tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-293181732024-03-15T05:55:35.616+13:00Cut & PastryDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02597398273751804565noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-7815951658454218652015-02-01T09:41:00.000+13:002015-02-01T09:41:35.780+13:00Merry Christmas - now let's paint...On Boxing Day, David and I decided to finally get back into house decorating, after a few months of taking a necessary break (you really do just run out of steam). And that break was spent mostly in the garden (but now I desperately need a sunny day to get back <i>into</i> the garden after leaving it to it's own devices for a few weeks - weeds and mega-blooming veges and crazy amounts of sweet peas, anyone?).<br />
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Painting, it seems so easy. You walk into a room and think, with just a lick of paint, this room will look amazing. And it does, but, well, what everyone seems to forget (or what they don't tell you) is that there's actually quite a bit of prep work involved. Like sanding down everything that is being painted so that the paint will stick to it. Taping off areas that you don't want paint on or that will be painted a different colour. The undercoat. Waiting. Hopefully no need for a second undercoat unless you're painting a purple pantry cupboard and door and so moving onto the first top coat. Waiting. Second top coat. Waiting. Taping off to apply first top coat to walls. Waiting... aaaaand, you get the point. It's not as easy or as quick OR as inexpensive to do as people nonchalantly talk about in casual conversation. And once you start, you can't stop until it's done. Otherwise it'll never get done.<br />
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So, we moved everything out of the kitchen/dining room and.....GO! As always, some before shots once everything was removed...<br />
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When they were tiling the bathroom, I was playing around with the tiles as a 'splash back' for the wall where the kitchen sink is and they pretty much fit perfectly. So they actually did those at the same time. It used to be a dark red colour - the sliver of colour you can see in the photo above between the door and the draw/cupboard. Already that area looks so much lighter! But, just wait until you see it painted and that awful cooked-liver-purple gone from the window frame.<br />
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The beautiful rimu flooring above I discovered when the builders were taking out the wall. The floor was actually covered by a thin hardboard which was then painted the cooked-liver-purple colour (the last of which you can see in the bottom left corner of the photo above). I started pulling up bits of board from the original doorway and would you believe it, beautiful wood! And it wasn't that hard to pull up either since it was just nailed down around the sides.<br />
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We pulled it all up (bar the corner one because we were planning on putting paint cans on it during the painting) and realised we could sand and varnish it and it would look beautiful (it does!). It was what we were planning on doing in the hall ways and bedrooms anyway, so that was that flooring issue solved.<br />
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The one was wasn't quite solved yet was the kitchen flooring...<br />
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Above you can see a square of cooked-liver-purple sticking out into the dining room. That was where the original kitchen range was (the skylight above was where the chimney would have been). This was removed long before we ever got the house, but the hole was then concreted in. The second issue was the fact that the original kitchen tiles had been stuck down directly onto the wood floor. So our luck with the ease of pulling up squares of hardboard was over.<br />
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There would be no beautiful wood flooring in the kitchen. We couldn't be bothered. So, while we had wanted to avoid getting flooring put on top of the wood, it was going to be the best option.<br />
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We wanted to avoid any faux wood next to real wood though so we are going with vinyl. It's not in yet (that happens tomorrow!!), but I can't wait for it to be done as that'll be almost one of the last finishing touches to that room. And, most importantly, there will officially be no more cooked-liver-purple in my life (except in some of the bedrooms. Why people? WHY???).<br />
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Well, let's get a white undercoat on shall we (after we've sanded down all surfaces of course, and taped off sections we don't want paint on etc...)<br />
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Phwoar! That looks much better already!<br />
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Don't worry, I did do the purple cupboard and the other kitchen cupboards.<br />
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The back of the door needed 2 undercoats (it only has one in the photo above) as did the purple cupboard and the panelled wall in the photo below.<br />
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I think at the stage in the photo above, all surfaces had had at least 1-2 undercoats. We then painted the ceiling, the kitchen walls, the cabinet sides, the skirting and the panels on the dining room walls with 2 coats of St Clair quarter - a white with the tiniest touch of grey in it. This is the trim colour we used on the bathroom ceiling/skirting and the lounge ceiling/skirting.<br />
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We had also undercoated both hall way sections when we had done the lounge and then finished them both off this time around entirely with St Clair Quarter, to keep them as light as possible.<br />
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Then we taped off the panelling in the lounge and put Aniwaniwa Half onto the walls, continuing the colour from the bathroom and lounge (these same colours have also been used in the bedrooms).<br />
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The walls had had two coats of Aniwaniwa Half at this stage and we had gotten up eagerly on the morning these were taken to pull off the tape. But not before photos of course :)<br />
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The first section of hallway finished in St Clair Quarter above. And below, peeling back the tape... how cool does it look?<br />
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It was David's idea to do the panelling in the trim colour, and it's such a lovely feature I think. If we have panels, we may as well make them stand out a bit huh? Not everyone is lucky to have a feature like this but you could get the same effect with masking tape if it was something you really wanted (though if we had had just plain walls, I doubt we would have done it at all).</div>
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Next up, some beautifully sanded and varnished floors, but oh the dust...</div>
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xx</div>
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J</div>
Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-81802304107975004572015-01-24T07:41:00.003+13:002015-01-24T07:43:35.740+13:00Lounging About...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I really love our new lounge. While we've since needed to rearrange a bit (with an impending little person needing some accommodation) it's still such a nice room to eat breakfast in in the morning. To lounge about on the couch in the sunshine, to read a book or knit in with the french doors open, listening to the chooks have their conversations, the wafts of honeysuckle breezing in and a cat or two wandering past every now and then for a pat.</div>
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It wasn't always this way...</div>
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Initially we had thought that the far corner (where the wood panels are leaning in the photo above) was sinking slightly, as when you stood in that corner, it felt lower than the rest of the house. What had actually happened was when the room had been turned into one (a few owners ago) the wood beam flooring had somehow become strained and had started straining upwards in the middle of the room. So what we thought was the corner sinking, was actually us walking over a small hill and down into where the floors should properly sit.<br />
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So, the builders took out the middle section of floor, released the pressure (taking away the squeaks at the same time!!) and miraculously made the floor level again.<br />
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It was never hugely out of balance, but it's nice to have that fixed now. Also, since we were always going to carpet this room, they took a few floor boards to use to replace the two small spots of dry rot we found in the house after we moved in, to keep the same flooring throughout.<br />
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And then we stripped the window sills back to their former natural wood glory. (New lights were already in at this stage as you can see in the photo above).<br />
