Occupancy

We have the paperwork...an interim certificate of occupancy.

Imagine - the key to the door at last.

The floors are polished, the woodwork is complete, the water flows through the taps, the loos flush.
The doors to the nonexistent balcony have been sealed.

There's still stuff happening, like oiling of the architraves and skirting boards, shellacking the banister and balustrade, a few doors to put in place, a few cupboard handles to put on, carpets and window treatments to put in...and dust is still settling, both literally and metaphorically...but it's safe and livable!

We can stay there when we visit and as we do all the fine tuning.
We have stayed there!

A couple of beds have been put into rooms (ok so one is just a mattress on the floor), along with the appropriate accoutrements, and although they are king size beds, they look quite small in the rooms which are enormous - all of them are 5m by 7.2m.

Outside is still rather a mess, but it is pointless doing much out there as we hope to start the next phase shortly, including the verandah surface and beautiful 'fencing' comprising columns and ironwork to match that at the rear of the building.

Most of the tiles of the verandah are broken, and there are numerous 'infills' of various sizes and composition. The aim is to restore as faithfully as we can to original, but it'll have to be replacement tiles.

But hey, there's even outside lights...














...and just look at the front door. There's now locks in place, though we are saving our special brass handles until we finally get to really move in!!

The Ups of Down...stairs

As I write, the stairs and the downstairs floors are being transformed. Last week they were being sanded and the polishing began. Next week the final coats of polish will be applied, a few days of hardening, and it's 'shoes off as you enter' territory (except of course when safety regulations say otherwise, in which case protective covers required!!

The carpenters will be able to get back in to put the beading round the edge of the floors, they have a couple of door to put on and then we really are down to fine tuning.

So here's a few pics of the changes downstairs over the last little while...




The lounge/sitting room/drawing room with (current) views of the clocktower, and french doors out onto the verandah (that's another phase, yet to be commenced!) and a connecting door through to the dining room...




...with another light fitting from Early Settler Recollections, and the faceted glass throws interesting patterns onto the painted walls...














...and with our reclaimed mantlepiece and a (gas) coal fire in homage to the Coal River and a major Newcastle industry!

The study still has to have the skirting boards 'tacked on' rather than being permanently fixed in place because one day there will be a floor to ceiling book case, as there should be in all good study/libraries!!














There's a powder room downstairs (all mod cons)...

...and a large kitchen with island bench, and a breakfast bar that divides it from part of the family room.

The splashback makes use of the floor tiles that we didn't use on the floor as they perfectly match the marble benchtops!






This picture is taken from the family room, to the left in this picture is the meals area which will have a large marble top table, also to match!

The cooktop (induction) is covered to protect it as the rangehood was installed.




So it really is starting to feel habitable....at last!

We'll be back up there in a couple of weeks ready to put on the main door furniture, including the old brass handles that we picked up in UK (currently on the mantlepiece in the dining room in case you spotted them in that picture), organise for the two back rooms to be carpeted, and make plans for the next phase...kitting out, and the support and retiling of the front 'patio'

...and the Ups

Fortunately there are many ups to report, and we are at the so called pointy end!

We have even been inspected and passed the test for an interim certificate of occupancy! I stress the word interim. It doesn't mean the work is finished (by a long stretch) but it does mean it is safe and sufficient for people to stay there, which will be incredibly useful as we enter the final stages in the next few weeks.

The horrendous Newcastle storms (cyclonic and resulting in devastation across the city) certainly tested out the fabric of the building, and I'm pleased to report that it came through unscathed.

We lost the eastern side fence, with the posts being ripped out of the brickwork that was holding them in place. Fortunately one of the carpenters saw it and with blocks of wood and lots of rope (and the base of a Moreton Bay fig) managed to secure it so that it could do no damage to our building or the car park (or cars) on the other side of the fence!



Inside was making good progress though, despite almost two weeks of inactivity because of the fallen trees, lack of power and the floods!


I just checked where we were up to when I last posted a blog and it's good to look back and realise that we have indeed made progress.There's still lots of fine tuning bits to do (and a few major jobs), but it really feels like a house now. As soon as we get real access, we will be in there with the oil to treat all the cedar - architraves, window sills, skirtings etc.

The floorboards of the upstairs corridor and rooms have been polished and wow!  The photos don't really do them justice but here are a few photos from upstairs to show the rooms, the finish, the floorboards, lights...and even functioning bathrooms (almost)....

The rescued floorboards in our master suite have come up really well and we are so pleased we saved them - if only we had been able to save more!! 
The painting is finished, the lights work, the wardrobes are in (though not finished), almost ready to move in!!! 












