Monday, July 27, 2009

As you can see we still have stuff all over the place. The stack in front of the capping includes all the leftover carpet, and a few things that belong in the garage as well as my little old sewing machine and some painting gear that hasn't made it to the garage yet. Dh is working on sorting out the garage atm so these things will be disappearing soon.






Love the splashes of red in the kitchen.



Saturday, July 25, 2009

Clearing and sorting

Clearing out the office continues again today. Last Saturday G put together the 7 bookcases ( 6 for the office and one for the kids area) I spent some time on the weekend putting some books away but there are still many things to find homes for.

You can see there is still a fair way to go.


Inspired by A-M's beautiful things posts I decided to set up a
"special" keepsake from my childhood. I found it stuffed in a box when unpacking more things today. When I was a child my family did not have a lot of money , however we would often go to country Field Day Fairs. On rare occasions when Mum had spending money she would buy a ticket on the "chocolate wheel." (A spinning number wheel) People would buy a ticket and hope it would come up to win prizes. Mum is one of those people I certainly envy, who are frequently lucky at games of chance. And Yes she does quite well when she goes to the casino. :)

Many of my toys as a child came from the chocolate wheels.
My 2 teddies ( big and little Ted) , my rag doll Jane ( long gone), a small tin single room dolls house ( I had no dolls small enough for it but I still loved it) and this barbie sized table setting.
Definitely looking the worse for wear I was absolutely thrilled with it as a small child. It's unfortunately not complete. Several missing small forks (yes it came with large and small forks as well as bread and butter knives, soup and dessert spoons) and one knife, 1 serviette and two missing wine glasses. still not bad for a well loved toy from 40+ years ago. Little Ted has also come on our latest journey. He's quite worn and one of his glass eyes has been theatening to fall out completely for years but I still cart him from home to home.





So does anyone else have things kept from their childhood?

Or am I the only horrendous hoarder amoungst the people who read this blog.
I also have my very special baby doll, "Christina" and a number of my first books. I didn't have many and not having siblings not only were they fairly well looked after by me there were no "others" to wear them out.


Ok back to my usual geeky self as I'm starting to get visions of being smothered in pink taffeta and lace. arghhhhh... No idea why as I never had anything like that to wear in my childhood.


Our network cables already starting to look tangled in the office. I guess I'll have to sort these out properly some time soon.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

wine rack




Bought myself a small 4 x 3 wine rack rta thingy. a reputable darn thing I'd seen in Howards storage world. But it seems this week is not my week to partake of building challenges. It took me ages to assemble a cheap mini computer desk on Monday and then just this afternoon I decided I'd assemble the wine rack I'd purchased. well one slightly grazed, turned into 2 bloodied fingers and a nice painful blood bruise/blister on the tip of my index finger later. oh the frustration as I tried to get the little metal strips to go into the precut gaps. Hmm I should have stuck with a wooden rack. It did suggest a mallet to help. well it certainly helped me. lose all feeling in the tip of my finger anyway. and some blood. :)

:( maybe I'm meant to just drink any wine I have/buy/get given and not store it.!!!!!!

buyer beware. Bordex wine rack... http://www.australia.bordexwineracks.com/

bugger it I'm going to go and make a start on drinking my wines right now!

Kicking on








Our terracotta warrior man didn't survive themoving journey but thankfully our buddah did.

It's been a busy half week. Hubby and I both had birthdays. We've still got a mound of boxes in the office but this will hopefully begin to change soon.

I really was keen to get Billy bookcases in the black/brown colour , trouble was the cost to get Ikea to deliver them was well over $300 or a private random moonlighting removalist at least $150 to do the same. Anyway we went to the local Officeworks to check out their filing cabinets and to take another look at their bookcases. I'd previously only seen the 1800 height ones in dark colours but wanted to double check. Found they had some very ordinary "cherry" bookcases in the 2020 size i was looking for for $30 less than the lovely ikea ones I had my heart set on. Decided on the budget SOHO filing cabinets they had but they only had them in grey and I was keen to continue my black/dark brown theme in the office. Discovered they had some timber look ones for an extra $9 each, much more attractive than the grey ones and these could be delivered. Long and short of the story is I rang the 1300 number and ended up ordering 7 bookcases in the cherry ( grimace) and 2 filing cabinets. WAIT FOR IT!!!!!!!

I ordered at 9am Monday morning and yesterday ( Tuesday) at 10.30 a big yellow delivery van rolled up with 2 4 drawer filing cabinets and all the shelving for the 7 bookcases, backs and sides to come today. AND!!!!!!! delivery was $44! So it seems the office will be cherry/ black-brown now. oh well. I've saved around $500. Couldn't resist the bargain. We'll be very busy putting all these together.

More wins. The local ( 35kms away) Crazy Clarkes, ( Super cheap discount store) had black trestle tables 2m in length. 30% off. So I bought 2 and got someone we know locally to pick them up for us for basically the cost of fuel. :) so for $110 including delivery cost we now have a 4 m work bench area in the office. ATM it's covered with items but eventually there will be shelving above the 2nd bench to hold all my wiring, cables, spare hd's and equipment. Very pleased with this.

