Christmas, doors, tiles etc

We have been busy.... no really....... In a bid to beat the summer holiday shut down I've been chasing up the tile order. And many phone calls later the remaining floor and wall tiles finally arrived at a depot somewhere in Naracoorte. We had been promised a call to let us know which depot... another call to the Tile Shop later and Rick and Dora (large trailer attached) were on their way to collect three pallet loads of tiles, glue and grouting.

We took delivery of a 216 litre chest freezer and could at last give Deb and Roberts little freezer back to them. Huge thank you to them for the loan. But in the unpacking we realised it had been delivered with a huge dent around the motor area! A call to the shop and short discussion later and a 'new' freezer, slightly smaller but a better quality was promised the next day. Perfect timing.... we were so lucky.

I've been busy rubbing down doors, yes still the same door.... I am learning as I am going and hopefully it will be perfect by the time I finish it. We are both hoping the other 10 won't take as long as this one!!

And while on the subject of doors. There was a rumour going around that our front door had arrived. But so far that is only a rumour, we haven't seen it yet, and there is still no sign of the replacement back door. 

Rick has been busy repairing his 'new' ride on mower. It was a joy to see his serene expression when he took it for a spin around the block. I think it still needs replacement blades before the grass and bracken need to worry.

Well Christmas was on us before we knew it, so the house and Stringy Bark were duly decked. Barbies dusted down in preparation for an Xmas celebration with our Rellies. Our very first meal in our new home.

Home made star from gum tree twigs

Decking the Stringy Bark Tree

3 Barbies at the ready

Baxter with the bone we gave to Fred

Fred chilled and happy

 

As my dear old Dad would have said. Today is the day when if you look carefully you will see a man with as many noses on his face as there are days left in the year!

So here we are on the last day of the old year and finally have been able to start to tiling. Yay......

And then discovered we don't have the trim to finish the top layer of tiles!! Our local hardware store to the rescue, not only have they lent us a really large tile cutter for the floor tiles BUT will order the trim for us at half the cost the tile shop would have charged us.

Just two tiles left to cut and I can grout this area ready for a plumber to come and fit our loo. We will be so close to moving in then. VERY EXCITING.









Wishing everyone who kindly reads this blog a truly happy and healthy new year, full of joy and dreams coming true. Have fun

Doors, Dates and the art of stripping!

Feeling a wee bit like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland this week..... or has it been two since I last updated the blog?!!

Lots has been happening at the block and here in Naracoorte. To start with the first time I've heard Christmas music in the shops was the 1st December. How good is that. It took me back to childhood years when Christmas excitement started in December.

On the 5th December the Christmas Parade was held, something I've never seen, I've still not seen one as somehow we ended up in it!

The Historical Vehicle Club lead the parade.... so Landy was dusted off, wheels painted, tyres blackened and tastefully decorated with tinsel and banners.  I'll leave the photo's to tell some of the story

Us in Landy with our borrowed reindeer in the boot (many thanks to Deb and Robert for the loan). Fred was brilliant and really enjoyed the attention and all the little people on route, he even kept his antlers on. The best bit for him and funniest bit for all of us was when the emergency services vehicles let their sirens off. Fred just can't resist a good siren and to have all of them going at once was far to much. he threw back his head and howled for all he was worth, much to the amusement of everyone.

Birthday

Was one lovely surprise after another. I had no idea what was going on and convinced we would be dining on fish and chips and something sparkling (a cold cider perhaps). I asked Rick for a hint on what to wear and decided to ignore the slightly dodgy advice of wellies, I am glad I did.
Deb had gone to a great deal of effort making a whole host of gluten and lactose free goodies, including a birthday cake and she had invited the whole of the spinning group over for a morning coffee celebration. It was fantastic, they had all kept it a secret.

Rick arrived back about mid day with Fred (it was a ladies only do) and whisked me away for lunch. We went to the next town, Penola, to have lunch at one of the winerys. The winery is a little way off the highway, and the restaurant on a mezzanine floor with a large wall of glass which gave us fantastic views over the vineyards. All the food was locally sourced as of course was the wine. Each plate of food had it's own suggestion of wine to compliment it and very sensibly they offered it from a 1/2 wine glass up to a bottle, realising that most people would probably have to drive. It was a wonderful experience and with very round tummies and that lovely contented glow about us we finally went home. Certainly no room left for fish and chips.

