Several Surprises

We arrived back up at Fossils Retreat early afternoon Saturday 7 November, stopping on the way at Featherston to drop Tansy off to Orton Lodge for the night, then at Greytown to visit a Kitchen Installer, then on to Masterton to visit a 'Made in Masterton' show which was a little bit useful to us. When we did arrive, we were very surprised indeed to find a fully erected garage on site. We weren't expecting this for another couple of weeks.

New garage on site. A lovely big one, 9 metres long. The first water tank on lhs was delivered several weeks ago, and no, contrary to several comments we have heard, it is just resting there before it goes in alongside the garage

And another surprise ... the meter board has (sort of) been attached to the house

Our $4K+ power and phone cables laid across the drive. Bit of a worry with it all lying in last week's downpour, eh?

We got stuck in to more demolishing. Denise couldn't wait to seriously address this wardrobe in the back bedroom.

This is likely to be as far as the interior decorating for this bedroom goes, folks. About #23 on the Priorities list. We will be taking a metre or so in from the wall on Denise's rhs, and a metre or so from the adjoining front bedroom, and making a dinky tiny little bathroom with a new door in from the hall

On Sunday 8 November, we had an appointment with Mitre 10 in Masterton with their kitchen consultant, so after supplying him with all our measurements and requirements, which he will then transpose into his computer and send us a layout (which will be really useful to us as we are not much good at envisaging out of thin air), we visited the Car Boot Sale in Chapel Street, Masterton (a quick visit - pretty junky but good for fresh veg. The $3 hamburgers can be recommended).

Back to Fossils Retreat for an early lunch, then we got stuck in to demolishing again. You wouldn't believe the variety of screws used to hold the kitchen fixtures together. We are doing this frustratingly carefully, as parts of the laminated bench top and shelving units will be very useful in the garage.

Denise coming to grips with more plumbing fixtures

Voila! Little gas stove, benches, sink top, all gone! Except the corner unit, which Denise decided was too heavy for us to lift into the garage, so we have left it for the builders. This whole wall will move out 1 metre or so to increase the dining/kitchen area, and that window will be used on the new extended west wall (to the rhs in photo). The whole extension will line up with the existing house wall and we will be using that space for a large laundry and storage.

All the bits of wood and fixtures deemed 'able to be reused' (most of it - we don't throw away much) were stored in the new garage. We have rapidly growing piles of timber, firewood and rubbish outside.

And another nice surprise !

As we hoped, the existing bath is a claw foot. Instead of being our outdoors hot tub, this will now be relocated to and used in the new bathroom, so we need to look for a dunger steel bath for outside

More cupboards ripped out from the existing kitchen. That wall will disappear to open up the existing bathroom beyond it, which will then become our kitchen area facing north. We couldn't get the hot water tank out as our plumbing wrench has seized

For Sale : French doors; hot water cylinder with fixtures; lovely retro hanging glass etched/painted shade

We were pleased to see two of the potatoes had put up leaves. And thrilled to find all 25 feijoa trees still intact. Maybe the dog poo works after all. Just to be sure, we gave them all a good organic spray (which will wash off after first rain, unfortunately) and a good water. Jennifer managed to shear only one plant off while clipping the surrounding grass. Then it was time to store everything remotely useful in the garage, pack up and lock up, and off to pick Tansy up and head home. We are starting to believe we are making progress.