It's good to be home!

Japan Part Two will come, but I'm still sorting through my feelings about being there during the earthquake event and the nuclear crisis that is ongoing......

So I thought I'd pop up a couple of nice to be home shots!

Xi was definitely pleased to be home!

The pumpkin patch did well, we've 24+ butternuts growing, so I'm hoping to get at least 15 ready and set before the vine's finished.

I did a new little succulent garden in an old crucible at the entrance to my studio, and got in a few vegie seedlings and some rhubarb into the patch.

And it was my birthday! I decided to try out a new cake, rather than my standard (and favourite) and I went straight to Nigella's Feast book, with the chocolate cake chapter.

This is the Chocolate Malt(easer) Cake, and I must say, even though I used different sized pans so the cake was not as high as the picture in the book, and was running around outside with a baby in a pram trying to rock him asleep while the cake was in the oven. It worked out pretty well. We decided that it'd be better as just one cake, with half the amount of icing, so maybe next time, or maybe I'll just try a different one! I did get lots of new cookbooks from DC!

Someone also got his first taste of cake, no icing, just a little morsel, and promptly went into a tantrum on the floor for more, so it couldn't have been all bad!

......Now I need to think of my Rosie New Year Resolutions... must make more frocks!

Every Lounge Room Needs A Mural

Well, it does!

Soon it'll be raining glass rain, and populated with glass flyers!

.........FLOOR!!!

Such a lot has happened since the discovery of the floor damage and the stalling of the renovation, but now we're back on track again, because we have a floor!

We scrambled around before Christmas trying to find a builder who'd come out and take a look at the job, and hopefully say yes to starting it by mid January at the earliest. I was thinking that was my best case scenario.

And then...........builder #7 said yes. And not only yes, but when we contacted him on the 23rd, he came out and had a look on Christmas Eve morning, and then said, yep, I'll send out a crew to start on Monday (remember, it was a public holiday) and you should have your floor by New Year's Eve.

And it happened!

So these are the kind of holes we worked around to finish painting the walls. This is the Office/Spare Bedroom.

Our bedroom.

Then came the builders. First they removed all the boards from four rooms and the hallway. Our hope for a polished floor in the hallway was dashed due to damage on virtually every board, and due to the fact that it'd be faster to rip everything out in terms of levelling it, and replacing. Above is the lounge, with it's little brick wall supports.

Here is Tom and Maximo on the Tuesday, when all the rooms were dug out, and the supports levelled.

Then the joists (termite proof) went in on Wednesday.

And then the floors went in on Thursday, and were finished on the weekend!

Next step is having to track down skirting boards of the correct (very tall) height, since our originals were either too eaten, damaged or just too covered in layers of enamel to spend time (which we don't have) trying to restore them. One supplier is open again on the 6th January, but we're hoping to find another source before that.........maybe.

Originally we were going to paint them, and then instal, but now we want to just put them on, just in case the builders can't come back to us for a while.

So. We get skirts. We paint them. We lay the carpet. We move. (we pack somewhere inbetween all that)

wow, another house update!

.........since it's all I seem to be doing lately, in between various types of health surprises that is.

So we have done a bit since the last post. Three rooms and the hallway have been double undercoated and are ready for colour.

There's some of them, a more subtle and classic scheme I've yet to see!

Actually, these are just some of the sample pots we've been collecting, but will be going with all of these.

We were actually going really well in terms of time and work. The plastering's been completed, and really rocks, and the floors were going to be replaced last saturday, with the sanding and polishing of the hallway to happen the following weekend (today actually) when.. da dum.

bit more damage than we'd hoped, assumed, planned for....

White Ant damage. Old stuff, and it's been treated by the previous owners But. Not. Repaired.

So those bits of sagging floorboards in each room? Seems to be virtually eaten out boards and the joists are pretty rubbish as well.
We've got holes in each room, and we haven't pulled up the rest of the boards so we can use the floors to stand on, to finish painting the walls!

Here's Xi's ceiling, with his walls undercoated.

And here's the sampler of the office paint, chosen to go with the wallpaper feature, right in front of a lovely hole.

I will be meeting with a builder tomorrow to see if there is any chance of getting the joists replaced and the floors in by...............as soon as possible really. Unfortunately Christmas is close and well, everyone is working like crazy already.

Fingers crossed.

But my next post will show just how far we've come with the painting!

W.D.S part two

Continuing our theme of despising wallpaper, or removal of, here are some pictures from the working bee last weekend.

In the kitchen, with CC and Boris, where they took on not one vinyl wallpaper, not just the lovely picnic scene shown previously here, but TWO, the other being this beautiful wood panelling number.
This was the worst room, and the one I made the biggest mistake on. I thought it was going to be beautifully well behaved wallpaper like the shiny front room, so left it til last.

...After the working bee..

