Good things come in threes

Good thing number one

Kerry the skylight man arrives, takes a look at the back room and wonders why we think we need a skylight at all. We explain how dark the room was before we began the renovation, so that a skylight seemed a clear need, but agree that the room now doesn't really seem to need one.
Kerry then takes a look at the bathroom where minimal light is supplied by the internal window, and suggests a solar skylight. About four years ago, Peter had the idea of connecting an LED panel to a solar panel on the roof to create a skylight effect, and put an LED panel in our hallway and a solar panel on the roof as a proof of concept, but had never solved the problem of getting the wiring from one to the other. Kerry explains that these devices are now commercially available in all shapes and sizes, and he just happens to have a small round one in his truck. Within an hour or so, he has installed it in the bathroom ceiling, and the room is now amazingly bright. We abandon the idea of putting a skylight in the main room, and start to think about other places that an Illume (that's the brand) skylight might go. Before Kerry goes, he also unkinks the blind in the big skylight he installed in our house when it was renovated, an issue which has annoyed us for some time.
All through the remainder of the afternoon, Peter and I trek in and out of next door to marvel at the amount of light that continues to come from the new LED skylight, which only starts to dim at dusk.

Good thing number two

While Kerry is working on the bathroom skylight, the boys from West City Cabinets arrive with the replacement kitchen bench. This time they do the cut-outs on site, where we can check that it's all correct. The benchtop now looks just as it should, and the kitchen takes proper shape.

Good thing number three

Peter finishes the sashcord replacement job on the front windows, and we spend a happy hour or so scraping multiple layers of paint off the original brass fittings and screws, prising them off the windows, then doing further scraping, cleaning and polishing until they are lovely and shiny, ready to refit.