November and December 2023

        The bath was in place in the bathroom, sitting in its wooden stand at the right height for the drainage pipes and with the right fall towards the plug hole. There was enough room to leave a gap at the other end from the taps for a little bench to keep shampoo bottles etc. The waterproofing was done on the floor and also up the walls to the required height for official government building regulations.

          Josh also made a wooden frame which went under the acrylic bath to support it. You can see in the below pic that the waterproofing was also painted over the wooden bath supports up to the regulation height.

          We bought these Estilo Acrylic Shower Wall panels to go up on the wall over the bath. We were very disappointed with range of available products. We definitely didn't want tiles for a list of reasons. They are just going to go mouldy and leak water where the grout is. I think they are a bad design and they are deliberately used by the building industry so that builders have ongoing work as they need to keep replacing mouldy grout over the years. There were other shower panels available but not nearby and not delivered for months and not at any kind of affordable price. Plus the shipping was extremely expensive, as most panels were 10 or 20mm thick and that makes them very heavy. These panels were 2mm thick, 1.9 metres long and 90cm wide, and cost $189. There were 2 panels in a pack so we bought 2 packs, as we would need 4 panels for the bath area.

          The first panel attached! Josh glued it to the wall with construction adhesive, which we had specially chosen to be compatible with the waterproofing. In the below pic you can also see the wooden front of the bath area has been attached, and the wooden bench at the right hand side.

The edges of the panels were slid into these special joiner pieces. We got edges, flat joins, and corner joins. The panels did come with some joiners, but there wasn't quite enough for our installation requirements. They also were not in the same colour as the white panels, but the extra pieces we bought separately which were a different brand actually matched the white colour perfectly.

          The second panel put up!

The panel for the end of the wall which has all the taps was a lot trickier to install. Holes had to be cut in the right place and in the right size for all of the tap openings. Cutting acrylic is a little tricky because when the hole saw goes fast it creates heat and melts the plastic. Also the bottom left corner was cut to be sticking out and down over the edge for optimum water protection. Josh used the multitool to cut the straight lines. If any of these cuts was stuffed up then it would be another drive to Bunnings and another $189, but as you can see Josh did an amazing job first time.

        Here you can see the final panel in place on the right hand side, and also a small piece of wall panel cut to fit perfectly on the little side bench.

Some offcuts of the acrylic panel were put along the front of the bath to finish it off. In the below pic you can see that the bath spout and the tap mixer have been put in place. Some silicone to finish off the edges and corners was added and it's ready to be used.

          Then a shower curtain rod was attached, a shower curtain was found in the shed, and the shower head was attached.

          Of course water can't go in without setting up a system for water coming out. I crawled around under the house with lots of random second hand pieces of pipe trying to get some kind of S bend set up, it was very difficult but we got there in the end.

         Then we attached some downpipes left over from the kit house that we didn't need, and ran the drainage far away from the house so it wouldn't cause any issues. I also put some wire mesh on the end to stop creatures going up the pipe. I had heard some horror stories about snakes going into pipes and then dying, so didn't want to take any chances!

          Next episode - using the hot water system for the first time. Not as good as you might think.

 2023 November and December - Kitchen Benchtop

           The Kaboodle kitchen benchtop prices started at $300 and went up from there, meanwhile there was available this acacia panel for only $100 which was absolutely beautiful, so we bought that instead. It is made by glueing together lots of smaller pieces of acacia.

          Here it is temporarily placed on the kitchen cupboards, of course it needed to be cut to length to fit the cupboards.

          Josh did a perfect job cutting it with the cordless circular saw. There was another shorter piece cut from the same length for the left side cupboard. In the below photo you can also see the new fridge placed on the right hand side. Yes we chose black to go with the doors lol.

          Now we knew the exact placement of the cupboards, we could cut the holes in the back of the cupboards for the kitchen tap inlets to poke through.

          Also the hole for the gas pipe to come through for the gas stove.

          The next step was to cut out the hole for the sink to fit into. After carefully marking the line, Josh is using the multitool to cut out the middle section. It seemed such a shame to ruin an absolutely beautiful benchtop by chopping it up, but it had to be done or we wouldn't have a sink.

          Here is the slab in place with the hole ready for the sink.

          Below you can see the sink fits perfectly in place. This was definitely a good time to remember to measure twice, cut once! Josh did an amazing job.

          By this time we had also attached the 3 drawer fronts, as better seen in the below photo. As well you can see that the tap is attached to the sink. We thought that our black doors on the kitchen cupboards looked absolutely amazing, although they are certainly difficult to photograph!

        But before you can have water coming into the sink, we had to set up the drainage so water could go out of the sink without spilling all over the floor! Unfortunately the pipes from the sink did not quite line up with the floor outlet and so it was yet another job that couldn't be quite finished without an hour and a half hour drive to Bunnings at Lismore for more pipe parts, again. What's that - maybe $40 in petrol and a day of work lost... That's what happens when you live rurally!

       Yay all the pipes are finally correctly set up to drain! As you can see in the below photo, a hole was also cut in the bottom of this cupboard to connect to the drainage pipe which the plumber had installed when doing the "roughing in".

