Bathroom cabinet making taking forever

Marie decided to do the vanities for our bathrooms herself. The plan was to recycle the timber from our demolition. That's brave I thought, as I had no idea how she'd do it.

Anyway, fast forward to the 15th of March, I finally quit from work, and after that, we got round to buying some recycled hardwood from some old bridges.

The wood is beautiful. At 30mm, it is tough to cut, drill, sand, etc. Laying out the wood, joining 2 together, then cutting them to length, square, takes a huge amount of time. The dovetails take a huge amount of time.

Each one needs to be sawed, then the middle gets a circular saw to remove most of the material, a nibbler to clean it, then chiselling to get it square and level.

Doing it 32 times, and then another 24 for the pins, is just a killer. Don't do this at home - get professionals to do it!

















How the smaller cabinet looks once assembled. The pieces of the puzzle fit together pretty neatly. That's satisfying.

This is taking a lot longer than expected. We've got the two cabinets glued, the smaller one is 90% sanded down and filled. The bigger one needs a couple more days to sand, fill, sand, then oil. Today's Easter Sunday the 21st. They might be done by Christmas?


We went to lunch at the club near Baka's with the Lovric family. Tomorrow, it's the Re family at the Yum Cha at the RSL.

April 2019

Clearing out some old books from Mum's house. There are stacks of them. We've kept a lot of them. Hoping to move them to the new place at Petersham.

 It's official.

Tent testing. The Coleman Instant Up is truly easy to put up, theoretically is a 10 man tent and has two rooms. Looking good.

Everyone wears sunglasses in Ollie's class it seems.

It's because they're future is bright, thanks to Andrea and Zoe, the teachers.

Ollie's project - the ideal classroom. Solar panels, smart board, round desks for easy sharing, reading corner with cushions, an IT corner, lots more - he scored well in this project.

Lou says farewell to Lindsay on the last day.


Below, Ollie says bye to Harrison and Finn.

More shots of old buddies.

April, no we haven't left yet

NO!!!!!!! Oh shit. The normal reaction to the NSW election results. There goes land clearing, environmental regulations, rampant development of bad quality apartments, and 45 odd billion dollars worth of motorway programs rolling and tolling on.

Time to get the hell out of NSW.

We got a kitchen for the Hilux from Drifta in Gloucester. After sawing off the edges, we now have space on the sides for our water bottles.

 Marie on the saw.

 Then staple the carpet back down and...

 Voila the result: a neat box ready to get bolted down to the tub, which we've since done.

 Here it is: space for water.

Advantages of getting masses of deliveries. Do not disturb, unless serving food or water. Serve food or water through the cat flap. We had some nuts, so Lou received a bowl of those to munch in his cubby house.

 The boys and Rafy check out the draws. Seems they can take a bit of weight.

Vince and Kathy are a couple of months ahead of us. Here they are in Kalbarri National Park, W.A., 6 hours north of Perth.

Looks like Lou?

Do you reckon this photo looks like Lou? Just with long hair though? Hold on, Lou does have long hair! I mean with neat hair :) The answer is yes, Marie looks a LOT like Lou, nearly identical, at the same age.

March 2019 - Sydney Distance Education School

 It suddenly got real. We're going off on the trip! The boys got some stuff confirming all's good with the Sydney Distance Education School.

 Us parents have to work out how to scan, record, then upload and submit the homework. Let's see how that goes on the road. Should be fun.

 Always in election mode - Gladys the premier of NSW is chased by the media pack. The Libs dropped a good dozen volunteers right in amoungst us for the cameras - then they disappeared as fast as they arrived. All the ones, besides the local Armenian community, seem pretty weird.

 Counting the votes. I was helping out with Larissa Penn's campaign. We scored about 10% of the vote - sensationally good considering our lack of resources, and the three weeks of campaigning. She must be well known out there by now.

The count was interesting. No special procedure to follow, just count them out on the desk. I watched like a hawk, but the dodgier sounding ones actually checked back through and found some errors. The big pile is Gladys. I think we had the second biggest pile.

 High tea for Marie and Evonne's 50th. Thanks to Ang and Steve for putting this on.

 Liz, Maggie, Sara, Vonne, Jaqui, Marie, and Robin.

 Alexandra, Ang, Vonne, Holly, Anne, Baka, Marie, Lola, Zdenka, Gabrielle.

 Lola, Ava, Gabrielle, Mille, Alexandra, and Holly.

 School mum's night out. Mystery guests then Marie, Carla, Jo, not sure, Vanessa, and one more.

 The old gang: mystery man, Jean Louis, Sylvie, Carol, mystery lady, Gabriella, Hugues.

 More old shots from France.

March 2019 photos

 At the movies, always time to hug a cat, even a cardboard one.

 Charlie's mates on the dance floor for her 40th. Nothing smashed, and everything cleaned up nicely these days...

 True turn up and don't go, inconvenience Cityrail/NSW govt style.

 We went up to John and Julie's to drop off the ute tray cover for him to mind (thanks John). He took us nearby to a mud fire trail, with some serious rocks. I didn't think the car could make it along the trail, but John told us to keep rolling. We grit our teeth waiting for it to bottom out. I guess we now know the 4wd clearance is way better than we thought...

 There's no other place like Hong Kong! Apart from Chatswood, and now St Leonards is getting enough buildings for it to be a crowded, sunless wind tunnel.

 Harmony day - Lou in standard orange, and Ollie as an Oz cultural reference. It even had the nutritional information on it. Nicely done Ollie, a great hat.

 For future reference, this is where the pipes are in the new place..

 Harmony day - kids in komonos playing hand ball.

 Adriana's birthday - a few drinks and some dancing.

 Lou at the medals ceremony for baseball - nice efforts Lou!

 More baseball awards.

The old gang at Cagnes Sur Mer - Leonie, Tristan, Romain, Sylvie, Leeviu, Alina, Eva-Ines, Gabriella, Rubina, Jean Louis and Carol.