Renovations.....FINISHED!!

The kitchen has actually been finished for a couple of weeks now so excuse my tardiness in not showing you earlier.

Not much has been going to the 'normal' routine around here as I had sick kids (yes, plural but not at the same time thank goodness).  Now hubby has caught whatever it was the kids had and is laid up in bed on his days off.  I really hope it bypasses me as he goes back to work in a couple of days and there's no way I'd ever be able to sleep and recover with the kids around.

Anyway...I'll just give you the before and after photos of my new kitchen which I just love, Love, LOVE so much.

Before....

after....

I'm still slowly going through boxes of things in the shed and working out where I want to put everything as well as what I want to get rid of.  Honestly, the amount of stuff I had was just ridiculous and some of it hadn't been used in more than 5 years so it's now gone!

The only thing left to do in the kitchen now is a new blind for the window but that will have to wait awhile as we went a little over budget with the rest of it.

I love it!!

xx Susan

Familiar but so different

This week has been very interesting for me.  

When you are quite a close family like we are, everyone's houses are familiar and very much second homes.  In the case of my parent's house it's probably more familiar than my own home as I was 3 when we moved in and I won't mention how old I was when I finally moved out!

Being the "Mum" in the house (my parents are away on holiday) this week has put a slightly different perspective on things.  I'm the Mum now and my kids and nephews have taken over the role of my sister, brother and myself.  It's very NOISY!

I've been heading outside when I need a bit of quiet time and have just been wandering around the yard looking at Mum's garden.

Mum's always had a garden.  There's lots of easy to look after flowers, the same familiar varieties after all these years.

Summer or Winter there's always something in bloom to add a bit of brightness to the yard.

It wouldn't be Mum's place without some kind of food growing.  It's the middle of winter here so the naval orange tree is bearing some beautiful, juicy fruit.

The vegetable garden is looking a bit bare though but that could be a good thing because I have a little problem remembering to water things.  Hopefully my brother will handle that department as he and his boys will continue housesitting while 'the olds' are away.

Tomorrow is Friday and we will finally be allowed back into our house.  I will head over there early and open the whole place up so it can air out as the polyurethane smell is pretty strong.  

The kids and I have plans for tomorrow to keep us away for as long as possible and then it will be back home.  Hubby wants me to stay here at Mum's for another night just to give the house one more day to air but I'm really ready to be back in my own little box.

This house which was home for me for so long, is now no longer my true home.  Home is with my husband and kids and our own little place where we are our own little family.  

That's what happens when you grow up and it's just how it should be.

xx Susan

Renovations.... almost there

Now for the fun part (for me anyway).

The electricians turned up bright and early on Monday to do all the prep work for my new appliances going in later in the day.  It took them a bit longer than expected as they had a few issues with our old house and old wiring.  

We won't even mention what the poor man under the house had to contend with!

Then the cabinet makers turned up and started to put everything together like a jigsaw.

The baseboards went in first.  All good until they checked the levels and then the job turned into something a bit harder than expected.  I heard the words challenging and engineering feat mentioned at some stage.

Our floors are NOT level it would seem so they had to go away and cut whole new baseboards.  It wouldn't have been such a problem if I wasn't having a dishwasher but because I was, they had to change some things so it would fit in.  In fact they've had to add up to 30ml to the baseboards which makes a difference to the bench height when you are a short person.

Once they got the baseboards right then they could start putting the modules together.

It was nice being able to start to get a view of how it would look with the pantry in the corner where my bench used to be.  I couldn't really visualise it before so it was nice to know that it was actually going to all work.

Then they were able to get the bench top on.  I think there was a bit of a drama with this too but luckily it all worked out.  

It was time to call it a day after that as the reworking of things took up most of it.

But the next day they did come back to finish it off and the electricians fitted my appliances so I was left with a lovely new kitchen to cook in that night.

I now have a proper pantry and a wall oven and lots of lovely shiny new toys of happiness for me.  :)

Of course the plumbing didn't get done that day so Little Miss R took the opportunity to put her hand through the sink because she knew it was the only time she was going to ever be able to do it.

So that's it with the kitchen for now.  

The floors still need to be fine sanded and polished which won't be for another couple of weeks yet.  After that the plumber will come back to put the dishwasher in for me and I've still got to choose some tiles and get the splashbacks done in the kitchen.  

So there is a bit to do but the main part is now done and I can go about the business of working out where I want to put things.  It doesn't all need to be back in straight away so I'm culling things as I go and taking my time to get used to it.

Once it's completely finished I'll show you the final results.  

xx Susan

Renovations.... during - Part 2

Early the next day (after the kitchen had been ripped out), the floor sanders turned up to do their magic.

I'm so glad we got the professionals in and didn't do it ourselves.  I'm not exactly sure if our marriage would have lasted if we did it ourselves!!

I know that Neil (the floor man) was pretty excited when he saw our floor.  In old houses like ours you're pretty well guaranteed it's going to be hardwood floors but he said he's seen them with one whole section dark and a whole section in light wood without them being mixed up.

When you rip up the floors it's pretty well pot luck with how yours was originally made.  We seem to have hit the jackpot with about 4 or 5 different kinds of wood and all mixed nicely in together.

