The decorator touch ...

Well, not quite a decorator's touch but I thought it was about time we did something to the front entry hall so I wouldn't have to stare at the blank wall every time I walked in.

Peter and the boys gave me a lovely wrought iron look candle holder for Christmas 2010 which I always had full intentions of putting up in pride of place somewhere in the new house.

The original plan for the front hall was a very big family portrait taken outside in some sort of natural setting with everyone in jeans and T-shirts but as we don't seem to be a very photogenic family (in other words, I hate photos of me and include everyone else in that to make myself feel better!), we decide to put the candle holder up instead.

First, I taped off an area on the wall using painter's tape to see how big of an area it would need and to see whether I actually liked it in that particular spot.

Then it was off to Bunnings to try and decide on a paint colour for the background.  I was leaning towards a green or blue, but Peter reckoned we already had enough of both of those and wanted a bright yellow.  This was the compromise:

A textured paint called toffee... can't remember the brand .. think it's Walpamur. (I still think it looks like baby poo yellow but I'm getting used to it).

I had originally wanted a giant picture frame with the glass removed to be attached to the wall to 'frame' the candle holder but it was very difficult to find one big enough that had the right dimensions.  We ended up buying some moulding from Bunnings, painting it matt black and just nailing it to the wall.

This is probably the truest version of the colour .. my photography/white balance skills aren't good at all.  The whole thing turned out pretty well thanks to my darling hubby's handy skills (and my patching abilities ... sssh!!)

 The background colour may change.  I promised I would give it a while to get used to it but we'll see ... stay tuned!

Woohoo .. we have air con!!

Thanks to my darling mum, we now have ducted reverse cycle air conditioning through the whole house.

After a lot of investigation, I gave Peter a couple of different options and togeether we decided on a system that had the ability to set and maintain a different temperature in each room.  It was advetised as having 'no dump zone' which was a big selling point for me as it meant that there wouldn't be a zone that was on constantly even when not required.

The ceiling vents are the same as those used for evaporative air con which surprised me as I thought refrigerative air con needed different outlets.  Turns out it doesn't .. learn something new all the time.

The compressor unit was put outside our ensuite window to avoid any of the other bedrooms having to put up with the noise.  It's not actually very noisy but we weren't sure and thought better safe than listening to the whingeing!

It's been in for a couple of weeks now and it works well.  I'm a bit scared of what the power bills will be like but we'll just have to wait and see.  Can't be worse than the first one ... $900+!!

Overall I'd say we're happy with it as it doesn't matter if it's humid or just hot, unlike evaporative which only works well in hot, dry weather.

One of the only things I'm not happy with is that I like to feel a breeze .. it makes me feel cooler .. and this system doesn't push that much air through to make a breeze.  It just feels cooler in the room which you notice when you first walk in but after a while, I find I have to turn a fan on to get the air circulating.

The other thing is that although the system was advertised as having 'no dump zone', it actually does have one but they have just called it soemthing different .. pressure relief or something like that.  What that means is that the boys's hallway, which never gets hot due to having no direct sunlight and being on the south side of the house, now gets all the 'excess air' produced when the system is trying to cool any other area.  This makes it colder than the rest of the house with the boys' rooms being even colder than they should be. 

I'm going to try to get the dump zone moved to the front hallway, where it would be better placed but I don't know if they can move it that far from the main unit in the ceiling space and then we'd have to patch the ceiling as well.

On the positive side, at least we have air con!!

An inside update ..

Well we've been here two months and this is what the family room looks like ...

the dining room:

the kitchen:

and worst of all, the home theatre/lounge room:

Must get on to that when I find some spare time ....

Yay! No more hurdles just to get in the front door!

For those who haven't visited the house, this won't make any sense whatsoever.  For those who have, like me, nearly fallen flat on their faces trying to hurdle the toddler stairgate across our front doorway (to keep the dog in), this will be welcome news!

We finally have our crimsafe, clearview security door.  The other added bonus is that I won't be battling the millions of bugs that see the open front door as an open invitation to move in with us every time I try to encourage the beautiful breeze inside to remove some of the trapped heat.  Woohoo .. I'm off the menu for the mozzies!!

Isn't she purdy???

Wardrobe fitout

When we re-arranged the floor plan of the house, we I sacrificed part of the WIR in the master bedroom to make a cupboard/storeroom for Pete and the boys' biking paraphernalia.

As Peter hadn't quite decided how he wanted it set up (and the fact that it would have cost quite a bit extra to set it up the way he thought he wanted), we left it empty with no shelving or rails. 

