least things are moving. I unpacked the last two boxes of books and photo albums and am relieved to say that there are enough shelves to hold everything. I also unpacked my Egyptian Gods collection (over 100 models) - diehard followers of this blog may remember my quandries in Stockton, whether to bring them with me; how to pack them etc. I have been wondering just where I would put them and today I set them up  on the bookshelves, in front of the books. So, if you want to take a book from the shelf, firstly you must displace the gods! Not too smart but it looks interesting!

Across the street, outside the Lock-Up Gallery, some wonderfully colourful "balls" have been placed over the streetlights as decoration / art. At night they are brilliant. I have some daytime shots here.

Just want it on record that Lester are still rising at 5.45am and having our beachside walk - even in this freezing weather. Both pairs of Lester's walking shoes have worn through and he had to race up to Mountain Designs the other day to get new ones. Can you believe that!

I realised another routine that I have fallen into is the Saturday Morning Stroll down the Mall to pick up SMH, some portugese tarts and a bunch of flowers from the street market; the essentials of life! 

It's the Long Weekend. Always freezing and notable over time for momentous events...

From our balcony - coloured light

the coloured lights on the lamp posts

The Egyptian God collection positioned on the bookshelves

Gods up close

 

An interesting lot!

Last Saturday's flowers

6th June

On Friday the bed arrived and over the weekend we have continued to re-arrange things.

The bed arrived,  mostly in pieces, however, the foot end was  already assembled. This made lifting it around the corner of the stairs was difficult. Luckily, Liam and Kieran descended upon Newastle for the evening and were able to help lift it over the hand rails for us. After they left, Lester and I set about assembling of the rest of the bed. We had some difficulty dragging the slats upstairs because they were joined together with hessian strips but I think that now, between us, we can  juggle any object upstairs. It must have been hilarious to watch us. Even we were laughing at how ridiculous we muct have looked.

Anyway, the bed looks magnificant.  The knobs on the ends have been  replaced and it is extended to be king size simply by placing extra vertical rods and the design looks perfectly balanced. It now has the proper canopy fitting with the addition of an outer brass rod, which it had never had before.

This bed used to belong to our neighbour in Gosford, Granny Settree. Granny brought it to Australia when she married. She died when I was five years old and she was 95.  Her son gave me the bed, along with some old chairs (now restored and being used downstairs), when I was eighteen. At that time it was positioned in a corner of Granny Settree's then derelict house and an old scrub turkey had taken up residence in the horse hair mattress. I had the bed restored in 1970's but over time some of the knobs deteriorated and it became loose and wobbly. Double beds seemed to be too small when queen and king sized beds became common, so it was relegated to various kids' rooms. Knowing its history and age has made it special for me and I am delighted to be snoozing in the old dear again.

We picked up the previously ordered little red armchair, on Sunday. I first saw this chair at Chris's in Stockton and after having looked for a small armchair for months, I bought the same one. Yes, I copied! However, Chris says that is a compliment to her good taste.

We bought two pots and some pansies, another little black glass desk and some storage boxes which double as square seats. So, gradually, things are sorting out. Ruth and Ian came over and semi-sorted some communications  problems with  TV signals which still persist. Ruth made us a house-warming tea cosy! It is cute and I love it.  Geelong won again - Lester is happy. Rowan played for the Thailand Tigers against Cambodia and is now preparing for the Asian Cup!!

Old old bed extended to king size - all sparkling and repaired!

Repaired canopy

Canopy detail - outer brass bar is now in place

The two new vertical brass rods look to be as though they have always been there!

Nothing like Indian floor cushions to brighten up the garden

The bed certainly takes up  some space upstairs and only just fits  under the ceiling!

Ruth's tea-cosy

Little red arm chair and new pot and pansies on the sill downstairs

pansies

Another pot of pansies upstairs

So, this is where is house is at: at the moment the Defects List has about 15 items on it. Most are tiny adjustments but the bathroom floor has to be re-done where the toilet leaked and cupped the boards and the matter of removing the floor covering on the roof garden and its replacement with a timber deck has to be organised. So, these are still two fairly big things.

2nd June

Today, whilst I slogged away at the desk at work, (I've got a few games of Words With Friends going - it's great but I am sure Liam is getting help!) many things happened "upstairs". Actually, it was a pretty bleak day at the office. A ninety year old "madam", who should have developed some manners by now one would think, hung up on me. Then, later,  I had to put up with her making aspersions about me loudly in the waiting room. I am fed up with old bitches. I want to spend my days with Sally!)

The awning man came, the electrician came, Steve came and the mirror blokes came. The result is that we have a finished awning - well almost. It still needs a brace of some sort. We have a fixed light in the kitchen ; we have an embryonic plan for a timber deck to replace the green slop and we have a wall of mirror in the bathroom.

Added to this I have the lovely news that our brass bed is finished and will arrive tomorrow evening. The man who worked on it in Sydney has been excellent in organising transport for the old dear. He has sent me photos of the bed and wants me to tell him how we like it when it is in place.

So, here are some quick night photos. (Lester is still downstairs dealing with the paperwork and we are going to eat Spanish tonight - to make up for a day with ninety year old "madams"...) Quality of photos dubious.

Awning looking east

Awning looking west - all the louvres are moveable



Sally likes the cover so much her eyes turned green!



It's hard to show this bathroom without a wide angle: The piece of wood, of course, is temporary

The whole wall is glass: green in the shower and two clear abutting mirrors complete the wall

The mirror on the left is the one that broke two weeks ago. I will have to do something with those towels now they are in duplicate.

1st June - Winter is here!

It has been feeling decidedly wintery for the past two weeks and we have burned quite a bit of metho - sorry, I mean ethanol - in that time. The Ecosmart fire works very well but it does burn more fuel that I had been told.

Today we were  "certified". The inspection by The Certifier took about ten minutes He was very pleased with everything. Told me that he thinks Steve is a terrific builder who always does a good job. He did say though, that we need to put blocks in the windows on the back wall, at 120 mm high,  in case children "your grandchildren", fall out. That is a bit of a bummer because we like having them wide open to maximise the breeze.  I informed him that there wasn't much likelihood of grandchildren in my lifetime!  Remember the low windows at Stockton? All the kids had them in their rooms - their beds under the low sills, and no-one fell out. These windows are more than a metre off the ground!  Kids these days..........

We have bought some stools for the kitchen (see pic)

New kitchen stools

The arrivals of the mirror, the rest of the curtains/cushions, the brass bed are, apparently,  imminent. I am becoming a bit cynical over time though. I think it will be a few more weeks yet.

The awning remains incomplete...and the  BIG problem, the artificial grass which is, in effect, green slop, has prevented our going outside for the past two weeks. It is like wet carpet. It just does not dry out and water can't drain through it. It will have to be replaced with something more practical, the nature of which is being constantly debated; tiles, pavers, more rubbery stuff or timber decking?