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They aren't by any means perfect though. Borer has had a party in them (as well as some more wooden flooring as we found out over Christmas when we were sanding!!) and previous owners have decided to try and bog up the borer holes and paint over them to make them go away. Ummm, borer needs to be rid of first guys, just sayin.<br />
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So, before we varnished the wood, throughout the whole house, we directly treated it and did a general bug bomb, then used proper wood putty to seal up the holes and then varnished. Again, the window sills don't look like they were made yesterday, but we actually kind of like them that way. It shows a bit more of the history of the house and since it's not a new house, I don't think these things should look perfect anyway.<br />
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Below is the room the morning before the carpet went down. Isn't it lovely? Don't worry, the rest of that old carpet went bye bye as well...<br />
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Dulux St Clair Quarter was used on the ceiling and trims and Aniwaniwa Half on the walls. We have that lovely little panelling detail in most corners of the rooms in the house and David thought it might be quite cool to leave them the trim colour as well - I couldn't agree more.<br />
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You can also see that we've not sanded back the wood around the french doors yet. They are a much darker wood anyway (they would have been reclaimed from elsewhere when this room was first remodelled) and while we will eventually, that hasn't happened yet. Luckily it's just a wood stain, rather than actual paint.<br />
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And the carpet goes in...<br />
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I cannot tell you how soft and squishy and lovely this room is to walk in now. My original idea was to go with a natural brown colour, to be a bit more in keeping with the wood flooring in the rest of the house, but we couldn't find the colour we wanted with the durability we wanted.<br />
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We bought this steely blue grey, short pile sample home with us, including a bunch of others, and really fell in love with the colour of it. Initially I was worried about the room maybe seeming too dark with a dark carpet, but the room is so light anyway, and the lighter colours in the carpet almost seem to reflect light back up. We also have rather colourful taste in the things we put into rooms, so we felt that it would actually be fine. And we love it!!<br />
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A sneaky peek at how the room looked with some furniture in it. I won't show you the full room since we're moving things around now and we've not put everything up on the walls yet, but it's such a lovely room that has had rather <a href="http://cutandpastry.blogspot.co.nz/2014_06_01_archive.html" target="_blank">a huge transformation right</a>? No more green racing carpet for a start...<br />
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xx<br />
JJenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-78801236058101272672015-01-18T09:53:00.000+13:002015-01-18T09:53:10.726+13:00Walls and Doors and Bits and Bobs...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
A few (slightly boring but essential things) to bring you up to date before we continue.</div>
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Gib goes onto the new wall in the lounge...</div>
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Then it gets plastered, ready for paint...</div>
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Frame goes in for the single cavity slider in the hallway (so we can shut the top half of the house off from the bottom if we want to - great for keeping in wood burner heat during winter...).<br />
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Cavity slider goes in...<br />
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First section of hall way pinex boards come off so the builders can straighten the walls...<br />
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Hallway walls go back on - nice new smooth gib...</div>
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<i>That photo. I love that photo. Talk about perfect timing.</i></div>
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End of hallway cavity slider is gibbed and plastered in...<br />
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Original coving is put back in and everything is plastered and smoothed, ready for paint...<br />
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xx<br />
J (& D)Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-13329203166859697892015-01-10T09:36:00.000+13:002015-01-10T09:36:38.981+13:00A Changing BathroomLet's have a look at the bathroom shall we? The Electrician was in yesterday and put the new light in, now we just need to paint the window frame (black) and that'll be it! Bar a few homey decorations of course...<br />
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<i>The tubs of water are to weigh the bath down, while the glue, or whatever it was, dried, to keep the bath firmly in place.</i></div>
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David was still away at this point, so I sent him the photo below and told him I had decided upon a Mediterranean decorating theme and was going with orange.</div>
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Don't worry, the bathroom is not orange! That orange coating is what they need to put on top of the aqua gib so that the tiles would stick to it (being a water-proof wall system, things being stuck to it, including paint, need a base layer to adhere too. Look at me all knowing what I'm talking about!! Not.)<br />
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Since the shower was near the window, we couldn't install a standard shower wall, and we wanted tiles anyway, so this was the beginning.<br />
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And now the tiles begin. White subway tiles with black grout will do rather nicely thank-you-very-much!!<br />
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A-MAZING! Look at how light the room looks now! Even with no light in there (we didn't have a light in there for a few days after we were able to use the room again. Peeing by candle light anyone...?).<br />
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We also chose a clear shower screen (in the photo above, but hard to see, perfect!) so that the room wouldn't be blocked of natural light from a curtain and it would still feel open. The bathroom is still a small room, even though we opened it up a bit, and having a shower curtain would have ruined the feeling of space we managed to get with the new layout.<br />
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Oh em GEE, would you look at <i>that floor</i>. SWOON. No amount of exclamation marks can show you how much I love that floor.<br />
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And honestly, who would have ever thought I'd swoon over floor tiles or taps for that matter. As a long time watcher of home renovation shows, I honestly never 'got' the obsession with taps. I mean, it's a TAP!<br />
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Well, you can count me officially converted. I get it. I totally get it.<br />
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Once the tiles were in (David was back at this stage) David painted on an undercoat of smelly painty stuff (see above: aqua gib needs stuff put on it so other things will stick to it) and then a proper white under coat and then we got the real stuff on.<br />
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We went for Dulux Colours of NZ - St Clair Quarter for the trim/ceiling colour, it looks white when you look at it, but it's ever so slightly grey in tinge, and Aniwaniwa half on the walls.<br />
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We liked the colours so much we continued them on into the lounge and then decided to use them for the whole house. The hall ways are painted all in St Clair Quarter though to try and keep them as light as possible.<br />
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Just a sneaky wee taster of the nearly finished bathroom - that's the old light you can see in the photo above. I'm going to do a proper 'compare & contrast' post so we can see the old vs the new (mostly because I find it hard to remember sometimes too, I'm so used to it being nice now. But, you can <a href="http://cutandpastry.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/the-night-before.html" target="_blank">refresh your memory here</a> if you feel so inclined).<br />
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xx<br />
J (& D)Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-40631891428478620762015-01-06T20:02:00.001+13:002015-01-06T22:05:05.942+13:00In Hot Water (or out of it, depending on how you want to look at it...)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Happy New Year everyone!!!</div>
