On the house

The morning after. Julia and THAT Kevin Rudd wish

Last night Julia Newbould met Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. She asked him to sign a birthday card for her mum. He did.

Last night I met the Mayor of Marrickville Dimitrios Thanos. I asked him if I could take a pic of him with my friend Peter. He did.

“Please just call me Dimitri” he said to me after I addressed him as Mayor Thanos.

After some light conversation, he gave me his business card and said “call me anytime”.

I was at Petersham Town Hall to honour my mate Peter’s entry in the Marrickville Medal awards ceremony.

“The prestigious Marrickville Medal for Conservation has been awarded annually since 1995. It awards and celebrates conservation and restoration works that contribute to the understanding and preservation of Marrickville’s rich cultural and architectural heritage,” according to the council website.

Peter’s beautiful home was one of the finalists. On the back of the award presentations, the night included speeches from heritage experts – clearly they don’t get to speak much.

One chap spoke for 40 minutes, a presentation that included PowerPoint slides of heritage sites around Australia and pictures of his daughter, her pet dog and a hen with five chickens.

The other chap who won a special heritage promotions award spent a bit of time thanking his sub-editor. God Bless.

Finally it was time for the presentations. The homes were fabulous; clearly Marrickville is home to some fine architecture and residents with taste. Even the Maronite Sisters were up for a nomination. Their Novena must not have worked as they didn’t take home a medal, but at least they had their pic taken with the Mayor.

The winner was a home in Newtown, which is in fact leased out as holiday accommodation. “It was the worst house on the street” we were told.

The sandstone cottage was built in 1858 by a family of funeral directors. The architects (also the homeowners) subsequently renovated it into a modern gem, no doubt with a 4-star wells cistern label dunny.

Check it out!

http://www.australiastreetcottage.com/


The audience views Peter's home as part of a PowerPoint presentation


Peter, his certificate and Mayor just call me Dimitrios Thanos


Peter and his home


The Martonite Sisters with their certificate


The booze was free and it flowed all night

Living with Panache

“Oh so you bought some wallpaper to frame,” mybrother-in-law said to me as I told him about my fabulous new ‘wall art’.

This printed fabric wallpaper art was designed by thelegendary (and some say notorious) wallpaper designer Florence Broadhurst.

The poor woman was found murdered, with her head stuffeddown a toilet. But her extraordinary prints live on.

The Lotus restaurant in Potts Point has this very design wallpapered in its swish bar. Even Australian frock designer Leona Edmiston has Broadurst wallpaper featured in some of her boutiques. Next stop Marrickville.

I picked up my little gem through an online store on ebay– Living with Panache

I may not have my walls covered in her magnificent designsbut my little piece of Florence sits well with my Danish and Murano glass– indeed it’s living with panache!

www.livingwithpanache.com.au

Pete to the Rescue

Renovation Pete at another rescue

The other day, my oven stopped working. Who did I call? Renovation Pete of course.

The very next day Pete turned up with his Rolex watch and spanner.

His first task was to turn the power off, which meant I needed keys to the electricity room. Luckily my lovely neighbour Margaret was home and she gladly opened up the room for us.

The room was used by “the young kids in the street to shoot up” so today it remains locked.

After a call on his blackberry, Pete realised the oven was simply dead and the best solution was to buy a new one.



Next stop! Sam’s Appliances in Dulwich Hill.

We met store assistant ‘Sammy’, Pete called him the “annointed one”

Pete thought he would have it made at Sam’s Appliances as he gently cajoled ‘Sammy’ for a price discount.

“You know Christine, when you talk about a discount these Lebanese, they can’t hear”

“You know mate you are right, if I was Lebanese I’d be deaf. But I am from Brazil,” came Sammy’s reply.

We managed to get a stainless steel Westinghouse oven for $580 sweet ones. The next day Pete came over and installed it.

I wasn’t home that morning, instead I was having high tea at the Diana exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum. But my gorgeous flatmate Nicole told me he did a great job. And the finished work. Well judge for yourself. Pure class!


The oven insalled

Sam's appliances, 723 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill, 02 9558 5519

Renovation make-over

Michelle discusses the Kitchen sink with Renovation Pete

The day my sister’s tenants, Nazi and Habib left her unit on Myra Rd, Michelle decided to renovate.

It wasn’t that the taxi drivers had messed up the property. It wasn’t’ a renovation rescue. It was just time for an update. A makeover. It was time to call in Renovation Pete.

“Now Michelle, remember I just bring your tradesmen together. That’s all I do. I am not going to be hands on,” Pete reminded my sister.

Peter brought his trusted builder Tom along for the inspection.

While Michelle had dreams of dutch ovens, multi-coloured splashback walls, and side kitchen tables, Tom had plans for long-term durability.

For Tom, an update to a rental property was simple, durable, quality fittings with a simplicity that would transcend future renters.

His firm no’s at each suggestion were diplomatically accepted. Until it came to the kitchen sink.

Pete and Tom suggested the all in one faucet. All Michelle wanted was a separate hot and cold tap.

