Friday, May 13, 2016

Hungarian Cot Beds, European Beds and Beds I'm Used To...

Which to use?
Which is most comfortable?
Which looks bulky in a room?
Which is easiest to sit on?
...and on went the dialogue between me and my mind all this time!

Have finally sorted it out and think it will look great the way I have in mind now.

Eric is busy sanding back the beds to bare wood and we went with one coat of new stain with a clear coat of satin varnish over the top.
Hoping they will all come out OK when they dry as they do look amazing just now...but waiting for the final finish before we can breathe a sigh of relief and know it is completed OK.

Now we have an idea how to do the sanding, we are going back to the first wardrobe he did and will strip it right back now as Eric has really sorted out how to do it properly.

Very happy with the idea of keeping some things dark and am now sorting through furniture to see which pieces get painted white, salmon, aqua or green!

My early morning jogging trophies from along the roadsides...
Dog stays put when kids play with her. Amazing dog really. She also lays low on the ground on her belly when around kids and has never jumped up on them yet. I'm positive she must have been a well loved family pet with a stack of kids.
More bricks and timber for the 3 door shed which should be completed by the time I go to Serbia for 2 weeks for completion of  my crowns around the 18th May. 
Well, the steel rods are in and the last bit of the footings pour is underway.
The full length of the 3 door shed gets footings for a new back wall...
The iris and little purple herb flowers are from my garden...The rest are poppies, wild white flowers, red and pink beautifully smelling roses from my jogging track.
We made some nibblies for coffee time. Good recipe. Sesame seeds, linseed, almond, sunflower, walnut, carob powder, poppy seeds, red currants, coconut, oats, olive oil, 2 eggs and some fresh cows milk. Mix well and roll into balls, sprinkle with extra sesame seeds and press down with a fork and bake in a mod-high oven for 30-40 mins or until turning brown. All the seeds except the sesame were ground up in my blender which has a nut/seed crusher gadget on it. 
Check out the dust from the sander! It was everywhere while Eric did this. It took 3 days to get the 2 beds sanded right back to bare wood as the old laquer was almost 1/8 of an inch thick. He's doing a great job on the furniture. Maria has been waiting for me to get the glue and some beading strips to put on the red box so she can get started on her flower power painting jobs on Monday.
Stripping down from the heat of the day, even under the verandah. Another 2 weeks of this messy sanding and it all should  be completed and then it's on with the next lot of jobs. Will be so nice to have nice clean and tidy furniture at last.
OK, that's all for this past week.

We slowed down a bit as it was going too fast in all directions for me to supervise the finish details.

One thing I missed in the 3 door shed footings was to extend one end through to the end of the future new building so the footing was in one pour...not joined as it will now be.

I'll get the guys to stagger the bricks at that end wall and that hopefully should be ok for the rest of the wall...maybe get them to pour the complete footing and do the wall all in one?
Maybe they have to build another wall, a double wall there, who knows?
It's a matter of do...learn...oops...re-do sometimes!.

The thing is, you really have to think very far ahead, as they don't do that.
But, being a builder from a highly regulated country compared to being out in the back blocks here, it really is different.
My responsibility though is to ensure it is better than how they do it here, so I stopped work on the shed for a week to catch up and check things out.

We start work again on Tuesday, (tomorrow), so it should all be completed before I leave for Serbia around the weekend...ish.

Bye...
See you next week
M
xxx




Monday, May 9, 2016

The 3 Door Shed Became a 3 Door Wall!

OOOWAHHH

What have I done?

My poor little shed...sighhh...
Well, that's the roof gone!
A few minutes after starting...
30 mins later...
Oh dear...
More tiles off...
Better prop up the ceiling I guess...
Almost done and it's only morning tea time!
Now it's really nude!
Looks a bit Mexican I thought!
Just checking says Maria...
Day 2 and the back wall gets the last parts knocked down...
All done! Now to cart the rubble all away.
Missed this one...
One day the tiles and roof came off...next day the entire back wall was demolished and carted away.
Some of the rubble was used to fill the area at the back of the house, some went to the big deck and the rest went down to the bottom paddock to be broken up to fill up hollows down there.

The little shed has finally been completed, roof tiles cut in and timber edging added.
Now I can paint it all next week.
Almost ready to paint now...
A bit different now...
Eric has been smashing up the mud bricks as the guys drop them in the designated places and all up, things are moving on fast now.
Eric breaking up some of the bricks to fill the back area of the house.
The 3 door "shed" only has the ceilings and half an end wall and the front wall remaining...
Tomorrow the guys dig the footings and prep it all for cementing before rebuilding the walls again.
Tomatoes and beans all in down the other end...Tomorrow the path and edges get finished...
We planted lots of tomatoes plants, more beans and laid out the bricks to complete the house path and garden edgings today.
Then tomorrow we redo the front path that Dave from USA did, as it falls towards the fence and we have to lift it about 4 inches and slope it away from the fence for drainage...if it ever rains again, that is!
The princess in her Mexican dress...
The rest of the furniture sanding is being done next week as the weather is getting hotter in the day and while it's comfortable enough we'll work outside for now and complete those outside jobs.

