Renovation update

The kitchen area is now gutted.

The bathroom floor is gone. We weren't quite expecting that.

View through the kitchen to the family room and the new opening which will have double full light glass sliding doors.

And here is another lovely surprise. It was a miracle that our other bathroom hadn't fallen through to the kitchen. There was no wall holding it up. This room has now been completely gutted with floor and ceiling removed and this wall needs to be replaced.

Really there is very little of our house unscathed at the moment.

Do you want to hear about our lovely neighbour? She's gone quiet in the last week but over the last month has been going overboard calling the council. The council have been around three times with complaints that the builders start too early. This is the classic Sydney complaint. Builders can't start noisy machinery before 7am. My neighbour was calling council if the builders walked onto site before 7am. One time the council decided they needed to do something so they told the builder that they needed an extra permit for the cement pour. Cost of this permit? $2000.

Sadly, talking to friends and work colleagues it appears that we are getting off lightly in the neighbour department. A brief survey of experiences reveals that everyone has one difficult neighbour during renovations. One friend had a neighbour who was so incensed with their (approved) building works that he would go behind the workmen with a shovel scraping off cement render from their fence as the builder was applying it. A work colleague (from the UK) said one of his neighbours would fire his shotgun into the air when he was unhappy with anything - trying to intimidate the builders.

We have friends who are about to do a complete knock-down/re-build and they have 13 neighbours due to their unusual block design. Heaven help them I say.

Why are we so uptight about change? If you live in a good council area with the proper approval processes renovations should result in better surroundings, not worse. Really some people just need to get a life.

For clarity: pictorial evidence of how petty my neighbour is

If you've been following so far, in a case of the straw that broke the camel's back my neighbour finally pushed me over the edge when she rang to complain that I'd removed a 'screening plant' from our side of the boundary without telling her.

If you look in the above picture to the far left you will see a strappy-leafed ginger plant. Ignore the lilly pillies - they are still there.

We removed the ginger plant to make way for the camellias we need to transplant. The neighbour rang to complain. I used my most fierce growl.at.the.children.voice to make her go away.

This is the spot now. Planted out with two beautiful camellias. Cripes I hope they take.


My latest thought is to get that lovely blue shadecloth that builders wrap around building sites and spread it the entire length of our boundary in a 6ft high fence. I'm mature like that.

Warning: Neighbour bites

There is a lot of excavation work happening at our house. Who knew that excavating a courtyard could produce MOUNTAINS of dirt?! Most of the dirt is being re-directed around our yard to even it out.

Along with the excavation a few of our plants need to be relocated away from the building works. We have potted up three camellias and a couple of roses. Today I went to site to direct where to re-plant the camellias (and hope they survive the upheaval). We decided to remove a Ginger plant from near our boundary to insert the camellias as we are slowly building a Camellia hedge which should look fabulous when in flower.

Guess who is freaking out about the ginger plant being removed?

Street cancer strikes again.

This plant was just below shoulder height at its tallest and about 1.5 metres diameter. It was one plant in from our boundary and about to be replaced by the camellias above. Street cancer does the following:

1. Stands at the boundary shouting at the person who is digging out the plant - "You can't do that, I'm calling the council". Apparently being quite abrasive.
2. Then calls me to say "You should've told me if you were removing that screening plant".
3. She told me she had sent a voicemail and an email on the subject.

I may have lost my temper a little. She has form in attempting to intimidate workers at my place and she has been actively dissing our proposed works to all and sundry so I was not in the mood for conciliation.

I told her that I can remove plants on my property as I wish and without interference from her. Further I told her that if she took the time to call the site manager per our agreed process she would've found out that the plant would be replaced by mature camellias. She started with "but but but..." at which point I said "No, this time you will listen to me. I am disappointed that the only time you call me is to complain about inane issues that don't concern you."

At this point she hung up.

I checked my phone for voicemail and emails. None to be found. I feel good that I've stood up to her. Let's see if her husband calls. I hope he does because Firegazer will have fun with that one.