A huge thank you to every one for making my birthday such a special one this year, it was amazing.

House news
Before I get carried away with more tales of the unexpected I'd better report on whats new on the block........

Well the electricians have been busy fixing the LED down lights, various extractor fans, heating lamps in the bathrooms, wall sockets and outside lights. It looks great. Only slight challenge came when we realised they needed to have access to the bedrooms all my 'things' are currently stored in. Lots of moving of boxes later (thank you Rick) and the job was done. We're now awaiting the kitchen to be fitted, cooker and ceiling fans to arrive and they'll be back to finish off. With any luck this will all happen before Christmas... this year!

After a couple of phone calls I managed to get a date for when the kitchen will be fitted. I am told it will be the week commencing 15th December... yeay.... and then realised it would be best I also arranged for delivery of the cooker, dishwasher etc to coincide. A quick phone call to my friend Jess and all done, expected delivery to be 11th December.

The tiles
I've learnt that because one person is really switched on to your tiling needs it doesn't necessarily follow that the rest of the team are. It has taken about a week of persistence and phones calls to get the 'final' tile quote and to feel comfortable about placing the order and yes this time we have ordered glue, infact I think I got a wee bit obsessive and mentioned it several times. It really does not pay to assume but now the order has been placed and should arrive this Friday or may be Monday anyway it will be before Christmas and before the holiday shut down.

The lads turned up on Tuesday to tile the wet areas, my goodness what a job that is as the tiles have to be cut for the two drain holes we have in the ensuite. It took John a day to do that room and he has drawn out the area to tile in the bathroom. He has done a great job and it does look good... another step closer. It was a sound decision to ask them to do those bits for us the rest of the house should be far more straight forward.

Paving
Rick has been working like a demon on leveling and paving the verandah, it is looking fantastic.

Doors
Now there is a saga. The laundry door has been in stock for a couple of weeks and this week the lads arrived to fit it. Luckily Rick went to have a look just before they cut the holes in the door for the handles etc and much to his horror found it was green!! What happened to our Maple back door is a mystery,so now the chance of having a back door this year are very slim.

There is still no sign of the front door so I have reached the conclusion they are probably still growing the tree, being a Blackwood it is slow growing! Good job we've not been holding our breath

The internal doors
Have been another learning curve. I have learnt that water based paint can not be used over oil based paint. This can be tested with meths, wipe over a small area and if you get a show on the cloth it is a water based paint. Some bright spark had painted the doors with water based paint over the original oil based paint... hay ho. Much rubbing down later and I was ready to paint, and soon realised it is extremely difficult to get a smooth finish with a brush. A sponge roller seemed to be the way forward and far less messy. I waited the allotted two hours before applying the second coat but didn't take in to account the climbing temperature, which happened to be over 35c when the second coat went on. As the paint dried it cracked... what a mess.

A visit to the veggie patch (a much needed very calming place to be) later and I decided I needed to give the doors more thought. As the weather was due to be very warm over the next few days painting would be a waste of effort.

The local news paper declared a couple of auctions were due to take place at the weekend. The first one we missed but managed to arrive early for the second one and found 6 fantastic old doors amongst the treasures on offer. Rick is good at bidding and managed to pick up a concrete mixer for $10 (something he has apparently wanted for a while now) and the doors for a real bargain price of $62.

Further investigation and a quick chat to a local guitar maker (who was also at the auction) and we found they were not only in good nick but made of Red Cedar and were solid. And then we found three of them had beautiful copper plates (can't remember the proper word) but no locks or door handles. The local guitar maker said he needed to clear out his shed and he reckoned he had all the things we needed to finish the doors off and we'd be doing him a favour by taking them. Fantastic

Oh what joy I've been having stripping the doors back and some challenges. Starting off by using the heat gun to remove the paint. Which was fantastic until I hit the layers of Shellac which is the stickiest stuff ever and messy or what. The heat gun and scraper were just spreading the stuff around and I needed a different tactic.

So I consulted my stripping expert and oracle, Deb, meths seemed to be the way forward. It is still messy but at least the sticky stuff is coming off and revealing the beautifully grained red cedar underneath. A darn sight more interesting and joyful to do than working on the other doors.