It has been the wallpaper from hell!!!!! It has ended up being a four day job, possibly more... I can't remember anymore. We just spent yesterday scrubbing of the last bits of adhesive residue, so, maybe more.
A nice shot of all the crap we've had to clean up, though not as bad as the pink room, where half the render had to come off as well.
The games room finishing getting undercoated. We've got a baby hanging out with his cousin twice removed (?) (we call her Aunty) his Nana painting away and another 'Aunty' cutting in. That room is now looking pretty good! Haven't narrowed down what colour it will be as yet.

We have almost finished the wall prep ourselves, and need some plastering work done, and then it's back into it - painting!

Wallpaper disappreciation society part 1

It's true. I want to join that society. We are nearly there though. Nearly kinda almost not quite nearly there.

It's been a full on week. This is the first day in nine that I haven't been at the house de-wallpapering. I can't remember what I used to do before wallpaper; either I'm pretty knackered by it all, or the wallpaper has just turned my brain to mush.

To start at the start, my fabulous MiLaw came over for a week to help in any which way she could, (unluckily for her it was the wallpaper) and we got things cranking when Xi was off having a fun time at childcare, and Tom could have some time at the house.

Front room (the wonder room with wallpaper that comes off like a dream...... wish the others were like it)

It was a different story when it was just the two of us and the baby.

This is exactly how much painting you can get done before the child realises that something more interesting than playing in a very exciting new sandpit just outside the door, is going on.

This is the mentioned sandpit. It's a hit, though we have been finding sand in unexpected places (carseats, prams, lunchboxes etc)

After that we took turns and then did a flurry when he was napping.

We also had a lot of help from some hardworking friends on the weekend -

Hallway coming along nicely.....

The pile of carpet from four rooms and the hallway, in the only main room that wasn't wallpapered (thank goodness for that!) That got taken away by D & J!

Walk Through

Okay, so here's a bit of a walk through of the house, though not in walking order!

Here's the back wall of the kitchen, with the previously displayed wallpaper, and sliding glass doors which we think are winners. (Latter, not former)

The kitchen. Note that it's got cool blue splash back tiles, warm brown food theme wallpaper on two walls, and fake wood wallpaper on the other wall. The room you can see through the way is going to be............the GAMES room!!! And drawing room!!!! But at the moment, it's an empty space with half exposed brick, and half wood panelling.

This is the back hallway entrance, with it's peeling wallpaper (I did that section to see what was underneath, with a view through to the laundry and bathroom/linen closet/toilet rooms.
This is Xi discovering he can crawl into kitchen cupboards, but not out of them!

This is the front room that will become the office/spare bedroom. Out of all the rooms with wallpaper, part of this might actually be kept as a feature (cause it's shiny :)

This room will be our bedroom.

This is our room after it met with me in my new respirator mask.

I ripped out the carpet in three rooms and the hallway yesterday. It was really good to get in and DO something.

I found out some interesting things, like how come they threw two cupboards in - they'd carpeted around them! They are sitting on older carpet! When we move them, I wonder what style it'll turn out to be?

This is the hallway carpet, with it's layer of horsehair underlay, an amazing amount of dust, and the original vinyl underneath.

This is what the front section of the hallway looks like: a mish mash of woods and thicknesses to create some really dodgy spots and a frankenstein's monster effect.

And this is what the second part of the hallway looks like - beautiful. I think we will have to figure out a way to make the first section nice, and polish it up. I was originally against polishing the floors, because I've lived in a house for five years with wood floors and with 5-7mm gaps in between the planks. It is not easy to clean, the nails pop up, and basically, I hate it.

But the opportunity to have a nice wooden floor??? hmmmmm

House Hunted!!

We went to the bank on Friday to figure out a budget, we started looking at houses ..........

we put in an offer two weeks later on one.......

and got accepted!!!! Check out the beautiful* blue brick veneer!

This is the wallpaper in the kitchen of our new house. I don't have any other interior photos because I didn't want to jinx anything, but the wallpaper was special enough to warrant a picture. The rest of the house is wallpapered as well :)

THis is a partial view of the backyard - it has fruit trees and a yard for Xi to play in, and a vegie patch and a space for chooks and a brick garage that will be converted into a FABULOUS STUDIO TWICE THE SIZE OF WHAT I'VE BEEN WORKING IN!!!!!!!!! (and thus freeing up a room in the house - spare room/office hooray!!!)

This is the work of a day with the help of a friend (and Xi, to a lesser extent) towards getting our garden ready for the move. I've just decided to take cuttings of my bigger succulents because they'll take off fast, and potted up my favourite bits and pieces. There is already several established fruit trees, and grape vines (it's an old Italian suburb, bless their cultivation!) So we'll just see what the space and conditions are like before planning anything major..............or not if I can't wait.

IT'S SO EXCITING!!!!!

we're getting the keys sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon

*it's definitely going.