Tradie on site!

In Australia we call tradespeople "Tradies". There have been a lot of them in our home this week, as it became a building site.

First there were the super organised and professional building tradies who demolished the old kitchen and took out the windows. That was a very noisy couple of days! They were well organised and they cleaned up after themselves. The big surprise was that the replacement window was installed on Day 1 instead of Day 3 as we had expected, so we could immediately see the effect. 

The transformation that the window has brought is amazing -we have much more natural light and a lovely view over the patio and back garden. I just know this will make me happier. 

We lived with a partly boarded up room and a but of a mess for several days but gradually the hole where the old vertical window had been was replaced with fastwall bricks and faced off ready for the big transformation when the cabinets were installed.

These are even better than I imagined they would be!

DH painted the ceiling before the cupboards went in, and will paint the walls next week as we wait for the stainless steel benchtop to go here -around the new electric oven and induction cook top. 

I have one working power pint, and  sink which is not plumbed in, so no taps either. Never the less the fridge is working and I have a kitchen bench and drawers so I have moved the camp kitchen to the new kitchen and cleared stuff from the rest of the house.

This feels more 'normal'. I have been trying hard to do some basic cooking -one night I made a very old fashioned chicken dish -the one where you put chicken pieces in the slow cooker with a can of apricot nectar and the contents of a packet of french onion soup. With my rice cooker to make the rice it was a simple and tasty meal. DH and DD were happy to make its reaquaintance -it was probably a staple in the 1990s, I am guessing! We have also cooked sausages on the barbeque, and I have found out that you can make pasta in a rice cooker too. With a jar of pasta sauce and some cooked meat stirred through it is another meal.  I can cook baked potatoes in the slow  cooker- we served them with home made coleslaw.

So we are getting along nicely. DH is happy that most of the appliances which were clogging up his shed are now gone and sort-of installed. The cat is happy that every few days she gets a normal quiet house and can feel normal. DD and I will be happy to finally get to our Christmas decorations boxes and be able to get more festive. 

I hope to have more progress to report next week!