She freaks out about us removing 'screening plants' from our side of the fence. Guess how many 'screening plants' she has planted? None. Not a single plant.

The woman is completely unhinged.

Edited 7 october: I spoke with the site manager today. Apparently she also sent Workcover around this week. What a complete nutter.

How much do you think it would cost to remove asbestos panels from a shed?

Old shed with asbestos panels.

Going...

Going...

Gone!

$5,000

Owch.

Kitchen ... gone!

Kitchen...

... gone!

Meals area ...

... gone!

After two years ... a new dryer

So, what convinces someone to buy a dryer when she has managed very happily without one for two years?

This one. It is the only 6 Star dryer in the world. A heat-pump condenser dryer. No outside venting because it pulls all the water out of the clothes and stores it in the machine. That means you can put the dryer anywhere. We don't have room anywhere else in the house we are renting so it's plugged in next to the computer in the kitchen. Makes a handy printer table.

You can then either choose to have the machine plumbed in like a washing machine to drain the water away, or you can simply empty the container.

The Miele guy said we'd only have to empty the water out once a month but we've already emptied it twice this week. This is how much water comes out of a set of king-size sheets (just under a litre). So maybe once we are back in our renovated house we'll have it plumbed in.

But then, if we can remember to empty the water it is apparently able to be used in irons - and could easily go on the garden.

Downsides?

• Price (don't look it up because you'll realise it makes environmental but not economic sense)
• Weight (at 98Kg it won't go on an MDF shelf, or hang on your wall)

Best bits:

• Power consumption: At 124Kwh per year it draws 1/8th the power of our fridge.
• Installation: I love that Miele send a technician to install and test it in situ.

Oh No! They clipped a BMW

We have dual street access to our property. This is a photo of one of the ways in. It's too narrow to fit the sort of machinery needed for excavating a yard.

So this week the stairs were removed and a road installed. I quite like the road. Am thinking that a paved version of this would be excellent fun for riding one's skateboard/ripstik/insert-dangerous-activity-here.

This is the sort of thing that now drives up our road.

Thing is, the machinery still needs to be craned over our garage to get to the road. On Tuesday one such crane managed to side-swipe the side of the BMW belonging to one of our neighbours.

Luckily not the scary neighbour. But still, not a good start.

Rather than stress out about it I'd rather look at a photo of our magnificent Banksia Rose which was heavily pruned a few months back and has returned with a vengeance.

Asbestos Removal and introducing the Street Cancer

This morning as I drove past our house I noticed activity.

Today is the day that this shed disappears.

Of course our abrasive neighbour has already had words to the builder about all her woes. We can't win with this unfortunate lady. If we keep her fully informed she uses the information to cause us problems; if we keep her in the dark she runs to council, annoys any tradies on our property or sends her husband over to complain. I swear the last "discussion" we had was over the way I trimmed back a large rose in my garden - it wasn't to her liking.

I bet she'll be all in a dither with the asbestos removal today.

She's currently spreading stories about what we're 'really going to be doing' at the house. Which apparently includes ripping out all the mature trees on the property. (Not).

Don't imagine this to be some old biddy. She's probably about 45, and so terribly tragically bored. I try not to let her get to me but she is like a cancer in our street. Last month we thought they'd managed to sell their house and there were plans afoot for a street party. Alas, it seems she doesn't want to move.

I connected to Cable all.by.myself

People, I have just about entered the 21st century. I am only 10 years late.

I still do not have a landline courtesy of my friends at Failstra, however this evening I crawled behind the TV to connect up a cable modem to my Foxtel point and I am now WIRELESS. What a revelation it is to sit with (my work) laptop on knee and iPhone in hand both connected to the ether.

