Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Alfresco living

Well, the bathroom renovation has begun.
Here's some 'before' shots.
Yesterday while I was at work the bathroom was gutted.
I called Stephanie at lunchtime to get a progress report and her exact words were "Oh. My Freakin. God - Mum, its amazing". LOL. She had been charged with taking photos of the progress, so some of these were taken by her.
It turns out that this was not the original bathroom as I had thought. There was green wet-area plaster uncovered under the tiles, so it must have been re-done in the early 1960s, when it was around 15 years old.
There were two burly young men, smashing and crashing, belting apart a very solid cast iron bath and wheelbarrowing it out to the skip.
By the time I got home they were removing rubble by the barrow load. The floors are covered and holding up ok so far.
The builder/plumber had plumbed us a new outdoor hot/cold shower on the external wall outside the laundry, so its alfresco freshening up for us for the next 2-3 weeks! Of course we also have the laundry and loo indoors.
This is where I had my shower this morning at 7am. It was light outside and 14 degrees. It was fun. Don talked to me through the laundry window.
It may get a bit old by the end, but we'll survive. (edited to add, in fact we are all enjoying it. Our son who is quite bohemian is very enthusiastic about standing naked in the backyard under the moonlight, and the cat was very curious last night to see Steph in the shower after swimming. She - the cat- walks on the wall and is most intrigued. I saw a plane fly over this morning!)Its quite private, but we've hung a few curtains anyway, just in case.
The skip is nearly full of rubble, but before we began it was half-full of black bags full of leaves!!!!!! Some scumbag neighbour had decided it would be appropriate to dump 11 bags of leaves in our waiting skip over the long weekend. Grrr. WHAT A NERVE!!!!! As I was standing next to it today with the plumber, discussing this crime someone set off down the lane on a bike (in all their wanky lycra) and grinned and waved. It was either a). The culprit rubbing it in, or b). someone I did know and would be happy to wave to....in which case I hope their bike didn't actually develop a flat tyre, or their lycra shorts split down the ass seam while they were in heavy traffic (as that was what I was wishing them in the event that it was the culprit). Ahem. The young guys had to remove it all, because they are not allowed to have mixed rubble and green waste in the style of skip we have. Like they needed the extra work involved in that!
In other news...Look at what was safely delivered to my house yesterday! It is an original art piece in paint and paper made for me by Kel of Taurus Rising. It was her blogaversary about 6 weeks ago and I won my choice of prize. The choices included an art piece, so she custom made it for me. She framed it and everything! It has a cut up egg/oval shape with an eye/uterus/hidden chamber with an embryonic woman in it. It is most intriguing. (ooh, Kel has added a helpful comment explaining it better). It fits into a little niche for now - I promise I'll find somewhere better to hang it when I re-organize/curate the artwork soon. Where it is currently is a bit hard to photograph, but I wanted it up immediately and safely out of the way of the workmen, but somewhere I can look at it and absorb it. I keep finding new layers in it already. Thanks so much Kel!

And for my final trick...I've decided to have some creative fun next month (in my spare time) and attempt to take part in 'Every day in May'. Its some Flickr group...Oh...here ya go http://www.flickr.com/groups/everydayinmay/ . The concept's apparently been going for a few years...I may fail...but what the hey! Its a good excuse to get crafting more solidly again. I have a few projects planned and I'm sure the rest will evolve as the month unfolds.

But don't hold me to it....

7 comments:

Blossom said...

Your outdoor shower makes me shiver...brrrrrrrrr
Hope your reno goes well.

cheers

Lesley said...

Hey - you weren't kidding when you said your bathroom was gone!

Lisa L said...

Wow! Those blokes work fast eh? I can't wait to see pics of the re-do! So exciting...I would LOVE to have an outdoor shower...does your's have hot h2o?

Kelly said...

it takes but a moment to destroy...its fun to be forced to do alfresco anything i reckon, as long asd the weather isnt too extreme. have fun. So glad you like the piece, but i forgot to label it properly, on the back you will find a brief description of materials used. Its 'with woman'. yes a uterus, baby and placenta, but it also represents all of woman/women together. encircled around the one woman are many women in white who share expereince as mothers and the cuts represet many facets and expereinces which make up the puzzle/mystery of woman. Layered over the top of the piece is a clear gel handprint representing 'with'. And the paper is stained with my favourite organic tea representing from the earth! all tha in a small piece. Enjoy.

Fairlie - www.feetonforeignlands.com said...

You wouldn't be so enthusiastic about al fresco bathing if you lived in Melbourne at the moment! Brrrr.

River said...

They broke up a cast iron bath?? A CAST. IRON. BATH!!!.Those things are worth a small fortune. Salvage and restoration places would have gladly bought it from you. They spruce them up and sell them on to people who are doing authentic restorations in really old homes.

I know the bags of leaves aren't your rubbish, but if you have space in your yard, stash them somewhere, still in the bags and just leave them alone. By summer they will have decomposed into lovely leaf mulch which you can put on your garden beds.

em.s said...

we had an outdoor shower for awhile at our beach house. I was addicted to it. Loved getting out there and having a hot, hot shower and then running inside where the heater was to warm up and dry off. reminded me of growing up in ireland and racing downstairs to stand in front of the fire :)