NZ house and garden

The work continues at Cafe Rata between having friends around for dinner - sometimes, as was the case yesterday, Joe has to delay getting a final sealing coat on the walls of the lounge dining to make sure the room is habitable in terms of diminished paint smell before visitors were here for dinner last night.

Most of the lounge furniture is clumped together in the middle of the room and some is stacked in the hall, so Joe can get at the walls. It is great that he is back, as my wrists (the right in particular) would not cope with the roller's weight.

Today Joe has put the second coat on the walls to make sure that the colour is standard - the wallpaper for the lounge dining is one that has the wall pasted, not the paper, and the instructions (and the verbal warning from the salesperson) state that the colour must be standard and even. Given my experience with the bedroom paper, I am keen to follow those instructions to the letter!

Very friendly furniture and walls with one coat - you can see the colour isn't close to even

The gas heater has been partially removed so we can get at the wall behind. The sun is streaming in the dining windows especially now that we have trimmed the camellias.

An artful stack of furniture in the hall ... not particularly earthquake conscious tho

So yesterday as he couldn't paint, Joe did the rest of the prep for the room - sanding windowframes, skirting, doors, architraves and then he put the masking tape around the windowframes - there was plenty of that to do as there are six windows (inc the the ranchslider) plus the six panes of glass on each of the french doors into the lounge. Then he reconstructed the lounge - it was a matter of minutes for him to do so as he can lift each piece of furniture seemingly without effort.

Rob was here Monday week ago and did a huge amount of work. He has constructed two more gardens in the front yard - one outside the garage and one by the front fence. He's cleared around the rhododendrons, sprayed the periwinkle which will, like the wandering jew, take over the place if not killed off effectively, sprayed the weeds/lilies/other unwanted plants in the garden outside the bedroom.

I'm not sure what these are but they were already under this rhodo and will be augmented by more of them to form a skirt around the tree - and require no weeding ...

Rob will be back this Thursday and has promised me that now it's officially autumn (by date, if not by any weather changes) we can go plant shopping ... A lemon tree, a kaffir lime, ...

Inside, apart from the dining lounge work that Joe is currently doing, I have put up the splashback and the new rangehood has been installed by Evan the electrician who featured in the post about the kitchen installation. When you don't look too closely, the splashback looks good - perfectly installed, I have to say, even if I did make a pig's ear of taking a slice off the cupboard shelf that it had to slot behind. I'm only just getting back into DIY, is my excuse!

I am using the multitool - I know I should be wearing shoes rather than jandals, and I know I should have the shelf in a vice but I don't have one - I knew I should have got one from Dad's workshop when he died ...

At least I am wearing my wrist brace and I have the shelf on a sack to keep it in place. I didn't cut the rectangular hole, by the way, that was there for the chimney for the previous rangehood. I didn't put the shelf back up as Evan had to trim it to fit the new round flexible chimney stuff.

The splashback is faulty - I think the colour is even, but there is something wrong with the glass - the hardening process perhaps, because there is a border about 100 - 150mm around the sides and bottom which is duller than the centre and has the appearance of an oil slick.

Splashback siliconed in place, cupboard shelf still out, towel on hob for protection in case I slipped

Looks OK in this photo, but it's not, dammit!

With rangehood installed, but the splashback isn't right ...

So even though the splashback and rangehood are up, they are both going to have to come down for the former to be replaced. That replacement process is in train, but we shall see.

The lovely blingy tiles that are going to border the upstand arrived at the shop. But there's no point in putting them up till the splashback has been replaced.

Is there no end to this kitchen job?

At least Joe brought me breakfast in bed!