Lighten up

We are due for a bit of electrical maintenance at STLT HQ; nothing serious, more fixing up a few things that we have come across as part of the process of living in the house for nearly two years (can you believe it?) and working out what works and what doesn't.  So we have been in touch with Sparky Dave to come and sort our very little list (nod to the Mikado) of jobs.  I never thought I would say this but we need more power points in the study.  Four double power points is not enough!  Well it would be if one were positioned closer to the sewing machine, but the final layout of the room has only emerged over the last year.  One of the other numerous jobs is to put up a light where our cookbooks are shelved as there are no LED ceiling lights at the periphery of the room.  Stos found this gorgeous wall sconce on eBay and while I didn't like the photo as much as he did, I thought for the price it would do.  However, on seeing it after it arrived today, I love it and can't wait to get it installed, even if it's just for show.

When life gives you limes, make cocktails

I am not overly fussy about what is in my garden, but I must have fresh herbs and lemons.  The lemon tree was a key factor in buying our property and I went to considerable lengths to protect the tree when we rebuilt in 2010, including designing a deck that wouldn't encroach on its space and threatening the tradies with death or worse if it came to any harm.  The other tree I have always wanted is a lime tree and shortly after we moved here, Stos planted one for me however results, until recently, have been disappointing.  The return on investment has been poor - the tree cost around $30 and I am sure that it's only yielded 6 - 8 limes in 10 odd years.  Every year it has lots of flowers and fruit buds but fails to deliver on its promise and has not grown much since we have had it.   However, after complete change in the garden, two years of decent rain and some other unknown miracle, I've had half a dozen lovely limes in the last few weeks and there are another 30 on the tree in various stages of development.  Plus, we think the tree has doubled in size over the last year.  I am so excited - looking forward to daiquiris, lime delicious pudding and maybe lime chutney over the coming months.

Moving on up

 

I haven't posted on developments at STLT HQ for a while as there really hasn't been much to report other than the garden is slowly growing and we are progressively putting up more pictures.  But this week, we've acquired two rugs which make a huge difference to the respective rooms. This is the lounge room rug in situ. I had thought about rugs periodically but decided against buying any as there are two spotty girls around here who will just lay on them. But after seeing some inexpensive rugs in a catalogue, I suggested that Stos might have a look at a specific design for the man cave. In doing so, he noticed this one and thought it would go well in the lounge room.   I'm quite impressed with his choice;  I wouldn't have bought it as it really isn't my thing. But in this room it works really well with the furniture, the floor and also picks up the neutral tone of the blinds (the background is more beige that it appears).  And I was right about the dogs; as soon as Miss K saw the new addition, she decided to make herself comfortable on it. 

Sitting around

We've gone a bit quiet on house updates because, other than putting up some of our pictures, we haven't done much other than gradually plant up the garden.  And after being told that I couldn't have a beautiful Arts and Crafts sideboard because it won't fit into the house, I'd given up on buying more furniture.  However there is one spot for stuff to go; under the kitchen bench.  I actually hate the concept of the "breakfast bar".  We eat at the table.  But I do like people talking to me while I cook, dish up etc and am quite amenable to them having a seat close by, so we thought that some stools without backs that fit neatly under the edge of the kitchen bench would work nicely.  We spotted some lab stools on the Grandfather's Axe but by the time we got around to looking at them, they had been sold.  But look what we found at Know Your Product!

All we know is that they are Scandinavian, possible 70's and they have nice joinery (even I can see that).  And there was a sale on all current stock so even better!  The vinyl seats are a bit ordinary but I'm thinking of getting them recovered in the bark cloth shown on the stool on the right.  Bought from lovely Retro Age Vintage Fabrics.  This is a match made in heaven - combining stuff from two of my favourite shops.  Now I think that we really are at our furniture limit.  But I'm still trying to work out if a sideboard would look good in a bathroom.....

The Great Outdoors

After moving back home in December, I made up a mental list of things that we wanted to make the house complete.  These ranged from the prosaic (new chair for the study) to the unnecesary but desirable (some chairs for the living/kitchen area).  Over the last few months, the list has nearly been ticked off, with the only outstanding item being a new outdoor setting for the deck as our existing table and benches didn't fit.  I started the hunt very enthusiastically but as the Melbourne summer fizzled out (or didn't really kick off), my interest waned.  However Stos has been keeping an eye of ebay and struck gold this week on a 9 piece setting for $300.  Our deck now looks complete and all ready to enjoy some afternoon sun.

