We have doors!!

Got a fair bit done today, quote in for the ducted air conditioning, and got to see my accountant to do my tax too. I'm very pleased with the result of all three I'm happy to say. The doors look classy, brass hinges, and tomorrow I get hold of brass handles and latches, and some of my favourite stuff....paint. Well, urethane of some description anyway. A clear coat of varnish gloss will look fantastic. This place is looking better and better by the day. I had the delivery of the security cameras today too, and now they are set up and running to record anything, night vision too, and all video uploaded to my server as it happens with any movement. Ken got out of here just in time for me to paint all of the doors. Lucky guy. 

They really lift the look of the place...

Tomorrow the sparky is in to fit the security lights around the building, and get the kitchen powered up too. The lights all have a PIR movement detector so that anyone coming close is lit up like a xmas tree. Hopefully that should keep everyone at bay until we open. You never know, people on drugs do funny things. I should know already.

Fireplace number 2 and a new hearth

Ken went and bought a new slate hearth for the fireplace in one of the bedrooms today. It replaces one with a massive great hole in it, and it looks just the trick. It still needs cementing in at the back, but that wont take long and its done.  

We managed to get a fireplace assembled today as well in the front room, and that will look nice once the walls are plastered. Getting there, getting there...sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly....

Steve, our carpenter, is in tomorrow to start hanging the new solid 4 panel doors on the bedrooms, office, and the corridors. The people are in to install the blinds tomorrow as well, so that will freshen the place up a bit too.

And Ken is off on holiday for a month. Lucky man is off to Hawaii and LA, and a cruise somewhere too. I shall miss his company through the week, and his input into this business too, which has been nothing short of phenomenal. Thanks Ken, have a great holiday, I'll keep working my butt off, and it should be ready when you get back. 

3000 views and a Video Shoot

Well, 3000 views here and all is well! Thanks to all that have been looking in on this. The video shoot went well yesterday. The guy that shot it all used to work for Channel 10 in Melbourne doing the News and The Project, so very competent indeed. I'm hoping it all works out OK. You can never tell with video, until the final edit anyway, but if its close to good enough I will use it for the website. Could be finished in a week, so I am looking forward to seeing it.

Talking through the shoot...

A 3:18am break in

Well I'm sitting here at the rehab until sunrise this morning so that they don't hit us again. Better hope they don't come in while I'm here anyway. This time they broke in via a side facing window, between us and the next building, pulled the boards off and entered via a loose window, and straight out via the front door after the alarms kicked off. The police were called out this time, as they had triggered two points on the alarm system. They came with dogs and found the rear door open but told me there was no break in, and that I had left the rear door open last time I was in! I assured them that due to recent breaks last weekend, I simply wouldn't do that. They insisted that there was no break in, and that I had left the rear door open. I checked around to find the boarding forced off from one of the windows, and that they must have climbed in through the window and exited via the door for it to be open. That doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out, but there you go. Nothing taken, so they left soon after I arrived.

So, Ive secured all of the windows again, screwing the windows through to the frames, so they have to break glass to enter if that is what they want to do. We can patch up the holes made by that later. It is getting a bit boring though. I wouldn't mind but here is nothing here. A PC and a phone system. We will get camera's in this week I think, but that doesn't stop them either. It just records the events. We will see what happens over the next few days.

New Medical Director appointed

I have great pleasure in announcing that we have a new Medical Director on board with Visible Recovery. He is a practicing Doctor, well known around Adelaide, and is in full support of our abstinence based 12 step program, and more importantly, both Ken and I as key figures in the company. Very, very exciting, as this opens up a raft of potentials for us as a company in the provision of Drug and Alcohol services in South Australia, including the potential to open our own detox facility in the near future. I will put a name to this later on, but that is enough for now!

Fireplaces are looking so cool, and I am personally proud of the effort that has been made to get these original pieces restored back to life. Beautiful.... 

Mudding up the tiles to keep them in...

The finished product pre final assembly....

Looked like this a few months ago...

Beautiful aren't they?

The cleaning is done

So the paint stripping is finally done on the façade. At last. That has slowed us down, as the guy doing it disappeared on another job for two weeks feigning a sore shoulder. Still that is history. On with the pointing and the plastering now, and a 10 day to two week wait before we can start that due to planning. 

Ken bought the other fireplace today and it will look great with some slight modification and a repaint. We have had all of the quotes in for the safety floor resurfacing in the kitchen and the laundry, as well as the rear counselling rooms. Video shoot for the website on Sunday afternoon. This project doesn't seem to stop! I'm sure it will soon enough though, and for that I will be grateful.

We got this the other day...

...and this today. A coat of paint 
will fix it.

Back to the fireplaces

Working on the fireplaces today to get them all back in and fixed properly. I had to carefully clean all of the original tiles from the surrounds of the 2 front room fireplaces today, I had to be soooo careful with them, I'm really pleased with the result, half of them were painted over, and the other half were blackened with soot and hadn't had a clean for centuries...well....years anyway. There are five each side of the fireplace. Take a look, I love them.  I find the patterns just lovely, and whilst they are not in colour and you can actually buy coloured tiles these days, I am happier with the original tiles to keep with the heritage of the building. They will look fantastic when they get mounted finally tomorrow.

These were covered in soot....

These were covered in paint....

...but not any more!

They are nearly finished stripping all of the paint from the facade as well. We can now finally see the gable ends clearly and what the stone looks like. It will be great when it is repointed, re plastered and painted in heritage colours. Excited.com.

Paint stripping nearly done now