Maria has roughly chalk sketched out her flower plan on the box and it looks great, don't you think.
Very artistic Maria...Roughing out a test pattern to see if it fits...all free hand!
Went for a walk around the yards today and was surprised to find natures bounty well under way...Mulberries...
Apples...
Plums...
Chinese Gooseberries
Iris...
Peaches...
Freshly pulled Radish...
Well, that was our weekend and even though I forgot, I did have a very Happy Mother's Day!
My boys emailed me to wish me a happy day, otherwise I'd never have thought about it.

Will see you in the next few days with a new shed I guess.

Cheers for now and hope you enjoyed the tour thru a mud brick demolition...
M
xxx

Saturday, May 7, 2016

One Day to Go...

Yaaahhhy...
One more working day and all the doable for now jobs will be completed!
I can hardly believe it. There are heaps more jobs to do but these are all those left over bits from here and there...all being completed before beginning anything else! Such a relief.

Then the 3 door shed repairs begin and according to Zoltan, it will only take a few days?

I think he may mean 3 days with 2 guys to pull off the roof tiles, battens, roof rafters, prop up the ceilings, cement/underpin around the base and put the roof rafters and tiles back on.
That seemed the schedule from the way he threw his hands around up and down and here and there, while chatting away in Hungarian yesterday!

The volunteer family has settled in here and seem to be doing well in the bedroom area set aside for them all. Eric and Maria both speak excellent English and a variety of other languages and the little girl speaks Polish.
Erik has worked on 2 robes since being here plus 2 chairs, put a new wheel on the mower, cut the grass yet again, helped level the big deck for next weeks dumping of mud bricks from the 3 door shed repairs and built a sand pit for little Malenia.

Maria has been doing the cooking mostly, washing up countless times a day...until we discovered her hidden talent...

She is an artiste!

Guess who is now going to hand paint the flowers onto the 2 chairs and big box coffee table???
Maria is painting the flowers onto a table/box  I have just like this one here. See box in image below.
Prepping the big box to be painted by Maria, as in above image...Plus the 2 chairs to match in reverse colours.
Maria is on the task of painting 2 chairs to resemble this one here.
A friend dropped these antiques around yesterday! Wow, 1875 or something like that it says on the bottoms of the set of 3 salmon trimmed , gold embossed fine china pieces. How blessed am I! Thank you young Zolly and Renata.
How pretty is this? It is a flower from the ornamental chestnut tree. Beautiful!
The cement bag princess...
The water metre man's private gate!
The last pic before the roof comes off!
Construction styles...circa 1920!
This is for Zoltan to make sure the overhang gets put back the same sizes!
Fence extended to outside the well area. Now I have to pave the rest of the path to match the existing path and garden edgings...and plant more vegies now the garden area is safe from workers feet!
Fence extension from outside yard. Looks enormous inside now.
Eric shoveling the last of the white sand into the new work area, just beyond the yard area I want kept tidy from now on-wards. Then when the yellow sand and last bit of gravel near the roof tiles is used up next week, we will have an empty and tidy yard at long and weary last! The new work area will be inside the area for the new room.
More bags of cement, lime and gravel arriving for the reconstruction of the 3 door shed. Woweee!
Back in use with knobs and all. The brass door locks are a bit hard to remove to clean up, so they can stay as they are!
I found a secret room on the deck now the bushes have grown which make a perfect round room in the centre of a circle of bushes. So we are going to level it all out and maybe pave it with a pile of flat concrete paving we found under more rubble!
Yes, it still is a discovery time here, but I think this may have been the final lot as there isn't that much left to tip upside down.

We only have to rake all the yard where we have been working and then take the tidy pics for you and then it's onto the next bit of demolition!

So we will see you all next week with all the beds sanded back, cot sides and all, the wine vat coffee table all sanded and prepped repaired for use, a painted salmon coloured box and some chairs in various stages of flower power, the 3 door shed maybe half completed and the big deck sorted out and tidied up for use!

So, bye for now,
Cheers,
Mary
xxx

Monday, May 2, 2016

All Done and Dusty...

Was more than a bit naughty this last few weeks!
Have been watching heaps of videos of actual speeches of the USA candidates and trying to understand their doctored election process.