Now these doors are a different size to the allocated gaps but as Rick is making up the door frames they can be made them to suit the doors. Deep joy and many zipperdeedodahs.....

Landscaping... the Aussie way

The week started with another trip to The Mount... I think Dora now knows the way without Rick at the steering wheel. This time to collect the Ensuite and bathroom floor tiles, trim, glue etc not forgetting to also pick up the wood laminate flooring for the ‘guests wing’. What we didn't manage to pick up and didn't realise till we were back home was the glue! No matter as it turned out... we had a wee bit of prep to do before the tiling stage.

Rick was given a lesson in Tanking - waterproofing the wet areas for the uninitiated. It turned out to be a really messy job. The green waterproofing was extremely sticky, stuck to everything it should and shouldn't have. One coat of the green sticky stuff and a thin layer of something which looked like a very large loo roll, followed by another coat of the very sticky green stuff. YUK. Poor Rick ended up looking like Fungus The Bogeyman by the end of the day, green sticky stuff everywhere. I think we are both glad I didn't do the job!

So now the Buildings Inspector needs to come and inspect and then hopefully we will then be able to start the tiling. Once that bit is done we can hopefully get the toilets fitted... so close then to being able to move in. 

Landscaping Aussie Style - Tuesday was landscaping day…. Aussie style.  Another early start at the block to greet Robert with his 23 tonne digger… which to start with looked a little alarming to say the least.  But fears were soon allayed when we saw the skill he used..... I reckon he could probably crack an egg with that digger without smashing it to pieces. Very quickly twin peaks disappeared, the rubble and rocks moved and crushed to level off the area in front of the house and the drive. We were previously told the rock would be far to lumpy for us to use but the 23 tonne digger in Roberts hands made very light work of it.

It is very exciting to be able to stand in the laundry and bedrooms that side of the house and see our neighbours sheep AND the veggie patch. 

Sadly the much anticipated arrival of the front and back doors has still not happened, apparently the back door is in but the front door has yet to arrive. So glad we are not holding our breathes!

It will all happen I guess in the fullness of time but I really wish at times the fullness of time would happen sooner rather than later... patience.......

Painting, Paving and Packing.....

Well I think it is probably fair to say that we are now well and truly over any excitement we had felt as far as painting is concerned. On a positive note climbing up and down steps does tone up the gluts very well and wielding a paint roller also helps tone up the bat wings! And it is really good to see most of it done now meaning we can go onto other things.

Our Inner Students have been honoured with our paint colour selection... not everybodys choice. But then I think its probably the first time either of us have been able to use REAL colour... so we've joyfully embraced it....

Colbalt blue called Rhapsody in the en-suite

Radiant Red in Bedroom 1

A real turquoise in the bathroom

And in the toilet a very vibrant yellow called Sundawn. Which is a tad brighter than we thought it was going to be and possibly a wee bit more orange. Most people carry sun glasses here so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

It did seem to take an age and endless sample pots to reach this choice of colours and we are hoping not to have to do much painting the future so hopefully we will grow to love it. We'll see......

We've not yet taken delivery of our external doors... though I am sure they will be VERY special when they do finally arrive. There is a rumour going around that may happen next week.... hmmmm.

The next job tackled is the verandah paving. Which will help keep being blasted by the sand when the westerly winds blow to a minimum. We had all the pavers and a tonne of paving sand ready for us to find the time to crack on with it. Which we finally managed to do to find the tonne of paving sand was only just enough to lay the bedroom verandah! Hay ho.... Deb and Robert arrived just in time to find us puzzling over how to finish the edge. They had just enough spare half pavers (as you would) for us to finish the job perfectly and kindly donated them. I think it looks great.

Huge excitement in the camp when we had 10ml of rain the other day, which was fantastic with a promise of more to come. With that thought in mind Rick has now rigged up another part of the roof to channel into our rain water tank.

The landscaping chaps are due out next week to lower the level the area the east side of the house.... at last. Which means our water tank will finally be at the right level to be properly hooked up to our roof. Fingers crossed we will then have constant rain for at least one week.

The landscape chaps will also use some of the rock and clay dug out of the water tank hole to level the carport and the area at the front.of the house. Any spare will be dumped in a neighbours field up the road. He does know about it and is keen to make another jump for his motorbike course.