Day 377: The End

Today marks the end of the project.  The painters have been to finish off the outstanding bits and pieces, so are the last of the scheduled tradies. and I think this seems like an appropriate point at which to draw a line under the construction phase. The job today was touching up the interior paintwork, completion of the garage and painting the rendered contrast wall on the side of the house.  It was a cold day and not aided by the front door being open so the guys could go in and out.  The dogs were confined to the deck as there was work going on out the back as well, and they were not happy.  On top of that, I was trying to work while freezing, putting up with noise, questions and having to move every so often. But  the reward for a day of inconvenience is the prospect of using the garage to house the car (novel, I know) as we can now put up shelves and move all the "garage stuff" off the floor.  The external render has come up well and Stos has decided that he's going to plant red salvia down the side of the path as a contrast.

As it is the last day of the project, I should say something profound.  But not tonight.  I've just got home from squash and it is late.  Not the right time for meaningful musings other than to say that there's a garden to create and an interior to finalise, so the journey will continue.  But hopefully at a more leisurely pace.

Day 376: Cool change

I was tidying up in the bedroom tonight, packing up shoes that were worn over the last week, when I had a sad thought - I think this is goodbye to the sandals for the next six months.  A pity as I haven't worn these cute shoes much since buying them at the beginning of the year.

There's a chill in the air and daylight savings has ended.  I pulled out a pair of boots today and wore a serious jumper to brunch this morning.  Time to learn how to work the new hydronic heating system.  The only upside to this (and this is pushing it as I hate the cold) is that the panels in the bathroom double as towel rails, and warm towels might be nice.

Day 369: Up the garden path

Commentary on house progress has been fairly light on over the last couple of weeks but lots of work has been done and we are sooooo close to stopping the formal countdown.  Electrical work is finished and we have been able to remove the nasty black cable connecting the television in the lounge room to the aerial in the kitchen that I was convinced I would fall over.  Wessie has finished the external tiling and we now have a path down the side of the house instead of slush.  All we need now is for the painters to come in and finish off the final coat in the garage, the external render and some bumps and dents.  Stos spent a couple of days clearing the garage and digging the mulch out from the external render.  So while there is a tiny bit to go, the improvements to date have been huge.  The garden is still a project in itself but we feel that we can take our time with that and now that our non-existent summer is officially over, that will be our next job.

Today was spend with a lovely bunch of girls that I know from the day job.  We drank bubbles and nice wine, indulged in some gossip and had a lot of fun.  A fabway to spend a sunny Autumn afternoon.

Day 347: Saturday Night

I looked at Kirty's post on "Snooping" and love the concept.  I think we all like to let our inner voyeur come come out to play from time to time.  It's like those articles that detail the contents of other people's handbags - utterly compelling.  In the same vein, here are the details of my Saturday night at home.  I have been sitting in my lovely new chair with matching ottoman and the following:

1/.  Armistead Maupin's latest installment in the "Tales of The City" series of novels;  "Mary Ann in Autumn".  I picked this up from the library today and am motoring through it.
2/.  A plate of buttermilk and blueberry pancakes courtesy of Stos.
3/.  A glass of Pino Grigio.
4/.  Two Dalmatians.  I am not flattering myself that they love me best because they are up in the living room with me rather than with Stos downstairs watching "Mission Impossible"; it is because their cushion and blanket haven't been moved.

It's lovely to have night in.

Day 334: Secondhand Rose

I love the idea of finding treasure in Op Shops, but I've decided that this will never happen to me as I don't have the patience to spend long periods of time rummaging throught piles of stuff.  If something doesn't jump out and bite me in the first 10 minutes, it's not happening.  However when something this gorgeous is in the window of the local Oppie, one just has to seize the moment.  In this case it involved calling out to the volunteer on duty to put it aside for me as I had two dogs with me and no money.  Fortunately these ladies are very understanding.  This is a summer fashion catalogue from 1958/9, showcasing Home Journal patterns and were available from Buckley & Nunn.  So maybe it's not treasure but it is beautiful:

There has been more progress around the place this week, but not much to show in the way of photos at this stage.  Wessie is laying the tiles outside and Sparkie Dave looks to be finished. So getting closer to the end of the works.

Day 339: Day by Day

What a difference a day or three makes.  Bob and the boys finished just before lunchtime today and we now have this to look at.  Much better than the jungle of weeds we had earlier in the week. 

The change in the front isn't quite as drastic as we had the Stonehenge look prior to the garden make over, but the river pebbles and mulch is a big improvement on the scorched earth look.

And I think we are getting to the point of being able to publish a daytime photo of the front now that the weeds are gone and the "blue steel" era is over:

The end is nigh.

Day 337: Planet Earth

The sleep-ins are officially over; Bob is back on the job. At 7.30am on the dot, a large truck arrived with a bobcat and before we knew it, the boys were at work. First the remainder of the garden and the rampant weeds were cleared, then the new soil was brought in and the new garden beds were shaped. Stos and I pulled out the stubborn grass that invades from next door and to keep the boys happy, I made a batch of Auntie Jean's scones for smoko. This would have to be the easiest recipe in my repertoire and even I don 't need to look up the ingredients which are:

4 cups self raising flour, sifted
300ml (a small bottle) of thickened (double) cream
300ml water.

