We have running water in the kitchen

- and not down the walls!


With the hard work and diligence of Nick Plumber, Shane Sparks and Sam Tiles and Plaster, the kitchen has come along beautifully.  Appliances in and functioning.  Floors finished, walls tiles and ceilings corniced, all ready for paint.  


And you know the days, weeks, months of agonising about the floor?  Well you're not going to believe how it was resolved.  Thanks to our open fire love, and the gradual emptying of the wooded underhouse hell, I managed to locate, on the morning Sam started, jammed in a corner, under a box of pool tiles, various kitchen wall tiles and paving stones, a glimmer of hope in the shape of a broken shard of kitchen floor tile. This in turn spurred me deeper, past old clothes, chicken wire, foil insulation, piled up slate, kindling and a vital colony of daddy long legs to an entire box of unsullied floor tiles.


Such a victory.  Such great timing.  


So the floor has been finished with matching tiles.  There is no patchwork.  There is no slate (the stuff we bought was too thick, anyway).  It's all matchy matchy in the best possible way.  And its remarkable that the tiles that've been down since the house was built haven't faded or aged in any meaningful way since they were put down.  Ugly then.  Ugly now.  But at least consistently ugly across the board.


Tomorrow, David (or is it John) Paint will start undercoating the bulkheads and by early next week 
the 
kitchen 
will 
be 
finished.


So, too will be the shelves in my room - which is almost incomprehensible.


It's hard to understand, when you think about the adversity that some people have to live with (I'm thinking about carting fresh water, no food, bugs, etc) that surviving in a house with no kitchen would be such a trial.  But my word!  For this family of anti-campers, the last twenty-something days have certainly been no picnic.


I don't want to whinge (actually I do, but I won't) but instead I will observe.  


The experience of living in the House at Porter Street, when there was no kitchen, was akin to the experience of living at Riverside, the house with no drawers, but worse.  It's all piles and shuffling. And that is, every, EVERY time you need something.  No task is sufficient in itself.  Everything requires the dance around the boxes, the pondering of where things might be, the consideration of where things may reasonably and cleanly be undertaken and whether on earth it's worthwhile doing after all.


There is no room in this environment for autopilot.  Tiring.


And now, thank heavens, the end is in sight.


Stay tuned for the big reveal...coming soon.