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I have to admit, I'm really excited to try and get you up to date with the renovation. Christmas and New Years saw us finally get back into the house side of things (rather than the garden) and we've been sanding and painting and varnishing, trying to get as much done before David had to head back to work on January 5th.</div>
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We realised that we really needed to get it done now, or we'd never have the big block of time to spend on it before the end of May, when we're expecting our first child.</div>
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Yup, I'm pregnant! And honestly, there isn't much else I can think of as a better deadline than an impending baby!</div>
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I'm really glad we have finally started back as well, since there is absolutely no way I'd want to do any of this with a baby. We're currently right back to where we started in June when the major things were being done - dust and stuff <i>everywhere</i>!! We're currently sleeping in the lounge at the moment since we decided to sand/varnish the floors in the new baby's room (our old room) and our new bedroom (what was the office). And then we decided that since everything is out, we may as well paint too...</div>
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Anyway, today's little topic - hot water cylinders. Or lack there of.</div>
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I think I've mentioned before that unexpected things pop up all the time. The leaky, old hot water cylinder was one of them. Below is our little kitchen in it's original state (taken on a cold Dunedin winter morning before the builders arrived...). The hot -water cylinder box-cupboard-thing is to the right, with the clock on it. If you want to remind yourselves of how the rest of the space looked originally, <a href="http://cutandpastry.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/the-night-before.html" target="_blank">you can do so here</a>.</div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">You see, the first thing is that we have a small kitchen. I do really like our kitchen, but it <i>is</i> small and the hot water cylinder was in a random and rather inconvenient spot. It was covered by a box that looks like it could have useful storage space in it (see: little cupboard doors) but actually, there was no way you'd want to store anything in them. It was kinda gross and dusty in there. I think they were more 'service' holes (for all that servicing that went on...?) than anything else.</span></div>
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One day, when I was sitting in our 'office' working away and minding my own business, there was a knock at the door - it was the plumber who was there doing some work on the bathroom.<br />
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Plumber - "Hi. Um, I have some bad news for you"<br />
Me - "Oh....?" *dread creeps over - can he not do the bathroom anymore for some reason???*<br />
Plumber - "Yeah, your hot water cylinder is leaking. Not heaps, but, it's dripping. It's a really old one too, so while I can fix it, it'll get worse over time and you'll need to replace it"<br />
Me - "Oh..."<br />
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After further conversations, it was clear that we may as well do the work that needed doing now (while everyone we needed was there) and that the plumber thought going for gas hot water was the best option. I knew that I wanted to move the cylinder from where it was - it was annoying and took up much needed space. But it would cost the same amount to move it elsewhere as it would to convert to gas and I had no idea where we would move it to in the first place.<br />
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David was still away but I managed to catch him on skype and we agreed to go for gas. No more space-hogging cylinder and we'd get good water pressure (goodbye old header tank!) and we'd save money on electricity since we wouldn't be constantly heating hot water.<br />
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You can see what I mean about non-useful storage, now that the front of the cupboard is gone. The pipe going up into the roof was the wetback pipe.<br />
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As the builders were taking the cupboard down, it became apparent that the visible beam that runs along the ceiling, wasn't actually sitting in the wall. It was about 2cm out. So, the cupboard had been supporting the beam, rather than the wall. Erm... don't worry, the house wasn't going to fall down and the builders put in a new supporting beam against the wall (which you can see below - looks like pink wood) and everything was fine again.<br />
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After that, the electrician came and put the plugs that were in the side of the cupboard into the kitchen wall as well as adding two extra at my request (this house is annoyingly lacking in power plugs. We're going to get another double set put in as well on Friday, since our oven has pretty much died, taking with it two power plugs. But never fear, we bought a new one in the boxing day sales and I cannot wait to get baking in it!! An oven with the right temperature?? I'll take it. But alas, yet another example of unexpected things popping up...).<br />
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The builders had done a great job of saving as much of the original coving as they could, but they had no more left to finish off the bit where the cylinder cupboard had been. I told them to leave it for the time being while we tried to figure out what to do. And then the plasterer arrived...<br />
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His name is Andrew and he looked at the missing coving and said "Do you want me to something about that?".<br />
Me - "Ummm, yes? The builders have no more coving left so we're trying to decide what to do"<br />
Andrew - "I can make something for you. It might not be perfect but it'll be okay"<br />
Me - "Yes please!"<br />
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Half an hour later I came back to the below...<br />
Me - "Oh wow! That looks great!"<br />
Andrew - "It's not perfect..."<br />
Me - "Looks pretty perfect to me"<br />
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Now that it's all been painted, you'd honestly never know it was any different. Turns out Andrew has done a lot of work on some of the older buildings in Dunedin doing restoration plastering, including replicating some of the very intricate coving the buildings had. Can't get much better than that now can you?<br />
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The fridge is now in that space (rather than sticking out into the kitchen space when you walk in) which makes the room seem much more open than it did originally.<br />
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xx<br />
J (&D)Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-27124416987129669982014-12-20T08:55:00.000+13:002014-12-20T08:59:25.545+13:00The {partial} Evolution of a Garden...I was going to try and get you up to date with the garden today, but it's been so sunny and beautiful lately that a whole bunch more has happened, and if I tried to get you up to date, well, this would be a long post indeed. As it is, it's pushing it :)<br />
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If you need a reminder of the jungle, <a href="http://cutandpastry.blogspot.co.nz/2014_04_01_archive.html" target="_blank">you can re-fresh your memory here</a>. (Eeeeek, I just had a look and can't believe it ever used to look like that!!!).<br />
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To be honest, I don't even know how we got the garden to the stage it is now. It's amazing (if I may say so). There are lots of little spaces that you can actually get to and lots of little places to plant pretty things and edible things. You no longer have to duck under the rose to get to the bottom half of the garden (and we discovered the frame the rose was climbing on was the frame for one of those double swing seat things! But it was so over grown, you'd never know). You can meander down paths without things grabbing your clothes, you can stop to admire the plants (because you can actually see them) and you can have a conversation with a chook, who will happily run over for some attention.<br />
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I thought it might be easier to just show you two sections of garden to start off with, including the vege patch. Time to start clearing this lot then...<br />
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<i>Please never buy fennel (and potatoes) and then let it go wild. It's everywhere and the roots are thick and seem to go on for metres... trying to remove it will age you a few years.</i></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Although you'd never know it, this part of the garden was already roughly laid out with hidden paths breaking it up. All of the bricks we've used are bricks that were already here, hiding under weeds, dirt, piles of sticks, lawn... you get the picture.</span><br />
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Just looking at those photos above makes me so excited at how it looks now. I'm glad we were quite naive when it came to tackling this garden, if we had had any idea just how much work it was going to take (and is still currently taking) I'm not sure we would have even started!<br />
