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.

Kitchen planning continues

We hike out to Essendon today to see the kitchen people's warehouse and discuss designs. Despite my having told the bloke who came to measure up that I wanted the new kitchen to be exactly like the old one, the sketch designs they show us are quite different. However Peter has the foresight to take some photos of the kitchen with his iPad and bring them with us, and once the woman kitchen designer sees them, she 'gets it' absolutely, so the next round should be more like it.
I keep thinking that this is an opportunity to improve on what I have, so I have toyed with having some new overhead cupboards, a shelf to put the microwave on, etc, but each time I find that either the change will look terrible, or stop something that currently works from working, so I go back to, "I want it just the same". We even think we will keep our old sink, as we haven't found anything we like better. We will replace the existing bin drawer with one that a) works and b) has three separate lift out bins, for compost, recycling, and land-fill rubbish. The 'pantry' drawers will be swapped with one bank of crockery drawers so that all the crockery is in reach of the dishwasher, and all the food is down the end of the kitchen. Apart from that, nothing much will change apart from minor adjustments to dimensions to cope with the changing location of walls.
We are now wrestling with benchtop choices - the material that the kitchen place recommends is Caesarstone, which looks fine, except that I don't like any of the patterns/colours. Why are things never easy?

Further investigation of foundations

P decides that the amount quoted for the foundations is excessive. We are concerned because the engineering for the house next door doesn't specify foundations that are anything like as deep as ours. As the walls are going to be built side by side, they can't both be right. In consultation with the builder, have decided to waiting until they demolish the sheds next door, then redo the soil test on the boundary line. It will cost in the short term, but it may save us money long term if we don't need such expensive foundations.

Quote revision

Price looks a bit better, but that's partly because it excludes things like the painting, which will have to be done anyway and always costs more than you expect. Ah well. As I said to our neighbour, who started all this - it's all right for him if his renos cost more than he is anticipating, it just means he will have to go on working for longer. For us, it means we have to die sooner. But moving would be even more expensive for less benefit, and the house is trying to tell us "It's time" - shower screen has started leaking and one of the kitchen drawers collapsed yesterday. Peter has fixed it, sort of, but it's not a long-term solution.