“Michelle you gotta go modern,” Pete demanded.

Michelle had her way. Tom and Pete accepted her decision and left for the evening to enjoy Eros in Earlwood.

Pete and Tom, your team

Second Choice Suburbs

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Marrickville is among the second choice suburbs of Sydney. The article, Cheapest Sydney Suburbs, included a list of these so called suburbs and began with advice given by that fancy real estate bloke McGrath.

McGrath urges buyers to shop around to find affordable property and look at second-choice locations a little further out than their first-choice suburbs.

"Annandale and Glebe might cost too much, but Erskineville and Camperdown are very affordable,” McGrath said.

What planet is he living on?

Anyway, the story goes on further to include comments from our illustrious local real estate agents.

“Marrickville is another well-priced suburb in the area, with a median of $534,000. Its big selling point, says Ray White Dulwich Hill agent Nick Karvouniaris, is that it’s so close to town and has good cafes and restaurants.

“We’re getting a lot of young families buying here as it’s so affordable. There are good schools, good shopping and plenty of transport,” Karvouniaris said.

$534 big ones. Isn’t that half a million? Wow how affordable is Sydney?

Karvouniaris is right about the schools – provided you are ok with Catholic and public schools, and yes great shopping and plenty of transport – minus the train delays and the inevitable traffic pile up on King St.

With all these attributes why are we considered a second choice suburb?

But then again, perhaps that’s a great thing. At least it keeps the Sydney arseholes away.

I recalled a conversation I had with a lady who drove me home after shopping at Woolies – she came to my rescue when after my $100 grocery shop, the staff at Woolies failed to tell me that home delivery had finished.

“A lot of people initially look at Marrickville because it is affordable, then they see what we all look like. Drive on I say to those people. We don’t want people like you in our suburb.”

Strata managers are not nice people

Letter from Princess Sam

He irons his socks and rules his backyard domain with a tight little iron fist. He takes no prisoners and has no friends. He’s a Sydney strata manager. Lips are pursed, arseholes are tight. Grey formica tables are surveyed. Answering machine switched on from 5.05pm until 8.35am in the mornings.

A receptionist with the attention span of a goldfish and a door between the front desk and ‘the office’, where he will recite his Strata Schemes Management Act 1997 with great sound and fury.

This is the type of person you don’t ordinarily choose to deal with. It’s like supping with racists or bathing in kerosene. It aint fun and it aint pretty.

Unfortunately, sometimes princesses have to get their hands dirty.

And so it was that I found myself phoning Juan Nathaniel, proprietor of a caravan with Sydney Strata Managers scrawled in crayon on its sides, at 8.30am on a Friday morning. Earlier that fine day, I had discovered that my toilet bowl was singing along with me in the shower.

Shared pipes in glorious Marrickvillean flats and all that. Could I get away with not dealing with the inner west’s version of The Office’s Gareth? Alas, as I stepped onto the bathroom tiles, I realised that I was about to take a second bath. Or ring the fucker. Step in shit or speak to it. Sophie’s choice, really.

Of course, at 8.30am on a Friday morning, the answering machine was on. I made myself a cup of coffee and sat down to watch the effluent rise.

At 8.35am, Nathaniel himself answered on his mobile phone.

“Could you possibly fax your request to me?” he had asked.

Could he not hear my request? My flat was beginning to flood.

“Yes, but I need proof that this is a genuine call.”

Now, when you’re staring at a rising tide of other people’s poo and wee (gotta love living in a ground floor flat!), you tend to have a tinge of desperation in your voice that is hard to mask. It’s kind of like Ivan Milat would sound if he were a woman and he was in labour. You notice this desperation. You certainly don’t fuck with it. At least, if you have an IQ of more than 12 you don’t fuck with it.

Mr Nathaniel, of course, took some extra convincing.

Eventually, however, I managed to establish that I wasn’t in fact a prank caller (highlight of the rampant prank calling scene in Sydney is to ring Juan Nathaniel, apparently, and try to pull the wool over his penetrating gaze). I’ll give him his due: the plumber called me sharpish and was around within the hour. Unfortunately, an hour was all it took for the entire block’s effluent to reach my ears – or at least, to flood all of my bathroom, much of my living room, my adjoining linen cupboard and, in my bedroom, my inbuilt wardrobe.

Nice.

Juan “the Gareth” Nathaniel, however, was having none of it. “We’ll pay for the plumbing but we are not responsible for the repercussions of any strata plumbing fault. Goodbye.”

And that, my friends, is how I have been lumped with a stinky flat and thousands of dollars damage. This is the third time this has happened. No-one in strata has fixed it. And I ask you: are we to wallow in shit and neighbours’ pubic hair under the yoke of people who iron their socks and recite the Strata Schemes Management Act 1997?

Is Marrickville – nay Sydney? - to be placed in the hands of idiot children in possession of a grey formica desk, an Officeworks account and a teeny dick?

I think it’s time that Sydney flat dwellers arise against the likes of the Juan Nathaniels in our midst. Let’s reclaim our shit-free flats from the shits.

You know it’s right.