Heavenly Beverley : There's Cracks in Them Thar Walls...

Friday, 24 July 2015

There's Cracks in Them Thar Walls...

Never buy an old building. Do not be tempted even if you fall in love with the building.Walk away. Run for your life. Don't look back.Or do what we did and purchase a hundred-year-old building that leaked like a sieve and had fretting brickwork, rising damp, rotting timber, no plumbing, electricity that was a farce and cracks you could put your hand through...

Well, we have spent three years renovating the Forbes Building. Michael has plastered litres of bitumen paint and silicon up on the roof. Naturally, we couldn't afford a new roof. We have rewired, connected to deep sewerage, sanded floors, added a floating floor, created Michael's workshop, restored the Residence, (well almost) undercoated and painted and painted and painted. Not to mention fill a lot of cracks...an awful lot of cracks.

This has been an ongoing - tedious - process. The building is old. Now we have fixed the leaks and the building is drying out and contracting. And we live in a seismically active area. We have about one hundred and fifty tremors a day. We don't feel these, but the building does. Then there are the trains that thunder past twice or three times a day. So our building is continually moving.Whether we like it or not.

We have filled the cracks in three and a half shops. They were the old cracks. Now we have new cracks. We have revisited Shop 2. The cracks have been repaired and the walls repainted. We have new tenants. John and Pat have filled the shop with pre-loved furniture and collectables.

Michael and Madlen have moved into Shop 1. This was the shop Michael did not renovate personally in 2012 as he was still recovering from shoulder surgery. We knew the cracks would come back. We didn't quite realise just how dramatically.

The cracks are stupendous. We are so lucky to have Madlen here. She has helped Michael beyond description. The cracks are being opened and filled. She is smart, eager, reliable, resourceful and a smashing cook. Ladies and gentlemen, Madlen Witte is a star. If you want a willing worker, she is your Helpxer. PS she is also looking for paying jobs between Yalgoo and Darwin from September. We are losing her to a station near Yalgoo next Thursday. Our loss, their gain. Lucky people!

Madlen, we already miss you. Here is a tribute to Madlen and Michael's efforts in Shop 1 -