Neat as a pin

Hooray! Two wonderful blokes took it upon themselves to blitz through some more painting at our holiday house this weekend. Having driven a packed one-tonne van for over 4 hours after work on Friday evening, they set to work in the living room. They only had one-and-a-half days in which to prep and complete the work, but I think it's come up a treat! I just knew it would look so much better once the greasy-looking, glum, oil-based paint was gone - it suits my simpler, pared-down aesthetic now and I'm sure it will be a lovely space in which to relax ...

Thank you G & J!

This is the pic I took when we first went to look at the house. Note the dull, ugly walls and ceiling, clunky pelmet with synthetic lace curtains, not to mention the cluttered knick-knacks ...

 Yellowed wainscotting, damage to the fire surround ...

There seems to have been a sliding door here in a past life ...

.... now it's starting to look more fresh and snug. I'd like to put a couple of simple things on the mantlepiece and a few coloured prints on the walls, re-cover the armchairs etc., but that can all wait for a while ...

Bit by bit, room by room, we're getting there. This little house will be lovely when it's done.

In which Juddie hits the bottle

While we are grateful to have our lovely little house, our (unplanned) renovations do feel very tedious after 7 months of disruptions and cramped living. We are very much looking forward to having a kitchen - the idea of being able to prepare food on a bench top, put things in cupboards, and wash our dishes in a sink or dishwasher instead of in a tub in the bath, sounds almost exciting.

I can't wait to get rid of the knee-deep clay mud that surrounds the house and gets tracked inside on big puppy feet (although this may not be achieved for sevaral months yet .... *sigh!*), and also to seal the house properly so we can heat it. The delivery of some doors and windows has been delayed, so there are some rather large holes in the side of our house and we have no heating options other than blankets. It's been very cold and wet and rainy out there, with a chill breeze that isn't letting up. *.... Brrrrrr ....*

Thank goodness for my trusty hot water bottle!

Blog catchup #3 - Port Fairy transformations

.... in the midst of all our other renovations, G spent a week in Port Fairy and made a start on fixing up our little ugly duckling house there. I caught the train down after work on Friday last week - it was lovely to see G and the dogs again and spend some time getting to know our new cottage.

There are lots of crisp, juicy apples on the ground in the garden, upon which Gus feasted non-stop (I'm not sure that it's good for dogs to eat so many apples, but he just seemed obsessed with them). Each evening we walked across the bridge that spans the little river near the port and let the dogs go totally loopy at the beach. It's a really relaxing place.

We managed to finish painting one room (thanks to G's expert plastering and preparation work). The new paint finish, light shades, wafty sheer curtains and thrifted furniture have transformed a once-glum room into a sunny, peaceful retreat. Nice!

Real estate agent's photo, taken before we bought the house.

 Before: greasy-looking olivey-mustard walls and dark ceiling, too much

furniture and horrible synthetic lace curtains

After: a lighter, softer, less-cluttered style

 little Bracken

 Gus the wise (?!)

 

... again, I didn't have a camera unfortunately (just my phone), so I was unable to capture the light and bright feeling of this room properly. You can see that I did snap our canine helpers though. They pushed in and wanted to take all the attention after waiting patiently in the hallway forever.

We're heading back next weekend; while I gallivant around Warrnambool on a field trip with my post-grad students G plans to make a start on the living room. Now that room needs quite a bit of work, but we'll make it look pretty in the end!

(before we bought it)

* While I wouldn't usually choose a bedframe like the one shown above, we bought the queen-size bed, complete with mattress (in good condition) for only $50!

Blog catchup #2 - home improvement

We've finally had some progress on our renovations at home.

Hooray! The concrete is gone from the driveway. I see more space for fruit trees and veggies!

Ladies! Cover your eyes!

While we were out today, the rear of our (usually very modest) little house decided to get a bit naked!

Eeep! 

Although it looks as though a tornado tore through it, we're actually quite happy because we finally see some progress on our renovations (after 5 months of having the main part of the house boarded up). And it's very well-ventilated.

Now I'm starting to get excited ... !

A new project

Last year we spent a few days in the pretty seaside town of Port Fairy and it got us thinking that we'd really love to live there, or at least have a holiday house there ...

... and this week we bought one! It needs a lot of work, but we're planning to take our time and gradually transform it into a cosy retreat.

The main bedroom (presented here as a sitting room) has an open fireplace, as does the lounge room, and the kitchen has a quirky vintage feel.

I've already spent several sleepless nights planning a wonderful garden upgrade (Tanya, I see more fruit tree orders heading your way!), a bright and relaxed kitchen (retaining the older styling), light and cosy soft furnishings, fresh paint on the walls ....

G is researching and planning lots of tricky-looking, very manly*, DIY stuff too.

I think we may have bought the worst house in the best street, and I can hardly wait to bring it back to life so we can enjoy many happy days there with friends and family.

A big project, but so much fun!



* I was prompted to put that in, but I won't disagree. I'm grateful for the hard stuff being taken care of!

Something seems different around here ...

... what could it be? ....

no wait ... don't tell me ...

Oh! I know! Could it be the fact that our kitchen, laundry and living area have been completely demolished?

... and that we've not had hot water for a couple of weeks?

Ah yes - that's it.

As seems to be the case for many people renovating, commencement of a few small alterations revealed countless problems caused by previous modifications to this house. A simple kitchen revamp has ballooned into a rather major task, requiring several months of work and even threats of having to knock down the whole rear of our house to start again from the ground up! (not a welcome idea, given that over the past year we've replaced the roof, developed a great little garden and installed a 10-unit photovoltaic energy system .... eeek!)

crappy old kitchen

part of the living area, which we hadn't planned to change ...

part of the living area .... it looks really stark and white in these pictures, although it was rather warm and comfy-looking really

rrrrrip!

Crrrrunch!

The floors throughout the back of the house will be ripped up completely next week, new slab will go down, walls stabilised (now that's pretty important, I imagine!), and we'll have recycled messmate (timber) flooring finished before Christmas if all goes well. At this stage I think we might be looking at a late Feb completion date for the kitchen, laundry etc.

I do know that we're very lucky to have access to a functioning bathroom though (braving the cold showers!), and we survived a trip to Ikea last weekend to buy some shelving for our makeshift kitchenette. It's just inside the front door - very handy.