New Dishes

Another year, another hope that I will make something of this blog and actually record my very quiet but somehow full life. I live a small life, defined by my daughter's disability and her care, but I like my life, despite or maybe because of the pace of it. I am, in some ways, one of the lucky ones. I get to stay at home and do gardening, cooking, sewing, cat patting, reading, furniture restoration and such things, even if it is interspersed with drama not of my choosing. My sister is always so busy, there's so much crammed into her days it makes my head spin. I get to take it slower, which I really appreciate. 

I am going through all my old recipe books, the many collected snippets from magazines or friends and family, supermarket magazines, website downloads, etc - all those things that look good, but just get filed for "one day". I am typing up the ones I love, and the ones I am pretty sure I will actually make, (and not the ones that look good but I'm not really going to do). I'm planning on ditching all the snippets and books and magazines and printouts, and only have the ones I will make. This all started a while ago and it's very time consuming, also, daunting.... I confess I have a ridiculous amount of the things here! But slowly, the new recipe book is coming together, gathered from all corners and mostly without knowing the original writer anymore. One of the twists of this all, is converting the recipes to be gluten free, dairy free, nut free and low-ish fat, for our various sensitivities as I go. Yay us, we are SO easy to feed, lol!

And, just for fun, this year I plan on making at least one new recipe every week. I'm ahead this week, with two brand new ones tried already - and both SO delicious they are firmly in the "make often" category. Yesterday I made a tuna and pasta dish and tonight a beetroot and sausage dish. Yeah, maybe not the most exciting sounding things, but they were both really delicious! My husband might even have moaned a little with delight. I like that. 

Maybe tomorrow I'll try a new cake. 

love Heather x 

Small Changes

Do you ever have years where you really do want to start over, turn a new leaf, make changes? We seem to be obliged to make New Year Resolutions, to think up meaningful changes to make and things to do at the beginning of each year, as if the turning world cares that we have put a date on our efforts.

A few years ago I decided to cut myself some slack and just stop making those doomed resolutions. You can't necessarily decide that you will do X by such and such a time, turn into someone completely different and you're a disgusting failure if you don't. Stuff happens that puts a stop to our own desires sometimes, or circumstances lead us in a different direction altogether. Anyway, that kind of pressure leads to a kind of madness. Certainly a sadness that can run soul deep. I for one don't need that kind of pressure - staying upright is good enough some days.

But there is something about new years, new months, new weeks and even new days, that make us want to try again for something better. How many Monday mornings begin all over the world with another crack at a diet? As ever, the trick is to be kind to ourselves. Want to change? Do it because you want to, not because it's a particular day or date or someone else thinks you should. And don't hate on yourself if you don't get there.

Make those changes without an agenda of built in failure - if you're hungry on Wednesday afternoon, eat something and keep going with your new plan.... don't wait till next Monday to start again, just keep going. Eventually it will pay off. Maybe you won't wake up tomorrow as skinny as a pencil, but eventually that dress you love will fit again.

Who CARES how long it takes? So what if it takes a year to de-clutter your house, instead of Ms Perfect's online plan of decluttering in 3 easy steps one weekend! And if it takes you 6 months instead of 6 weeks to learn a new skill, you will still have that new skill in the end. You still have the right to feel good about it.

The point is that we can make changes that suits us better, to live the life we want to, and in the process of doing it in our own time and at our own pace, we learn something about ourselves, something important. And we may even enjoy the process, grow stronger, connect with our inner being and inner peace. Changes will be more significant, more lasting, deeper seated.

Last year I thought I was going to be able to do various big things with my life that I hadn't been able to do for years, now that my daughter was settled into a new routine, with things of her own to do (she has a disability and suffers also with depression and anxiety so I am on call a lot). However it didn't work out that way, because my son broke his hand in the first week in January and had to come home to live and be looked after. He was pretty much good to go back to work in May when he broke his foot.

...Insert look of stoicism mingled with frustration, with a side order of deer in the headlights... 

Add to that the house being renovated at a pace that wasn't in keeping with my hopes for various reasons, and... yeah, my life wasn't mine, or even vaguely on track, let alone terrific and I wasn't getting anywhere with my hopes. Doesn't mean I didn't get things done, just not quite the ones I had in mind.

And it lasted all year. Honestly, I felt really down for at least half the year, and I could barely function towards the end of the year. I seemed to be on crawl-mode.

But then something happened at the turn of the year... I woke up in 2018 with a renewed feeling of purpose and vigour (and a stomach bug but lets not go there...) and I knew that now felt right for me to move forward again. Maybe the start of a new year is a significant thing after all, and not just another day of spinning in space.

But I'm not going at it like a zealot. I'm just not interested in any kind of punishing routine, lists that must be crossed off, or fear-driven pushiness. Nah, I'm just injecting a little more purpose into some of the things I do, that will make those small steps towards a better life and a better me.

I don't need to be electrically charged to declutter a shelf, I am happy to enjoy the process of taking everything off the shelf, dusting and rearranging things back nicely onto the shelf, with one or two things not going back, because I don't need them after all. Then I can stand back and enjoy the new arrangement, and the things I've kept look that little bit better.

