Small change

I was in hog heaven today! I used every power tool I own. I finished the lining board and it's now almost ready for the plasterer to head on in. The cornice arrived today, same design as the rest of the house, just slightly smaller to allow for the difference in scale of the rooms.  The front rooms have 3m ceilings and a 300mm wide cornice, the bathroom, only 2.5m ceiling, so a 250 mm cornice. Sounds good doesn't it! That was just a coincidence. I can't get the original cornice now, and I only bought the old stuff less than 3 years ago. This was the only one available that was remotely similar.

We're waiting on the tiler, any tiler at the moment.  3 recommendations and the earliest anyone can come is 4-5 weeks. I can tile, I just don't feel confident with laying the screed. Maybe I need a crash course!

Please ignore the gaping hole in the cladding next to the window!  I had to shuffle the window out by about 50 mm, so the outside sill extended over the cladding.  Something the builder's probably should have thought of.

You can just see the corner of the gorgeous old meat safe a friend kindly gave us.  Thinking about painting that chinese laquer red. You know, for towels.

I also installed the cabinets into the studs today.They'll be framed in the california bungalow style, like the doors and windows - eventually.

This is the door between the toilet and bathroom, cute huh!  I found it on the side of the road about 5 years ago and have been hoarding it ever since.

There's been a building frenzy

We're so excited. There's been 2 builder's on site all week and so much has happened.

 The 2 old windows that have gone in - obviously there's some work to do on those!

But look at the lovely hinges on this one! (apologies for the sideways shots)

The view out of this window is amazing! straight into the neighbours toilet. It's like we planned it.

This one doesn't open, it's just for the light.

It's very difficult to tell what any of this is!  IT's the shower - sideways.

 And we had to do a full re clad on both ext walls, not in the original budget, does that count?

and today the cavity sliders went in.  The whole hallway wall had to be knocked down and rebuilt.  But it is SO straight now.  My builder's love their laser level and so do I.

It's all gone quiet over here.

We've just had a little holiday down the coast.  It was lovely, cold but sunny.  The kids had a great time and cried when it was time to leave.  Here's a few pics

 Ulladulla harbour

The view from our balcony

Fishing at Lake Conjola, Fish=0, Ticks=1, Hangovers=2

 Relaxing!

I even got some knitting done

and managed an hour of antique shop browsing, though was VERY good and left it all in the shop.


The builders are playing somewhere else for a couple of weeks, so no advances on the bathroom at the moment. More updates soon.

Colour

In all this rain, I need a little colour to brighten my day. I'm trying to choose a colour for the outside of the bath!  Not as easy as you'd think.

 This is the floor tile,

 These are the splash back tiles for the vanity (vintage fireplace tiles)

The walls will be white tiles (basket weave) up to 1250 high, then horizontal timber lining board painted gloss white.

 And then there's the bath!  It's an old claw foot off ebay.  The cheapest way to refurbish these is through a melbourne company, they bake on the enamel finish.  I bought this one from melbourne and they picked it up for me, when it's done, it will be sent by courier to us.  And it's still more than half the cost of having it done in Sydney.  Just imagine, Glossy white inside and a matt coloured finish on the outside and the feet. Just choosing the colour!

Here's the four options I've got!

  


      

You may say,"Why Beth, they all look the same to me!" And yes, they are very similar, and in the end probably any of them will work jut fine! But,I've changed my mind four times already today.

slow progress, but progress none the less

Just a few pics today!

A 4 m3 Skip VERY Full, and still a huge pile of timber left behind.

 Some footings in a big dirt hole.

Within minutes of the builders leaving, a certain 3 yr old had managed to poke wet cement with a big stick.  I'm not even sure how he knew it was pokeable!

At least now the roof won't fall down.  The first bit of wall framing goes in.

A pumpkin!  Grown from seed.  We had lots and lots of flowers and I spent some time being a bee and fertilising them, but this is the only one that worked.  Can't wait to taste it.

a little inspiration

Just thought I'd share some images that have inspired me, as all I have to show you still is a giant dirty hole in the ground.  The plumber comes tomorrow to disconnect and re-route old pipes, the the next day, the ground works begin.

*just a disclaimer, these images are all from pinterest and I haven't been able to credit all the sources.  But as this is just family and friends, I hope it's OK.

We're back!

I know it's been years, and I'm surprised that any of this old blog still exists.  Boy, a lot has changed since then.  Gem has started school and is almost 6, Ted is 3 and keeping me on my toes.  They are both amazing, but hard work!  Anyway, we're about to embark on a big project and a friend suggested we blog about it, so here we go.  This time I'll try to be consistent!

The big project is .... wait for it.....!  An indoor bathroom.

For the last 2 1/2 years we've been traipsing out to the back laundry, through rain and shine, to bathe.  We put in a very makeshift bathroom just before we moved in, intending it to be used for just a year! It will be almost 3 years by the time I post the finished pics of the new one! 

It's not all bad.  We built a roof between the house and the laundry that only took 11 months to complete, so for the last 6 months we've at least stayed dry on our return journey.  It doesn't have gutters yet, or proper pipes to the rain tank,so it's caused a big leak into the old laundry! But we don't get wet after we've gotten dry.

So here's a pic of the room (before the builder arrived) that is going to be our bathroom.  The toilet has been working and the rest has been a store room for all kinds of crap.  The beer fridge, wine fridge, bikes, vacuums, paint, tools, hats, sunblock, medicines etc etc.  I'll spare you a pic of our spare room!

And this is a photo taken after the builder left yesterday!  You may notice that not one stud on the right hand wall actually meets any other timber.  The base plate has completely rotted away and so have most of the studs.  And yes, that is asbestos down the bottom. The plumbing has been changed so many times over the last 80 years and follows such a circuitous route that it takes 3 minutes to get hot water in the kitchen.  It's going to be an exciting, and probably expensive, adventure!