Fur from the Madding Crowd

One of the delights of having a little ball of fluff helping you out when you’re renovating, is that the little tinker tends to pick up anything small, and wander off with it. Particularly as this little small creature is in training to become a good ratter, and so likes to wander off with pens, screwdrivers, and once even a small hammer to take into a corner and chew to death.

Bluebelle, the Blue Point Himalayan cat

Right now I’m at the stage when I need to put a door back on the East wing bathroom. For some reason some anonymous idiot decided that it made sense to have an open plan bathroom; even more nonsensical when you consider that there are two open plan offices in the laundry at the back, and so everyone can hear when you go.

It is however rather impractical in a normal house: plus, the little ball of fluff tends to stick her head into holes in the floor, drains, and pretty much anything else she can find to play with, in between the usual bursts of eat-play-sleep, eat-play-sleep until the cows have, literally, gone to sleep.

So, to get around this, I needed a door, and the same idiots who took it off, also left it leaning against the wall in the West Wing: it’s a perfect fit, or would be if they hadn’t taken off the door jam, and replaced it with some fibre board from Bunnings.

A little bit of jiggery-poker with a spare bit of trim from the gents loos, freeing up the hinges with 3-in-1 (a lovely oil from the UK, that thankfully Woolworths in Australia import at vast expense) and back pops on the missing door.

Bluebelle: up on my shoulder, like any good cat

Alas, one other thing was missing: the door handles have small grub screws to hold the handle in place: they also look very much like a grub to a young cat, who after playing with it (you know, to ensure it is dead) for 20 minutes or so, when asked to hand it back, inconsiderately ran up the corridor with it between her teeth. I finally cornered her in the dining room, where with nowhere to go, she took one look at my trouser leg, jumped up it, dug her claws into my chest, and with a monumental effort launched herself onto my shoulders, where she sat like a rather contented parrot.

With a rather satisfied grin, she opened her mouth, and out popped my grub screw. I thanked her, as I was staunching the flow of blood from the large open wounds in my legs.

For the Perm of his Natural Life

Yesterday, a tree fell on the house.

Which would not be surprising if we were in the centre of the cyclone zone up in Queensland, in the flooded devastation of Victoria, in one of the many other earthquake zones, well, anywhere you name at the moment.

But no. Just good old Sydney.

However, we do have a special type of tree of the genus Eucalyptus – called optimistically the Widow Maker.

It has a habit of dropping large (often half the diameter of the trunk) boughs without warning reducing the life expectancy of anyone who lives under one by about half, and making the kitten’s hair stand on end in a permanent perm.

This form of self-pruning may be a means of saving water or simply a result of their brittle wood. This is also an efficient way of attracting wildlife that live in the holes formed which gives the gum trees a source of natural fertiliser.

However it’s put a massive dent in car port, and if the car had been under it, that would have been the second Ford to have been written off in two months.

However it’s no use leading a gift horse to water without making it drink, so  I woke up and smelt the music: this one tree will keep the log fire going all winter.

The Fridges of Madison Country

I’m getting fed up of desks. They are everywhere. Every single office I go into, there is another desk. Except, these aren’t offices any more. They are rooms, and will – one day, in the long distant future – be part of the house.

Take a desk, any desk. Please...

However the builders left behind dozens of desks, in the rather optimistic hope that someone would want them. Or possibly because they couldn’t be bothered to get rid of them. Either way, the house is desk a go-go.

However, I need more space – particularly because I want to get cracking on bathroom, and to do that I need to make a laundry, which at the moment is doing a good impression of a garden shed, being, as it is, rammed full of bikes, lawnmowers, a BBQ, and even, yes, a spade.

So, this lot goes into the office which for want of a better word is being called the junk room. And that in turn means that all the junk has to go. Including the 10 or so desks in there at the moment.

I did briefly consider sawing them up for logs: it is the onset of winter after all. However wiser councils prevailed and I’ve now gone for the wonder of a Council Cleanup Day.

In Australia there isn’t really such a thing as the local council tip. Instead, they’ll charge you if you turn up with Range Rover loaded to the gunnels with desks. Or any household junk you name. Which is why you often see abandoned fridges by the side of the road all over the counties in the Hills: it costs too much money in Sydney to be tidy. However twice a year you can ask the council to come around to your home, and clear away the rubbish. Which is what I’ve done. Now the desk are on the street, awaiting a little man from the council.