Mix, turn out on to a lightly floured surface, flatten into a rough square approx one inch thick, cut into pieces, glaze with a little milk and cook at 220C for 10 to 15 mins until a light, golden colour. Too easy!  The secrets are to keep mixing/handling to a minimum, don't bother with a rolling pin and don't faff around with scone cutters.  I think even Auntie Jean would give these a tick and Bob certainly approves.  I know our scone queen friend thinks that lemonade scones are the way to go, but for simplicity, these can't be beaten.

Day 335: Who let the dogs out?

Stos and I have both taken a week off from the Day Jobs.  Breaks have been a bit thin on the ground over the last 18 months, so we thought it was a good idea just to take some time to sit back and enjoy the house.  That was until Bob decided that this week would be a good time to do the landscaping.  So now we have jobs to do in readiness for the bobcat coming in later in the week.  This afternoon was spent pulling out weeds in the front yard and picking up building rubble, although, to be honest, I think we will be picking bits of roof tile out of the ground until we are carried out of the place.  The yard is bare but it looks a lot better than the jungle of weeds it was last week.  The back is another story but the bobcat will sort that out.  K & P were out the front with us but having had a taste of freedom a few weeks ago, K headed for the only gap in the fence and started trotting down the road to seek out treats at M's place.  She really is a female (and canine) version of Houdini.  But you wouldn't guess her evil nature from the photo here.

Day 329: Please Mr Postman

Is it pretentious to have a bespoke letterbox? I feel quite strange saying this but with the new fence, there was nothing off the shelf (well at least not at Bunnings) that worked for us. So we got an el cheapo, screwed it to the post as an interim measure and had a chat to the steel guy who was more than happy to come up with something that could be inserted in the structure of the fence. He also suggested making a house number to go on the box and we were going model this using the number plate retrieved from the old place until some low life pinched it from it's NAILED ON position on the front gate post!  I'm still trying to work out why anyone would want with an strange number like ours. Anyway, after searching around for suitable fonts, I came up with another design that worked for us.   This appealed as I have always written my sevens in the continental style.

The other major development last week was the installation of the side fences and gate.  They look good as well as keep the dogs in and the added bonus is that the place no longer looks like a prison camp.  The front gates have now been galvanised but I don't want to put up a picture of the front until the weeds are cleared next week.  So here's a shot of the south side fence including vicious guard dog.

Day 319: Runaway horses

We have had the craziest weather this week, ranging from 40C odd to bucketing down with rain for the last 24 hours, a flow on impact from Cyclone Yasi that hit Far North Queensland this week.  But by far the worst day was Tuesday which was the hot day.  It was windy, horrible and the day that I had to work from home in order for the new blinds to be installed.  I knew that it was going to be a disrupted day but that was an understatement.  We had a truckload of people through here including:

- Two people installing blinds
- Jarrad who delivered the fabulous new furniture
- Bob, Pete and Sparkie Dave

- The showerscreen man and his apprentice who installed the bathroom mirrors, at last

- Donna from the window furnishings shop who had to drop off some curtain tracks and her daughter

Then later in the day, the guy who installed the security system and a lady who bought our filing cabinet from eBay came by.  So productivity was fairly low during the day and I had to make it up in the evening, which is not my favourite time to work.  However on the house front, a lot was achieved and the place has been transformed by the blinds and the fabulous Danish furniture.  You've seen the furniture; now here are the blinds:

On the left is what Stos calls "the horsie blind".  I bought two metres of the Horse Stampede fabric in the Signature Prints sale last year, without quite knowing what to do with it, but for less than half price, it was definitely worth picking up.  Then I remembered that we had a small window in the 3rd bedroom and the amount of fabric might just stretch to a blind.  When we were discussing this with Donna, she looked dubious, then told us to leave it wither her and she would make it work.  Which she did, with some fabric left over.  The blind on the right is typical of those in the rest of the house, with the 2nd and 3rd bedroom blinds having block-out lining.  With window furnishings in, the house looks fully dressed.  Stos had likened having no curtains to going down the street in your tracksuit pants.  I'm not sure about that analogy - I shop in trakkies.  Just what is he saying?!

Day 316: I want Candy

I wish I could say I agonised over the decision to buy these chairs and couch.  But I didn't.  The thought process was limited to:  I love them, I want them, what the hell.  So after two visits to the shop, a bit of research on comparative prices (not that you can buy these exact chairs anywhere else) they were delivered yesterday and I'm thrilled with how they fit in.  The couch is matched up with the Florence Broadhurst ottomans that I bought last year while we were homeless.  Just ignore the carpet off-cut on the floor.  Once we have put up some of our pictures, the mancave will be a really great space.

