The Christmas and New Year period was a busy one at The Charlton House, with Saturday 14^th December being a particularly significant milestone – that was the day we picked up the kitchen!

The weekend started a day early as we headed up the Calder on Friday 13^th. Fortunately neither Shirleen nor I suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia, and the trip was without incident.

After our usual inspection of the house and grounds on arrival, we emptied the ute and hooked up the trailer ready for an early morning trip on Saturday to pick up the kitchen from Bunnings in Bendigo, where the lovely people there had placed the flat packs on pallets and wrapped them in plastic all ready to go. The larger of the 2 pallets was forklifted directly onto the trailer and the smaller one unpacked and loaded into the ute tub. It wasn’t too long before we were on our way back to Charlton, excited that the next chapter in our renovation story was about to start.

Once back we unloaded the base cupboards, wall cupboards, doors, drawers, hinges etc into various places around the house ready for assembly over the Christmas break.

The remainder of the weekend was spent finishing the paint on the kitchen walls and trim, before heading back to Melbourne on the Sunday.

I was keen to return the following weekend (which was the start of a three week break from work) to start assembling the cupboards and the week in the office was one of the slowest I’ve experienced, despite being busy.

The weekend finally arrived, and I was now on holidays – but there was no sleep-in… I was keen to get back to Charlton ASAP, leaving home around 7am (sans wife and dog) and arriving shortly before 11:00.

The entire weekend was dedicated to finishing the painting and starting the cabinet assembly. After a full on 2 days I retuned home on December 23^rd to celebrate my birthday and Christmas with the family.

On December 29^th we all returned to Charlton intent on getting as much of the kitchen done as possible. After all the base cabinets were in place I was in a position to confirm the measurements for the benchtops and place an order for them, happy that the scheduled delivery was only a week away.

Installation of the wall cabinets soon followed, then doors and handles, and pretty soon we had what was becoming a great looking and functional kitchen. Whilst I was busily assembling flat packs, Shirleen got busy with paint stripper and scraper and continued the work Emily had started on the dado panelling in the hallway. We suffered only one hiccup during this time… on unpacking the pantry door, the very last door to be installed, we discovered it had somehow been damaged most likely in transit from the supplier to the store.A quick call to Bunnings was all that was needed for a replacement to be ordered.

By Wednesday 8^th Jan we decided that, given there was little more work we could do until the benchtops arrived, we would return home via Bendigo to send back the damaged door and order the kitchen sink.

The benchtops were scheduled to arrive on the following Friday, so I returned to Charlton the next day to await delivery.

The following 2 weeks back at work went surprisingly fast. I had arranged annual leave for 24^th Jan, giving me a 4 day weekend to cut the benchtops to size and install them. The trip up was via Bendigo to pick up the replacement pantry door and the sink. Over the extended weekend we achieved what we set out to do, having completed the installation of both the benchtops and the sink.

On the morning of Monday 27^th, the Australia Day public holiday, we packed up the car, locked up the house, and after visiting mum on the way out of town, started down the Calder for the trip home.

No sooner had we travelled about 10 minutes that the car suddenly lost power, and dashboard warning messages started flashing, and I knew something serious was wrong with my almost new Ford Ranger. After coasting to a stop on the side of the road, we checked the owner’s manual which confirmed a powertrain fault and advised contacting Ford Service.

Realising that we were going nowhere, we rang the RACV who advised their usual “within the hour” response. The outside temp was in the low 30’s and whilst the car engine could run with the air-conditioning going, I was mindful of it overheating without the proper airflow though the radiator, so we wound down the windows and sat… waiting…

Realising it was futile for the three of us to wait, we put in a rescue call to Janet who came to collect Shirleen, Skylar and our bags and return them to the house. The sight of Shirleen and Skylar sharing the front seat of a 2 seater sports car is one which will stay with me for some time!

The following day the Ranger made its way to the Ford dealer in Donald, who confirmed a broken component in the automatic gearbox, requiring a replacement transmission to be shipped from Melbourne.

Fortunately they were able to dig up a 20 year old Falcon as a loan car… it aint pretty (it has so much Mallee dust in and on it it really does look like it was dug up!), and despite having travelled over 300,000 km it is mechanically sound, so we were able to return home to Sandhurst by early evening.

The next trip will be an unscheduled one to pick up the Ranger once it is repaired.

Tiling in the kitchen will be the next task… can’t wait. In the interim check these before and after photos!

The Kitchen the day we bought The Charlton House

The Kitchen today.