Worth Waiting For

I had thought that Spring had arrived, but the on and off rain, cold nights and gale force winds are certainly making me have second thoughts. But despite the weather, the workshop has been busy with courses, commissions and general work.

This included a couple of perch classes ( one's a staggered class finishing this week ) a Shaker Nightstand project coming to an end, George Smithwick's fantastic Coopered Bucket course and a 3 person Continuous Arm Chair course. Trusty fellow Windsor chair maker and devotee Bern came up today too, to prepare for our next group course, a Continuous Arm Rocker, which starts next Monday. Then I've been putting the finishing touches to a matched pair of Crested Rocking Chairs and milling timber in between time. Here's a few pic's.

The group course will be our last big course for the year as we'll have another project which will be taking up a bit of our time until the end of the year......... and then about another 10 years after that.

Our new home. Well, 'new' might be the wrong word. We've been told she's about 163 years old. And with any luck 'she' will be the last home I renovate. At number 4, I'm hanging up the renovation nailbag after this one! And that's not including the ones I lived in and helped renovate when I was growing up. But I digress....

One of the original Tylden homes, 'Pineville,' as I've been told she was known as, is quite an old gem. For years as I'd drive through Tylden, always on the way to somewhere else, I'd always slow down and admire it as I drove past. 

Then one evening a number of weeks ago, Lisa saw that it had been listed on the internet for sale. We arranged to look through it the next day and put in an offer straight away. A bit of juggling and too-ing and fro-ing later and now she's ours. 

Leaky roof, termite damage and about ten tonnes of rubbish to boot. And judging from the smell of ammonia, a few incontinent possums too.

But despite the fact that the back part of the house needs totally rebuilding and we don't know just how much damage the termites have done, it's what remains which sets this house apart from anything I've seen before. Things like the original hardwood weatherboards, nailed with blacksmith made nails. They are all there, protected for years by the verandah which wraps around the entire house. 

The well at the back door. The cast iron hand pump in the laundry, which pumps water from the well into the riveted iron water tank in the ceiling. The fireplace crane which is still in one of the two kitchen chimneys. The fact that the entire double gable roof has every single hand split shingle still in place under the iron roof. 

Yes she is one in a million and Lisa and I intend to bring her back to her former grandeur, as best we can. It will be a long road, but what a great journey. 

So the blog might take a bit of a side track now and then and report on our progress on the house as well as things chair and furniture related. But I'm sure it will be worth tuning in for.