Think I understand it now, enough to know what they mean when they say delegates, super delegates unbound delegates and so on. Just waiting for Super Tuesday to see what happens there  now.

My volunteer family arrived on Sunday and have settled in OK and started into doing things.
Milena, the little 6 year old here for a month!
The first dresser has been sanded back yesterday and today and repaired and we just rubbed some oil stuff into it that we found in an old tin and it looks stunning. Loving it...only 14 pieces to go yet that need a real sand back and then a few chairs which will be easy.
Make a wish...
I'm making one room traditional in brown and whites, the old Hungarian way, then other rooms will have white furniture with lots of bright colours like in Catherine's cottages in Hungary.

We mowed the entire paddock today and just got it completed when the wheel broke off the mower...so into town tomorrow to see if we can find one to fit.
Before that the handle broke off it a few days ago and Klaas welded that back on yesterday, so I think it might be time to buy a new mower now that the paddocks are fairly well leveled enough to mow OK. We've got it all down to 3 inches high grass/weeds now!
Cabinet no 1 under way!
A close up of the awesome results...
Almost done. Doesn't it look awesome? When we all saw how it was sanding back, we thought it might look great if we oiled it. Found some dried up stain from when I stained the toilet timbers and we got a hand full of the really stiff gum and rubbed it on the wood...ohhh, absolutely amazing. The depth of texture, the glow of the wood and grain in the wood was lovely, so we decided to leave it just like you see above. This cabinet was black as you can see from the bits we are leaving black.
Got the little house garden gates made today, half the mower strip around the big deck laid, plus completed a few other little things and tomorrow we complete the fence extension and then complete a bit of work on the little shed roof tiles and eave thing, then we can begin work next week on the 3 door shed at long last.
Zoltan digging the hole for the post for the new gate for the water metre man's own private entrance!
The little girl was playing with the pot...she waters all the plants...and left it here...then Zoltan walked past and I thought..."Workers toilet facilities!" You can also see the second gate being made there, only one to go now!
The roof tiles have to come off the 3 door shed first, then the ceilings will be supported and the back wall will be knocked out and rebuilt. Then they do the both ends, a bit at the front, add a door and put the roof back on and cement the floor. That's the plan.

Then in June the couple who will be helping write the manuals will be here for a month after the family leave at the end of the month for Croatia where their mum lives.

The new volunteer jobs will be...
  • Test the meals from pictures and recipes
  • record and measure ingredients and make sure they all are readily available in town 
  • write out recipes, 
  • compile the Systems and Training manuals for how things are to be done. eg.
  • how fitted sheets must be folded, 
  • what needs ironing and what not to iron, 
  • how big to fold linen so it's uniform in size to keep linen cupboards tidy
  • Washing procedures, washing ingredients to use to protect from rashes, most allergies etc 
  • how utensils/crockery/cutlery must be washed, what with and how they must be stacked and stored for hygiene requirements, 
  • house and bathroom/toilet cleaning duties and routines, 
  • bed and towel change schedules, 
  • how to make the beds so they are uniform in appearance,
  • what to do if someone knocks off the linen or whatever
  • all the procedural policies needed to compete in an open market
  • how to set the tables correctly etc etc, 
  • check out the timings for the day tours to see what can and can't be fitted in in each day, 
  • edit the brochure I'll create and so on. 
If all that can be done in one month, I'll be more than very happy. The framework is all laid out, so all they'll have to do is organise the headings, fill in the pages of blanks and print it out into folders...so that means one new printer coming up!
Klaas gave me a nice Cannon printer but the black refill is over $45! A new HP printer is about $75 and the refills are about $20. I wish I could find a refill shop like Cartridge World.

Then all being well, Summer will be upon us and the work will slow down a bit due to the heat, so am racing to get most of the exterior construction work completed by end June...apart from the big room which will start when all else is completed.

OK...will have more pics in the next few days after we complete ALL the outstanding pesky little jobs!
Zoltan was working away all last week, so I really did have a lovely break...

I sat in front of my computer and watched every video on Hillary(the blatant in your face lying criminal...) Donald, wow...what a salesman and what a great job he's doing, exposing all this stuff about rigged voting, the crooked banking system, the Federal Reserve and so on. 18 hrs a day of videos for about 10 days total...I can't believe I watched so much info! Did my own research, not what the news reports said, but stuff right out of their own mouths, court cases and more

OK...am away now.
Have to sort out my dentist trip to Belgrade a visit to the Eagles Nest just over the Austrian border, a trip up to Hamburg to see Love Never Dies all before end of July, so hopefully I can get away a couple of times while the family is here and also while the other couple are here in June.

Bye all and have fun,
xxxx
M