Friday, May 27, 2011

Waiting for Dinner

 In the season when it is not daylight savings time here, dinner time is at 5PM  (if you are a cat in residence).  Then when we spring forward, it also jumps to a normalised 6PM.  But it being late autumn here now, the magic time is definitely 5 o'clock.  And Pook is pretty good at telling time.

Today was an exciting day, we unveiled the newly finished island.  We used a special oil wax imported from Germany called Osmo Polyx oil-wax, and it came up lovely.  Ian has put a few coats on the top and also did a single sealing coat on underside and side edges.  The oil-wax brought out the grain and warmth of colour on the timber top.  I am glad we did not stain it, we really did not have to.  Un-finished it did look really bleachy and pale (see previous post).  But finished with this oil-wax,the Tassie Oak planks have come out really beautiful.


The finish has taken a few days to apply and to dry.  And with some chilly and drizzley weather, it has not dried super fast.  So we taped cardboard around it.  This was meant to be primarily a cat deterrent.  I was not sure how effective it would be.  But Ian thought the animals would not jump onto a surface they could not see.  Day One supported this theory.


However, on Day Two I came back from an errand late in the day and out of the corner of my eye and to my horror, I saw a cat leap from floor, up and over the barrier, and land on the surface !  Yikes !  I shooed the offender off (as carefully as I could manage) and thought perhaps not much harm was done, because it was mostly dry by that time.  And the cat wasn't there very long.  But I did not see any smudges in the finish.

When Ian got back from his errands, I learned that the cat I saw clear the cardboard hurdle was not the first to do it (she probably got the idea seeing Winston do it first ?!).  Hmmmm....On close inspection, we found two places with very light paw print indentations.  Not very noticeable to someone not looking for them though.    Still, so much work has gone into this !  So another light coat went on yesterday.  The cardboard got put up again, without the gaps in the corners as before, and put a bit higher too.  And we watched the animals more closely.

All in all, it is looking really nice and we are very happy with it.  Full curing takes a few weeks, during which time we need to take a bit of care with using the surface.

We also painted the bar stools.  They are IKEA ones and we did not like how the white looked.  I got spray paint in Colourbond colour Monument (a deep charcoal) and Ian has spent all week painting bits and pieces of the seats and frames.  Weather not making it a very speedy job.

But the colour is fab !  Looks fantastic with the island frame.  Very smart and perfect perfect perfect.


So another job come right and the kitchen well and truly is nearly done.  Only one small job to complete, painting the window trim in the transom window frame.




Pookie had to wait until very close to 5.  He looks the picture of patience.  Or maybe tenaciousness !

Not Pook's dinner...but a photo of our first bread making here.  Looks gorgeous, and tasted good too !

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