Arachnid alert

Small + furry = cute. Right?

O wot jolly japes we had with this little arthropod tonight. He/she is actually on the large-ish side (for a spider), so I thought, well, who wouldn't be keen to know precisely how large-ish?
My efforts to include a linear measuring device in the shot were only moderately successful. Either I lost focus on account of being one-handed, or the spider pounced on the tape measure - exciting, but sufficiently unnerving to cause camera movement.
I can tell you though, that the body is about 1.5 inches (3 cm) long and the leg span about 5 inches (12 cm).
It's a Huntsman - a really common and basically harmless Australian spider. They are inclined to be big and hairy, but they spend their time hunting things like mosquitos, slaters, insect larvae... (and tape measures, if sufficiently annoyed by them). Some people keep them as pets.
They don't lurk about in webs and the only thing is that sometimes they fall off the ceiling - you don't really want to be underneath when they do that. There's no real danger of getting bitten and they're not poisonous anyway, but still...
There are hundreds living in the wall cavity. We hardly ever see them. Just now and then.
This one, having made this dramatic exit via the Dutch oven, is now lurking out of sight in the general vicinity of the big cooking pots on top of the high cupboard. By tomorrow it could be anywhere. Be afraid... be very... Oh don't bother. It's harmless. My dad used to pick them up with his bare hands and take them outside "where they belong". Never got bitten.