92. Living in Barry Street

 

We had lived in our old house in Barry Street for 9 years and had grown to love it. Of course, there was lots wrong with it but it gave Jonathan lots of little jobs to do. Some not very little either. He propped up the pillars that part of the front of the house stood on. The cement in them had washed away over the years and the house was not very secure. I did not want him to attempt it as I thought it was too big a job for him but he was eager to give it a try. So with a series of car jacks, he lifted the house up ever so slightly and repaired the pillars. I had been rather a nervous wreck while the job was in progress, fearing that he would get hurt.

I sighed a great sigh of relief when it was all done but I should have known that once that was done, he would be looking for another challenge. The step up to the front patio was cracked and he wanted to fix that. He spent quite a while thinking and planning how it could be done. After all he is a boilermaker not a builder so he had to give it a great deal of thought. I kept hoping that he would end up thinking it was too big a job for him. The house stood on small pillars so had space between the ground and the floor of the house.  The front part was bricked in but the rear was open. Jonathan crawled on his tummy from the back to the front to examine the damaged step and see how it could be fixed. With me crying “Just leave it, just leave it” and him saying “I can do it, I can do it” the work progressed. He did get some advice from a friend who was a builder but he did the work himself. I have to admit that he made a very good job of it but I was always concerned that the house would collapse on him.

Another quite big job that he did was to put in new kitchen cupboards. The one that we had were old and not very nice. When we had first moved in, he had replaced all the cupboard doors and that made a great deal of difference as the original doors were made of chip board and as they were very old, they shed bits all over the floor but even with the new doors they were never very beautiful. I thought that maybe we could get some second-hand kitchen cupboards and started looking around. I looked in all the second-hand shops, in the places that sold second-hand building materials and on eBay and in all the on-line market places, but could find nothing. One day I was talking to a friend Ralph, who had two sons. One a builder and one a painter and I asked him if his sons knew what happened to all the cupboards that came out of the kitchens that people here are forever renovating. It really is a huge industry here. Australians don’t seem to be able to put up with a kitchen that is more than about 10 years old. It all has to be torn out and the latest and greatest new cupboards and appliances fitted. Surely those cupboards must go somewhere. Ralph spoke to his sons and came back to me with the information that there is very little demand for second hand kitchen units, so the guys that put in the new ones just tear out the old ones and dump them. But Ralph said that if I was prepared to wait until February one of his sons was going to have his kitchen renovated and as he knew we would like them he would take out the units carefully for us. That was only three months away so of course, I was willing to wait. February came and I expected to hear from Ralph but 28 days passed and I heard nothing. I did not want to nag about it as after all they were doing me a great favour. Then on the next day who should arrive with a van full of kitchen units but Ralph. I realised later in the day that it was actually a leap year so the day that I had thought was the beginning of March was actually still February. Fitting them was again a big job but at least this time I did not feel it was so dangerous and I was able to help Jonathan a little by fetching and carrying and holding things for him. I told him where I wanted the units placed and he just did as I asked. When we had had them in place about a fortnight, I realised that I had made a mistake and that one of them needed to be moved. I thought about it for a while but decided it was too big a job to expect my long-suffering husband to do. But then I kept bumping my head on the corner of one of the units and so did some more thinking. Eventually I told Jonathan that I had made a mistake and that I wished I had asked for that unit to be in a different place. And believe it or not he did not moan or complain but just got out his tools again and fixed my error. What a difference those cupboards made to my life. No, it did not look like the hundred thousand refits that one sees advertised but I was happy to have more storage space and nice clean modern units in my little old house.

These were the biggest jobs that Jonathan did in Barry Street but he did lots of other small ones. Putting up shelves, replacing the roof sheeting on the back courtyard, mending a ceiling fan, painting ceilings, trying to mend an old air-conditioner (but it was all rusted inside and beyond repair) fitting washers and dozens of other general maintenance jobs. Living in that house really was a full-time job for Jonathan. But we were happy to live there. It was spacious with large rooms and high ceilings, a garage that could be used as a workshop for Jonathan, a nice sized garden and really lovely neighbours around us. We were sad when we learnt it was going to be sold.