          I made a temporary greasetrap, with layers of filtering material of charcoal, gravel, small stone and wood chip held in place with shadecloth. The trick with a greasetrap is to have the outlet below the water line so that when the grease in the washing-up water cools and solidifies then it will float on the top of the water and never get flushed out the other end. We have a proper greasetrap currently set up on the caravan sink, so we can move that to be part of the official approved greywater system when we install it.

          Here you can see the black drainage pipe coming from the kitchen sink and running under the house into a trench that I dug so that it won't be a trip hazard. One of the benefits of building on a sloping site is that it is easy to get water to run downhill when you want drainage. After testing the greasetrap we were pleased to see that the water coming out the other end was clear and clean. This meant that we could now do the washing-up in the house, a very exciting step for us after all these years of doing it outside in the weather and mosquitos. I know you city people take these things for granted, but we definitely appreciate every step we take towards an easier life.

      All the installation here looks very quick and easy to read on this blog post, but this was two months of work condensed plus all the other stuff we were doing at the same time. It has taken me over two hours just write this info and upload the photos! Next episode - installation of the bath and shower panels.

2023 November
     The kitchen cupboards needed doors. Bunnings discontinued the colour we wanted which was Licorice Twist. For one 450mm door it would have cost $184. For a blank door that we could paint ourselves, it was $40. We decided that we would paint it ourselves! Luckily I love painting. So we special ordered the doors we needed, waited 6 weeks for the factory to make them, and then brought them home. Here they are laid out ready for their first coat. We needed one small door, two big doors and 3 drawer fronts.

     We decided on the colour Black Sea, as it would go with the black aluminium window frames, and contrast nicely with the Twill walls. But first there needed to be the first layer of primer coat. To protect the inside of the cupboard door from paint smears I carefully put blue masking tape around all the edges.

     Then you gotta wait for the paint to dry for a couple of hours before the next coat. Timing is tricky too because you don't want to paint when it is over 30 degrees, as the paint dries too fast to make a nice smooth coat. So in summer painting could only be done in the morning when it was still cool.

     This is what the colour looked like in the tin after stirring it for 5 minutes.

     The first coat of black - it was very hard to photograph because it was so dark but also shiny at the wrong angle.

     I think I ended up doing 3 coats of black, using a roller which gave a textured finish. I used the same roller as for the walls, and we liked how they turned out. This finish was great as opposed to a flat shiny finish which would show up fingermarks easily.

     When the doors were ready to be installed, it was time to screw the hinges on. We bought the Bunnings Kaboodle Hettiche hinges which cost a lot more but after reading the reviews on the Bunnings website (which can be very helpful and also often hilariously entertaining) these seemed to be the best option in the long run. First one part of the hinge attaches to the cupboard.

     Then the other side of the hinge attaches to the door.

Then it's easy to click them together to hang the door. These were quite simple to install, though the instructions were actually very lacking in useful information.

     And below you can see the doors attached to the big cupboard. You might be thinking - but where are the door handles? We decided to get push-to-open doors and drawers, which are a little more expensive but then you save money by not needing to buy handles. Also I am very clumsy and I liked the idea of not having things to bump into as I was moving around the kitchen. I discovered that I love the feeling of the push-to-open doors, perhaps because it's so fun to be counter-intuitive by pushing the wrong way to open them. I actually hate soft-close doors so I strongly objected to having them in the kitchen.

     Before the drawer fronts could be attached, we had to install the drawer runners. These were very expensive, at over $60 for each set, and we needed 3 sets to finish off this cupboard. First you attach one side to the cupboard.

     Then you attach the other side to the drawer, and click it into place.

     Here's the three drawers installed ready for the fronts to be attached.

     But before we could attach the drawer fronts, the cupboards had to be set up in their final exact places so that we could drill the holes for the gas plumbing to get to the stove, and then put the bench top over the cupboards. Next update - benchtops!

 October 2023 continued

          More walls needed to have their screw holes filled, sanded down, and then the primer coat of paint applied around the edges with a brush and also over the bumpiest bits ready for the first coat with the paint roller. Below you can see the various stages of progress.

Josh was working on the solar set up. He bought a large metal box and set it up under the house, and put the inverter etc in it.

Lots of fancy pretty coloured wires and switches. It is all designed to meet Australian safety standards.

This is the inverter set up inside the house, you can see the blue box attached to the wall and some associated plugs and wires. On the ground are the batteries which we had set up on a rolling stand.

Lots of special tools and equipment that Josh used for the solar installation.

Josh also bought a large metal box to move the batteries into, and this was placed under the verandah.

Here is a close up of all the wires that join the batteries into one system.

I'm not very good at explaining all this electricity stuff as I only understand some of it,

Below you can see the larger blue box, which is the inverter, has been taken from out of the house and put into the big metal box under the house.

The door on this box closes up to keep everything safe.

Josh cut a hole in the box for cooling air flow and installed metal mesh to keep the creatures out.

Next installment - I see some wooden doors and I want to paint them black!