Second soil test

A couple more blokes arrive, do the soil test. Advice provided to them on where to dig, as they seemed to have missed the message about digging where the new walls are going to be built. Now waiting for their report.
Builder confirms that that no action is likely until after Cup Day, so we have found ourselves a 4WD camper and we're off to Queensland "Following Burke and Wills Across Australia", checking the route for the next edition of the Touring Guide, which will go from Melbourne to the Gulf and be published some time in 2014.

Day 5: demolition complete

Pause in proceedings while we wait for another soil test. Each side of the Berlin Wall has had their own test done, with very different results. Now the wall is down we will get one done right in the area where the new walls are going to be built, and find out which test is correct.

Meanwhile, we are investigating putting a rainwater tank in the light well - should provide enough to think about in the interim.

Day 4: wall nearly all gone

East & West Berlin?

Alex on his own today, slogging away at the wall and Leigh's chimney. There are now only about two courses at the bottom of the wall - this is where it gets challenging for them to remove them with minimal damage to the concrete slab and floor of our living room, which we are trying to preserve intact as it has underfloor heating embedded.
Now the wall is down, I am tempted to get a spray can and write "East Berlin" on Leigh's side, "West Berlin" on our side.

Day 3: the wall comes down

Peter having a catnap

This reno business is playing hell with my circadian rhythms. Builders arrive about 7am, so we're awake shortly after and feel that we should be up and about in case they want something. We're trying to shift our patterns to showering in the evening, and being earlier to bed and to rise, but it isn't working. The first night I went to bed early I woke again at midnight and spent the next hour or so tossing and turning (normally I'm awake and doing useful things about that time). Still trying to get to bed a bit earlier, but not succeeding very well and the net effect so far is just less sleep, and we're wandering around as though jet-lagged, dozing off if we sit down for a bit, and feeling unwontedly cold and hungry.

Wall mostly gone

Today most of the wall came down. The guys enjoyed the wrecking, but were pretty tired by the end of a day alternating between wielding a sledgehammer and picking up bricks to put in the skip.
Not too much dust came into the house, but we were pleased to escape to friends for dinner.

Day 2: demolition continues

Removing doors and windows

The truck delivering the skip was held up in traffic, so the guys filled in the time by finishing the covering for the floor - when they ran out of timber they recycled a bit of our old kitchen partition. Then the skip arrived and they started in earnest.
We went off to put the last chair in the store, before going off for the morning. By lunchtime most of the roof was off and they were shifting the sliding doors and the windows. By evening, only the side wall and a few rafters remained.

D-day, at last!

Awoken by the squeak of next door's gate at 7:30am. Yes, builders' trucks are outside. Fling ourselves into clothes and go out to see what is happening. Huge (40 ton) truck plus trailer parked in the side lane. Alan the amazing bobcat artist works all day. Bit by bit the mess is cleared from the back of Leigh's garden, then the sheds come down, then the concrete slab comes up, revealing, to everyone's surprise, floorboards underneath. They go as well, all picked up by the bobcat and dumped into the truck and trailer. By the end of the day, it is just bare earth.

Bobcat gets started

Alan departing with first load for landfill

Tony wields a seldgehammer

While the bob-cat is working, the guys take down the pergola at the back of our house, then start demolishing the short side wall between our two gardens. This is a recent erection with modern mortar, which takes a bit of serious bashing with a sledgehammer - boss builder Tony even takes a hand in the job. His workers get up on our roof and start on the side wall, reducing it to roof height - a much easier job as the old lime mortar gives up easily. All the bricks are chucked down to where the bob-cat is working and go into the truck with the rest.

"But I haven't done my hair"

Meanwhile, the electrician comes and sorts out a regime for providing power to the joint building site without cutting off the power from either the front of our house, or the garage. After a strengthening coffee we get to work to remove the light fittings, the skirtings and half the remaining kitchen cabinet from the back room. The last chair is slid down the passage and goes out into the car. Tony orders some flooring - a kind of cross between Masonite and chipboard with plastic tongue and groove sides which goes down to protect the tiled floor and the under-floor heating beneath.
While the builders have smoko, Leigh disinters a long-dead cat from his garden. The exercise is somewhat hampered by the fact that the bobcat is parked pretty much above the grave, so he can't finish until the end of the day.

Bobcat knocking down a shed

Pulling up a concrete slab

Tony arranges for a plumber to come at the end of the day to disconnect the taps from our sink and the gas from the stove. That done, stove is shifted into the passage and backed up against the door to inhibit access. Sink finishes up in the garden, taps saved in case we want to re-use. Final bits of cabinetry go into the rubbish pile. Back room now completely bare, ready for the roof to come off and walls to come down.

It's official

So far, so good. One day down, only another couple of hundred to go.