AND we have also started to move our 'stuff' onto the block, which will hopefully make it less of a trauma when the final move happens.

The wet area tiles are in stock so we're off to the Mount tomorrow to collect everything ready for a tiling lesson which will also hopefully happen this week. A busy week in the making.

The Casterton Show

By way of a change from 'house work' we took ourselves off to Casterton the home of the Kelpie for their annual festival. It was different to the Naracoorte one, more of an emphasis on the funfair side rather than crafts and rural skills. But we did manage to find quite a few things to interest us... starting with this lovely Landy.... which we managed to leave behind

A keen Kelpie working the sheep, fantastic to watch their skills

All day there was the threat of rain and thunder rolling around the Casterton hill tops and then finally the heavens opened. Very impressive rain for about 15 minutes then the sun came out again, it is very polite rain here!

A sign in Catestertons Kelpie Kafe, great food and lovely people

It were a grand day out, as Wallace would say and rounded off by a visit to a dear little nursery who were selling some very reasonably priced Quince trees. Resistance was futile so we've another fruit tree in our ever growing collection.

Just two more photo's to finish.

A Jacobean Lily also known as a Poor mans Orchid

I was recently given a whole load of plants, cuttings and bulbs and was delighted to find one of the flowering.

A very happy Fred with the biggest marrow bone I have ever seen. When we took it around to Deb and Roberts for him Fred did a little dance of excitement, really funny to see.
Happiness is.....

Painting and Removalists

No guesses for what we've been doing over the last couple of weeks.....painting... painting and yet more painting. I think we are getting better with our accuracy as most paint, these days, seems to be going where we're aiming it.

I think it was quite telling about the states of our minds when we realised just how excited we were getting about actually putting some colour on the walls! It is a strange thing painting in white, a real challenge trying to make sure nothing is missed and incredible just how many shades of white there are. Of course the missed bits only show when the paints dry and all the brushes/ rollers etc are washed and put away. Just the bathroom and shower areas left to do with the especially formulated wet area paint. But first, I think mainly for the sake of our sanity, we had to use some colour. The colour we chose for most of the walls is a very gentle creamy colour called Soothing Balm. It reminds me of clotted cream teas from Cornwall... happy days... and it is indeed soothing. There will be more colours in the rooms soon once the right ones are chosen.

Chatting to one to the local paint experts whilst on a recent paint hunting expedition he told us back in 1947 the colour chart of a popular paint manufacturers held only a choice of 7. It is a tad different now and mind boggling.......

Once all the painting for all but bedrooms 2 and 3 is done we'll have the pavers to lay, which will hopefully be this weeks job done.

The builders are going to line the showers and cut the tiles for the wet areas. After a quick floor tile laying lesson it'll then be down to us to tank, lay the tiles and waterproof everything.

AND there is a rumour that our front and back doors will arrive next week.... yippperdeedodah...

We did take a wee bit of time out every now and then, I have headed off to the veggie patch, things to harvest and also not wanting to miss the planting season. Everything seems to be growing at a massive rate of knots.... I will never cease to be amazed. I've put in more peas and they have already started to pod. The runner beans needed harvesting, I noticed flowers were starting to come again on the new stems, so I've cut them back to see if I can get a longer growing season from them.

It's also time to harvest the, parsnips, shallots and garlic. Our first Strawberry was of course delicious, hopefully there will be more to follow soon. Rick has kindly rigged up a chicken wire protector for them to keep the birds off but I've also got to keep an eye out for lizards. Another first for me. The Sweet Peas are amazingly still going strong, I am loath to take them out till they are well and truly finished. Tomatoes are forming but the Basil and Thyme haven't fared so well. And the potatoes are going great guns, it'll be great if we managed to get a crop by Xmas.


Rick's time out has been working with the 1960's International tractor. Shifting some of the large rocks and trying to level out the ground, which has been churned up by all the large building machinery.

A zen moment

The tractor is quite a character and to me sounds very much like a happy traction engine chugging along. A great little work horse which needs a bit of loving when we (Rick) has a wee bit more time.

The best bit

For me anyway was getting the call to say my goods and chattels will at last be arriving in Naracoorte Sunday evening. The removalists would like to unload first thing... which turned out to be 7 am Monday morning. Keen or what. Slightly bleary eyed but extremely excited we arrived at the block and didn't have long to wait before hearing the sounds of a large lorry approaching.

