Monthly Archives: April 2007

(with apologies to Kevin Smith, but for once, the subject line actually is contextual. Miracles can happen..)

Those who’ve been reading this blog for a while probably have better things to do, like dealing with that unpleasant rash. Yeah, I know all about it. The cameras are watching you..

Ahem. Ignore that last bit. That whirring noise definitely isn’t a zoom lens over your shoulder, by the way.

Anyway, if you have been reading for a while, you’ll be aware that we’ve had issues with skinks and similar lizards getting into the house — and generally eaten by the cats. Unless we catch them first.

Well, we hadn’t seen many skinks around recently. In fact, none.

Cut to yesterday, right around the time we were dealing with two very itchy little boys — the chickenpox epidemic continues unabated — and right around the time the freezer was dying, taking all the food with it — AKA my middle name is “Kvetch” — I heard a commotion by the back door, led by our stupidest cat, Harriet. It turns out that Harriet’s found something a little bit bigger than a skink — but the back door is prohibiting her ability to actually catch it.

Apologies for the awful video quality — stupidly, I did have a couple of actual video cameras in the house that could have captured something far more visually pleasing, but of course all I grabbed was the still camera, which can only do low-quality video.

On reflection, it’s probably a good thing that Harriet didn’t catch it. Of course, now that we have a snake to eat the skinks, we’re going to need something to eat the snake. Like, say, a mongoose. I’m sure a mongoose could eat one snake. Then we’ll need a tiger, to eat the mongoose. And then a crocodile, to eat the tiger — tigers aren’t native species, after all…

Hey, a Howard Jones lyric. What were the odds?

Anyway… owing to massive public demand…

Well, large-scale public demand…

OK, you got me. Three people have hassled me for the past five days about why I haven’t updated with pictures of the new kitchen on the site. Normally, I’d just go on my merry way, ignoring their threats, but one of them does own the world’s most dangerous canine. Gulp. I’ll get right onto it, Ma’am.

Here’s the kitchen as it was. The oven hasn’t worked since the start of the year, none of the cupboards close properly, and the slightly “muddy” blue colour is due to the fact that one of the first things we did when we moved in seven years ago was paint over all the brown paint, because it was just too depressing. Given enough time, however, evil paint will find a way out…

It looks vaguely clean here – we’ve more or less cleared out everything but the kettle. It’s deceptive, though, as the laminate was badly scratched and pitted after at least twenty years worth of constant use and abuse. What you also can’t see was how badly the design actually worked — there was so much wasted space in this kitchen, like the diagonal shelf you can just make out at the bottom of the picture. It added nothing aesthetically, but meant that all the drawers on the other side were very short indeed.

Boom. Kitchen gone. What was surprising was how fast it all came down. This was about forty minutes after the builders turned up. They don’t hang around waiting for much…

The form work for the cabinets goes in. I think I was going deaf at this point. The builders all happily claimed that they didn’t hear the drilling sound any more. Or, as I discovered, much else besides…

Cupboards on the other side. Owing to the wacky slanted cupboards, there’s a gap in the lino that the new, sensible and normal cupboards doesn’t cover, and it now looks like we’re going to put in either a sanded or floating wood floor. Anyone got a whole bunch of freelance writing work going? 

Nearly finished. Nearly deaf by now. The amazing thing is that the kitchen takes up the same floorspace as the old one, but has at least 40% more actual storage space in it, thanks to not being designed by a gibbering maniac this time. I’m just guessing, you understand — it’s always possible that the old kitchen was an art nouveau experiment, using only the crappiest materials available. In which case, I’ve arranged for the desecration of a true classic. And you know what?  It feels GOOD.

The finished product. It feels weird to have a dishwasher. And a working oven. And cupboards that don’t leave chipboard flakes all over my cornflakes.

The other side. You can clearly make out the lino “gap” here, as well as the bench, which has been nearly doubled in available length, thanks to shifting the pantry over to the other wall. In proper nerd fashion, there’s a printer just behind the kitchen bench, too. What, you mean you don’t have one there? Why not?

So, what do you do when your house is full of builders, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, noise, hot glue smells and more noise?

Well, yesterday, I escaped and did the Sydney Skywalk — courtesy, it should be noted of Lexmark, who tied a printer launch into it. I’m beginning to get worried about Lexmark — every time I go to one of their events, I have to sign a waiver absolving them of any culpability in the event of my death. Sign enough of those things, and I have this terrible feeling they’ll become neccessary. Still, so far, so good.

That expression on my face is meant to show aloof confidence, as distinct from what my brain was actually thinking — “Why am I, in fact, standing on a glass platform a couple of hundred metres above Pitt Street Mall? And why is it so incredibly baking hot in this ludicrous blue suit?”

More on the joys of kitchen renovation later. Once I can hear again, probably.