the last time

Today was the last visit to the Renovation Project for WM and I.

The painter finished today and we did our final clean up, hung the curtains, removed the last of our possessions (cleaning items, handyman tools, coffee, tea bags, etc) and closed the door for the last time.

It has taken us many hours over a period of eleven weeks, with at least ten full days included. Yesterday we were there until nearly seven o'clock. We were back there this morning, returned home for lunch, and went back in the afternoon when we knew the painter would be finished.

Who knew how hard it is to clean up old paint flakes from all around the house where the painter had scraped down the old paint under the eaves?

who knew how hard it is to keep little bits of old paint flakes off our shoes and out of a clean house? It didn't help that it started raining on Wednesday afternoon, poured much of Thursday and couldn't make up its mind today! So we trekked in mud and little bits of grass as well as the paint flakes. Being an empty house in terms of occupants, there was no doormat on which to wipe our feet so we had to use an old curtain in the laundry so we could wipe our feet (and stomp them too) as we came in the back door.

Look closely at the very dirty floor!

Anyway, it's all over now -- we've handed the house over to the property manager that DD and SIL have chosen. We hope there will be (good) tenants in soon -- I don't like the idea of the house standing empty, especially as it has a lane down one side and a reserve at the back.

It's not the house it was when they bought it!

In the meantime, I am typing this while sitting on a bed in a motel room overlooking Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport. Tomorrow morning we're leaving on a jet plane bound for Perth, the capital of Western Australia -- nearly 4,000 kilometres (about 2,485 miles) from here for a well-deserved three-week holiday.

I hope you'll join us as we travel around some of the southern parts of Australia's largest state (2,500,000 square kilometres -- 965,000 square miles).

works in progress

It’s nearly the middle of the month and I’m way behind with some of my projects but right on target with others.

No progress has been made in turning a flimsy into a finished quilt for Gift of Hope quilt #2 or in completing the flimsy of my Scrappy Log Cabin quilt.

There has also been no further progress on my Earth and Sky quilt – I plan to rectify that today! As my friend Debbie at Stitchin’ Therapy said in a recent post: “boredom leads to UFOs” and I am so over this project! (Some self discipline is what is needed here! )

I had some time over the weekend for some knitting and some further time yesterday afternoon so Emily’s Blanket is moving along – slower than I had hoped but still progressing. The colours in the photo below are not accurate but they’re the best I could do – the yellow is much more lemon and doesn’t look so obvious!

Until Emily’s Blanket is finished, I can’t work on the sleeves for my Westall cardigan so it may be a travelling project (ten more sleeps until ).

My hexagon project bag is coming along well and, I hope, right on target. I finished the hand-piecing in class on Monday. I would have finished it over the weekend but I didn’t take the pattern away with me and I had six hexagons I didn’t know what to do with. Turns out they were surplus to need! Ah well, there’s always another project, right?

Anyway, here is the project as it was when I finished class on Monday after the piecing was completed and some of the papers removed. The other photo shows the fabric I have chosen for the lining; the lining has been cut and the two pieces (not shown here) are ready to be gathered and joined. The base of the bag has lots of green in it so the lining makes more sense if you could see it!

I hope to get it completed in class next week. I’d like it done before we go away on 24th May!

I do have plans for another hand-piecing project but that will be the subject of another post.

The biggest project of all, the renovation of DD’s former home, is almost complete. The painter is there but there are still a few odd jobs (mostly that WM had to attend to) to be completed before we call it done – such as ordering a skip (and filling it of course), painting the garage (I’d forgotten about that and have lost enthusiasm now – we decided not to pay the painter to do this “simple” task), washing of floors and hanging of curtains.

Here are some photos of some of the work that has been done:

1. A new stove top and oven were professionally installed. WM replaced the doors and handles on either side of the oven. I scrubbed the tiles at the back and cleaned the glass of the range hood. MIL washed the filters before I re-installed them.
2. WM installed a new vent where there hade been a hole covered by a sheet of MDF held up with duct tape.
3. When DD and SIL moved in, the laundry tub was covered in paint. It had always been their intention to buy a new tub but they never got around to it. MIL turned up one day and decided it could be cleaned – between her efforts and those of WM the tub looks pretty good!
4. Some of the vinyl tiles on the laundry floor were damaged – WM lifted them and replaced them (hurrah for being able to match the tiles; thanks Bunnings! – a large hardware chain in Australia)
5. There once were shelves and unused brackets on the laundry wall. All the shelves have been removed (for painting) and the holes filled and sanded. Not too much can be done here, the walls are made of a fibro that contains asbestos and would need professional removal.
6. 79yo MIL washed all the windows and venetian blinds in the family room. This photo shows slightly more than half of them! WM has installed a new light fitting on that bare wire!

There will be more before and after photos in a later post!

Right now, I’m off to have lunch then trim my quilt sandwich, press fabric, cut and join binding strips, attach binding and stitch it down – it doesn't sound like much if I type really fast!