..and our glorious travertine ensuite with massive shower.

















The arch bedroom has an arched fireplace to match , and also its washbasin - now with taps!

...and new but fantastic polished flooring..wide boards as it would have been back when...












The rear verandah has coach lamps and the floors are sanded ready for polishing...

...and the stairs to the  verandah have their original conformation, and repaired and sanded boards.

We actually managed to rescue all of the steps and risers, though there are new manufactured noses (Barker Stairs craftsmanship)



While at this stage the balustrades and banister were still in the workshop, once everyone had recovered from the Newcastle cyclone and the power was back in, the staircase made another big leap forward.....







...ready for the french polisher who will shellac the balustrading and banisters to protect all that beautiful cedar. The balustrades are copies of the originals that were in the house, based on the one fuzzy photo from a newspaper clipping! More Barker stairs craftsmanship on display!

ok, so that has got us to downstairs...next post for a few pics of that!! Maybe tomorrow.

The Downs...

Ok one of the downs is that I am down on my bended knees in apology for the long gap between posts. I've been back in Australia for a few weeks now after 9 weeks in Namibia and then 10 days in Botswana  - but my feet have only just started to touch the ground.

Another of the downs is the news that Newcastle City Council have approved the DA for the house next door at number 18 Bond Street! While there have been minor modifications to the original plans, there are none that in the slightest way improve the bulk, scale or setbacks of the building, so we lose just about all our natural light, our views and our privacy. Not to mention the fact that after all our hard work, and our diligence in recreating as close to original as possible, Coutts Sailors Home  will become the jam in the sandwich and mostly lost from view. If you walk round and stand in front of the building, then you can see the front facade, no more Grand Vistas!

(Perhaps the fact that we will no longer have views of the iconic Customs House clocktower from 14 different windows gives Alastair an excuse to invest in more long case clocks??)

It's not all over, after following up using GIPA (Freedom of Information) we have discovered some interesting things relating to the process at both the Heritage Council and the Newcastle City Council, so we have taken legal advice and are challenging now!

There's been a lot of downs in the bank balance (we always knew it would cost lots), and been a few downs with regard to what's been done  (and what's been not done) at the house while I have been away and not able to monitor so closely, but there has been some great progress and that leads us on to the next post ..The ups...

Twelve months checkpoint

Progress is being made but often it isn't very photographically obvious.
The photos were taken towards the end of January, quite some time after the last posting, and show the 'obvious' bits...

(Since then I have tracked to one of my other homes away from home...this is being put together on the edge of the Namibia desert! Just hoping the Internet connection can survive it!)

So we now almost have a bathroom on the mezzanine level. The bath and plumbing is in and there is also a loo ( behind the door!) The vanity and sink are (obviously) still to be fitted. Looks a bit different to the photo in the blog some time ago when you could see through to the floor below!!

Opposite the bathroom, the shower room just awaits its glass screen (and a gas connection to heat the water).

The kitchen is at last just about sorted, with cabinets partly put together and trialled in the space...yes it will work! Hard to see in this state, but next step... The oven, hot plates and dishwasher are ordered and can be put in when the next phase of cabinet construction is completed. ie doors and drawers and handles and...

The stairs have actually had some work done on them although there is a long way to go...it took hours of painstaking work to remove the old linoleum from the stair treads, but now we can see wood which will be sanded and coated. New noses and sides are necessary for the new balustrading (we found one old photo!) and banister. Work should start on that this month too. Meanwhile the mezzanine level floor is the last bit of floor boarding...

Have to say at this point that my expertise with Blogger is limited at the best of times, but I am struggling moreso trying to do it on my iPad... Apologies for the layout. Maybe I will adjust later...






One of the things we were hoping to do was preserve the tiling of the front verandah. Closer examination of the tiles that were original revealed that most of them were in fact cracked or broken and there was no way we were going to be able to rescue enough to even make a meaningful area. So we decided to rescue some while we could and have used them to make the hearth for the dining room fireplace - the one with the cedar mantelpiece that we found in Islington (Islington Newcastle that is). We have numerous photos of the tiling that is on the verandah and will endeavour to replicate at least in style. The later addition concrete slabs will not be part of the design!

Now the guest bedrooms that don't have ensuite have their period vanity basin at least, they just need the period taps to complete the item. Pics next time.

Some rooms are still storage facilities...others are still workrooms, but we have come a long way in twelve months!