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Now though, when I wander through my lovely little section, I'm so happy we did tackle it and I'm really glad we tackled it at the pace we have. It's meant ideas could evolve, areas could become functional and beautiful and we would have never have ended up with what we have if we hadn't taken our time with it.<br />
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<i style="text-align: center;">Snow day!! </i></div>
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<i>You can see that we managed to clear this entire area before the winter snow fell (who am I kidding, it fell for maybe 2 days max!!) </i></div>
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<i>And in the background is our mountain, Harbour Cone.</i></div>
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Many thanks have to go to our hard working chooks for their rather vigorous weeding. We opened up their chook run all the way from where their house was, down the right hand side of the garden path, to the bottom behind the bean fence (below). They loved eating all the bugs and weeds, and we got a weeded and tilled garden. Win win. They then slowly got more grumpy at us as we gradually made their run smaller and while it's still not as big as the whole length of garden they had, it's now still much bigger than their initial run was when we got here, and they have a beautiful willow fence that David made for them. Oh, it's so pretty!! But, I'm saving that for the next garden post, so you'll have to wait :)<br />
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The bean fence and strawberry patch above was the first bit of garden we raised. The strawberries are little wild white alpine strawberries that we found in various places throughout the garden. We decided to move them and plant them all together for our own little strawberry patch and they are doing really well together.<br />
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The pea straw closest to us in the photo is where I planted our garlic bulbs. Upon further research, I shouldn't have planted them anywhere near where beans were going to grow (companion planting rule #1 - beans hate the whole onion/garlic family...yeesh, drama much?) but there was no where else to put them at that stage, and the bulbs really should have been in at the start of winter, as opposed to the end...<br />
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We then sectioned off the corner part of the glass houses and proceeded to build a little trench into the dirt for the water to run off. Where the 'red' concrete path ended by the purple glasshouse, water was (and had been for a long time) pooling because the garden wasn't level in that area. It smelt really really bad the day we dug that garden bit up because there was no oxygen getting to the dirt. David dug the trench on an angle, put in some of the spare stones we had from clearing the garden to the left of the purple glass house and then put in a big section of black drainage piping we found behind the house down into it. Then we covered it with more stones, gravel and then dirt. Now we have no more pooling anaerobic water and the paths are nice and level.<br />
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Perfect to pop in some raised beds now I reckon...<br />
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Look at how pretty those raised beds look! David and his dad built them and they are so awesome! Being able to get around the garden without walking on top of other plants and getting caught in things is really lovely. You should try it.<br />
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The paths in between the beds were levelled with dirt, we then put weed matting down and then fine gravel so that we could put the original paving stones back down easily and they wouldn't move.<br />
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<i>Spot the chickens (being grumpy because they were no longer allowed this far down...)</i></div>
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<i> And spot the little Mocha-bee...</i></div>
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Yay, bricks go down...<br />
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<i> Monty inspects and approves the paths. Thank goodness...</i></div>
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Once the bricks were back down, we put sand inbetween, just to be extra sure that they weren't going anywhere, and to brush into any small gaps. Then we put our old carpet and curtains on top of the beds to stop any weeds growing since it was still too early to plant any summer veges, and way to late for winter ones.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gVUTmXRrADgCvBc8HNJ8j-aBnqrWWoZhkofPEyenBRCux6MLybI4qsGUjVpa_0-Mz9ywfsICmIrilbL_3fCYXlYbTxRk9qP4hN92R7v8l6Haqld3kqXkIIp71XsqXZ1Tjvrg7w/s1600/36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gVUTmXRrADgCvBc8HNJ8j-aBnqrWWoZhkofPEyenBRCux6MLybI4qsGUjVpa_0-Mz9ywfsICmIrilbL_3fCYXlYbTxRk9qP4hN92R7v8l6Haqld3kqXkIIp71XsqXZ1Tjvrg7w/s1600/36.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsXsaMV2lD7Kn9r1cGpnTks1lBS5mQd_JpsJF_ZXC7WoIxBXYgE2aTrkFO-jZe3Qk-e3eh0hdFcVNYOTD5OBsxQedXHsu7T-rty5babIF64a-RX2CX2nS3Hpmhhy0cRNbggNkqYQ/s1600/35.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsXsaMV2lD7Kn9r1cGpnTks1lBS5mQd_JpsJF_ZXC7WoIxBXYgE2aTrkFO-jZe3Qk-e3eh0hdFcVNYOTD5OBsxQedXHsu7T-rty5babIF64a-RX2CX2nS3Hpmhhy0cRNbggNkqYQ/s1600/35.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a><br />
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We also weed matted and then barked the paths in front of the strawberry/bean garden (and put up chicken wire because neighbourhood cats were using it as a toilet! We've since cat proofed the entire section... no more neighbourhood cats - so far.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVECt6xogSUEMkhHMZvP2DeoiF17Zm2WKiWVI_kn9vPkz0rEMo0uvSx22oiSeJSvAdEqQvV7gdw61fSVNjk3cuL92GYSdT04h7WX_B7a72TzrHajWOo1w5-ssfmZUQe46kQmCeug/s1600/37.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVECt6xogSUEMkhHMZvP2DeoiF17Zm2WKiWVI_kn9vPkz0rEMo0uvSx22oiSeJSvAdEqQvV7gdw61fSVNjk3cuL92GYSdT04h7WX_B7a72TzrHajWOo1w5-ssfmZUQe46kQmCeug/s1600/37.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigui3_Sqq5Rr9F75yKy3D0PZy5mOY6FG3bPdd4kQ8eXeessS19pBC4m6UbZc0gYWDpOFyBCd0LGo3U2pqXYTai8Tb4OAKZ_3mKa8e7WwrDchJ7n47dmlUQ2zpbr6gFWpgvox4sDQ/s1600/40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigui3_Sqq5Rr9F75yKy3D0PZy5mOY6FG3bPdd4kQ8eXeessS19pBC4m6UbZc0gYWDpOFyBCd0LGo3U2pqXYTai8Tb4OAKZ_3mKa8e7WwrDchJ7n47dmlUQ2zpbr6gFWpgvox4sDQ/s1600/40.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0IIpnsymc0YLiTakhUmGEIIG4oLnu6o8n6HSooi-mw_TSJaeAdlXTKhVKlDDQR3eUK0dGzv396EUx3c9-gfWKuL7n67UZKyCDMKGeydIr-gSbbHgZK4q3MTyVlaIP-1qGFgSNQ/s1600/38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0IIpnsymc0YLiTakhUmGEIIG4oLnu6o8n6HSooi-mw_TSJaeAdlXTKhVKlDDQR3eUK0dGzv396EUx3c9-gfWKuL7n67UZKyCDMKGeydIr-gSbbHgZK4q3MTyVlaIP-1qGFgSNQ/s1600/38.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8DXnB7ZaqkfEjxSKiK_qZuR9yXZbcVytZPGqKUl0jh3gzi59_TN_Qc-aMD6Wass-kehL38ZYSRxzvgrdeQ5rUVbaGAdN664FaMyCVlP6xabR1psK1dIMiQiqjWV_0dB2bugenug/s1600/34.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8DXnB7ZaqkfEjxSKiK_qZuR9yXZbcVytZPGqKUl0jh3gzi59_TN_Qc-aMD6Wass-kehL38ZYSRxzvgrdeQ5rUVbaGAdN664FaMyCVlP6xabR1psK1dIMiQiqjWV_0dB2bugenug/s1600/34.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a><br />
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And here it is in the sun, because the sun makes everything look better.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgGCqo50BHypuszMxQ4AsMrBkurqP-iK5Us21KcLmy84yvXvYR43qZ6gNJHxsqI-SRZ5RhFhxHfrvci7zQECCGlKgqjg1og-jCJUsKTH1pMAfDVfULE3SjtbqWSNW-N9KRNiFnMw/s1600/48.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgGCqo50BHypuszMxQ4AsMrBkurqP-iK5Us21KcLmy84yvXvYR43qZ6gNJHxsqI-SRZ5RhFhxHfrvci7zQECCGlKgqjg1og-jCJUsKTH1pMAfDVfULE3SjtbqWSNW-N9KRNiFnMw/s1600/48.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho43v8c3Xz7RhNeLgkqJyabsW8fu4DFGwP9xEG3u4QeyzjAEToMYkSiwSMZ7SMuRPK2C-IwBCz0bZ_dKG0i3WSINaA_8EeFDI_02rzjZIuaraCUiJrPjhEI8LJYQ6tHFSe-P1AJA/s1600/49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho43v8c3Xz7RhNeLgkqJyabsW8fu4DFGwP9xEG3u4QeyzjAEToMYkSiwSMZ7SMuRPK2C-IwBCz0bZ_dKG0i3WSINaA_8EeFDI_02rzjZIuaraCUiJrPjhEI8LJYQ6tHFSe-P1AJA/s1600/49.jpg" height="476" width="640" /></a><br />
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<i>Do you remember when the patch next to the glass house was a mound of dirt and weeds? Clearing it, weed matting and then pebbling was one of the first major things we did.</i></div>
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We've since planted and barked the rest of the section by the raised beds, but for now, lets move onto the other section that we left open for the chickens, the bit behind the drift wood fence.</div>
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It was weedy and you couldn't really get far enough in to see anything (<a href="http://cutandpastry.blogspot.co.nz/2014_04_01_archive.html">see original garden post</a>), let alone try to collect the hazelnuts from the two rather big hazel trees in there. They would fall to the ground and rot because there was just no way to see them.</div>
