Red Gums and Lorikeets: 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.