well hello there! long time no, er, write... my little
craft blog seems to have taken most of my attention and affection lately but that is now to all change, for a few long months anyway. we took possession of our new house yesterday and i'll be writing here more often with updates and possibly rants about our renovations. my sister has been begging for photos and i promised her some here yesterday but i found it's really hard to get a decent shot of the place. there are trees that obscure the front and the doorways are at such angles that it's nearly impossible to get an over view of a whole room. so let me paint a picture, if you will...
it's a 1940's weatherboard house that was originally a 2 bedroom but has had an extension done on the back so it now is a 3 bedroom. the extension is a bit shabby so while we'll be keeping the same dimensions, it probably has to be pretty much rebuilt (which means taking down the faux wood wall paneling that covers every wall and CEILING. fig.1). the three bedrooms are at the front of the house and are in pretty decent shape - by that i mean all we have to do to is rip out the existing built in robes (note: australian houses don't [or didn't in the 40s] typically have closets so many had wardrobes built in the 70s or 80s. sidenote: they also don't typically have basements which really sucks. all that extra space, just lost. and wouldn't it be the perfect spot to wait out those 40 degree days???), rip out the carpet (which we started on today) and then build new robes and paint all three rooms and the hallway. i'm expecting this to take up to 3 months (i'm trying to be realistic, even pessimistic, about how long the renos will take in hopes that if i expect the worst, i will be pleasantly surprised) (wow, this is just like having a conversation with me, isn't it? lots of asides and extra bits!) which means we'll be living in the extension/living room for that time - queen bed, 3 seater and 2 seater sofa, armchair, tv, plus a myriad of boxes and our clothes in suitcases. all in one comfy room! won't that be
fun?! once that is done we can move into those three rooms while we work on the rest of the house for god knows how long. see, we're changing the bathroom into an ensuite; the laundry room into the main bathroom; and the toilet with bizarre closet/room where it looks like the previous tentants may have chopped people into little bits (fig. 2) into the laundry room. then there's still the kitchen(fig.3) and extension/living room to redo. yippee!
as many people who read this here long neglected blog will know, we looked at houses for a looooooong time. almost a year. and the house we've ended up with, our house, is good but it's by no means great. the
yard is great. the
sidedrive is great. the house is only okay but it
will be great. it's just going to take awhile. and a lot of work. but shane pulled up all the carpet and i filled three garbage bags with bits of rubbish and fallen leaves/blossoms/weeds from the yard today so at least we've made a start. and it's ours.
fig. 1
fig. 2
fig. 3