Maybe next time something else won't go back... maybe not. I don't mind, it's all just a process of slow loving, and it feels really good. I can let go with a light heart, knowing that someone else will think this is a treasure they found at the charity shop. How good is that? What a great feeling of freedom! I get closer to being surrounded by things I really love and it isn't frenzied or mean to myself. I can honour the fact that it used to be important without blaming myself for having it. I feel that sometimes decluttering gurus make us feel judged for even wanting "stuff". Bah, it's normal! Humans have been keeping stuff forever.

One of the things I'm decluttering is cook books. I think I've had a bit of a love affair with the endless possibilities in cook books for most of my life. But lately, it feels like I just don't need them any more. Something to do with getting older maybe, and having settled into a cooking style or something... I find I barely even look at the books. But I know there are some good recipes in there - there's at least one excellent recipe in each one!

I am slowly making my way through them, typing out the good recipes and then just letting the book go. I am making my own file of recipes I plan to actually try one day, or have tried and know to be good, and being a damn sight more realistic about what I'm likely to do.

I just don't personally want the weight of them in my life anymore. So instead of beating myself up about the number of books I have, or the size of the stack of free recipe magazines from the supermarket that have accumulated, I have looked on it as an adventure, a hunt for hidden gems. The fact that the books are going is almost incidental, because I have found that I'm focusing on the positive aspect rather than the decluttering experience.

I'm not sure that there will ever be a point in time when I step back and say I'm done. I think it's just an ongoing thing... and that's OK. If everything is done, and there's nothing left to improve or enjoy, no process left un-explored, then isn't life done too? Life is a process, whatever we are doing - getting healthier, renovating, relationships, decluttering, saving for something, getting better, slowing down, growing up. Accepting the process is sometimes the hardest part.

love Heather x

"In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you." Buddha

Doing the Dressing Table

I am a woman (apparently mature) who has never had a dressing table. Sure I've had chests of drawers and bedside cabinets and tables, but I've always hankered after a dressing table, with a mirror. Somewhere to check my hair, a place to put the crystal dressing table set my Aunty Marcie gave me, and decorate with a vase of fresh flowers from the garden.

Last year, my sister and I went on a road trip to see our old Aunties, precious women we just don't get to see often enough, because, well... scattered families. We live a long way away from each other. We had a lovely time with them, not rushed, staying for several days with each, before heading to see our brothers and then Mum & Dad on the way home. A big old loop of a journey, with lots of sister time chatting. It was great.

We saw some beautiful country. We both love the mountains and hills of Australia, and the particular bush and trees of the Great Dividing Range. It was winter, so not very green, but beautiful anyway.

My sister Karen with our Aunty Betty. They were talking about the joys of Pinterest. 

Aunty Betty is 94 and loves both her tablet and Pinterest!  

Me with Aunty Marcia. She's not very well, but nobody knew just how unwell until this visit. 

Anyway, after the Aunties, we went on to visit our brothers. One of my brothers had this old oak dressing table in his garage - not like him, as they are not into older style furniture. I asked him about it, and he said it was his sister in law's and they just needed to get it to her. Well, since we were going that way, we put it in the back of the car, hoping that she didn't want it after all. Both of us, independently. I said it was mine because I spotted it. My sister said it was hers because it was her car.

In the end, we did end up with the dressing table - Karen did anyway, because she had some cash in her purse. Drat. But.... after several months, she decided that she didn't need it after all. She sent me this picture and asked if I still wanted it.

...{{insert smug smile}}...

Mine! 

Yes, it looks a bit uh... careworn (I know the feeling). But it's oak, and a dressing table. I promptly began the process of fixing it up. I removed the handles. Unfortunately they were super thin and I broke one, plus two were already not great. I plan on re-using the ones that are OK elsewhere, but this baby is getting new handles.

I began the sanding process, which took ages because some drawers were easy and some were dark and hard, and I had to take it back quite far to even them out a bit. I then shelved it for a year while other things happened. Life does have a way of intervening sometimes. My son broke his hand and later his foot and needed a bit of care, so he came home to live with us while he recovered, I was busy with life and the garden and other things, yada, yada.

But, she came out of storage last week and I got back into the sanding. I managed to get it pretty even but the truth is, it's not a top-class piece and the grain in the different parts is quite varied in texture. The sides are made of old tea chest, with an oak veneer! You can see the printing inside the cupboard. I kind of like that though, it's part of the story of the piece. But it did make sanding trickier than I'd hoped. And where the handles had been was pretty roughed up.

Sanded. You can see the damage on the drawers from the original handles. 

After sanding, I then dithered about the finishing process. I've seen these lovely limed or whitewashed oak pieces and I wanted something like that. But I didn't want to commit. My father would have ten shades of conniptions, just thinking about all that paint in the grain - he hates it! Dither, dither, dither.... but it's my furniture and I wanted to try it. So I did a quick read up on techniques and gave it a go.

