Another Sunday night of thunderstorms as spring slowly moves to summer. Overnight storm after storm rolled through. Loud claps of thunder scared our pets and lightning lit the sky for most of the night.
A heavy humidity hung in the air as the team arrived. The morning briefing suggested a busy week of painting, finishing touches to joinery, kitchen bench tops, appliances, plumbing and electrical works.
First cab off the rank are the stonemasons. They arrive early Monday and spend most of the day fitting the benches, waterfall ends and splashback. You’d think throwing a piece of stone on a bench top was easy. Well no. These guys are craftsmen. Millimetre perfect stone is eased into place and finished off with precision. Perfectly shaped mitred corners conceal joins as our island comes together with its three metre surface and two waterfall ends.
Next is the cook top area and splash back. We’ve selected a difficult cook top, in terms of install, it is flush mounted to the top of the stone. So more precision work is needed as they fine tune the height of the bench and test it against the cook top. A perfect fitting is finished and they conclude this area.
The pantry is next, more complexity on our part. We wanted the bench to extend into the window sills and in essence become the window still and hen wrap back out and along a four metre length. This area requires two pieces, each perfectly cut to match the respective window at each end. Another perfect fit.
Once the benches are in, the team then fit the sinks. More precise aligning as both sinks go in without any hassle whatsoever.
As the stonemasons leave the painter arrives and is briefed by Chris. For the next three days they go about their work. Preparing. Undercoating. Final coasting. As each day passes we see more and more of the finished product. Thursday comes and colour arrives with our feature wall in a deep intense pink. Everywhere else is painted in our base colour, basically white. The old part of the house is repainted in the yellow white we have had for 18 years, it is a timeless colour and suits that part of the house.
The painters made quick work of a very big job, there are four of them and at times, five of them on site. The finish is perfect and their work is faultless. They bid us farewell on Thursday after finishing. They’ll be back to do some final touch ups at the end of the job.
Friday comes and the carpenters return, with our cupboard doors and finishes for the kitchen. We’ve selected an almost white two pack finish. Two pack is glossy and smooth, almost car duco like. It is hard wearing and resilient to fingerprints. It also looks amazing.
The team spend Friday getting all of the cabinetry ready for the final run next week to finish the works before the floors are sanded and finished. They install end panels for the fridge cavity, end panel for our pantry and panels in between cupboard here and there. More drawers are finished as piece after piece of this massive jigsaw gets finished.
Only five days of works to go and a host of little jobs to do in that five days. It is going to be a big final week of building.
Cant wait to see final job! It’s been fun to watch each step of your progress
I have enjoyed each step of your house renovation! I know you’ll both enjoy it.