Once the new kitchen is in then the sanders will be back in to finish the job.  They still have to rough sand the lounge room and the front entry way and then they'll fine sand the whole lot and then coat it in the varnish/polish or whatever they call it.

That will take 3 days for them to do that as it needs a day to dry between each coat and it needs 3 coats.  That means we need to be out of the house for a few days so we haven't decided if we'll set the camper trailer up over the back fence in the neighbours yard or if we'll stay at my parents place for a few days.

So until the kitchen's in and the floors are done we're making do and living in other parts of the house.

Our kitchen and lounge room are all currently in the lounge room area.  The dining table, fridge and freezer as well as the microwave are all set up down one end.

The tv is squished into the corner and bean bags are the only comfortable seats in the house right now.

Then to top of that 'sort of camping' feel, I'm having to wash up in a container on the dining table.

I'm also finding that all these renovations are not really that much of an inconvenience.  I thought I'd be stressed by it all but in reality, I've just had to change the way I do a couple of things and they haven't been a problem.

Even cooking hasn't been a problem as we have a microwave, slow cooker and a barbeque.

I'm really glad I thought to take the wire shelves out of my old oven before it got dumped as we took out the hotplates and put the racks in the barbeque.  It worked brilliantly to cook our roast in the other night and once the veges were in, everything cooked very nicely indeed.

More to show you next time.  It will be the exciting part of getting my new kitchen installed although it has not been without a few dramas.

xx Susan

Renovations....during - Part 1

It's gone! 

In a very short amount of time the kitchen was completely ripped out.

Master M was quite fascinated with the process and after watching for a short while ended up getting in and helping.

He made countless trips out to the trailer with lots of sections that got ripped out and then started sweeping up the floor from where there was a bit of mess.

He wasn't asked to do anything, he just got stuck in and helped.

It's all gone now.  No benches, cupboards, shelves, sink or oven.

I am actually amazed at how huge the room seems now.  It's always seemed small, cluttered and cozy but now there's just so much space.  

Once the kitchen was out we had to pack up most of the things in the lounge room and lovely hubby and his cousin carted most of the heavy stuff out to the shed.  (Hubby's cousin's going away for a couple of months so we needed to get everything out while he had a bit of help.)

Then the boys got stuck in and ripped up the rest of the carpet in the lounge room and the old lino in the kitchen.  Ripping it all up wasn't too bad, but getting the staples out of the floor boards was a pretty huge job.

 Then there was a few repairs that needed to be made to the floor which went into the evening as it ended up being a pretty big job.

It wouldn't have been so bad if we had light but the power had been off for most of the day in our whole street then went off unexpectedly again for a couple of hours in the evening, right when the boys needed it.

They did as much as they could by torch light with Master M helping out.

As there was no power, we decided to get Pizza for dinner and ate by candlelight which was quite lovely actually.

Then it was back to work for the boys for a bit longer once we had power again.

We had to finish it off that night as the floor sanding fellas were arriving at 8am the next day!

I'll show you those pictures next time.

xx Susan

Renovation update...before

I've just realised that the last time I wrote about our renovations was when we ripped up the carpet in the kitchen and then a few days later I got my big toenail fully ripped off.

Well things have progressed a little bit.

This is my old kitchen.  (About 30 or so years old..)

Small benches, open shelves which show all the clutter, and then the cupboards which are gradually falling to pieces and leave bits on the floor every day to sweep up.

I've complained about this kitchen A LOT during the past 10 years of living here but I'm now discovering when it's about to be gone that it has truly been an old friend.

It's the first kitchen I've had in a house I've owned.  It's the only kitchen my children have known so it's what they're early memories of food and cooking are about.  Even Master M told me tonight that he will miss this kitchen.

I fully understand as there are a lot of special memories in and around this kitchen.

(An extremely rare sight: a completely empty kitchen)

I'll update you with the progress over the next week or so as everything gets done.  (That's the plan anyway).

xx Susan

Hold the renovations...

We're holding the renovations for a bit because I've ripped off a toenail.

I've shown you the nice view with the bandage & not the actual wound.

Take my word for it, it's not pretty! It's also very sore so I thank my family for their help over the last few days.

This wound has also made me realise that I don't cope too well with open wounds. Who knew that I was such a wuss!!

Xx Susan

Hubby is bored.....

One day last week hubby decided he was hot and bored.

 

We do have quite a hot house, especially the lounge room which faces full west and hubby decided he had a solution.

 

Rip the carpet up!

 

 

Now I can't really complain too much because I've wanted the carpet in the kitchen/dining room gone ever since we moved in nearly 10 years ago (yes we had carpet in the kitchen...ridiculous).

 

The carpet came up easily except we found a layer of old lino underneath.

 

Then another layer of lino underneath that one!

 

He also got half the carpet in the lounge room pulled up too and then remembered that he was going back to work the next day so he'd better fix up what he had done so far to make it safer for the kids and I over the next week (remove nails and staples etc).

 

The house already feels completely different with the little bit that's been done so far and I'm excited about finally getting my polished floors.  It seems to be the original hardwood floor so hopefully it will end up looking really nice.

 

Wish me luck getting him to finish it within the next 5 years!

 

xx Susan