We are now in the early stages of fixing. This stage includes all of the plastering, painting, flooring and built in cabinetry. The plastering has been finished. We had a site meeting when the plasterers were working, strolling around on stilts, with their faces thickly covered in white residue. It was a bit like the reverse of "goin' down t'pit" in the olden days. It seems to be a rather challenging job, and one I am happy to leave to the experts. The next step is to spray on the sealing coats before painting. At the present, all painted surfaces will be white. We may eventually paint some feature walls, but we will live in the house for a while first and see how we feel.
We will soon be able to see how the kitchen will work. We are confident that it will be a really functional space because it is so similar to our current kitchen. The main storage will be in drawers - thirty-five of them. Now I know this might seem like a lot, but we currently have twenty and they are full of baking and kitchen equipment. When I say full, I mean completely and utterly jam packed. There is going to be one golden rule in the kitchen and that is that there will be no stacking of items in the drawers unless they are identical. I am thinking of carving it in stone, like one of the ten commandments. At the moment, you have to move several items to get the the thing you need. This will not happen in the new house. I am desperately hoping that we will have a "one in, one out" system. Really hoping... I was always a bit of a minimalist and I don't want to have more stuff than we need. This photo shows the kitchen space. The pillar will house the refrigerator, but it will also provide a division in the living space to give it some structure.
In preparation for the kitchen, we recently purchased our Sweigen range hood which I have to say is an amazing product. It will have two motors, but because they are mounted on the roof, the noise is significantly reduced making it quieter inside the house. And boy can this thing suck! We will soon need to have our 900mm Smeg freestanding oven and stove top delivered. This is almost identical to the one we use currently, and you all know how keenly Jamie gets attached to his oven. We will also be installing a set of Fisher and Paykel dishdrawers. These have served us very well over the years and use water really efficiently.
Here is a photo of the living space with the plaster board in place. You can see how the sun penetrates nearly the full depth of the house now that winter is here. The sun will heat the slab during the day and keep us cosy at night. We can finally see the scale of the rooms with the plasterboard in place. The internal width is five metres and the ceiling height is three metres. After painting, the lightly limed, recycled messmate floorboards will be installed. 
This is the view looking back towards the living area. It is such a light and airy space. It is all happening so quickly and the project manager seemed to think that it would be finished well before the deadline in October. We have been very fortunate with our builders. They are so professional in every thing they do.
This view is along the entire length of our skinny house from our bedroom to the guest bedroom at the other end. We did not want hallways, so there are just the two short passageways to link the three sections of the house.