Delighted to report our broadband is back on. Was very worried as there were only 3 spare ports. One of the reasons I was happy to move to this town( it was one of the criteria) was that broadband was available so I would have been gutted to not have been able to access it.

Picked up my sewing machine yesterday after it was given a service so I should be able to make up the curtains for our bedroom. Yippee. Hubby spent Monday putting up a retractable clothes line in the garage and 6 curtain rods and rails. Even without curtians on the ones in our bedroom and the lounge the rooms somehow seem more finished.

These are the cushions we found for the couch. We looked at suede type cushions but felt the cushions needed to be a different texture to the couch as they just looked lost. I couldn't find anything with embroidery we liked and then saw these. Simple ones in colours that suited.
Kitchen handle pictures for a H1 forumite.
Our office and minor bedroom carpet. It's actually a deep charcoal colour but looks lighter here.
This is the carpet in the lounge and main bedroom. It's a deep chocolate colour. The flash has washed it out.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

SCARY PHOTOS


NOW YOU CAN SEE WHAT I MEANT ABOUT BOX HORROR. This is one side of the office. Luckily there are not boxes anywhere else other than the office apart from some empty ones flat packed ready to go behind a couch and some picture boxes still with pictures in them waiting for a home. This is 1/2 of the box mound in the office. Unfortunately the 'mound will have to stay until I can get some Billy bookcases from Ikea.
Below is part of the office we have started to sort out.


A couple of other quick photos.

We're here

Still no photos as We are buried in boxes and to be honest I don't

even know where a cable is to download photos to the computer from

phone or camera. Not sure where camera is either. I was much more

organised with the last move 19 months ago.


House is looking good. Had the Site supervisor call in yesterday to

see if we were happy so we could sign off and be on track for the 4

month inspection. We were discussing things we've noticed and I

pointed out a nail in the pantry that had never been hammered in and

he spotted that the pantry ceiling has only had one coat. He also

wasn;t happy with the ceiling coating in the main living area and

will be getting the painters back to redo this.
We've had our flywire doors installed and a couple of window sliders

straightened up. One is still a little loose. It seems someone put a

rivet in the wrong place. The window is ok but not perfect and they

are willing to fix it. Unfortunately the fix would mean pulling the

entire frame out of the wall so We've opted to leave it as is.

G in particular is getting a bit of an extra spark out of living

here. We have an electric current surprise when we shower\ He

describes it as like putting your tongue on a 9volt battery.

Happens when he touches the taps in the shower. Not sure if its a

static thing or earthing thing. Electrician has been back. He's

put in an extra earthing point thing. ( no idea of the proper name,

sorry) He's tested all the wiring and said whatever is causing it

is so low a current reading doesn't show up on his metres which

means its below 1 something...He tested every point in the house

and our surge protectors. . Western power want him to run a couple

more tests next week incase it is feedback from the house down the

road. He did tell us it's something that although not that common it

is more common on properties with a lot of rock like ours.

Finally got the rental cleaned and finished off last night. G has

one more trip there today to empty the last things out of the shed

and we need to return the keys at 9 this morning and then that is

all done.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

carpets



Now that the paint has had time to dry it looks much nicer and lighter. The "flokati" above looks more grey as does the" igloo" in the main bedroom and lounge. Though with the new carpet being a deep chocolate/charcoal in main bedroom and lounge it might look brown again. I wonder how the folkati will go with the almsot black/charcoal carpet. Will have to wait and see.


Tested out the shower in the main bathroom at the new house this morning. It was really cold here again this morning and I'm completely fed up with cold showers here as the hot water system is useless in winter. Unfortunately it's been so overcast and raining and grey here the water wasn't much hotter through the Solar HW system at the new house as I didn't have time for the electric booster to kick in. BUT with the IXL heater running when I stepped out of the shower the rooms was lovely and slightly warm so it wasn't the horrd experience that it is here. Definitely returning tomorrow morning.

Carpets are a coming...
All the underlay has now been installed and the lounge and main bedroom carpet is down but not cut or fixed. I can see the carpet in our bedroom has been joined.

This late at night the carpet looks a deep chocolate colour but it's actually more a deep charcoal. Hmm photos look shocking so I won't upload them as I took them with my mobile and the light was terrible. I've noticed we have the triple hook/nail metal edging in door ways
and the basic double wooden edging on most edges of the rooms. though in one section of the office ( midway) they've done 2 rows of battens.
hehe DH got asked today how come we'd requested a power stretcher and how did we even know of them. :) Our carpet layer has been laying carpet for 30 years and he made the comment that it saves so much on his knees now he's getting older. (i noticed he also has a kicker) Went up to peek tonight after 6 and spotted a range of implements. he was quite impressed that Dh's wife ( me)had been on a forum and had heard about power stretchers from "tradies" that obviously "know their stuff". ( his phrase)and that visit the forum. I'm not sure the guy was too in the know with "the web' Hubby said he looked a bit overwhelmed when he mentioned that I'd read about them online.