This is what flat 4 looked like back in Easter '19 before the tenant left.
The carpet was coarse and grey, the lino in the kitchen old and beige.
The kitchen is what agents refer to as "original", much as the kitchen
in flat 5 was when I moved in around 1990.
This is the apartment on the Monday, a public holiday.
Kay and I had arrived on Saturday evening; Ian and Vicki delivered our
vacuum-sealed mattress and a set of sheets, pillowcases, pillows, duvet, and towels,
all preordered with Pamela's help.
On Sunday Tony took us to Bunnings, and we spent a lot on tools, everything from screwdrivers to power saws via lovely DeWalt heavy duty drill and impact drivers. We borrowed the apartment block's ladder (thank you , Scott), we bought and assembled a double gate-leg table and two chairs from Ikea with Tony, who brought his trolley that we would soon need. It was cold for Sydney, and we heated the apartment by opening the oven.
We had wasted no time removing the bench and kitchen.
When I say "we" I mostly mean Kay, as I was rather ill from something I ate on Sunday night when
we ate with Nick and Kerry and Tony.
Being that ill in a place where we did not own even a bucket is an experience neither of us wants to repeat!
The new carpet arrived first thing on Day 4.
Tony, Kay, and I worked into the night removing the old kitchen.
A lot of dinners had been had at The Spaghetti Bowl by this time!
Marvellous cheap-and-cheerful Italian, like I remember food in the Eastern suburbs as a teenager.
Appliances arrived (the balcony is impassable at this stage)
and then Kay and I bought all the kitwork for the kitchen from Bunnings,
renting one of their utes to get it all home.
Progress over the next couple of days (large images, open in tab for detailed view)... washing machine and dishwasher now in place.
The plumbing proved reasonably easy. Compression joints are the norm now. I wired power under the kitchen cabinets. So good to be an electrician. (Remembers Mark Simmonds's "electrician's secret handshake".) Thank you Stephen and Pamela for the use of your excellent Subaru.
Kay had arranged for us to take time out to see Vivid from Altitude, a classy restaurant in The Rocks.
Kay and I had laid the new kitchen floating floor, but
we called in serious tech help for the kitchen benches.
Bunnings did not have the Jarrah benchtop wood we had ordered early, and we had to use a substitute.
It was still very tough, but thinner than the wood we had wanted.
Peter and Eric and I spent almost 12 hours getting it all installed, thank you all!
In the end, the benches looked very nice.
By this stage we had started calling flat 4 "Pied-a-terre".
We would paint the benchtop in Danish oil the morning we left for Istanbul.
On Day 6 I went to lunch with the Sydney Old Boys while Kay stayed for the installation of the wardrobes and Murphy (tiltaway) bed.
The bed and wardrobes worked very well. It was now starting to feel comfortable.
Pamela and Stephen had a dinner in honour of our push back into Sydney.
Next, armchairs arrived.
We agonised a lot over the two recliners we chose. In the end we went for two
cosy, conventional recliners with soft cloth, rather than the sexy narrow
and often powered leather recliners that are the fashion.
Something to do with the price, an order of magnitude less than the
sexy Italian option. We figure that if we decide we want to upgrade,
we can give these away without too much grief.
Next day we took off for Istanbul via Singapore. Never leave your wing woman...
Now Istanbul is a colourful and enormous city, and we do not want to bore with
streams of photos... but ooh, it was exciting.
This photo captures a lot. That is our hotel in the background, the Seres Old City. In the foreground a scooter is used as a water-delivery vehicle, which tells you that there is a lot of the Asian use-of-scooters there, and also that the water is not so desirable. You may also see that our street, though narrow and cobbled, has a set of tram tracks.
Here is the complementary view from the hotel lobby... with about 2m clearance when a tram passes.
This is where we ate breakfast every morning.
These were the best breakfasts I have ever eaten in a hotel. As my student Sina
affirms, Turkish breakfast is a serious business, cheeses (and oh, the cheeses!), meats, fruits, dips,
pastries, olives, pickles, menemen (glorious version of scrambled eggs), eggs, potatoes, bacon, juice, tea, coffee... .
We ate a lot on that roof.
This is one seriously happy lady, eating seriously fine food, with a seriously spectacular view.
Of course we visited the Grand Bazaar.
We found the best Tile Shop, and there are a lot of places that sell pottery in the Turkish style. We bought tiles for Pied-a-terre. There are vastly more shops that sell Turkish-style lamps and light fittings. In fact, there is one of those in Newtown. Being of the wild-west light-fitting design school, but with multicoloured glass, we did not effect any purchases at these.
We visited the Basilica Cistern. Oh, that really shows how fabulous life muct have been
in Byzantine times. Huge civil engineering works were possible.
This view is of about half the length.
We ate in the Old City restaurant district. Kay visited the Spice Market; here you
see a typical shop in the market.
We ate breakfasts; we ate in cafes. The Kuneffe, oh!
Kay did not previously like baclava. It was so good in Istanbul she is converted!
Kay visited the Blue Mosque, and the Aya Sophia.
We visited the Galata Tower. Spectacular 360-degree views of Istanbul. It is one BIG city.
London may be 30-million-sized, but Istanbul's 30-million are genuinely in "city".
It goes on and on without thinning out too much.
An "ordinary weeknight" in Taksim Square is like New Year's Eve in Sydney. Lotta bodies in motion.
Anyway, not wanting to bore you with meaningless views of city taken from the tower, consider only this one; Just behind my head you can see two bridges, the left-hand one is a rail-only bridge, and in the middle of the bridge is a station. Pack it in, guys.
Returning to Sydney, we had less drive to renovate, and more to socialise.
Here Tony shows how engineers handle corks in the absence of corkscrews.
David lead a serious discussion on how to tackle our now-quite-full exciting-gin cabinet.
David and I would up dining at Stanbuli, which turns out to be a short walk from Pied-a-terre.
Fabulous, but the blighters had run out of both chig kofte and kuneffe.
On our last night, we had our first proper dinner party in the flat with Eric, Peter, and Donna. Next morning bright and early it was back to Hamilton.
This is the renovation checklist for summer...