Lexifabricographer For when the right word just won’t do…

…as our mate Bren would describe them.

Our three vast three-seater lounges were delivered yesterday, just in time to act as surrogate birthday presents for Fi. They are large, two shades of purple, and supremely comfortable, and have completely transformed the living room from the great expanse of open space of last week to a cosy-but-spacious circle of comfort and colour. Beautiful. The other new arrival (same shipment) was the entertainment unit, a low wide stand made of marri wood. The wood is a rich honey colour streaked through with a dark chocolate resin – gorgeous! So good that, as well as getting the shop display entertainment unit, we also ordered three tables as well (coffee, lamp and huge dining). We don’t expect any of those to arrive for a while, as we’ve given specific instructions to the carpenters to wait until they get a delivery of wood with a decent amount of resin streakage. We want our ridiculously expensive designer woodwork to have character!

Truth to tell, we’ve been fantasising about getting furniture made out of this stuff for years, so it was very exciting to finally decide that we really could afford to take the plunge and invest in what we’ve planned as family heirloom-quality furnishings. (We expect the kids to be squabbling over this stuff in 80 years or so).

Bit of an exhausting weekend. Saturday was given over to cleaning the house and cooking a roast for a late family lunch with Mum. She’s staging a fleeting visit on her way back from a  conference in Melbourne, and staying with Ian and Son so she and baby Oskie can become acquainted, which unfortunately means we won’t get to see too much of her this trip – but at least we can take her out for a belated Mother’s Day dinner tomorrow night before bundling her onto the plane first thing Wednesday morning. Not as much time as we’d like to spend with her, but we’ll take it happily. I suspect she’d be better off just curling up in bed with a book, mind you – she picked up a  terrible cold in Melbourne and sounds just awful. She could obviously do with a bit of a break.

Dad’s now down in Townsville to start his chemo treatments. They’ll be harvesting stem cells this week, after which he starts his intensive course of chemotherapy, after which the stem cells are replaced and he goes into isolation for several weeks to avoid infections while he has no immune system to speak of. It’s a pretty scary prospect, but he’s been through it before and knows what to expect this time. The only real concern for the rest of us is the fact that he has to essentially sit still for three or four months after the treatment, in order to recover, and anyone who knows Dad knows that that will be very hard on him.

By the time everyone left on Saturday afternoon I was practically asleep on my feet, but for some reason I still stayed up until after midnight, so Sunday was a bit exhausting as well. Fi and I put up most of the rest of the curtains in the dining room – one to go, which shouldn’t take long – so the renovations of the main internal living areas is practically finished! The study (aka Nerdfarm) is another story. It will be a huge job, especially if we have to shift all of the constantly-on computers and masses of DVDs out of there while we rip the place apart. We’re planning to install a storage unit where the shelves are (so that we can hide away as much of the clutter as possible) but we’ve never really build a cupboard before, so the logistics are a bit daunting at this stage. I’m not sure when it’s going to happen, either – Fi’s pregnancy rather limits the amount of heavy demolition and woodworking she can or should be doing, so it’s the current question as to whether I take it on solo before the baby arrives, or it gets left for a couple of years…