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So, I had the idea of turning it into a patch of lawn. Easy to care for, easy to harvest fallen hazelnuts, a lovely spot for a picnic and just another nice little section of garden to enjoy. </div>
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Behold below, after the chickens were evicted (you can see where we moved the chicken fence up to the old apple tree in the photo below. That is now the size of their run, so, a lot bigger than what they originally had).</div>
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And there's the swing frame I was talking about that went over the path that the rose grew on. It was all out war tackling that climbing rose (which you can see to the right of the photo, now much smaller) but we won...<br />
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Once we raked up the little bits of weeds and sticks that the chickens had left that you can see above, we went off to get a trailer load of new garden dirt to fill in some of the uneven surface of that section and to provide a good platform for the grass to take root. </div>
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We then planted our new little lemon tree and sprinkled 'easy mow' grass seeds over the whole thing.</div>
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<i style="text-align: center;">David raking in the grass seed and our new little lemon tree in the middle.</i></div>
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All finished, now to wait for the grass to grow...<br />
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We've heard from several people that the garden used to be amazing. The lady that owned it before the people we purchased it from had owned the house for a number of years. She was an avid gardener and had spent years building up the soil quality. Unfortunately, it was then left to its own devices before we got our hands on it.<br />
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I would have loved to have seen the garden when it was in its prime, but hopefully we're getting it back to that stage. And even though it's probably quite different to how it would have looked, damn at least it looks good!!<br />
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So, that is the first instalment of the garden evolution. More to come, so much more...<br />
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xx<br />
J (& D)Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-80570285267212682282014-11-20T09:49:00.000+13:002014-11-20T09:49:19.942+13:00Where Things Start to Happen...Warning: contains cats.<div>
During the day, I'd keep the cats in the office, but once the builders left, I'd let them out to explore their changing surroundings.</div>
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It was funny to watch their reactions - they'd slink about, sniffing and expecting what ever was making the loud noises during the day to come back and give them a fright. Then I'd leave for the night, come back the next morning (before the builders arrived) and would find them, covered in dust, happily exploring all of the new nooks and crannies. Then we'd start all over again...</div>
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Monty, looking around nervously after being let out into the house for the night. Oh, and WALLS and DOORS!<br />
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We decided to take out the pinex board on the right side of the hall wall (not originally in the plan - see, <a href="http://cutandpastry.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/all-little-bits.html">always more things</a>) and replace it with gib so that both sides of the hall would look the same (aka, nice and smooth). The wall on the right also wasn't straight, so that was fixed at the same time.<br />
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Little Mocha-bee sitting in the bathroom door way.<br />
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The lounge cavity slider doors are in! How awesome do they look?! We had to have them made especially, but we followed the design of the original doors throughout the house with the panelling. I love these doors...and they let much needed morning sunshine into the kitchen/lounge (well, when there <i>is</i> sunshine...).<br />
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The amazing thing about cavity slider doors is that they let you retain wall space (since the doors slide into the wall if you want to open up the room) and you don't have to factor in 'swing space' which was something David and I hadn't even considered initially (the plan was to buy a reclaimed set of french doors). When we had the builder come out to give us a quote, he suggested cavity sliders, and we're so glad we went down this route.<br />
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Seeing the cavity doors next to the bathroom door - you can see where we've matched the panelling to try and retain some of the features throughout the house.<br />
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I feel like a garden post needs to come up next. The past few months has seen it change dramatically - raised beds anyone?</div>
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xx</div>
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J (&D)</div>
Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-69047260676392039572014-09-14T09:35:00.001+12:002014-09-14T09:38:33.249+12:00All the Little Bits...Aside from the quite major renovations of replacing an entire bathroom, taking out 2 walls and putting in 2 cavity slider doors, there were several other things we needed to address with the house as well (not mentioning that the roof needs replacing, and that the electricians found some old wiring in the house, even after it passed it's electrical test that was done prior to us buying the house. See, <i>always more things</i>!!).<br />
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These included -<br />
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<ul>
<li>Taking out 2 small areas of dry rot (at least that means the house is dry right? Better than damp rot I s'pose) in the office and by the front door.</li>
<li>Filling in some surface cracks around the outside plaster of the house.</li>
<li>Replacing 3 piles.</li>
<li>Levelling up the lounge room floor.</li>
<li>Re-routing roof drainage pipes so that the water didn't spill onto the pathway outside of the kitchen door.</li>
<li>Re-routing bathroom drainage and sewage pipes so that they are under the house, instead of on the wall outside of the house right next to the kitchen door.</li>
<li>Installing a sump-pump under the house (that's a small post for another time!)</li>
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I think that's it. </div>
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Oh, no wait a second, then there was the time that the plumber told me the hot water cylinder was leaking and that we'd need to replace it. But that's also a post for another time.</div>
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Onwards to the photos me thinks - reliving all that work above is giving me heart palpitations.</div>
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Oh Hai there bath!! And what the outside plaster covering the house looks like from the inside...<br />
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I've since made the revelation that the bathroom is now officially <i>the</i> most insulated room in the entire house. Building paper was put against the inside plaster on the wall, then pink bats, then aqua gib, then several layers of special stuff to make the tiles stick to the aqua gib, then plaster and tiles and finally grout. Mmmmm, toasty.<br />
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Plumbing has been installed!<br />
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The new toilet sits in the corner on the right, where the level is currently hanging out and the vanity sits in the middle of the toilet and bath.<br />
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Kitchen/Dining room on the left. Straight ahead is the door to the office/library. To the right, the lounge.<br />
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Er, I guess it was a good thing we decided not to keep the racing carpet then? (Spot the chook house?)<br />
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Oh dear. This section of the outside of the house was probably the ugliest bit of the house <i>before</i> it got all cut up (and it's the bit we use as the entrance to the house, I'm standing in the kitchen door taking the photo above). But with a huge section of the concrete path being cut up, mud, dirt and (for lack of a better word) building crap everywhere, it was a bit of a sorry sight. (Spot the old pinex board that used to cover the hall!)<br />
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That pipe running down the side of the laundry on the left has now gone. It was the pipe that drained all rain water from the roof into the mains water waste (currently hidden by bits of wood) except that all that water would spill onto the path instead, and not into the drain. That's the kitchen door on the right.</div>