Before they started unloading Deb and Fred arrived to very kindly lend a hand. Fred was just excited to be there. I did feel a bit of a Princess to watch the four of them (Fred not included in this) toiling up the hill with some pretty hefty loads. It was my job to tick off the boxes (173 all numbered) and direct them into hopefully some sort of 'easy to understand later' type of order. As far as I can tell all is present and correct. 

To think the journey it has all been on from almost two years in store to a massive journey half way around the world involving two huge container ships, fumigation and everything to arrive here. So far I've found just one garden pot was broken. All the things we need to use at the moment like Mum's decorating things, ladders etc were strangely the first things I have found and unpacked. Amazing.

Slowly making the house our home

We are well and truly into painting the interior now, thankfully there is nothing for us to paint on the exterior of the house. Bedrooms 2 and 3 are ready for their final coat of wall paint, once the colours have been chosen. As the white undercoat is going on the grey gyproc walls and ceiling the rooms seem to be growing again in size. We are still amazed how we have ended up with such a large home! Not complaining mind just pleasantly surprised.

As much as neither of us really like painting it has to be said that an empty house with only a concrete floor is fantastic to paint. It doesn't matter how much mess you make as long as you can get most of the paint where you were aiming it. Deb very kindly lent us the stirrer attachment for the drill and a neighbour lent us the huge roller and bucket, lots of area covered in no time. The biggest challenge we have is remembering how many coats of which paint we've done and where!

The week started with a surprise visit from some Queensland friends who, after a trip to Perth were slowly making their way back home. Very soon after our pavers arrived for the verandahs, which our visitors kindly helped us unload.... the jobs are mounting up.

Rick discovered a hole in Dora's fuel tank, thankfully it wasn't during a long trip. So he's going to have a go at repairing it with fibre glass and special anti rust paint. 

And with a threat of some decent rain fall, we (term used loosely) rigged up a make shift storm pipe from the roof to our water tank, hopefully we'll be able to capture some water.
The top of this tank needs to be above the ground but the costs of hiring the crane to lift it again are prohibitive. So the idea now is the whole area between the house and the tank will be landscaped and slightly lowered. They will also tackle the two huge mounds of stone, which came out of the hole. The largest stones will be set aside for use later and hopefully the rest will be used to make the level of the ground right for the carport and entrance. Any left over can hopefully be used as the base for the CFS (Country Fire Service) road we have to put in. All this will hopefully happen very shortly.

We had another trip to the Mount to order the wood laminate flooring for the spare bedrooms. Went back to the most helpful tile shop for another chat, collected more tile samples and organised a quote. And collected more paint and more colour samples. A very time efficient trip.

The kitchen has now been ordered, I finally made my mind up on the type of door covering to have and the type of work bench. Having said all along I didn't want a dark work top that is just what I've ended up with. Funny how things work out.

In the middle of all this activity was the 'once a month' spinning day. It turned out to be an amazing day. Following on from the Naracoorte show we ended up with 14 spinners and learner spinners turning up. Another bonus (which I had completely forgotten about) was the Textile Artist. A lady we met at the show had promised to bring in her collection of dyed yarns and fleece, all the colours of the rainbow. She was moving to Queensland and it was time for a change in medium, she was swapping to paint and wanted to pass on her treasures to us. She was such a generous soul and gave quite a bit of it away. The car was loaded to the gunnels with bags and bags of multicoloured treasures to spin. Deep joy.....

And finally
Our lovely friends Graham and Jenny dusted off their 1948 Rover and invited us along for a picnic to an off the beaten track homestead. It was an event organised by the Historical Vehicle Club for the South Australian and Victorian Riley Club gathering and hosted by the owners of Woolmit Farm.

This was the original three room kitchen. Always built away from the main house in case of a fire.

 The back entrance to the main house, which we weren't allowed into. Path was lined with lavender plants and the roses around the arch had a fantastic old world scent. Beautiful.

Main house, front door flanked by two citrus trees

Think this could be the wash house, needing a lot of TLC, but had still got the original slate tiles

The shearing shed still in use

Raised above the ground for free flow of air to dry any soggy sheep before shearing

The bale press

The other reason we were there

A 21 Riley salute