30 August 2013

Laundry floor done

The laundry floor is now finished. Beautiful.


Before...


...after!

Pointing and line samples are done

Ron Boulden, our stone pointer, has set up some samples of his work for council approval. They look great. I prefer the bottom one as it is a little darker than the top one and lighter than the middle one, and he tells me the one the council will prefer as well. Getting excited, the front will look fantastic when it is all done.


Lighter Mortar


 Darker mortar


Preferred (and approved) mortar

28 August 2013

Painting has started...

Jonathan Luby (our painter) came today to make a start on the painting. Fascia board and bird boards on the east and west sides are done in Heritage Red. We've decided that the woodwork will be in Heritage Red and the rest will be in Pale Biscuit. That will give it a good contrast, and be within spec for the council too. Getting there, getting there.







27 August 2013

Plastering to finish on Friday, pointing next week

Stone Ideas have done a great job of the plastering work on the facade, and that will be done by Friday. The Pointer can then make a start on the front and finish it all off ready for painting. Not long now. I know I keep saying that, but this time I really am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and can see it finished soon.


The renewed quoins around the eastern corner


Building up the plinth on the eastern side...


Ready for the final coat on the western side

Ken is back from 4 weeks holidays today as well, so it will be nice to have someone to help in finishing it all off. Plenty of planning to do with the remaining purchases to make, and a ton of running around and strategy to sort out. Fun times!!

22 August 2013

4,000 and counting...

4,000 views!! Who'd a thought it? Not me, that's for sure. 3,000 in 5 months and 1,000 in the last month. Building nicely. Thanks for all your support everyone that is reading this, wherever you are. I hope you continue to enjoy it as much as I do putting it all down in words and pictures. :-)

Door handles look great

All of the brass handles and striker plates have now been fitted to every door in the place. They really lift the look of the place again. Nice work Steve. He is back to fit the remaining two new front doors on Friday. Me? Today I will be mainly jackhammering cement out from around a floor waste in the laundry to enable the fitting of a vinyl floor waste for the new Polyflor membrane going in, and finishing off the set up for our network at the rehab. Oh...and trying to find a sink basin for our dining room cupboards too.



Nice

20 August 2013

Ta da! Cupboards finished

Steve has finished all of the cupboards and shelves, and its just latches and door handles for him tomorrow. Great job though. The one on the left will have a sink basin and a ZipTap fitted (constant filtered boiling and chilled water) next Wednesday. They look like they were meant to be!


Kitchen servery done

Steve has finished the servery in the kitchen. Nicely tidied up from what it was.


Dining room side...


Kitchen side...


The finished laundry trough 


Still Painting...!

Got the laundry trough finished and painted, and Steve the carpenter has done the servery in the kitchen as well. I'll get some pictures up of that today. Meeting with the council today about the repaint, and how much they will subsidise of that. Meeting with a company about the rugs for the rooms and the runners for the hall ways this morning too. Be good to see what they have on offer. I'm going to try and get another fireplace rebuilt if I can today too.


Repainted laundry cabinet...


...and doors too

15 August 2013

Laundry sink refurbishment....

I looked at the tardy and old sink that was in the laundry, and thought to myself...I wonder if I could get that looking like new.... Well, it looks like the answer is yes! I have spent the day stripping all of the old paint of the steel cupboard that supports the stainless double trough, and an hour scrubbing out the stainless sinks that reside in it. They look great? Saved a bundle their too, new sinks are around $600 - $800 and then you need to get them plumbed in as well. This one will just go straight back from whence it came, and only cost me the elbow grease and the paint. I will pick up the spray cans tomorrow..


Before...


After!!


The stripped down cupboard....


...that lives up to it's name!

And again, Kim from Stone Ideas is proving his worth around the place, he is really making a difference here.


Newly repaired quoins...


A master at work! Patience is a virtue...


New dining room cabinets are in

Just a quick update and some pics before I get stuck into the laundry. Steve, our carpenter, has fitted these cabinets to either side of the chimney breast in the dining room. There will be shelving above either side too. They're looking good, the one on the left is having a ZipTap (constant filtered boiling and cold water) and a sink fitted so we can get a cuppa when we like in about 30 seconds flat. Perfect for avoiding congestion and waiting around for the clients to come back into a session after a break.



Kitchen floor in...

The kitchen feels like a kitchen now. They got the floor done in a few hours, and it is brilliant. The laundry needs some more work on it around the 100mm or so up the wall for the coving to get the wall really even or moisture runs down the coving and lifts the floor eventually. No thanks! I also need to fit a different drain into the floor so the the floor material can sit between a flange to seal it all properly. That wont take long to do, so I'm on to it. They can come back next week to finish that off for me. I've pulled the old sink out and cracked the old tiles off for now, we'll replace all that with new after the floor has been done.


The laundry is stripped


Welding the floor pieces together so there are no leaks in the kitchen


An iPhone panorama of the finished product

I was watching Tim, our restorative and Heritage plasterer from Stone Ideas (shameless plug) repair some of the existing quoins that surround the doorways on the entrance to the building yesterday. What an art that is. He's done a great job, and it was really interesting watching him work and what he does to achieve the result he gets. Nice work! Good weather for the next few days so they can crack on with it.


