15th November

John worked all day yesterday (Sunday) on the wiring and electrical installations. I didn't have the heart to tell him about our glorious Sunday catching up with groups of friends + food + wine. When I went over this morning it was a great surprise to see that Greg and Richo had bashed out the staircase between the first and second floor. They pulled out the fireman's pole and nothing fell down! So it wasn't holding the ceiling up after all. It served no obvious purpose, except possibly as an "insurance policy". The space is terrific. Pity we have to fill it in again.

I am still debating the colour schemes and enjoying playing on paint websites where it is possible to do "mix 'n matches" and even load a photo of your room and paint in experimental colours. Well, it wasn't totally successful. Lester is right, my painstaking choices are all variations of grey. He is beginning to appreciate just how hard it is to select five "greys" from the four hundred that exist! It's got to be the right grey!!!  The difficulty is actually deciding how to highlight the various beams in the room as there are crossways beams as well as lengthways ones.  In the surgery we painted them in strong contrasting colours. We probably won't do this in a living area but we still have to decide which beams to accentuate, (probably by going into lighter tones); the crossways beams or the lengthways beams. We are not anywhere near painting yet but the kitchen cupboards are about to be sent off to be painted and baked, so we need to ensure that we don't thwart ourselves with our first choice of colour.

Things moved ahead today with the organisation of lighting, scaffolding and solar hot water. Steve has ventured an estimated  finishing date : early February! That's really quite good as it gives us time in January when the kids are home for Christmas to have a couple of working  bees and sorting sessions. (Not Rowan, of course - he is heading for Ho Chi Minh City as I write.) It may not have been a good idea to flag these activities here. They may now decide to go elsewhere for Christmas! Darn!



The hole left where the staircase and the fireman's pole were.




The builder of the staircase drew out his plans on the timber.



I have been busy planning and sketching ideas. Poor Steve, I hand him scribble like this and expect him to build me a bathroom!



  

                                                 

                   Kitchen plan. (It won't be blue - it was the only  highlighter within reach)

 

The ceiling is detailed; there are five beams down the room which run up one wall, across the top and down the other wall. As well as this there are four beams which run lengthways down the room. Natural light plays on all the  surfaces giving differing coloured effects. So, how do we paint it??? It is a good problem.



Contrasting colours we used in the surgery




Amongst the rubble...what is this???