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I'm not sure I actually got any good photos of this outside section of the house before the work started, which is really annoying because now that all the pipes have been taken away (and re-routed to under the house/concrete path) this section already looks so much better than it did. I'll need to hunt through my epic number of photos to see if I can spy anything.</div>
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Until next time,</div>
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xx</div>
<div>
J (& D)</div>
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<br />Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-12002500777791356722014-09-03T14:23:00.000+12:002014-09-03T14:28:58.082+12:00And then the Builders came...It's been a few months since my last update, and well, an awful lot has changed. An awful lot has also unexpectedly (or expectedly?) popped up too, which is what you get with an old house I suppose. It's sort of been ongoing, with small little annoying things continually popping up and it seems to me that no matter how much you plan, there will always be more <i>things</i>.<br />
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I guess all that watching of Grand Designs over the years has at least taught me that in building/renovating, all's fair.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Day 1</b></div>
By the end of day one, the house was in total destruction mode. I had no idea they could do that much so quickly. Behold...<br />
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Missing - x1 bathroom, x1 bathroom wall, x1 hallway wall, x all power to the house except for 3 plugs in the kitchen...er, great. Can we change our minds already?<br />
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(Well, in saying that, this part nearly didn't start on the day that it was supposed to! The plumber couldn't find the water mains after a minute of looking and so promptly left. After about 5minutes, one of the builders found it (right by the front gate) and promptly called the plumber back).<br />
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Looking up at the bathroom directly in front of me from the hallway. The lounge wall on the left has all but disappeared.<br />
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The bathroom (or what was the bathroom). The toilet was in the corner where you can see the hole in the floor.<br />
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Standing in what is now the lounge - the shower would have been directly in front of me, up against the far wall where the light is in the photo.<br />
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That was a doorway on the right and a wall on the left, now it's just the hall way.<br />
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Standing in the lounge/dining room/kitchen looking at the destruction.<br />
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By the end of the day, it was rather apparent that my initial plan to stay in the house was not going to be a realistic one. So I packed an over night bag and went to a warm house, complete with working bathroom. (I should add that David was galavanting around the world for the first three weeks of this renovation - was it planned? We will probably never know for sure).<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Day 2</b> </div>
Then the builders came back and did it all again the next day...<br />
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Lounge cavity slider frames are in (left) and the second wall is out (right). Bathroom - no change.<br />
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No more wall...<br />
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Standing in the dining room/kitchen looking at the lounge.<br />
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Cavity slider frame is in, the bathroom is behind. Why they put the bathroom door back on, we will never know...<br />
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The cold icky weather we had during this initial bit of house-destruction did not help either. Do you know how much dust renovating makes? SO MUCH DUST. Add to that constant rain and you get cold wet muddy mess.<br />
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If you plan to renovate, my advice is to give up any plan of cleaning/dusting until every single work person has left your building.<br />
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More pictures to come - I'm trying to sort through the hundreds... and they get better, oh how they get better (she writes while sitting in her lovely lounge with the french doors open, the sun shining and the birds tweeting!).<br />
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xx<br />
J (& D)Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-89452401632553730512014-06-08T19:16:00.000+12:002014-06-08T19:22:32.304+12:00The Night Before...We have people coming around tomorrow to rip out our bathroom and 2 internal walls and a few other small bits and bobs. Fun times - not...well, actually, kinda fun because then we'll be able to live in the house how we want to.<br />
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You see, right now, the room we want to use as the lounge is currently separated by two walls that make up the hall way in between the current kitchen/dining room. We can't use it because there is no heating source in there. Also, the carpet is interesting, the walls need painting, the floor needs to be levelled a little bit and we really really want to open up the entire living area so that it's more spacious, we don't have wasted hall space that doesn't get used for anything and the current really old, really small bathroom is going to get a teeny tiny bit bigger, oh, and look wayyyyy nicer than it's current state.<br />
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Behold, how we are currently living in our little house...<br />
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This is the current living room, dining room and kitchen. I'm standing in the little kitchen to take this photo. Most of the wall with the Red Lady on it (well, technically she's a yellow lady but we've always called her the Red Lady) is being taken out.<br />
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Like our flooring choice? This will be replaced with something nice, but until the major work has been done, it stays. And say hello to wee Monty!<br />
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That door on the right goes into the hall way. The door you can see (with the painting on it) does not open. It's left over from when what will be the lounge (we call it the green room, you'll see why soon) was 2 rooms.<br />
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That 'door' will be part of the extended bathroom. When I say 'extended' it's being extended the tiniest bit, up to where the 'door' ends. Right now it's wasted space, so it made sense to bring the shoe-box bathroom out a bit.<br />
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Cosy wood burner - this little guy gives out some amazing heat. In fact, it can get way too hot in here! And that is my wee kitchen up the back.<br />
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We have rather pretty ceilings throughout the house...<br />
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So, this wall will go, as well as the one (out of the photo) to the far right. You can see down the hall way to the other end of the house. The study/library/office is straight down, the door to our bedroom is on the right at the end of the hall and my sewing room is on the left (though you can't see it). We will be adding in a small sliding wall-cavity door to the end of the hall way so we can shut that end of the house off if we want too.<br />
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So, looking up at the bathroom from the hall way. The door on the right is the door we just came through from the dining room/kitchen.</div>
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The bathroom is being extended all the way up to the start of the dining room/living room door. The wall you can see just beyond that on the right makes up the shower wall. Yep, totally wasted space!</div>
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Non-functioning door on the left.<br />
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Gotta love the floor and general colour scheme of the bathroom!<br />
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So, that wall you can see in the centre is disappearing. We'll end up with a more 'square' bathroom. I think just getting rid of the wall will make a huge difference to how big the bathroom feels.<br />
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Also, is that a door stop in your shower? Ummm, yeah, doesn't everyone have one of those?<br />
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A lovely paint job and probably original 1940's wall storage.<br />
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And, while you can't see it, because the bath towel is blocking it, the shower head is super low. As in, I have to duck under it to wash my hair. Can you imagine how poor David feels?<br />
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Ah, the ol' faux yellow marble. Noice!<br />
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Can't wait for this toilet to go! And that pipe! Thankfully all piping will go under the floor, where it should be.<br />