Methinks perhaps 5 connections at one time will not be enough in this household. On our recent holiday we had 10 adults, 5 children and 23 devices connected to the wireless router at our accommodation. Think about it - we all had a laptop, a smartphone, there were 3 iPads and a couple of the kids had iTouches. Soon everything will have a wireless component and our household wireless demands will be huge.

My sturdy desktop, however, is not yet wireless. The 24 hour Failstra connection guru tells me that I need some sort of adapter for my 3yo outmoded technology ("desktops...do they still exist?"). I find it somewhat amusing that my wireless adapter will be coming via snail mail and not arriving in the fireplace in a puff of green smoke.

And while we are talking wireless, when are we going to be able to do away with the twenty cables that connect our TV to all the bits and bobs? Surely that's the next BIG IMPROVEMENT.

Renovation Diary - the move in 10 dot points

1. Did the student move. Mostly. Big guys came on Friday to move the heavy stuff while Firegazer and I moved all the small stuff. Took all weekend. Children 'too tired' or 'too bored' to help. Resolved to do full service move on the way back.
2. Telstra managed to disconnect our land-line at the old house but failed to reconnect at the new house. Am not surprised. Telstra also failed to answer any calls regarding the matter.
3. Why is the most useful phone number for Telstra in the white pages but not on their website? Big FAIL Telstra.
4. Mail redirection is also a big fail. Our house is at No. 9. Due to typo the mail from No. 8 is being re-directed to our house. Only way to fix this is by WRITING SNAIL MAIL and waiting for someone to get out their quill and ink and fix the ledger.
5. Luckily our temporary house is cute and cosy.
6. Good news story - the space for the washing machine at the new house was too small for our current machine so was forced to purchase the machine and dryer that we had planned for our renovation anyway. LOVE my new front loader plus 6 star condenser heat pump dryer. Yes, 6 stars. Uses 1/8th of the power of our fridge per year.
7. Salvation Army came and collected a room piled high with furniture and stuff. Didn't take: Moran sofa bed; 3 x IKEA Billy bookcases; 1 x 80cm CRT TV.
8. Put all the above on the verge and they went within 12 hours.
9. Love the verge Freecycle system.
10. Renovation starts...tomorrow

Why I avoid calling Telstra at all costs

For years the only two things have stopped me from giving Telstra the flick are

1. that I would lose the personal email address I have had for ten years
2. that even calling Telstra to give them the flick would put me in a world of pain induced by errors

On Friday I made the call. We're moving house while we renovate and I had no option but to call to have a phone connected at our temporary abode - I wanted my number to follow me, you see.

I had a lovely hour-long conversation with a consultant who was only too happy to help me - actually getting me up to speed with the modern world a little and putting me on a plan which was far better cost-wise that the current arrangement. I was even a little chuffed when I got off the phone. Telstra's not that bad, I thought. And when given the opportunity to give feedback to the automated survey monkey, I gave positive feedback.

Little did I realise that at that very moment of giving positive feedback the Telstra gremlins were hard at work. Within 30 minutes I discovered I had no internet connection and no email access.

A phone call later I discover that the consultant that I was so happy with inadvertently sent a disconnect order for my Bigpond account. I had lost my 10 year old email address.

Bigpond disconnection was not discussed or asked for.

Panic. HOW MANY people have my email address and how would I contact them? School, online accounts, I get online statements, newsletters, all the people associated with our renovation. Cripes.

Worse, a disconnection which took seconds would take days to 'fix'. And no guarantee of getting my old email address back.

I am now back online using a mobile broadband stick and a new gmail account. I'm not sure I can see the point of taking up the ISP email address again...

The Real Snow Report #3: Fairweather skiers out in force

Blue skies. Mostly.

Exhibition groomed for the first time this season. Today we skied like we meant it skiing all the runs we haven't been able to see all week.

Schnappy hour at Black Sallee's.

The Real Snow Report #2 - a much better day

Snow falling softly, wind today was 'moderate' compared with 'gusty' yesterday. Visibility, reasonable.

Ready for a day on the snow.