Off Mice and Men

I now have what every good farmhouse should have. Something that looks like yoda, and which does a good impression of a goat.

The new, blue point Himalayan cat after a quick bath

Most farms have cats to keep down the rodents. Even number 10 now has a chief mouser to the treasury  which has sparked many books on the subject.

However, doing things slightly differently, a purrrrfect solution to the infestation here is Bluebelle, a Colourpoint Persian (or as the Aussies call them, a blue point Himalayan cat).

However, unlike the Mr. Jinx of the films, belle has some decidedly wayward tendencies. Most noticeably her cry, which resembles that of a large goat, her addiction to climbing trouser legs to get at what she assumes will be some milk! So, instead of calling “kitty, kitty” to get her to attack the mice, I tend to yell “get off, get off!”

As for keeping the mice down, well, that’s rather beyond a fluffy kitten at the moment.

The Complete Tangler

Victorian Fireplace - the heart of the old pub

Finally, it is complete.

Room number three.

The last task in the tangled web of jobs was painting the rather impressive fireplace. Well, impressive for Australia anyway, where fireplaces are a distinct rarity. Which is more unusual than you may think: far from being the land of eternal sunshine of the optimistic mind, it is the land of really quite cold and frosty winters.

As no one believes in central heating either, a fireplace is therefore a must. If only I had a spare forest – or even a tree – so I could cut the lot down and get some free logs.

The old pub tap room - now complete

The fireplace is, well, not that fancy: it wouldn’t get a glance against some of the more over the top Victorian fireplaces I’ve seen, but considering it was built out of wood chopped down straight from the bush, it’s OK, if you ignore the knot marks and large split up the middle. Clearly in the 19th century the carpenter was the low rung on the totem pole.

However the room is complete, freshly painted, and waiting for... well... I’m not sure what really.

It’s an unusual position to be in, having a room and having no idea what to do with it.


Other than put the original bar back of course.

The fatal door

I’ve moved onto doors now. I must, surely, be getting close to the end. Surely this painting must stop... soon? I’ve used half a 10 litre tin on the walls, and 5 litres of white to cover the ceiling.

And still I’m not done. However I can see the light at the end of the rainbow.

But, bar the fireplace, the only other remnant to complete are the doors. And once I’d talked myself down from the ledge, I went through the slow and painful process of taking all the door furniture off the, err, door. It’s funny, but most builders paint the door still with the catches, handles, everything, still on, and then just slop a bit of paint around. The result is a muddy mess.

So with nerves of steel and an iron will, I’ve been attacking what, according to the heritage officer, are very heavily protected specially significant doors onto the old tap room of the original pub.

Oh no they are not. The giveaway is the Bunnings logo stamped into some of the metal work, and all the old screw holes that show where the old hinges (used to) go. What a nonsense. Right now they can take their open door policy and throw it right out the window.

Clearly the doors were salvaged when this place was turned into a pizza restaurant in the 1980s, and roughly put into place: very roughly in some cases; the door jams were fixed using a nail gun! Then a load of old door catches were screwed on; they are however unusual ones, and are generally all of a similar type. Turning the handle lifts the door catch up! And the catch itself has a very fancy cast brass insert into a mild steel frame. Not that that has stopped generations of painters from painting over all the brass and hiding the small stamped nameplate.

However, slowly but carefully, I’ve been able to scrape the paint off the brass, and polish it up. I’m at a loss as to how to get the mouse teeth marks out of the door though.

A Broom of One's Own

Paint.

Oh what lovely stuff.

Apparently it is a liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film.

It is also a means to ruin. I’ve spent days trying to get the stuff off the walls.

I mean, just look at it! On the wall that once held a shelf, I had to replace three planks because the termites had had a good munch, but otherwise the planks were still sound. However the 1950s and 1970s repaint cracked off a strip up the centre of each plank.

So, in their infinite wisdom, the builders just repainted over the top of the lot, leaving cracked paint with chips that got into the new paint, that wasn’t even a pretty colour. I mean, muddy beige? The whole lot was then painted over again about 10 years ago with a very hard, solid, emulsion.

And the only way to get it off is the sand the lot down. Sometimes I feel like I'm swimming uphill against the grain, but the wood is slowly appearing. I’ve taken so much paint off, that I’ve been sweeping it up in piles – and that’s just the paint that’s gone into my hair and down my ears.
The broom has been getting a workout.

But, ever so slowly, I’m getting to the stage when it will all be done! Just a bit more paint and I’ll have buttered my nest.