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The wall on the left (with the smoke alarm and picture) is coming out. We are putting in sliding/wall cavity doors there so that we can close the room off if we want too.<br />
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The Green Room (can you see that carpet?) gets amazing morning sun. It also has french doors out onto the back of the property which is where all that lovely garden is. In summer, I can see us sitting in the sun, with the doors open, eating breakfast (that may quite possibly include eggs of some description) and watching the chooks.<br />
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You'll have to forgive the mess (we are currently using it as storage).<br />
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Why, hello there Mocha-Bee!<br />
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So this room used to be 2 smaller rooms. It was literally cut in half down the middle (essentially cutting the french doors in half), and you can see where the old door used to be below. Actually, I guess it still <i>is</i> a door...<br />
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Don't be jealous of the racing/dog (cheetah?) carpet. Not everyone can have carpet as awesome as this...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpcmCVb3Gb47Ro_QOLh1rNv4crZasb_Gwgwy2n5lMZSRB4xL9Ma7wbjjYsYbnapM8UPQf30aq0v6sqntzza5NKH3vT6cB26Zxv9W5ZhD0ywDqWco67OLLBJVGUlU-jqZjScXeMKg/s1600/8thJuneHouse26.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpcmCVb3Gb47Ro_QOLh1rNv4crZasb_Gwgwy2n5lMZSRB4xL9Ma7wbjjYsYbnapM8UPQf30aq0v6sqntzza5NKH3vT6cB26Zxv9W5ZhD0ywDqWco67OLLBJVGUlU-jqZjScXeMKg/s1600/8thJuneHouse26.jpg.jpg" height="416" width="640" /></a></div>
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Back with more updates soon. You can bet I'll be snapping away :)<br />
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xx<br />
Jen (& David)Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29318173.post-27279494199644418432014-04-06T15:17:00.000+12:002014-04-06T15:17:54.116+12:00New Beginnings...First posts are tricky aren't they? I think that's why we've procrastinated getting this wee blog up and running.<br />
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You have to introduce yourselves (Hi, I'm Jen and this is my husband David, we live with our two cats Mocha and Monty and three chickens Rosemary, Marigold and Daisy), you have to explain a bit about the blog (this blog is about chronicling our foray into first-home-ownership, renovation and living the kiwi dream — whatever that means) and you have to talk a little about what your plans and hopes are for the blog (we hope to blog about all the things that come with owning a home that needs a bit of work, and a huge garden! All the good bits, and all the bad bits. Gardening tips, DIY ideas and recipes are of course part of the menu, even if we don't quite know what we're doing!).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlriqwn52dF6ZpXVQO7hxg_pHBKCeZUvPh5hG3ZRFa0j2w4rb8FMxi2M91IaGOOg2M28rgmFP_J4I0dqZm5tnmwWeqzP8o63CIYuP2_i2q6R1Re1Bb641gsX7v34X33V85g6NP7g/s1600/Chickens2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlriqwn52dF6ZpXVQO7hxg_pHBKCeZUvPh5hG3ZRFa0j2w4rb8FMxi2M91IaGOOg2M28rgmFP_J4I0dqZm5tnmwWeqzP8o63CIYuP2_i2q6R1Re1Bb641gsX7v34X33V85g6NP7g/s1600/Chickens2.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Daisy & Rosemary foraging away...</i></div>
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Well, I suppose it wasn't that hard was it?</div>
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Let's start at the beginning shall we...?</div>
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In September 2013, after 4 years of living in Sydney, David and I decided to move back home to New Zealand. David had just completed his PhD and Sydney living was expensive. So, we moved home, back into my Father-in-Law's house while we waited to hear back about PhD news and plan an overseas holiday to Italy and the UK.</div>
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Initially, buying a house wasn't really the plan. But we slowly realised that PhD news wasn't going to come as quickly as we had hoped, and as much as we loved living in the grand old house that was my FIL's, we really wanted a place of our own. If we had to move elsewhere for jobs for David (academic jobs are few and far between, and beggars can't be choosers) then we would just rent the place out.</div>
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We did our sums, and surprisingly, they added up. Renting a place of our own was going to cost more in the long run than buying a house (within our budget, of course).</div>
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So, right before we left for our trip, we found a house we liked in the area we wanted to live in. It was in budget and it was cute and rentable if we had to leave. </div>
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Only problem? Someone else was prepared to pay more for it than we were. So, with sad faces, we headed to Rome (which I guess wasn't actually that bad!). Eight weeks later, we returned home and started looking again but as the holiday period loomed, house pickings were slim.</div>
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To our surprise, during that time, along came another house we wanted to buy. It was a private sale and it seemed like it was the one for us. Alas, after Christmas, came the news we kind of already knew was coming, the vendor had decided not to sell after all as he had just signed another six-month work contract.</div>
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Then, in January, third time lucky, we found this house.<br />
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It wasn't exactly love at first sight. It didn't have that pretty street appeal that some of the other houses we were looking at did. But it had an amazing garden, it was private and at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, it was bigger than the other houses and it was cheaper.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh51WV-cz4xjX9Fbps_V52p7IDvR-safQjtqHsYOdwDwXumR-uHJ9myxLSMqmvMTnYGvoauoJlblrRze5tHcKx88c7GHPqvY9aHwvFQbBrjES9vaFHBJvCLDorSwMWREmIiDEwkIA/s1600/House-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh51WV-cz4xjX9Fbps_V52p7IDvR-safQjtqHsYOdwDwXumR-uHJ9myxLSMqmvMTnYGvoauoJlblrRze5tHcKx88c7GHPqvY9aHwvFQbBrjES9vaFHBJvCLDorSwMWREmIiDEwkIA/s1600/House-2.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Oooh, secret garden path to the right...</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNi5qYcfucb8pSvBBnBFXeH2rhad9KWwd1iZl8hA_bBFKU1KKFUeHWj_5rj8dEg2t5A3SrCPqNfvHDDqrtZKB7cRirwc9Dlm459xsbDgO6XK3pmXn6eYSbVB8e1AzsivRcnGlcrQ/s1600/House-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNi5qYcfucb8pSvBBnBFXeH2rhad9KWwd1iZl8hA_bBFKU1KKFUeHWj_5rj8dEg2t5A3SrCPqNfvHDDqrtZKB7cRirwc9Dlm459xsbDgO6XK3pmXn6eYSbVB8e1AzsivRcnGlcrQ/s1600/House-3.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>What's down there then...? (That's the hen run in all that nasturtium on the right!)</i></div>
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<i>Oh, it's a hen house!</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3EzNrEQHM6O7QVAnBuQOf2n9qwOgLkfxc72t312XppiF9avHBzbsa8SIloptVQjgbXJaP8qOanyYFEnwad7fPElh46s7blYVxuoYK-gcYSJPm3EMu5f-Jeq2yfgKOGbmLo7wew/s1600/House-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht3EzNrEQHM6O7QVAnBuQOf2n9qwOgLkfxc72t312XppiF9avHBzbsa8SIloptVQjgbXJaP8qOanyYFEnwad7fPElh46s7blYVxuoYK-gcYSJPm3EMu5f-Jeq2yfgKOGbmLo7wew/s1600/House-5.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>And the french doors of the room that will be the lounge.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPv5EYzb3cv-M5085aydJdMzMz27woggvie4ihDYPPbDYFuw2eISnaWupC7E-8OuhYAc1EE_U1PSlFX8cnkkSpjbxV8dFQrNq8kWGprR-Ug8xXY-pFCMndguJyzQZT9S6BG7vGJA/s1600/House-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPv5EYzb3cv-M5085aydJdMzMz27woggvie4ihDYPPbDYFuw2eISnaWupC7E-8OuhYAc1EE_U1PSlFX8cnkkSpjbxV8dFQrNq8kWGprR-Ug8xXY-pFCMndguJyzQZT9S6BG7vGJA/s1600/House-4.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Let's keep going... that's the oldest of three apple trees head.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-B6pNmGHvBTcM6VacH8-aKCVdbI9acyUdeD0TldabywOjaGkcXN7qv7lf9b90sDIJ-23MMrEUB9ciNiidK4JDyzsYfm7SKVhkraMQJgGdB9FvpswyjnbdLC7kgRcCv85LUfVDPw/s1600/House-15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-B6pNmGHvBTcM6VacH8-aKCVdbI9acyUdeD0TldabywOjaGkcXN7qv7lf9b90sDIJ-23MMrEUB9ciNiidK4JDyzsYfm7SKVhkraMQJgGdB9FvpswyjnbdLC7kgRcCv85LUfVDPw/s1600/House-15.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpzeENexqZHmohc7cPA6z0IrhBjsjq_IopD8nbJHmezIaheCLsygE8O-78hLkzlh6u1przxpBOPH74-iJLN3_Y46p07c2SmBFAgsmXPU18mLePwKh_n662BhgCGtkIoOU_T94AA/s1600/House-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZpzeENexqZHmohc7cPA6z0IrhBjsjq_IopD8nbJHmezIaheCLsygE8O-78hLkzlh6u1przxpBOPH74-iJLN3_Y46p07c2SmBFAgsmXPU18mLePwKh_n662BhgCGtkIoOU_T94AA/s1600/House-7.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Round the bend, to a large rhubarb and climbing rose...</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifn8fd2nTw2HZKTHKru9rofff_HS5QIzV3Ia3QwFF9VfBVn8yUEaG8iG5MqyZkDX7Iqy3pR-WH1KjxQPksPw48VsGsPmMjcnTWe37AB7Fh4-1dnR87b5qKlCvMlL8bRD5FKC0B_A/s1600/House-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifn8fd2nTw2HZKTHKru9rofff_HS5QIzV3Ia3QwFF9VfBVn8yUEaG8iG5MqyZkDX7Iqy3pR-WH1KjxQPksPw48VsGsPmMjcnTWe37AB7Fh4-1dnR87b5qKlCvMlL8bRD5FKC0B_A/s1600/House-8.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Under the rose and the first glass house on the left and a small cherry tree to the right...</i></div>