Going up the Kosciusko Chair. A little blustery at the top but nothing like yesterday when this chair was on wind hold.

Lots of lovely fresh snow scattered over the resort. Not so much powder as that deep wet stuff that catches on the skis but still loads of fun. Proper Australian skiing conditions (rocks, crud, rain, wet slush/snow) - love it.

Spying on the kids skiing the Bowl.

A full day.

Sunshine is promised tomorrow. I'll believe it when I see it. Who cares. Here's hoping for another magic day at the snow.

The Real Snow Report (aka $30 a run)

So, day one started out okay. Clear skies, hardly a breath of wind. A full day of skiing to be had.

Day two started with a light rain/slush falling from the sky. No wind with conditions improving by lunchtime. Only Thredbo die-hards and those who had already pre-paid their lift tickets were on the mountain.

Day three. Well the fact that it is 11.55am and I'm back in the lodge blogging should give you an idea of the conditions.


All the lifts are on wind hold except the Gunbarrel, Snowgums and the old Merritts Chair. This effectively funnels all the traffic onto two lifts - Gunbarrel and Snowgums. After a 20 minute queue at the Gunbarrel we skied down to Snowgums.



Oh dear. Snowgums is an old, slow, double chair. 30 minutes in the queue...



... to sit in blustery blowy conditions like this.

I love my skiing and will ski in just about anything but after freezing on the double chair we decided it was time to come in. We calculated that after a total of three runs this morning we paid $30 a run each (on a discounted ticket).

Being parent-of-the-year my children are still out on the snow developing a tough skin.

Now excuse me while I take a blog-break to enjoy a hot tea and chocolate cake.

Okay, so I went to Paris - but then what?

Forgive me bloggers for it has been WEEKS since my last communication and my readership has reduced to one or two blood relatives who check in to see whether I'm still alive as I probably haven't returned calls or answered emails either.

Fear not, I am still here. I'm just reeling from my new self-imposed lifestyle whereby I go off to paid work four days per week (up from 2 1/2 days) and spend the other un-paid days trying desperately to clean up the general detritus of life.

After a lovely, albeit work, week in Paris and surrounds I flew home and re-packed my bag for a week long family holiday in Port Macquarie. Port is a seaside town five hours drive from Sydney which for WA readers would most resemble Busselton but with amenities more akin to Bunbury.

Port has a seawall (see above pic) on which it is traditional to paint a message on the rocks. Sanctioned graffitti.

Port also has the world's only dedicated Koala hospital. They take in about 300 sick Koalas each year for rehabilitation and release back into the wild. The photo above is of Barry. He is a Koala with attitude. I would love to reach out and give him a cuddle if it weren't for his large black claws. The world's oldest Koala, Birthday Girl, is one of the few permanent residents here - she is nearly 24 years old.

We had a lovely relaxing week away. On the way home we stopped by Bluey's Beach. Again for WA residents, think a big version of Bunker's Bay. We stopped for lunch at a cafe that served a decent cup of tea. Love a cafe that cares about tea drinkers - I got a pot, a reasonable cup and a totally cute little bottle of milk.

The last week of the holidays was spent enduring a comedy of errors whereby all my carefully planned holiday camps were thrown into disarray when the kids both fell sick and couldn't go. Having a four-day management meeting and Firegazer going interstate I found myself on the phone at 6.30am some mornings desperately trying to find anyone who could babysit the kids at home. Really, at one point you simply had to have a pulse to qualify.

We survived and then finished off the holidays with a trip to see Just Macbeth at the Opera House. Have you taken your kids to this Andy Griffiths take on Shakespeare? If not, do so. This is the second time we've seen it and still think its one of the funniest plays we've been to in ages. Target age: 10. Funny to everyone.

On the renovation front we are still evaluating new quotes. They are all still horrendous.

So now you're up to date. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Paris in photos

Images from my two days and nights in Paris.

Images from my 2 1/2 days at our seminar just outside Paris.