Kitchen Plans

It was a while ago that we went and ordered our kitchen from Freedom and I want to be very clear - it is 100 percent our fault that it is not installed yet.

However, we recently ran out of excuses and had our site measure and, a couple of days ago, our final plans were emailed to us.

I am thrilled. Within six months (fingers crossed) I will be cooking in here and admiring that view ( that is not actually our view - although I appreciate them going to the effort of superimposing a tree outside the window).

Styling Decisions

It's time to make some more styling decisions. Yippeeee!

I have re-discovered Pinterest ( you can follow the board I'm making for Big House here if you're interested).

When I try and describe what I want to people, it always comes out a little jumbled. A country Queenslander with a classic contemporary interior with a slightly eclectic, possibly Moroccan feel in the stylings and tiles. Big, dark leather couch (we already have that) and furniture with Turkish rugs and bright cushions and colourful art and plenty of books.

I just can't wait to bring the vision to life...

Here are some pictures of interiors and exteriors I love for various reasons, most of which feature in my slowly growing Pinterest collection.

Row One: 

Left: This light is from Schots Emporium in Melbourne. They will not ship to Brisbane. This is, in my opinion, a travesty. 

Middle: The middle picture is from Pinterest (check the board linked above). I love the colour of the pressed metal ceilings - it's what I want for ours. Grey, but not too dark to be overpowering and definitely workable with our high ceilings. 

Right: I've pinned this because I like what they've done with the screening under the house. We've got ugly concrete stumps (you can see our house currently here) and a dark colour screen option like that would really help hide them away.

Row Two: 

Left: I think I just like the baby, actually. Cluck cluck.

Middle: This is a bit like what we've ordered for our kitchen. We've gone with a more traditional handle, but the cabinetry, bench tops and butlers sink are similar to what we've ordered. See my Pinterest board for the source. 

Right. I love this because the floorboards and French doors are very like ours. I will be making curtains like that, too. Once I have the room to pull my sewing machine out. 

Row Three:

Left: This is the York fireplace, also from Schots Emporium. Please start shipping to Brisbane, people. 

Middle: Probably a bit more modern than what we'll be doing, but the louvres are gorgeous. And the batwing gates will definitely make an entrance at our place. 

Right: Our tile, which is sitting in boxes under the house. I've mentioned it before but it's the Amity tile from Tera Nova in Sydney. 

Spring Cleaning

Spring has arrived. It's early, and it caught me a little off guard if I'm going to be completely honest.

Earlier this week, this is what the gardens all around Little House looked like - overgrown, weed-filled and oh so inviting to our soon-to-be back slithery friends...

Over the last few days, I've been hard at work clearing the yard. All that garden bed is now cleared back to bare Earth.

 Yesterday, I had a day's help from my in-laws. They cleared out all the undergrowth around the flowerbeds and we picked up all the old, rotting pieces of timber and carpet the previous owners had left around the base of the Little House. I've got a final whipper snip to do and then I can do a reveal on our new, snake-safe gardens.




  Next week, Dan and I are planning to put in a metal mesh product around the base of the house, dug slightly into the ground to further discourage anything unwelcome from getting under this house, which has the kind of gaps and spaces throughout it that only an old, wonky, slightly rotted building can have.

The final precaution we're taking is a serious gap filling session, which I will go into more next week when I do it.

I've also started planting a hedge down the side of Little House, to screen it from the neighbours (eventually). We finally decided on Mock Orange and I just can't wait until they're a little bigger than this...

Big House Gets A New Roof

After much umming and ahhing and will we and won't we, I'm happy to report that we've made the executive decision to hire a roofer for Big House.

We need a roof urgently, but Dan had been toying with the idea of putting a new one on the house himself.

That would have been great and all, except he doesn't have time and as the months keep ticking by and the water keeps dripping in, a new roof seems a pretty high priority place to direct our dollars.

We've also got a check measure on Monday for the new kitchen for Big House. And then? Financially? We're done for a while. The kitchen and roof will pretty much sap everything we've got left.

That's not the end of the world. We'll rig up some temporary solutions to get us through until we can get a bit more cash together and get more materials.

We're hoping to be in Big House again by early next year.

Little House Front Verandah

In the meantime, with Summer right around the corner, if you're looking for me over the next few months, I suspect the Little House front verandah is where I'll be... It's a lovely spot to hide on a Sunny afternoon.

The Chores of a Toddler Farmer

It's a hard life, being two on a little farm. You're expected to be your Dad's apprentice. 

You're expected to give the lambs their bottles.

You better not forget their grain, either.

Then, there's two hungry dogs waiting their turn. 

Finally, your Mum puts you on dish duty. 

 No wonder she sleeps well at night.

Stripped and Stacked

Have you ever stopped to question what it is that decides the value of a house? I mean monetary value, not sentimental. I mean the actual dollar figure put on the homes we buy. 

How do those numbers come to be?

I mean, I do understand the concepts of land values and location and desirability and northern aspects and a new roof. 

Really, I do. Mostly. 

I understand that, like with cars, many people are willing to pay a premium for something NEW because it will give them less trouble and it's easier and cleaner and you don't have to live with the legacy of former owners and their wear and tear.

I understand that more people want to live in Fortitude Valley than the Lockyer Valley and I understand that means the timber and bricks in their houses are somehow more valuable than the timber and bricks in our houses. 

At the core, though, houses are just the sum of their parts.

Right now, poor Big House is looking so severely pulled apart that it almost hurts to go in there. Most of her walls and big parts of her floors are reduced to piles of timber, lying on the floor and waiting to be put back into a new, improved order.

Parts. All just parts. A pile of timber and not much more. Why do we invest so much of ourselves and our income and our energy and our emotion in piles of building materials, nailed together in certain ways?

At this stage, we're reduced to reassuring ourselves and each other with statements like 'at least it's good timber' or 'she'll still be standing in another 100 years' or 'they just don't build houses like this anymore'.

One day, it'll be nice enough in there that I'll forget this stage and how sad the house looks with all her insides stripped and stacked.

Right now, though, it's a little hard to watch.

Sunday Bits and Pieces

It's been the most gorgeous day here today. I love Winter in Queensland, snuggling under the doona at night and enjoying the sun during the day.

Lu's had a promotion to a new toddler bed, snuggly tucked behind a big room divider into the corner of Little House's one and only bedroom... 

Sheepy has a new friend, now named Roger Ramjet... You may notice the fancy fence they are standing behind, which our neighbour has just finished constructing for us. They have a large paddock and some old pig pens they can shelter in, too. Lucky Sheep.

There's big plans for Big House this week, Dan has some time up his sleeve to get in there and really get working on the place.  I'm hoping to devote some time to plugging the gaps in the floor boards at Little House.

Speaking of Little House, my, we've settled in well. It's a very comfortable, inviting space, with a nice view of the hills behind our property, lots of natural light and, of course, the front and back verandahs to relax on. I'm very happy and keep pottering around cleaning it and sorting things out.

Onward and Upward.