Two of the repaired quoins

Our two entrance doors are in from overseas so I will collect them on Monday, along with a fair but of donated office furniture from a friend of the family, (and a brilliant counsellor)  Melanie Parry-Jones. Melanie has given me some beautiful leather chairs, bookshelves and filing cabinet, and a laptop projector. Awesome! That projector will be really handy for presentations in potential referrers offices when I eventually clamber out of my old paint splattered jeans and don a suit and tie to sell the business. Massive thanks go to her for such kindness.

13 August 2013

And they're off...

The plastering crew were in today to start on the façade and the western elevation. They got right into it and have left their mark. All the old quoins are gone already! The council were in for a meeting at 8:15am just to get the run down with the plasterers, and say that all is OK with the development to go ahead. Full steam ahead I say!






Getting on with it

Quotations, quotations....

We have quotes in for the rest of the work that needs to be done to complete, and time-scales as to when it can be done as well. Reverse cycle air conditioning is a must have here in Adelaide..it doesn't get that cold here but it does get bloody hot, so that will take care of that nicely. I've had a few quotations in, but there is one guy that seems to be on the money as far as I'm concerned anyway. He came recommended from our friends at Bici Patisserie around the corner on Hutt Street (plug plug plug...gorgeous coffee and cakes), and he seems very knowledgeable, and does his own installations too. Then there's the solar system to help pay for it running 24/7/365. I have a few quotes out there for a 10KW system, and talked to heritage about where we can have the system set upon the roof and where we cant have panels, and we have enough space to do that with ease.. 

I've had quotes in for supply of beds and furniture for the rooms, were going to go with king size singles for a bit more room for the clients. Carpet has been quoted for the rear counselling room, and the new kitchen and laundry non slip floor goes in tomorrow. Rugs for the rooms and runners for the hall are being looked at later this week.
 
That took up a whole day with a gaggle of people coming in to sort that out at various times, so I am glad that most of that is done. The quotes that have been requested so far should all start to hit my in-box this week. The plastering work to the façade of the building starts this morning, and will be three weeks before it is finished. Then the pointers and the painters will be in to finish that all off after that. All the relevant development applications and heritage funding applications are in. Site meeting with the council and the plasterers this morning, and then I can scurry off to college to finish a unit of my Counselling Diploma. Phew! 

9 August 2013

Security cams...

Security you can monitor from your iPhone. Remote pan, tilt and zoom, motion sense trigger record, movie file upload to web server, all in HD. Perfect. :-) Snaps taken earlier....


Hallway...


and the office. More to follow....


8 August 2013

Plasterers at last

I have finally managed to get hold of a good bunch to do the pointing and the plastering. They have a three week window before their next job, and are reasonably priced too. Better than that, known to the Council as good operators. Now I just pray that when I call the council tomorrow, they allow me to piggy back this work to our existing application for development rather than go through another application process again. That would take 2 weeks, and then they won't be able to do it. All prayers gratefully received for this to go ahead, and then we will be all done by the end of August. Painting and coating quotation tomorrow from a good friend of mine, and that final bit can all be done in a week to 10 days max. Then we could start to look at getting people in to open.

I got the security cameras mounted on the ceilings today, and the last two doors varnished and ready for Steve to come and fit next week when he finishes off his carpentry. The ZipTap (constant boiling water and filtered cold water) is being installed in the end of August too. One day at a time.... 


  I can see you....


over here too...

Now that was a long day...

What a day that was. I had the plumber in to fit the client bathrooms out with new taps and showers, sinks and toilets today. What a palava that was! The sinks were a nightmare to fit on both sides, and required lots of setting up and taking off and getting level and elongating holes in the porcelain where they hadn't been cast properly, and back on  the wall and off again. And so on and so on into the night. Eventually at 8:20pm, they were both done, and without cracking them. 13 1/2 hours later. Still they look like bathrooms now. I have a guy coming to quote for frameless glass surrounds for the showers too next week, so we will see what they come in at. Should look great in  both of them.

I think I have finally found Heritage plasterers to start work on the façade. All the guys that know how to do this are busy, so getting hold of one that could do the job was nearly impossible within the time scale we need. I had one guy say 8 weeks before he could start, only to ring me and cancel and say that he had a bigger job to go to instead. The best I can get is to start in 4 weeks (end of August). One could start in 3 weeks but his price was DOUBLE and then some of the other quotations. How can you justify that? Anyway, with any luck, we can finally get moving on the last parts of the work on the front. Oh....and then there's the external painting to be done too.....! (Did I say painting?) Like my mum says, it will be ready to open when its ready, and not a day before. Then we'll be busy if we ever thought we weren't before...


LHS bathroom before (RHS was similar!)....



RHS bathroom after. Far more respectable

6 August 2013

Doors varnished and hung

Managed to get the doors all finished and hung on Monday. Big day tomorrow, with a sparky coming in to finish powering up places for the rest of the security cameras yet to be installed, our plumber fitting the new toilets and basins in the client bathrooms, and the carpenter fitting the door handles and the dining room cabinets. 



I will be fitting two fireplaces tomorrow, and arranging for a plasterer to come in and finish off the plastering around the chimney breasts, so they can be painted and finished. A busy day indeed. The carpet that will be going into the rear counselling room has been selected. Goes well with the colours we have in there, commercial grade as well.




 

1 August 2013

3500 views and counting

Wow. Things have ramped up a bit. 500 views in 10 days. Awesome, and thank you again. I carried on with the doors today, getting a second coat on one side of them. They are starting to look really nice now, a good finish, but I am thinking they could do with a third coat for that really shiny glossy look. We shall see what tomorrow brings....I'm getting to the end of my days painting though!


Nice and glossy....