Week 4 Ends With a Surprise!

Things can and do go very different ways to what one plans at times, like last week the plumber turned out to be a carpenter...

Well, this week the odd job boy went to Germany for a month with Sabina's husband...leaving my gates laying on the ground and rope strung across the posts for temporary barrier!

So, it's another job for Zoltan when he completes his Budapest jobs.

***

Bought a couple of couches and 2 single beds from Sabina the other day and she also threw in about 10-15 huge wooden, double glazed windows, in good repair, which I'll gladly take. The couches are a fawny colour and will be great in this room when I empty it out finally.

A neighbour was at Sabinas' with his horse and buggy and he brought all the stuff home here for me, so that was a great job over and done with in no time at all. I'll collect all the windows as soon as the floors are completed here.

Well, at least the furniture is inside!

Am missing having a junk room for sure...all the odds n' ends out of the end room and the bathroom cum bedroom are in the kitchen, this room, the verandah and it is so messy, but should be all cleaned up in the next 2 weeks, hopefully.

I took my mattress off its base of bricks yesterday and put one of the single beds there instead, piled all the mattresses onto it and now there are 3 mattresses I climb up onto at night! It's only until the floor gets done in the bath/bedroom when I'll move everything out of here and set this room up properly at long last as a lounge/dining.

Will just use the small dining table I have here until after winter and  place the 2 new couches and my computer desk in the room. It will be strange to begin to use the place as a real house and not a construction site.

The rest of the stuff will be stored in the 2 bedrooms until the repair man takes all the furniture to his factory over winter to restore. The rooms being worked on will be without their dividing walls until after winter, so it will be easy to place a lot of gear in both rooms.

Am in no hurry to get them done yet as there is so much else to do without having to navigate passages and room doorways. Am getting excited to be able to think past this new challenge of the present dirt floor in the bath/bedroom, dust everywhere, having to cut out windows and doorways and so on.

Still have one doorway and 2 windows to cut out yet, but now we've found a new way to get it done, it's a lot easier for me to understand the entire process and it seems faster too. So am not concerned about that anymore. Have actually started thinking of paint colours, so things must be moving on in my mind at least!

Dragged out all the pics and old brochures I've carried around for the last 40-50 years and nearly fainted when I saw them this morning. Talk about vision boxes...This place has the very doors I collected pics of, plus the interior decorating moods I want to try and create are all in these old, old bags of brochures I've kept forever.  I am all amazement...as Lizzy from Pride and Prejudice, would say.

Jogging time for me this morning...

There was a lovely sunrise this morning too...
Am up to 3klms a day now...6 times a week...very happy with myself.
I'll tell you what though...having those raw vegies as a blended "drink" every day is amazing. I can really tell the difference in just over 2 weeks of regularly having a glass sized amt each day.

Before blending...

I have 1/4 each of the following fruit and vegies...an apple, orange-with skin, banana, kohlrabi, beetroot, then 2 inches of cucumber with skin, 2 inches of carrot, a fresh small pepper from my garden, some herbs in season and a garlic clove. Sometimes I have red grapes, but if it doesn't blend easily, add a few tea spoons of water and blend for a few mins, pulsing the mix-on/off-until it's nice and smooth. These sizes will make just over a glass of mixture.

My magic mix! All raw and fresh vegies

The spoon should stand up in in the mixture, then add a spoon of yoghurt if desired, sit on the porch in the sun and eat it straight out of the blender container with a parfait spoon...yum-yum-yum!

Apparently you dry them out, cut the leaves off and place the bulbs in an old onion bag and hang in an airy corner of the cellar until spring!

Pulled up the gladiola for winter and started to clean up the gardens today. I had nothing planted last year except tomatoes and chili, so it will be interesting to see how the herbs pan out over winter this season.

Well, that's this weeks wrap up...
Catch you next week with great steps forwards I hope. Zoltan worked away all this week, so nothing further got done on the septic or floors etc. Hoping he's free on the weekend.
Cheers.

Australia Aborted...Stopped in India Instead!

A pretty hello!

Well, Zoltan finished digging finally and we found him wandering around the streets in India...wow it's a deep hole he's dug there!

