Forever House #25

Saturday 24th August 2013 (continued)

Hannah's planet, stars, comet and UFO

Danika's landscape featuring horse, sunset, cliff,  river

Two weeks ago my extended family gathered for a week in a delightful holiday house on the river at Evans Head for our Mum Jude's 80th Birthday. It was so close to the water that while inside it felt like being in a boat - river views on three sides. My daughter Danika flew up from Melbourne and her cousin Hannah, my sister Peita's younger daughter, trained up from Sydney. The four of us snuck away to the farm for twenty four hours so that Danika could have a "Currawinya hit" and the girls could make a mosaic each to be laid with all the other mosaics on the Forever House floor when I get to that stage. It was a very special time of secret women's business; and I came from behind to thrash them at scrabble on my last move. Here are the splendid results of our girls' work. I am very excited to have tiles from these two most precious girls - they both love the Forever House and Currawinya - in the future I imagine they will be regular visitors with their friends and families.

Danika Donna Peita Danielle Hannah at Rous Mill Hall Ball

While the girls were here we went to the Full Moon Masquerade Ball at Rous Mill Hall - here we are looking fabulous dahhhling!







On our twenty-four hour sojourn to the farm, while the girls were creating magic in the Mosaic studio, Peit was keen to continue the curved area at the entry to the house where she has created a dry river rock wall over recent visits. So, she and I made a start on the paving - using all the pavers we had plus some river stones for good measure. The area - which Peit calls the Sun Trap - is looking fab. She thinks the paving looks like a war head - I thought a boat.

Peita watering pavers we laid in the Sun Trap

Today I brought out as many more pavers as Jeff thought my new smaller car could comfortably tow in the trailer. 

Peita has a plan to come up for four or five days at the end of September when we will bring out another trailer load and continue with this project. That is the next time I will be here to work - I will visit also in a couple of weeks for the AGM on the Saturday and a General Meeting on the Sunday while everyone is around, "to allow an officer from the fire department to talk to everyone about the fire risks on Currawinya and actions needed to keep us all safe. Brian would also like to discuss at this meeting Currawinyas policy on the use of sprays as there has been some discussion at past meetings and he would like a definite policy set down for the future." 

pile of pavers now at the farm awaiting Peit's next visit

Tuckurimba paved path

The collection of pavers I have goes back about seven or eight years - a friend was working at a Macadamia Farm, in Brooklet behind Byron Bay, where the wealthy owners were doing a renovation - so these pavers were destined for landfill if someone didn't claim them. I towed the trailer back and forth until we had every useable one - gave half to my girlfriend Toni (who made the gorgeous ceramics that feature in the mosaic that will become the Forever House shower floor - see in Forever House #16). She created a beautiful outdoor area at her place with her pile of pavers. Mine have been piled up waiting for their time to shine - and they moved house with Jeff and me to Tuckurimba. I will get them all out to the farm trip by trip. I did use some here at the back entry to our Tuckurimba house - I am quite fond of my little path.

Masking paper and tape to help keep the ceiling clean

Dave hasn't done any work on my Forever House since he and Jeff last did ceiling sheets and insulation a month ago. He's got lots of work picking avocados at the moment. And after that there will be mangos. I think he is letting my Currawinya fund build up again - which takes a bit of time at one hundred and fifty dollars a fortnight. Suits me really - it's me that has to keep on keeping on. Dave will get the work I have earmarked for him done in the fifty eight weeks we have left I'm sure.

I spent a little out of the fund today at Bunnings on the way out for moulding and nails to hold the stained glass window in it's opening in the dunny, and masking paper and tape so that I can mask the ceiling where the mud walls are going to reach it hopefully this weekend. The ceiling will get muddy as I push and shape wet mud up against it. I will cut the paper away with a Stanly knife when the mud is dry, to reveal a clean ceiling ready for its third and final coat of paint.

a Blossom I hope to transplant to the garden

Tomorrow I will prepare materials (dig dirt, carry water, collect sand and cut straw) and lay a row of mud around the mudroom and bathroom. I will hopefully manage another row on Monday before I head home.