 

Someone pointed out that the colour is similar to that of the front door.  Spooky.  The various people who were in and out of the house yesterday (more on that tomorrow) liked them and even Bob seemed to approve.

Day 310: Obsession

When I look back over the last year, I see patterns of obsession.  The most significant were tiles, door handles and light fittings.  I looked at different styles in magazines, Googled lots of sites and dragged Stos around various shops that were inevitably open during hours suited to people who don't need to work like the rest of us.  Other important things such as taps and vanity units didn't come into the obsession category as we found and settled on these fairly quickly, then moved on.  So it's time for a new obsession and it is Danish design.  Yes, Danish furniture has been in vogue for quite some time, but when you don't need  furniture, these things tend to pass you (me) by.  Now that we are looking for some chairs and maybe a couch, I am in love with vintage Danish items and am getting a crash course in the "who's who" of the Scandinavian design world.  And, of course, I'm looking at the expensive stuff, not the run of the mill.  But while we are considering a couple of options, we have bought this rather stylish wall unit for the loungeroom.  It's not Danish, but has the same simplicity of design:

Photo from "Know Your Product"

This was a built-in fixture of a 1950's Australian house and will do beautifully to hold the big bogan television and the DVDs, music etc.  We got this from Know Your Product which is one of those places that you can't visit without coming out with at least one vintage treasure.  Part of the fun is looking around and spotting things that our parents had/have.  I'm looking forward to this being delivered so that we can get a bit more order into the place.

Day 309: Downunder

This Australia Day is very different to that of 2010.  One year ago we were packing the house up in readiness to move out.  Not a very relaxing way to spend a public holiday, but it had to be done.  This year is different - back home and gradually settling back into our space.  We did say that we wouldn't do any jobs today, but it seemed a bit indulgent to simply kick back.  Besides, Bob and Pete are putting in our heating panels tomorrow so we needed  to move furniture so that they can access the fittings.  It will be a relief to get these out of the garage and onto the walls (plus the others being delivered tomorrow):

The panels on the left are to go in the kitchen/living area and the chrome panel on the right will double as a towel rail in one of the bathrooms.  I'm not in a hurry for heating but I do want to get rid of the clotheshorse that is serving as a towel rail in the meantime!

We have a few people coming for dinner tonight so the new Smeg oven has been getting a workout.   For dessert, I have made a traditional American dish; sweet potato and bourbon pie (yes, I know, a pav would have been more appropriate today).  Sounds weird (to an Australian) but tastes great.  I went to a function last week where this was on the menu and I was really impressed.  As a result of my fascination with American desserts, the first job the next morning was to find a recipe in order to make it at the earliest possible opportunity.  The finished product isn't the most impressive looking thing I have made but it smells good so I hope it is just as nice to eat.  What did we do before we could look things up on the internet? 

Day 301: Devil Gate Drive

Well, Christmas is officially over.  Bob dropped around today to look through the list of things to be finished off and talk about when the team will be back on the job. Pete, Dave and the painters are all expected to put in an appearance shortly but a very welcome sight today was the Steel Guy, who brought our front gates with him.  He has never built gates like these before; driveway gates cleverly contain a pedestrian gate, so he wants to set them up and leave them for a week or so to make sure they work as designed.  Once he is satisfied, the gates will be removed and galvanised.  We also went through the design for the side gates again and they will be started in the next couple of days.  One interesting thing I learned is that before the galvanising process, the underlying steel is blue, or coated in blue.  Therefore they should be called Zoolander gates (very bad joke for people who have seen the movie).

The weekend was busy with jobs, one of which was to pull out the weeds at the front.  They'll be back before we know it so tonight I quickly took a picture of the front of the house to put up.  Hopefully this dusk photo shows off the best attributes of the house and makes it harder to see the things that need doing i.e. garden and  makeshift curtains, to name a few.  But the Zoolander gates stand out, even by twilight.

Day 294: The Sweetest Gift

I think I'm a pretty modern girl but I really love the old fashioned niceties; hand written thank-you notes, gentlemen opening doors for ladies and that type of thing.  One lovely custom that we have noticed lately has been the offering of house warming gifts, cards and wishes.  I don't do these things often enough myself and need to make a New Year's resolution to be more thoughtful.  People have been so kind to us; Bob's mother bought us a lovely plant that she thought would go well with his landscaping efforts, then on Saturday, R presented us with a gift from local artist in original home ( from Northern Scotland) which she bought on her last trip back in August.  She was also happy to see that it blends in beautifully with my turquoise themes in the bathroom and kitchen.  We are so lucky to have such kind and considerate friends.