Were we going for the weathered look?

Tags

big ass fan, cinema, cladding, renovation, storm, tiles, weather

Well then, where were we? 

Oh yes, the plasterer had gone AWOL, the painters were missing, and our kitchen bench was a wasn’t.  What else could go wrong?

For those not familiar with Wellington, why, you will find it conveniently located RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT MASSIVE WEATHER BOMB.

Wellington got hit with a rather stiffer breeze than normal last week.  Winds of over 200kph tore down trees and tore up roads.  Southerly winds.  Meaning nothing between our house and these Antarctic Gales but….um…..nothing. 

Nothing except a lot of sand dunes and boardwalks which are now all approximately several kilometres away from their original position.

(This great video takes you all along the south coast)

We spent a reasonably anxious night wondering if there was going to be a house to be plastered and painted in the morning, or if we would instead be retrieving bits of it from distant hillsides for the next few years. 

But no, our lady has got good strong bones.  She’s stood for over 100 years right there, and hopefully looks like she plans to keep standing.  (And we’ve got the 100% Earthquake Compliance Certification to prove it.  Now, as long as global warming doens’t sink her….)

Unlike our neighbour’s garage roof, which ended up in our backyard. Leaving a nice collection of dings and scrapes along the side of our new cladding, but OH NO neighbour, it’s fine, you don’t need to come over and check the damage or apologise or thank our builders who helped secure the remainder of it down or anything.

The scaffolding itself actually caused the most damage to our place, with the winds driving it into the new edge flashings, splitting and denting them.  It’s all relatively minor cosmetic damage, luckily.    Have I mentioned our lovely cladders?  I have complete respect for these guys.    In freezing, sand-laden winds that I could barely stand up in, with nary a safety harness between them, they were high atop scaffolding. (Elevated.  Not wasted.  Although that might explain their lack of nerves.)

Plus, day-glo orange. It takes a brave man to work that.

We have another hero in this (fairly mundane actually, given the real damage so many others copped that night) story.  The building inspector.  Now, its not often that a home renovator goes around extolling the virtues of an overly cautious building inspector.  In fact, just a few weeks ago, we were downright grumpy about the fact that he wouldn’t let us gib and plaster the interior of the front wall until the cladding and windows were in place.

That would have been some fairly sodden gib board we would have been replacing. We salute you, Mr Building Inspector.

But the winds died and the sun came back

ok, so its over there. I was a bit late to actually capture the sun coming back to us. This is Wellington, you’ve got to be quick or you’ll miss it.

And so did the plasterer and painters….

This was all actually before the storm, but pfffff accurate timeline schmaccurate timeline

And squeeeeee finished ceiling. 

Well.  Nearly finished ceiling.  Looks a bit bare, doesn’t it?  I wonder what that space really needs…..

Oh, I know – a Big Ass Fan!!!

Serene white walls…arching white ceiling….austere glass – all feeling a bit minimal zen art gallery chapelish?

I’ll wait for those who know me to stop snorting under their breath at exactly how long “minimal” and “Leroy” can co-exisist.

And now for something a little more me…..

Yes! More tiles! More shiny! More pretty!

I fell in love with this glass mosaic bubble tile.  At first it was just going to go on the splashback wall behind the sink…

This is the wasn’t bench that isn’t, but will be an is very soon. (I may have been reading too much Suess to Newbie and the Pugs.)

And then it just sort of kept going…across the entire kitchen wall…

My mother may have very tactfully mentioned that this might appear a little over the top. I may have less than tactfully advised that was exactly the point.

Yes, yes, I know mosaic tiles are hell to clean, and yes, I’ve got them all over my kitchen walls and yes, I am a less than pristine chef who should apparently treat my kitchen the way I treat my surgery, says Midge.   Who has in actual fact never seen me operate, and therefore doesn’t appreciate the fact that I am possibly the only person alive who can manage to splatter the ceiling and walls (keep reading, it’s not gory, I promise) with iodine soap (see? ungory) simply by scrubbing my hands.   If he really wants me to cook like I operate, I’ll just drop things on the floor when I’m done with them so they don’t contaminate my aseptic technique. 

Gordon has mosaic tiles. I bet no-one expects him to scrub them.