I also brought out some cuttings for the garden which I hope to plant. The garden took a bit of a hit with the frost this week - but I think the nine or ten plants in there will survive as spring comes around. I would also like to dig up a blossom tree that I noticed on the driveway into Currawinya. There are quite a few that are self sewn along the creeks. I'll see how I go for time.

I don't think it's yet quite the weather for an afternoon bath/swim in the river - but if the heat of today is any indication - maybe when Peit and I come in September we can have a skinny dip.

Forever House #24

Saturday 24th August, 2013

first finished photo in the lounge room at home by lamp

Hello Currawinya - it's a warm 6pm here by lamplight as the last of the red orange sky lays halo-like above the black hills in the view from the caravan table. I came out a day late this weekend so that I could spend Friday completing the dunny window. I couldn't bear to come out again without it. If all my projects drag out as long as that window - first mentioned here back in Forever House #16 on the 16th June - then time is a problem! I've got fifty eight weeks till the housewarming on the long weekend in October 2014. There are about 100 pieces in this window and mostly curved shapes which are more time consuming to make - most curved pieces need grinding after they have been cut to remove sharp bits and it helps them to fit together more snugly in the finished product. I used glass beads for the flowers too which added a bit of time.

during the cutting process

more cutting on Pop's light box

As the foiling progresses

The Light Box I use to light the design and the glass for cutting was made for me by my Grandfather George a long time ago.  I started making glass when I was about twenty four - I'm now fifty four. I started with Paddy Robinson, an Irish artist working out of Balmain. She also taught stained glass at the Nepean College of Advanced Education in Penrith - and once I had been bitten by the bug I enrolled in that art course with Stained Glass as my major. I did about a year - sadly not finishing the course due to working full time at night and the distance to drive from inner city Sydney to Penrith each day while tired became a bit death defying. There was so much more to learn - but what I did learn has held me in good enough stead to create what I have wanted since.
I have been using copper foil as my preferred medium rather than lead for all these years. I have moved around a lot and needed my glass habit to be portable and able to be set up pretty much anywhere. At my previous abode I used to do it on the outdoor table on the verandah. In other houses I have used a garden shed or a table in the garden. Copper foil is used for smaller pieces such as lamp shades and small fine windows. These days I have a wonderful shed dedicated to stained glass or whatever creative projects I am working on - and I do have some big windows to do for our house at Tuckurimba - so I will try my hand at lead again in the not too distant future.

Installed in the dunny - the textured green glass at bottom is very old - a gift from Leyla

view from the outside

I parked the car on arrival at the farm around 2pm and headed straight to the dunny with the window, timber moulding, saw, hammer, nails and measuring tape. The window fit by the skin of its teeth - I gave the timber frame around the window opening a good bash with the hammer to gain an extra millimetre here and there and now the window is in - with the moulding painted green to match the frame. Very happy. Probably a bit of overkill for a dunny window in the middle of the bush which gets used by few, irregularly - but I know at least I will get pleasure each time I visit that wee room, for more than the obvious reason.

foil, solder and flux cost $86AUD delivered

I was shocked at the price of the soldering materials I bought on line from Brisbane and received by post. The three items cost me $86AUD - and the foil and solder were pretty much all used up on this one window! So with all the glass projects I have in front of me I will be paying out some bucks. Luckily, I have pretty much the bulk of the glass I'll need, having bought on ebay about six years ago, a whole lot of blue, pink and yellow which had been salvaged from a church in Victoria. The lovely man boxed up all the glass pieces, which are various sized rectangles, still with a bit of putty around the edges. And serendipity deemed that my friends Wendy and Andrew were doing a road trip to Tasmania at that time, and they very kindly transported the boxes home from Melbourne for me - all the way to the Far North Coast of New South Wales. I now just buy whatever other colours I need. I guess most glass I will use in the forever house and for our extension here at home will incorporate lots of pink, yellow, blue and clear textured glass that comes out of the old windows and doors I am renovating. Waste not want not.