Nitty gritty

The title for this post is a bit of a double entendre..NITTY GRITTY

1 We are now having to make nitty gritty decisions about kitchen design and fixtures and fittings...
2 The house is still swarming with tradies (that's the Australian affectionate term for tradesmen); carpenters cutting wood, shaving doors, fixing architraves and skirting, gyprockers cutting and fixing cornice, tilers cutting travertine tiles to fit, and painters sanding back old wood for oiling as well as finalising edges around windows and doors. So it is still very gritty dirty dusty in there.
Sweeping up just creates clouds of dust, and it's all back in a trice anyway. On top of all of that, with all the tradies on site, every room is either a work room with benches and cutting tools, a preparation room or a store room!

At least the garages are slowly getting a little emptier!


At the weekend, one of the priorities was to finally decide what fireplace mantles were going where. As part of our package deal we had acquired 6 marble fireplaces, but we have 8 fireplaces so another two were required.
We had already acquired a new (old style) one for the arch bedroom, but had not found an appropriate mantle for the dining room which we were trying to keep as authentic as possible.
We had come up with a couple of options, but not quite found the right thing. So we went round all the old wares/antique places in Newcastle and managed to find a genuine cedar one from exactly the right period. Just needs a sand and some oil!

On the Monday a small working party went to the house to try and finalise the main  kitchen design, working with the actual kitchen cabinets which had been put together the previous week. Think we got there!!

The adjacent family area was the cornice cutting area, and then the kitchen and family area also became the area where the travertine tiles were precoated!!

The cornice at least should be finished next week!






We were hoping that upstairs would be pretty clear by now so we could completely clear out some rooms and start getting floors done - there's a lot of floor sanding to do (and a couple of rooms to carpet too)...but we aren't quite ready for that yet. One of the upstairs rooms has all the downstairs light fittings ready to go up when the downstairs ceilings have been painted, others have bits of panelling and doors that will be made up into the built in bookcase or the wardrobes, and the rear verandah currently has a bath on it.

The bathrooms are looking pretty good - though not yet finished...there's a couple of ensuite bedrooms (the master suite and the downstairs guest room), and upstairs there is also a bath house and a shower room (each with loo and handwash basin too)...and they all have underfloor heating!

This one is the master en suite, complete with door out onto the non existent balcony!




We will be up there again over Christmas and are looking forward to the work in progress being a little more progressed!

Slowly but surely

After 5 weeks away from the house and contact only be email and texts, we were looking forward to seeing what the house was looking like. So straight off the plane from Heathrow, into a hire car and a drive to Newcastle - straight to Bond Street.

In all honesty many areas don't look much different, although there is now no more chasing into walls to do for plumbing or electrics.

There are ceilings downstairs, and as you look through the door from the lounge into the dining room, you can no longer see into the guest bedroom - the wall has gone up!












The dining room continues to be used as a workroom for the carpenters who are now busy putting in the cedar door jambs and architraves.





Wet areas upstairs (one ensuite, one bath house and one shower room) now have plumbing and waterproofing complete, underfloor heating in place and tiles on the floor (two complete, one almost so).  

bath house almost finished

master ensuite in progress

Many of the rooms upstairs are now sort of complete though without plugs and switches - and in one case the fireplace. Kirsty spent time putting the lights for the upstairs bedrooms together, and the upstairs bedrooms and the upstairs corridor now have light fittings in place.
Trying to find the right light fittings has been very difficult...the rooms are enormous but chandeliers are inappropriate for a sailors doss house,
We wanted something different but reminiscent of old gas lighting for the corridors. These ones we found serendipitously as out of stock items at Early Settler Recollections who then contacted all their other stores to obtain much of the final stock!

the ;arch' bedroom with light fitting

and the top corridor

We don't think we have done too badly, particularly having visited a number of places in UK to see how it could be done!!!

When the floor of the mezzanine was being repaired, it was discovered that there had been modifications to the staircase, so more work but back to original,,,

 Now the floor is level and boarded but there is a big gap where new stairs will need to go in (once the wet work has been completed).

At the moment you can see from the mezzaning down to the back door through this gap!




The back entrance area (back door on the left) now has joists that are termite free and run in the right direction for the floorboarding which should be happening this week...and the staircase tread and balustrade/banister is now in our sights.

At last there is a little space in the garages as some fireplaces, some cabinetry, the doors, some tiles and sundry other items have been moved out.
There is still a long way to go before we can get a certificate of occupancy, but at least we got a huge tick from the building inspector just a week or so ago at the next 'critical stage' inspection.
Next visit should see the upstairs looking like a real house, with the three wet areas complete - and also the downstairs guest ensuite complete, the new mezzanine steps in place and the downstairs floorboarding complete.

We may even have front doors in place - complete with the big purchase of the trip - the brass door handles (picture hopefully next time!!)

Getting there slowly but surely!