The extra depth is to allow for a very thick cover, plus soil on top...

There is a footing trench for the brickwork to sit on plus another foot extra of depth to allow for the top and the cover plus they put dirt over it so you can only see the pump out hole. He's making the top cover stronger to allow for the garage to go over a corner of it if needed later on.

Looks like a billiard table...it's so neat.

So, tomorrow he gets the brickwork underway and then when that's finished, they locate and adjust the old septic pipe trenches we dug last year and add a few lengths to it, then we have a septic pit done!
We also shifted that mountain of dirt today, 3 of us plus Zoltan for the last hour and finally got the yard tidy around the area to make tomorrow's work easier.

Already started...moving the mountain by lunchtime is my goal...

An extra pair of shoulders always help...

Working...Hungarian style...hahaha...

Zoltan hard at it...

2 hours in and it's on it's way...

2 and a  1/2 hrs...

3 hrs...

Zoltan emerged from the centre of the earth and got things moving along...

30 mins to go...will we make it?

A few last shovels full to go...

Hurrah...just as we finished the last barrow load, the church bells chimed 12mday! How cool was that?

Going for a walk up to see a friend...

Autumn is here...

It was a bit late to get good shots...I must go earlier...

This is that beautiful rose bush...the loveliest of roses...

Pink on the outside petals only...

Hello!

I love this rose...

It is an amazingly beautiful rose indeed...

Homeward bound...

The end of a perfect day...First time in well over 3 weeks we have had a clear sky in the evening...

I have finally worked out a great system to get everything done, decently and in order...

• I help the guys for 4 hours, 8-12md to do the work how I want it and then everyone goes home...
• Then I clean up inside, wash, laze in the lovely sun...yup, the sun...and 
• then cook andhave tea at 4pm clean up again and 
• then jump on the computer at 5 pm and catch up on my blog etc etc and 
• go to bed at 10pm ish...and watch 2 episodes of Hogans Heroes. 

I'm going to have to get some more DVD sets to watch and meant to buy Downton Abbey box set before I left, but the new computer put paid to that for a while!

Anyways the new routine is very efficient as it gives me order and routine and I found I even had time today to go visit a friend up the other end of the village.

So very organised...but not quite the ending I wanted for this week as the guy who came out to give the plumbing quote turned out to be a carpenter!
hahaha...
I wondered why he kept on measuring walls etc on Wednesday when he was here.
He brought his English speaking son last night to go thru exactly what I wanted and the son looked at me after I'd shown him the dirt floor in my bathroom...with the space age shower sitting on it's wooden piece of floor...and he said..."well, then, what exactly do you want us to do...I said "hook up the water" and he said, "we can't do that, we are carpenters".

Anti-climax indeed...
So, it's back to traipsing across planks for another week or so until I find a plumber!

That's it for now...cheers.

4th Week in and... Huston...We Have a Doorway!

Very exciting to finally have a seemingly impossible idea come into being and look great at the same time.
Well, I think it does anyways...and to add to my delight, the sun actually shone for a few hours this afternoon.  I sat out on the verandah and had a long overdue cuppa, enjoying the lovely afternoon in between running back and forth to check on the door cutting progress between coughs and splutters from the dust!

Just finished the last of the stewed plums I cooked in early August before leaving for 7 weeks in Australia with family....Yummo. Cooked in their own juice with no added sugar or anything else. Just plums...from my own trees.

I had no idea it could really be done, considering the sorry state of the end room a few months ago, but give Zoltan some cement and a trowel and he's a wizz! So focused.

Zoltan still creating heaps of dust as he saws away at the mud bricks...I stopped him belting and banging away at it with a hammer and axe and made him use my little wood saw...which surprised him that it actually worked!

This was the hole this morning...

This was the hole at lunch time...

This is the doorway at 3pm this afternoon, with the dust finally settled. Looking into the end room which contains the cellar entrance...you can just see a bit of the cellar door on the floor...(it lifts up to gain access)

Looking from the end room right into the other bedroom, plus a 2nd bedroom will be in the area where the timber is up against the wall. It's still too wet to complete digging the septic pit, so Zoltan will complete the walls and special waterproofing coat to the floor in this room, as we ran out of the correct sand before I went to Australia in August. this year.

