Spring

Spring's here!   We  had a couple of foggy mornings a few days back (actually, it was still winter then), but then the warm days got the plants into bud.  [Edit - image updated]

 

Possum

For weeks now, we've heard the possum(s) chirruping away during the night in the flowering ironbark tree close to our bedroom window.  

But on opening the front door one evening recently, we saw that  one of the noisy little guys had come to pay a closer visit!

Getting back to normal

After all the plastering and painting, we had to get the house back to normal.  This involved cleaning and dusting everything, and moving various items of furniture, some of which were fairly heavy.   We'd had some help from the tradesmen when they first arrived in moving them out of the rooms they were working in, but of course the workmen were long gone by the time we'd cleaned up and were ready to move back.
Still, we managed.   The trickiest was the bed, which had been dismantled in order to move it.   Putting it back together involved fitting the base on to both the head and the foot while at the same time placing a mid-beam (which had to go under the slats) into its slots.   All a bit complex, and a bit of juggling was required to align everything at the same time, but we got there.

Then there was some rain, and we were pleased that the annoying little leak in the verandah had been fixed.

The roof

In addition to the work inside (plastering and painting), we're also having some roof maintenance work done.   It's taken some time to get this arranged (you'll see from this post that it's been on my mind for a while).

Is that harness securely fastened??

I'm not certain where or when we obtained the flyer about the guy who's doing the work, but to cut a long story short, he's Irish and (would you believe?) very persuasive.   At least he arrived when he said he would.  He's told me several times about some small extra things he's attending to, and I try not to divide the amount we've agreed to pay by the product of hours x guys on the job....the resulting hourly rate troubles me a little.

Nor am I in a position to inspect the work actually done, since it's way up there......But at least, he's assured me that things inside the roof area are relatively "clean", with no evidence of possums.  That's a relief to me, because one of my fears has been that the loose pointing may have provided easy access for them.  Hopefully, the roof man has in fact done everything he said he'd do, and any potential possum entrances have been sealed up.

Painting

After the plastering comes the painting.  Maybe I was premature in commenting on the quality of the plasterers' work in my earlier post, because the painter, who asserted he knew something about plastering, was critical of some aspects.

Perhaps it was partly our fault, we said, because we had chosen that parts of the cornice be patched rather than replaced.  Be that as it may, the painter said that he wanted to do some extra preparation (not covered by the quote), to which we agreed.  We also noted his point that he had drawn our attention to the issues, and that if these resulted in aspects of his work being slightly less than the standard to which he would normally aspire, we would not hold it against him.

All this work is very intrusive and we've got things scattered in temporary positions all around the house, so we'll be glad when it's finished.

Plastering

The time finally came - it just had to be done.  We've put up with cracks in the plaster for quite some time, on the basis that, even if you fix them, they re-appear.    But you can only take so much, so we've called the plasterers in.

Work in progress

It's messy (very dusty indeed), takes time and it's not cheap, and while the work is still in progress, from what we've seen so far, we're happy with the quality.

It's very disruptive

The Mixer tap

The mixer tap in the laundry was leaking.  The plumber came and replaced the "cartridge".  A couple of weeks later, it was leaking again, so we rang up another plumber.  "Have you got a replacement tap for us to install?"    No, we didn't, so we took ourselves to the local mega-hardware store, where we were confronted with a choice between the economy tap, the mid-range tap, or the top-of-the-range tap.  They all looked quite similar, but.......?  Anyway, we settled on the "mid-range" model (isn't "compromise" great?)

Before calling the plumber, I thought I should check the contents of the box, just to make sure that everything was there (imagine, the plumber arriving to find out a vital bit was missing!)    I also ran my eye over the installation instructions.   Ummmm, although they were written in plumber-ese, the task of installing the tap didn't look too complicated.   This was verified by inspecting the existing tap.

Sooo....20 minutes later, the new tap was installed!   There was some luck involved, in that amongst my random collection of spanners, there was one that was just the right size to tighten the nut.    I only got a little damp (!), so we took ourselves out to dinner with the money that would otherwise have paid the plumber (and there was change left over!)

The fence

Time to replace the fence

The time had come to replace part of the side fence.     We are happy with the quality of the new fence.   The fencer worked by himself but we especially like the fact that the posts extend to the full height of the trellis, and that there is a rail along the top of the trellis.   The previous trellis, as well as the one on the other side of the house, was just nailed to the top of the fence, and was obviously less durable.

Feeling exposed!

The only problem was getting the guy to start work.    It took longer than we hoped from the time we accepted his quote before he said he would be available, and even then the start date slipped a few days.  However, hopefully the quality will be remembered long after the delay is forgotten!

All done!