Kitchens, I've had a few.

Over the years I've had the communal kitchen of college living, the bench top cooker of first flat life, the minuscule yellow and brown scrap of kitchen in our first marital home, the kitchen with the original 1920's Kooka, the kitchen with the mission brown stove, the mysterious appliances of my Shanghai kitchen, and my American life keeping me from the best kitchen I have ever had in Australia. 

It's become a running joke that I can't move into a house without replacing the oven, and boy have I had some interesting rangehoods!

So after nearly 19 years of marriage and countless house moves it is very special and very exciting to have a brand new kitchen totally to our own specifications.

For me, this is lovely.

 So pleased. And so relieved. 

Handles and bench tops still to come....

It's curtains for me.

Getting well and truly into the pretty stuff now. First of all, I met with up with the lovely Tania to explore a massive showroom of divine fabrics. The goal was to make selections for all of our drapery requirements. Colour-coded according to price, I naturally gravitated to the appropriately Code Red-fabrics.

Even Tania tried to re-direct me to the more financially-soothing Code Blue fabrics. Contemplating the neutral for the colour-fickle older girls, the blue-grey for the coolly elegant grown-ups, and the unashamedly pink for the final baby of the family. 

Let us digress for a moment and explore a little Goldfields history: back in Victorian times the grandest home was built in Castlemaine for the grandest family in town. To this day, that grand home sits as the jewel in the town's tourism crown (apart from its title as Hot Rod Centre of Victoria). 

The estate was fringed by more humble worker's cottages, simple in design. In fact, the Homemade House Northern Estate is one of those humble Victorian miner's cottages, harking from 1863. 

In an interesting coincidence, one of the direct descendants of the grand house family now comes to the owner of the simple cottage, as purveyor of carpet for the Homemade House.

Tiles, in situ

The floors are done, the bathroom walls are done. All looking good.

Butler's pantry

Girls' bathroom with vintage hexagonal tile

Master bathroom in Carrara Bianco marble tile

Girls' bathroom getting it's burst of jaunty colour

The kitchen is here! The kitchen is here!

Finally. Finally. The kitchen, and it's friends the pantry and the laundry have arrived. I may have shed a little tear of joy.

Yes, it's in a thousand pieces. But watch this space....

Fretting

Lots of neighbours are kind enough to stop by and compliment the house. Inwardly, I am always thinking, "but wait until you see what comes next!". That "next" arrived this week in the form of the verandah balustrading and fretwork. Lovely arches for the front verandahs, sweet corner brackets for the rear verandahs,  and railings to stop small children and smug champagne-drinkers from plunging to the earth below.

Skirts

Notice anything particularly lovely about this photo? Yes! We do have very nice skirts, thank you! We also now have lovely architraves and particularly fetching window sills, enhanced by the choice-est of ovolos. (Word of the year).

What else?

Kids' wardrobes have architraves (arks to us tradies, right?).

We also have interior doors (not painted yet) and handles. Lots of discussion with T2 and Co re height of handles. The house is meant to have Victorian characteristics, therefore low handles. I think the chippies have been hanging out with too many Edwardians - higher was originally their preference.

Drained

A couple of weeks ago, I suggested to our trusty landscaper for The Principle Residence that the Homemade House back garden was somewhat unruly and we were in danger of losing a small child, or, heaven forbid, a tradie. 

Weeds were hip high, the back shed all but shrouded in an Amazonian-like thicket, and a tribe of hitherto unknown pygmys were thriving.

Then came trenching day.

The entire back and front yard were turned over yet again, and then doused in a week of rain.

We now have stormwater, sewer, and gas pipes. And no weeds.

The A-Team swings into action

The Quiet Achiever, T2, and the Special Ops Painters were all on deck today, battling weather and circumstance in heroic fashion.

The Quiet Achiever is our trusty plumber, so-named because NOTHING seems to faze him. Not wind, not rain, not a quagmire. Not even my helpful self turning up at lunch time to point out that his very long diagonal trench across our block was not in a good spot if we ever hope to put a pool in. Not too many people would have taken that news so well. But that's his style, just quietly coming along at just the right time and getting stuff done without a drama.

Meanwhile, the much-anticipated morning delivery of the skirting and architraves rolled over into mid-afternoon. I'm looking forward to never dealing with this supplier again. Polite, pleasant and helpful they are not. Feathers were ruffled today, no doubt about it.

Anyway, the minute that delivery was unloaded the Special Ops leapt into action with such speed that another supplier I was meeting with asked nervously if there was some kind of emergency going on.

Skirting boards, super-fast.

Just the kind of emergency triggered when two trades need to be in the same place at the same time and are as determined as each other. I'm presuming it will be pistols at dawn tomorrow to sort that one out.

I should mention that my day on site started with the now-customary greeting "you're not going to talk about that laundry chute again, are you?". I knew it was getting to be a tired issue when I later went out to the kitchen joint for a snap inspection of progress and received the same greeting there! Geez...

I did get to see the exploded version of the cabinetry though. I think. 

T2 later said "well...they told you it was your kitchen, but maybe it wasn't". Ha. Very funny. I would prefer to believe that big pile of doors and drawers waiting to be sprayed are in fact coming to my house next week. 

In other news, I spent a delightful hour or so with the interior decorators. One specialises in colour schemes, one is into drapes and blinds. They have businesses separate to each other but I think they should set up together using the excellent moniker I devised: The Colour Blind Interior Decorators. 

Check, mate.

We've always loved a traditional black and white chequerboard floor. Today we got two of our very own.