D-Day minus one

Did I say that we moved the pantry shelves from the side wall of the kitchen and located them on top of the kitchen cabinet in the garage on Saturday? Probably not, but we did. Today the shelves that normally hold my more decorative cooking and serving equipment come down, and are parked under the workbench in the garage, along with the bookcase which normally holds cookbooks etc. Every last item out taken out of the remaining kitchen cabinets. Two more big boxes of kitchen stuff progressively packed. Laundered loose covers from sofa, just in case they turn out to be useful for something. Uninstalled the dishwasher, put on trolley, moved to garage, followed by the last two boxes.
Some time ago, we took down the shelf unit from above the fridge, and Peter took it apart. Amazingly, the shelves fit neatly across the bath, giving us places to put clean and dirty dishes as we wash up in the laundry trough. Organise the bath and laundry trough area for washing up and tea making, installing kettle beside trough.
Take a break to go to Elwood to feed Archie, cat belonging to Peter's daughter Barb and fiance Scott, who are away for a week.
Move the footstool into the middle room, giving us three seats - the piano stool, the footstool and one easy chair.
Remove all remaining odds and sods, tools, bubble wrap etc.  Put out two very full bins for collection. Pack up one more op shop box. Now the only thing left is one easy chair (due to go to the store tomorrow) and the stove - need a gasfitter to disconnect it before we can move it.
Prepare first microwave only meal and eat in reasonable comfort on a stool each - me on the piano stool, Peter on the footstool. Do first wash-up in the bathroom, all OK. It reminds us of living aboard Nahani, except it isn't quite as convenient - table isn't as good, sink is further away from the table, microwave is no substitute for my lovely Force 10 stove. Ah well. Only 209 days to go (builder's estimate of elapsed time!).

Moving forward, backward, sideways....

Kitchen benches gone
revealing 30 years of filth on side of stove

Lost count of the number of times we've walked from the house to the garage and back. We've emptied every drawer in the kitchen, taken the drawers out of the bench, replaced contents in drawers on floor of living room. Then a bit of work with a jemmy and a saw and we were able to take off the bench top, then pick up the entire bench unit and haul it down to the garage (using rollers, like the pyramids). Put bench beside the dining table. Replaced bench top. One by one, brought each drawer and contents (sometimes together, sometimes separately) from house to garage, replaced drawers, then replaced contents. Phew!
Stowed the hi fi speakers and assorted other boxes under dining table. Packed content of pantry shelves into plastic containers, more things under dining table. Packed up hi-fi equipment, videotapes and DVDs.

Friday night setup, kitchen shelves in the background.

Sewing cupboard transformed
to pantry & cooking facility

On Friday, Bluestone came again and removed the sofa. We put one of the remaining chairs into the car and took it to the local storage where my sis-in-law is renting some space. Rearranged all her furniture so our chairs will fit as well.
On Saturday, moved the fridge, the 'entertainment unit' and the TV into the middle room. This minute room now has to contain our lives for the next 6 months - microwave to cook with, fold-away bench for food prep, fridge to store food, TV cabinet to hold cutlery and crockery and support the TV. Piano in there somewhere, but could only be played by someone sitting on top of it with very dexterous toes, as the keyboard is behind the TV.

Middle room, showing fridge, TV, piano (just visible)
Door to lightwell is open to admit TV aerial cable

Cleaned the stove, packed up most of the rest of the kitchen and moved it to the garage or into the middle room. Cooked what is probably the last meal on the stove for a while - twice-cooked pork belly with pickled walnut cream sauce (my own invention). Peter got the TV aerial working for the relocated TV just in time to watch New Tricks.

Bluestone cometh, furniture goeth

Vacuum the garage. Set up some stands to keep things off the ground. Move the two largest paintings and put them on the stands. Move all the other paintings and some ornaments into Peter's study, putting them on top of his bookcase or double-hanging above other pictures - room now looks like a gallery.
Remove drawers and shelves from cocktail cabinet, move cabinet to garage, replace drawers and shelves.
Feel need for strong coffee and lunch, even though it is only 11:30. Go and have same, take a break, hang out washing.
Move dining table to garage (heavy and awkward). Need more coffee.
Move dining chairs into middle room, ready to be taken away for re-upholstery.
Pack two more cartons of stuff on kitchen shelves, plus a third carton of things to go to the op shop. Decide that life is too short to own any metal objects that require cleaning. Add more things to op shop carton.
Take loose covers off sofa, find $10 in small change. Vacuum sofa removing 40 year old fluff and displacing some spiders.
Lovely man from Bluestone Furniture and Upholstery cometh (thanks Cyndi, for the recommendation). Dave takes dining chairs, advises on sofa. Turns out he once worked for my uncle, who made said sofa.
Start emptying out sewing cupboard, which will become temporary kitchen cupboard/pantry for the next 6 months. More stuff for op shop (the patchwork squares that were going to become a throw for my late mother's room at Napier Street Hostel - I figure that if I haven't done anything with them in the 5 years since she died, I'm probably not going to any time soon).
Remove clarinet, music, etc from music room to my study, as music room is going to become living/dining/kitchen (with piano - you never know when you might need one).
Need a break, go off to play clarinet (very soothing).

Signed!

You may have thought from the long silence that we had given up and run away to sea (literally), but no. It's just that we found out that him-next-door's architect hadn't got his building permit done, so there was another long pause while that got fixed.
But today we signed the contract with the builder, and on Monday next the excavators move in. Last night we started packing up the kitchen/dining room/living room. So far we have emptied the cocktail cabinet and now have about 10 boxes on the floor. Can we get the rest of the cutlery, crockery, glasses, all the appliances (fridge, stove, dishwasher), kitchen equipment, food, dining furniture, lounge furniture, books, paintings etc etc packed up and moved out by Monday? Well, maybe. Watch this space.