Getting a quote for a plumber to sort out the bathroom tomorrow, but I'm thinking now he won't be needed as I'm going to leave well alone in that department and keep all the fittings as they are.

Removing "the back to the future shower" looks like a nightmare with all the intricate radio, lights, pulse jets wiring etc behind it,  so we'll sort out a way to cement all the floor around and under it. I'm thinking it can easily be lifted up, instead of moving it out. It seems that could work.

The loo pipes are already in, the wash basin(an old kitchen sink at the moment) works well, and that can easily be dismantled and another vanity installed, so it looks like a fairly easy job now I decided NOT to add the 2nd bathroom into the big bathroom space.

I kept looking at the shower and honestly, it needs a big room to show itself off in...so I'm letting it be. Plus, I like the big light and airy bathroom, so the other loo etc will just have to go in the new section next year. End of story!

We only have to run some water pipes to the kitchen, about 4 mtrs or so, plus a waste water pipe from the kitchen sink in the new kitchen area to connect to the vanity waste or whatever and that will sort out the plumbing...at long last.

Found a nice under-bench electric fan-forced oven at the gas store today...$250 AUSD, plus cooktops range from $120 for a 4 plate gas to $500 or more for top of the range glass tops. No hurry for the top cooker part as I have a hot plate, which I haven't used since I came back and the wood stove I cook on now, so no worries there. Just itching to get the jolly oven in though, so I can finally bake stuff!

Very excited to have the doorway cut through to match the height of the existing doorways now, as I try and create the one style throughout the entire place to tie it all together.

That's all for now...
x

Yoiks...A Hole in the Wall and No Floor!

OMGoodness...I'm so over this rain!

My head is spinning... as when it looks like it maybe fine, the guys get organised to do outside work...but the rain drives them inside...

So, this morning, out goes all the furniture and 3/4 of the floor came up, as we found we have to call in a professional plumber to take care of all the intricate plumbing details I need done. I had to keep the shower over in the corner on it's 1/4  bit of floor, as the water has to be cut off etc etc, so it's not quite as easy as we first thought.

Then we took out the sand in an hour, when I thought it would take a day or so. But with 2 wheel barrows and me in the middle, plus Zoltan and Florie, we got it done in one hour! No stopping every 10 mins for a smoke when I'm around!

The gate could not be completed as it was still too wet for the cemented in posts to set properly. Zoltan got stuck into cutting a hole in the wall as it was too wet to finish the septic pit...I decided it would be too messy to bring the concrete into the room thru the kitchen and over the front entrance, so the end room was the best way to do it.

So we had to go with cutting a door hole thru now...not in March.
My head spins as I like to plan, but this is unreal!

Chopping the deal to set the fire for cooking my tea...

A bit of shoveling goes a long way to replace waist exercise to-day.  It was pretty dusty in there...

Testing the camera settings...can't find flash!

First of 4 floor panels come out!

3 of 4 parts of floor up...now the floor beams go out...

This is real...the spots are dust! The new camera picks up everything!

Cracked up laughing on this one! This is what the floor was plugged into/onto...for probably over 50 years.

The last bit of floor to get pulled up, but we have to move the shower, turn off the water etc etc...Tomorrow for that one.

Zoltan underpinning the floor/walls in here to block up furry critters holes!

I like cooking on the fire, so have to chop the deal to light the fire to cook tea...Lovin' it!

Decided to cut the doorway into the end room as it was raining again...

A few minutes later, the bricks are exposed...

A few more minutes, we found a round hole...Have no idea what it was...

A few more minutes and he had broken through. This wall is only a bit over one foot thick...surprising.

You can now see into the end room...Now the next lot of fun begins...

So, you see...it's a hodge-podge of a bit of this...a bit of that.
So different to summer when only the heat held things up!

Anyways, I go to bed at night, wondering what on earth will eventuate every wet tomorrow...
There are so many jobs to be done, it really doesn't matter I guess.

Am off now, so let's see what tomorrow brings!
Sunshine...I hope.