Our jovial tiler set to with the trowel and laid the floor in the butler's pantry (lucky sod) and the maid's laundry room (that's a joke - lets be very clear, its me doing the laundry in there. And I guess I am the butler too, come to think of it).

Looking snappy, I think.

Also had a speed-date with a carpet man in between setting up for the Open for Inspection at the Principle Residence and scooping up Homemade Kids on the way to karate.

Two lots of carpet to choose: something rich and traditional for Captain Laird's study, and a swoosh of something "light-but-kid-friendly" to run through the majority of upstairs.

In other news, lots of internal doors were hung yesterday. An arm wrestle over the architraves and skirting boards is looming between the unusually-glittery T2 and the Special Ops painters, with both parties scrambling to get a hold of them. The supplier is keeping us in suspense, failing to deliver this week and yet to commit to a day and time next week.

Trying to keep Zen on that.

Happy anniversary

It's been one year since we sat around on Melbourne Cup Day , grumpy because we couldn't find a house we liked, in the location we wanted, for the money we had.

One year since the never before- considered idea that we could build a house popped into our heads.

One year since we realised we could build a particular style of house we first had our eye on probably ten years ago.

And one year since I hopped in the car, and stumbled across a real estate pointer board leading me to the future site of the Homemade House.

And here we are, maybe 6 weeks from done.

Amazing, on all levels.

Now tell me the truth...

"Now tell me the truth," Anthony demanded, his warning tone clear down the telephone line at 8.15 am. 

"Yes, what?" I asked my heretowith unknown caller.

"Are you planning on having electric gates?"

I pondered this for the split second before I answered: "Well, yes. Eventually."

"Are you creating a lock-up situation?" he persisted.

"Well, what do you mean?" I replied, with growing confusion.

It was the gas connection man, sure that the electric cable he had seen by our front fence meant I was going to seclude his meter behind fortress-like (Hells Angel-like?) walls.

He was assured that in the event we ever gather the enthusiasm for more works external to the Homemade House, they would include a pedestrian gate.  Knowing us, probably well before we ever even get around to the driveway gates.

Off the hook. 

For now.

Its been a flurry

Just as I made a mental note to post more often in order to keep up with everything happening so fast at the Homemade House, things got so fast in all areas of life that nothing has been written.

I also made a mental note to keep the posts short and snappy - but not this time.

So lets re-wind a little bit to where only a few weeks ago the plastering had just been finished and the fireplace was installed.

Then suddenly the scaffolding went back up, and the verandahs for the front and back were built leading me to finally identify that first morning cup of tea on the porch as the marker for when we would know we had finally made it through all the hard yakka of 2013.

Next thing we knew, the scaffolding was back down and the timber flooring installers were in residence for a couple of days, transforming most areas downstairs and the master bedroom upstairs with beautiful Spotted Gum wide boards. 

That then cleared the way for surely one of our favourite features: the gorgeous Spotted Gum staircase. Beautiful hand-turned newel posts along with traditional decorative elements have combined even better than we had hoped.

Not to mention that it has paved the way for me and the Homemade Kids to finally see what has been happening upstairs over the past month. (Being not all that fond of ladders!)

While all this timberwork was being installed, the seemingly endless painting continued. Ceilings were painted and walls were sealed in record time. Next thing you know, I was meeting with an interior decorator to select wall colours and blow me down if those colours hadn't found their way onto the walls within 24 hours. Fast doesn't even begin to describe it.  Take a quick look:

Meanwhile, in the background I was off getting the verandah balustrade and fretwork designed, lugging home a bootload of corner brackets, handrails, and balusters for Captain Laird and I to scrutinise and debate. Decision made, and now a lovely chap called Steve is cheerily manufacturing those for us in a workshop over in Fairfield.

Also in Fairfield is the granite and marble merchant, singing his siren song of beautiful yet treacherous marble benchtops.

 We nearly succumbed but couldn't bear the thought of its pristineness being so easily spoiled in a house that is meant to be a home complete with children, and not a museum piece to fret over.

So then came the quest for, well, basically a granite that looks as much like marble as possible.

 First I thought it was one variety but the whole slab turned out to be nothing like its sample. Then the same thing happened with another sample. Then that supplier went into liquidation anyway! Then I found another variety I liked - but that was out of stock and not going to be available again. And the same with the next one I liked!

This was getting a bit ridiculous but a hot tip led me out to the badlands of Melbourne, to an industrial precinct housing the Hells Angels headquarters and an excellent stone merchant a couple of doors down from there.  

"Well that's just great." I muttered to myself as the fortress came into view. Always looking on the bright side, however, I made a U-turn for that little photo opportunity before heading into the kingdom of stone. 

Turns out those marble-like granites I was after all came from a quarry in India that had closed. I was helpfully advised that a large bribe paid to the right government officials to release the quarry owner from prison was my only hope of getting a particular variety I had asked after. I mulled that over for a moment, admittedly.

Happily, however, another gorgeous slab was found, hailing from Brazil. No corruption issues there, right? Deposit paid, job done.

What else? Electrical cable trenching etc has been done, and we are in the bureaucratic phase of getting utility connections, new meters and so forth ordered up. Not interesting, pretty, or fun.

Then T2 was warmly invited back onto the site for a little bit of verandah deck building. That's three out of four lovely spots to relax complete.

What can we expect this week? Well the newest members of the lovely Homemade House cast are the tilers and their good friend the waterproofer. We're looking forward to marble tile floors, mosaic tile floors, and a traditional black and white checkerboard floor or two emerging. 

Internal doors will be hung, and skirting boards and architraves are on the agenda too. All of which can only lead to yet more painting!

And you know what? It really does feel like a house now.

We may even move in there one day.