Kitchen - Day 5

Today, our first real hiccup: the tiles haven't arrived. They should be here on Monday, but the tiler is going on holidays for a week. So the earliest we can get the tiles laid is Tuesday week (incidentally, I'll be in Brisbane for linux.conf.au that week, so the lovely Dermott Banana will have to project manage that!). Never mind, we got the benchtops in, and they look OMGAWESOME:

Want a closer look?

The old lights have finally been replaced by new oyster lights, and the dimmer in the loungerrom now works properly:

We also got the sparky to install safety switches in our aging fusebox, and fixed the smoke detector, so we're extra-safe now! (Does that mean I can daisy-chain a few more powerboards for my computer equipment? Maybe?)

We also got the sink connected, and the leveller for the tiles laid:

After the leveller was down, it was no-go in the kitchen for 24 hours. On Monday, with any luck our tiles will arrive, and the plumber will come back to connect the cooktop to the gas.

Photos are all in my Picasa album if you want a closer look at anything.

And, just because this amuses me greatly:

Kitchen - Day 4

By the end of today, we have something resembling a kitchen again. And you know what? I'm absolutely stoked with it! The colour, unfortunately, doesn't come through in the photographs, but it's probably best described as a pale olive. They call it 'paperbark', and if you've ever seen the smooth pale green wood (not the brown falling-off bits!) of an Australian paperbark tree, it's pretty close. Sounds awful when you describe it like that, but it's working unbelievably well:

We also have drawers in:

And these are spice drawers!

Perhaps the downside is that I've discovered a fairly major scratch on my dining room floor, now that all the cabinets have been taken out of it. I had some cheap lino down to try and protect it, and it's pretty battered. I'm just glad we had something there, anyway:

But, things are really starting to happen now, and it won't be long before we can start using everything again. Tomorrow, the tiler will come and put the leveller on the floor ahead of the tiles, and the benchtops go in. Stay tuned!

Kitchen - Day 3

By lunchtime, the tiles were finally up, and the concrete dust covering absolutely everything was starting to settle:

I have a sink:

But, perhaps most exciting, I have a dishwasher!

The cabinets that have been stored in my dining room all week, are now starting to shift into place:

Although there are still bits of cabinetry stored just about everywhere. This is my hallway:

Tomorrow, the cabinets should be finished, and the two archways removed. Sally forth!

Kitchen - Day 2

Today, my cabinets arrived (just ahead of the rain!):

The sparky turned up, and moved a few power points:

The plumber turned up, got rid of the old sink pipes, and installed a gas line for the new stovetop:

And the demolitions guy started taking out the tiles:

Even though I didn't think it was possible, the place is even more of a bomb site than it was yesterday:

Keep an eye on my Picasa album for even more photos. Hopefully tomorrow, the cupboards will start going in ...

Kitchen - Day 1

Well, today my kitchen started out looking like this:

And ended up looking like this:

On the way, it went through various states, including this:

This:

And this:

So where did it all go?

Here:

And here:

And good riddance to it too!

For the full collection of photos, check out my Picasa album. I'll keep updating it and the blog as things progress.

Tomorrow, the sparky and plumber 'rough in' (I think that is tradie-speak for 'have a look to see what we need to do later on when we get around to it'), and the new kitchen gets delivered. Oh, and they're bringing the jackhammers, to level the floor. Same bat channel!

Tron Legacy: now with extra ranting

I've been looking forward to seeing Tron: Legacy for a while. I saw the original on VHS when I was a kid, and thought it was pretty awesome then, so I could only imagine what 3D and modern special effects could have done. And I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. While my partner had some trouble with the 3D and effects (for some reason it all seemed flat and kind of blurry and washed out to him, apparently), I spent the entire movie mesmerised. It was true to the original, the back story was really well-handled, and the effects! Oh my, the effects! There was only one thing that ruined the experience, and that was the cinema advertising that came before it. It doesn't help me enjoy the movie when I already have a bad taste in my mouth and a rising urge to yell at things before it has even started.

It would seem that only boys go to watch movies like Tron. At least, that is the lesson that I learned from Dendy tonight.

It started out innocuously enough, with a Subway commercial, promoting their latest competition, and featuring a bloke with an improbable-looking bread roll ogling girls on a beach. Same old crap we see every day, and have learned to largely ignore. I can't embed the video, because the only version I could find was on the Subway website. You can see it here.

Then came a commercial about Pat Rafter who, apparently, "can do it all. Of course he can, because ..." (wait for it) ... "he's a man". It's a Dove commercial.



Yes, the same people behind the campaign for real beauty have also seem to forgotten how many amazing female tennis players we have here in Australia. All of whom can also "do it all", despite the fact that they are not men. Thanks for that message, Dove.

So at this point, I was feeling mildly disgruntled. So when the next commercial came on (which I can't find online anywhere. If someone finds it, please do let me know) I was pleasantly surprised ... at first.

It opens with a group of young attractive women, apparently getting ready to go out. One says something about another getting Foxtel connected, and she proudly mentions that it's through her Xbox, over the internet. Wow, I think. A woman, in a group of women, who not only owns an Xbox, but is able to describe how it works. Nice!

And then came the clanger ... "Hold on, when did you get an Xbox?" another friend asks. Slow pan out to the hunky topless guy walking into the room. "New 'flatmate'" comes the comment, with the inverted commas around "flatmate" painfully obvious in her tone. le sigh. So women can't own a gaming unit. They're only allowed to own boyfriends (ahem, sorry, male "flatmates"), who own game units.

Will it never end? I was the one who wanted to see Tron, I was the one who dragged my poor long-suffering, non-geek partner along, I was the one who re-watched the original last weekend in a fit of fangirlism, I want to see ads that don't make me feel like I don't belong there.

Several years ago I decreed that I would not go to a cinema unless it was Dendy. With the recent price hike on tickets, the suspicious lack of foreign films, and now this case study in broad generalisations, though, Dendy is fast losing its gloss.

Kitchen Update

Well, after a slight hiccup the kitchen is back on track. It won't be done in time for Christmas, unfortunately, but we're locked in for the week of 10-14 January now. So, with that in mind, what do you think of the colours I've picked?

Improvement?