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<i>Ah, glass house number two!</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjewvh4tRQBT86cQYopbntPzis1RDdfkBa1S-qqGTkFP8BZhuQX4y1j5BJU6s_jxQ3ecEm1V-AePQl9oaL_UL2TyFiYC0j2_I5_fgB8xx-8aMyZUqRWUDdhyphenhyphenP51XwBJevIwZ9eLrg/s1600/House-11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjewvh4tRQBT86cQYopbntPzis1RDdfkBa1S-qqGTkFP8BZhuQX4y1j5BJU6s_jxQ3ecEm1V-AePQl9oaL_UL2TyFiYC0j2_I5_fgB8xx-8aMyZUqRWUDdhyphenhyphenP51XwBJevIwZ9eLrg/s1600/House-11.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Ummm, I think some plants threw up in our garden...</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcb8bQwZK-HZnXH_UfvhvptQS2HtXA59fyfrL3VpEF27o9FQAudGpNr7JToR5gw8akr8ybIT-Gw8UbT6bJ5DowMQLxWMZm7ncTf6NryiNzYZn7DPnT2CQkpoNYHA3uhnhyphenhyphene0hDOA/s1600/House-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcb8bQwZK-HZnXH_UfvhvptQS2HtXA59fyfrL3VpEF27o9FQAudGpNr7JToR5gw8akr8ybIT-Gw8UbT6bJ5DowMQLxWMZm7ncTf6NryiNzYZn7DPnT2CQkpoNYHA3uhnhyphenhyphene0hDOA/s1600/House-12.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Looking back up the path we just came down. Yep, and more of them there potatoes on the left.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgInsA8-BHVqqQMqTgpBpwV4dyPcj8CrjXWDdXO1Dmsr2Fnh8DXg5sR8n3KzKC1nnvPE7KYLm8EM8wKKAYXdnqQ3s3lgRoXBj-025fG3RQIf-AqqFW6C7bdPKRebFxRAKmL9iTgoA/s1600/House-13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgInsA8-BHVqqQMqTgpBpwV4dyPcj8CrjXWDdXO1Dmsr2Fnh8DXg5sR8n3KzKC1nnvPE7KYLm8EM8wKKAYXdnqQ3s3lgRoXBj-025fG3RQIf-AqqFW6C7bdPKRebFxRAKmL9iTgoA/s1600/House-13.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMvlGbmkKQFMzH5JFt-lpp4aXCPcOpn-XKEEm0i7bg_9CeUcFfLSgZ6G5p3ivAazGCsbYqtffonKHDWUT60tP5Uu9Dpl60-AX-vKNZT-vZX2H4oKDrU2MLzDogOPOEjG5pa4Xvjw/s1600/House-14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMvlGbmkKQFMzH5JFt-lpp4aXCPcOpn-XKEEm0i7bg_9CeUcFfLSgZ6G5p3ivAazGCsbYqtffonKHDWUT60tP5Uu9Dpl60-AX-vKNZT-vZX2H4oKDrU2MLzDogOPOEjG5pa4Xvjw/s1600/House-14.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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We looked at the house three times, each time knowing more and more that this was the one. Yes, it needed work. But the bones were good, it had a lovely feeling about it, it was filled with all-day sunshine and we could put our mark on it. Oh, and its chattels included chickens — three to be exact.</div>
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Looking back now, the sale actually went quite quickly, but at the time, it dragged on. I didn't want to get too excited about the house just in case it didn't come through again, but it was hard, especially when we had mentally moved in already (and we were getting desperate to unpack our boxes from Sydney that held all our possessions, waiting, lonely, in the sitting room at the FIL's).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDby8ayY9zFx25lSCL7_NsaYzagGOmwRtGHd9HZIghGASI9lGd_33HDEbT9yxIcJDXyoIOM81BGTVmeTzlSEQXeHUpTOeOsoqCJL-m4Ls9efL_LFYsuHeL0Me9HRTbageSQE3F6w/s1600/House-16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDby8ayY9zFx25lSCL7_NsaYzagGOmwRtGHd9HZIghGASI9lGd_33HDEbT9yxIcJDXyoIOM81BGTVmeTzlSEQXeHUpTOeOsoqCJL-m4Ls9efL_LFYsuHeL0Me9HRTbageSQE3F6w/s1600/House-16.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>The two other apple trees, pear and two plum trees line the back of the lawn. There are two feijoa trees on the left of the photo.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtgOopQGWxg-MB6iGpFpkAxySzKglSvZmHii331-BpOyHzNQeOwPf7TTbnJISiAE6yl2l_wMfBGsDWah07bl6sTGviAgkzZbRc_TVPH6BpY694jyyfUwW-T53L9aDH6GXf6tawyg/s1600/House-18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtgOopQGWxg-MB6iGpFpkAxySzKglSvZmHii331-BpOyHzNQeOwPf7TTbnJISiAE6yl2l_wMfBGsDWah07bl6sTGviAgkzZbRc_TVPH6BpY694jyyfUwW-T53L9aDH6GXf6tawyg/s1600/House-18.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>The side of the house — that's a fig tree in the middle, some raspberry and current bushes on the left and more rhubarb tucked away to the right.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRszXcB6438PGoenlP7uEpbPIWFvg2QvlQdiDJbWdBsIclTLs8nZaqWIgUDQSOx2ywiJ5O8nEEk_CojGuiS61oIYwrC0nh57apPkCKYDOh0cObtdrBHMDJ300elWgqTJJrgmq29A/s1600/House-19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRszXcB6438PGoenlP7uEpbPIWFvg2QvlQdiDJbWdBsIclTLs8nZaqWIgUDQSOx2ywiJ5O8nEEk_CojGuiS61oIYwrC0nh57apPkCKYDOh0cObtdrBHMDJ300elWgqTJJrgmq29A/s1600/House-19.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Same side, different angle. My sewing room on the right and the study/library on the left. Both rooms get some amazing sun!</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6vrpKD-UjQviLCeSlB1NWMhJn5uED0JYRAuaIi9fAPyrpGZbdcXFbIDoLgCSjjhbDo7z_y5NTD9MDvkcmnqOeQiLbqTupZtuDe_HdyWV6cHOpC32x0SVkb97Rzwi1vPVlQ9JArQ/s1600/House-20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6vrpKD-UjQviLCeSlB1NWMhJn5uED0JYRAuaIi9fAPyrpGZbdcXFbIDoLgCSjjhbDo7z_y5NTD9MDvkcmnqOeQiLbqTupZtuDe_HdyWV6cHOpC32x0SVkb97Rzwi1vPVlQ9JArQ/s1600/House-20.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>The front door gate...</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipVM8bRt4eH5-gXkErhwg2HD5bhhLrYnjdURddXu2Dd6kCVItflZEWqglXR4vKQsQ4w2Qyk5Sm1WHTeyoa7ykjSPTISwcacNt8LwBEWWFIAwN3fL7x-WZ4xcFlMDryYXx8czyuZg/s1600/House-23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipVM8bRt4eH5-gXkErhwg2HD5bhhLrYnjdURddXu2Dd6kCVItflZEWqglXR4vKQsQ4w2Qyk5Sm1WHTeyoa7ykjSPTISwcacNt8LwBEWWFIAwN3fL7x-WZ4xcFlMDryYXx8czyuZg/s1600/House-23.jpg" height="640" width="426" /></a></div>
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<i>The front door gate from the road...</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoHgxd3HW7ssOvNZqnIVwhHFITcge2-doKzI0cwP3OA9QeltTaMQZwNJUyOSBomCBIEvo-AWpztWJxQ5qY-zWWhmT2zehyphenhyphenJdb4bVwND5gVsMKm-85W_mkJa9F0tADx7Gi7FfUaKQ/s1600/House-21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoHgxd3HW7ssOvNZqnIVwhHFITcge2-doKzI0cwP3OA9QeltTaMQZwNJUyOSBomCBIEvo-AWpztWJxQ5qY-zWWhmT2zehyphenhyphenJdb4bVwND5gVsMKm-85W_mkJa9F0tADx7Gi7FfUaKQ/s1600/House-21.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>The back door gate...</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmT5pHsIVeo7pyxYkOyeAgfGa2v9Tf8N45vJrBkdFBnXlbN_xOoFMBihQxEQ4CjIqtrP-kzz2bA2CyuMWZHDo7_sHsOh85dgW6LD3qWuNecanjNr-r1FBwPLTcAqgSzrSP0K4tTA/s1600/House-22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmT5pHsIVeo7pyxYkOyeAgfGa2v9Tf8N45vJrBkdFBnXlbN_xOoFMBihQxEQ4CjIqtrP-kzz2bA2CyuMWZHDo7_sHsOh85dgW6LD3qWuNecanjNr-r1FBwPLTcAqgSzrSP0K4tTA/s1600/House-22.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>The back door gate from the road.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZOq1-w-Q9eMUkVY7xXju6xJ33MkXiBuiiRDpTvAUAyZezTMsiVfRm3BME_b5nJbCXY_O2e6_i7Dd44hZWL9JUkWUWQhKtYAie904KbrA_7Uv_bJurUonZZJErwe3fqpJLzY9_hw/s1600/House-24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZOq1-w-Q9eMUkVY7xXju6xJ33MkXiBuiiRDpTvAUAyZezTMsiVfRm3BME_b5nJbCXY_O2e6_i7Dd44hZWL9JUkWUWQhKtYAie904KbrA_7Uv_bJurUonZZJErwe3fqpJLzY9_hw/s1600/House-24.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>From the road — the house and the back door are on the left and some storage/laundry/old cement water tower thingy on the right. Not the prettiest sight you ever did see, but the flowers help :)</i></div>
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The day we moved in was torrential rain. The first day in two weeks it had been that heavy. We did one trailer load, unpacked a very wet couch and called it a day.</div>
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Five weeks later, and we are loving the house. I can't believe how warm this lovely old lady is (she was born in the 1940s, but a lady never reveals her actual age. Though I'm sure with some digging around the council archive we'll turn up that bit of information). I've started calling it the Summer House, because, if you've ever lived in Dunedin, you'll know how cold it can get, and how days-wearing-skirts-without-stockings are few and far between, even in the height of summer. Now I'm sitting here, in a t-shirt, too hot, typing this while the wind howls and blows outside, with no heating on. I'm not complaining.</div>
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The photos dotting this post are ones I took on the day we moved in, in between rain showers, of the garden. We've since spent A LOT of time in the garden, clearing and tidying up, and while there is still a lot more to do, it's looking pretty good. (If we do say so ourselves.)</div>
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So, welcome to our house blog. I hope you'll be warm and comfortable here. There are fresh eggs in the fridge, a lot of cabbage in the garden and a several litres of stewed apple in the freezer, so do help yourself...</div>
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xx</div>
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Jen (and David)</div>
Jenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16384277110904485746noreply@blogger.com0