But I've given up on that for the moment.

Instead I am concentrating on having all cabinets installed first so that we can tile right through.

Also - there were two training sessions on tiling at Bunnings on the 27th and we were contemplating delaying any tiling until we had attended.

I've just got back from Bunnings now (Sunday) - so I feel ready to get going next weekend.

Anyway - Saturday was a productive day - I have completed almost everything needed to start tiling.

The first job was to empty out most of the bathroom - I had placed the shower screen and toilet last week to make sure there was enough room to get past the vanity to the toilet.

I boxed everything up again and put it out of the way.

Next, I gently rotated the vanity forward on to its face using a blanket on the floor to protect the paint work.

I drove in extra screws to reinforce the cabinet work.

I also checked the waste pipe that we glued in last week and held in position with wedges - this had set solid in a nice central position.

I encountered a strange phenomenom at this point.

I went out and used the toilet. It flushed properly, as usual, but the hand basin tap was not working.

I thought this was very strange as they were both on the same pipe feed.

Then I checked the garden tap at the back corner of the house - this wasn't working either.

None of this made any sense.

Then I suddenly twigged. It was very cold in Mundaring last night, and Wooroloo is probably 5 degrees colder, so the pipes must have frozen. The toilet system is on a different copper riser at the end of the run and that's why it was working.

When I had a close look at the snaplock fitting on the end of the garden tap I could see that the drip of water was frozen in place. Also all the vegetation was covered in ice.

Most of our outside plumbing is running through the ground, so it is safe, but obviously I will need to lag any of the exposed risers. I have some spare lagging left over from the work inside the house.

The vanity cabinet is sitting quite solidly on the cement floor but to be absolutely certain I wanted to also screw it to the stud framing through its back panel.

I measured the stud positions across the wall and transfered these onto the internal back wall - carefully avoiding no go areas such as feed water pipes.

I used some 60mm self tapping screws to firmly fasten to the bathrooom wall.

During this process, I realised I needed a small piece of scrap to use as a small straight edge.

When I walked out the back door, I could hear a waterfall at Ian's house.

It turned out that some piping near his solar hot water system had burst during the freeze and water was cascading down his roof.

I walked along his boundary trying to find the main water valve. In the end I had to ask Ross if he knew where it was - he did, so we turned it off and I taped some messages to his front and back doors.

During the week, Linda exchanged the incorrect laundry trough at Bunnings.

I brought it with me and fitted the mixer tap to the basin portion.

I then measured its position along the wall and installed it in the position that Linda and I had decided on.

I screwed through the back rail of the cabinet in to the stud frame to secure it in position.

There is still a little bit of work to do in wedging some of the surfaces to guarantee absolute solidity.

I haven't touched any of its plumbing - I'll leave all of this to Wayne.

I also want to install a steel edge on to the outdoor step.

But first I was not happy with the door frame - it was 2mm wider at the bottom than the top - so a quick removal job, a bit of extra packing in the door cavity and a reassembly.

I then cut a piece of 25mm x 3 mm angle iron to length.

Remembering Ross's advice I used a diamond tipped blade this time to sculpt out a 3mm rebate, drilled and countersunk the steel, drilled and plugged the cement.

I just need to thoroughly paint the steel during the week and then install it next week along with the tile edge pop rivetted on top.

Several months ago I made several mistakes with the end wall sheeting in the bathroom, resulting in some oversize holes to fit around the plumbing.

I eventually want to fill this with some scraps of 6mm vilaboard but first I needed to glue in some backing pieces - I used some stud adhesive and thin lengths of board.

Next week I will glue on to them and fill in the gaps.

Finally - there is a fair bit of damage been done to the vanity cabinet when the demolition people pulled it out of the wall.

I am using a 2 part epoxy resin to repair it.

For the large hole made by the old plumbing this will require several cycles of patching, rubbing back and then patching again (I inserted a piece of backing board from the inside so that I have a surface to work up to).