We also had grand plans for inside the WIR involving built in drawers, shelves and multi height hanging rails that we were going to purchase from Bunnings and install ourselves.  Then reality intervened with the rapid dwindling of available funds, so that plan disappeared as quickly as chocolate does around a woman with PMT me.

As a result, when we moved in, all of my and Peter's clothes on hangers ended up in the guest bedroom, halfway to the other end of the house, which wasn't all that practical when you realise after you step out of the shower that you forgot to gather all your clothes before getting naked. 

In other words, in order to not permanently scar the children's psyches for life by seeing me running from one end of the house to the other while sort of wrapped in a towel, I hassled asked Peter nicely to get on to fixing the issue.

And, bless his little cotton explorer work socks, he did!

Storeroom before

Storeroom after

 

WIR before. 
(Forgive the angle .. this shot was of the tiles but you get the idea.)







WIR during: My side







WIR during:  Peter's side



 

WIR after:  My side ... with hangers!  Woohoo!!



WIR after:  Pete's side .. if you couldn't work it out!



There's still a few minor details to finish off like the trim on the edges, the shelves in the storeroom and the double hanging rail in the WIR but for now he's done a good job. 

I think I'll keep him a while longer, despite the silly faces he pulls in photos ... he's pretty handy around the house when he wants to be!

Moving Day(s)!!

We are finally all moved in, still have boxes everywhere and are sleeping on a mattress on the floor (only Peter and I; the boys put their beds together already!)

There wasn't one single day that was designated as moving day. Peter just kept loading up the trailer and the cars every chance he got over the last few days and then enlisting the help of one or more of the boys to help him unload it all at the other end. It was my job to make sure there were enough things packed and ready to go to be able to fill the trailer and cars whenever he came back to the rental with enough energy to go again.

Thanks to the wonderful friends and family who helped us move all the little bits and especially to Clare and Debbie for unpacking the kitchen so I could find enough pots, pans and plates to cook dinner and keep the troops happy!

Now we just need to work out where to put everything ...

Our first decorating disaster ...

Even though we have the keys, we decided to do a few things to the house before moving in, like sealing all the concrete floors that aren't going to be tiled, put up curtain rods in every room, put up the sunblock curtains I bought on major sale about a year ago that have been sitting in a removalist box for ages, etc, etc, etc.

I was busily sealing the boys' bedroom floors (to keep the dust down) while Pete was busy putting up curtain rods. Off in my own little world, all of sudden I heard Pete yelling for me. Thinking he had hurt himself, I dropped the roller (into the tray of sealant splashing it everywhere, including all over myself!) and ran for the spare room, expecting blood or broken limbs, only to find him nowhere to be seen and a spray of water the size of Old Faithful spewing from the wall.


Seconds later the fountain of water stopped at which point I realised where Peter was .. out the front turning off the mains. (Thank goodness this house only has a 5 metre driveway and not a 35 metre one like the last house!) Pete came back inside and explained that he been happily drilling holes for the curtain rod brackets when all of a sudden, water just started gushing everywhere .. at full mains pressure! The little tiny 6.5mm wide hole pictured below let enough water into the room to soak the whole floor and the pressure was high enough that it hit the opposite wall 4 metres away.

The opposite wall contains the built-in robe with its lovely fibreboard sliding doors and brand new laminate shelving, all of which was thoroughly soaked. We grabbed a stack of old towels that were already at the house (must have known we'd need them!) and dried things up as best we could. Then we sat down and stressed out about how much it was going to cost to fix.

The remaining water after we mopped up

After whingeing for a while about "what a stupid place to put a water pipe" and "how are we going to fix it?", I thought it was worth a shot to call the builder and ask why there was a water pipe in the wall, right where a normal sane person would drill to install a curtain rod bracket. Surprise, surprise, the woman on the other end of the phone agreed it wasn't the brightest of things to have done and arranged for their plumber to contact us to get it fixed.

The plumber's first question when he phoned was "what have you done to my water pipe?" to which I responded "MY water pipe has a neat little hole in it because YOU put it in a very stupid place and now MY spare room has an indoor fountain that we don't want!" He arranged to come and fix it the next day with no mention of who was paying for it so we decided that we would just wait and see if we ended up with a bill in the mail. (Another example of the new mentality of refusing to get stressed over things we couldn't really control).

And, for those who just have to know these things, the curtain rod bracket still isn't in ...