I loved the first try! It was what I wanted - a light, fresh look with all the lovely grain still visible, but not those dark brown lines that you get in oak. I do love oak furniture, but not the way the old stuff was given that dark varnish that went into the grain. So I continued, and that's where it all went wrong. The grain in my dressing table is so varied that some bits were just much nicer than other bits. The top drawers were really nice but the bottom ones were just not quite as nice and the front legs were yukky, really.

This is the top of the dressing table. It's just what I wanted.

The side was less appealing but still OK. It is what it is, you can't change the grain.

I was really disappointed, but then I realised that I could just go whiter and it'd be fine. And it was. It wasn't how I'd envisaged it, but it was at least even. But then I sanded it before giving it a coat of varnish to protect it from life. Sanding made it splotchy, drat it to high heaven - and it also used a lot of sanding paper because the paint was coming off (of course). I was a bit less than bright and happy about the whole damn thing at this stage. Whose idea had this been? Painting the whole thing black became appealing.

I finally, after two days, decided that I'd sanded and fiddled with it enough and it was fine.

So.... I got out the varnish we'd bought last year, gave it a stir and got to work. Gone was my lovely pale look. The varnish really brought out the contrast, especially down the front legs, where I didn't like the grain to begin with. I thought it might tone down with drying, but it hasn't really. I mean, it's OK, it's just so not what I wanted. I guess it's kind of beachy, rather than limed or white washed, but I can live with that. I don't actually need perfection, just not ugly, and it's not ugly. 

The next difficulty was the hardware. Hmmm.... where did I put that little bag of hardware a year ago, before we started moving things around? Duncan finally found a little bag with the mirror hanging parts - or three of the four parts anyway. What the heck? Why on earth would I put three parts in one bag and all the rest (still missing) in another? 

...{{insert look of incredulous despair}}...

The upshot is, I have a varnished dressing table. I have nice new handles on it (kind of beachy because that's the way we are playing it now). But I can't add the mirror because we can no longer buy parts. I have to find that other bag! It sounds vaguely easy, doesn't it? But we are a house in renovation/pre renovation/dishevelled turmoil. I WILL find the bag! Maybe not this morning though... 

In the meantime, here's a sneak preview of the drawer handles. We managed to find some that covered the old profile nicely, so you can't really see the damage anymore. 

Happy new drawer handles. 

The moral of this tale is very Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: expect the unexpected.

Life sometimes surprises us and that's OK. Now, I wonder what's in that box under the house?

love Heather x

"Let every situation be what it is, instead of what you think it should be."
There is beauty in everything.

Tree Talk

While we have waited for things to happen in the house, I have spent time in the garden. The garden is big, hot, neglected, and dry with deep, sandy loam for soil - no nice composted anything in it. No worms either. It's fertile enough for things to grow, but it desperately needs compost and mulch to make it rich.

There wasn't much here when we bought the house, most of the grounds was just what was laughingly called lawn by the real estate guy. He was deluded. It was almost entirely made up of weeds, although there are three types of grass as well: the bush type, that grows about 3 feet high and has very hardy roots, the thin spindly type that sends out long runners into every direction so that you trip on it if you aren't careful (and it also likes to invade garden beds), and the broad leaf type that actually makes a decent lawn if you have enough of it (we don't) and you ever get half decent rainfall, which, unfortunately, we can only dream of. But the weed count is truely impressive!

There also wasn't much shade. There is a massive poinciana tree overhanging the driveway and the electricity cables (not good) that does provide us with some very welcome shade in the front garden, which faces north, into the sun. However, the roots have completely wrecked the concrete driveway. The lady we bought the house from mentioned that they had fixed the driveway. I looked at it and wondered what the heck it could have looked like before if this was it fixed!

See what I mean? Not very "fixed" looking!

The poinciana sheds. All. The. Time. It sheds teeny tiny leaves by the billion. Leaves so tiny shouldn't make that much mess! But added to the leaves, it sheds twigs, huge seed pods, thousands of seeds, and flower petals. I've pulled up at least five hundred baby trees since we moved here two years ago. Because it's been lopped once, it no longer has the lovely broad canopy of older poinciana trees, but instead is quite sparse and tall. To give you some sense of scale, the little green line at the bottom of the picture is a 2m high fence.

The seed pods at least are useful. We use them as Quick-Starter pods in our firebox. They burn so hot and fast that they are terrific for helping to get the fire going. But seriously, we have two big boxes of pods in the shed and ... it's the end of winter and the tree is chock full of the things!

Our neighbours don't like the tree either, as it's just as naughty on their side. So it has to go at some stage, despite the lovely shade it gives us over the driveway and into the garden. But... it will cost a couple of thousand dollars, supposing we even get permission to fell it, and we just don't have the funds right now. So in the meantime we will collect a few years worth of pods, pull up more babies, sweep the bumpy driveway regularly, and enjoy the shade.

In the same bed as the poincianna there were several large palm trees, some golden palm, a tree fern, a banksia, a huge native hibiscus and three sad little port wine magnolias, along with some lillies and ornamental grasses. I don't much care for palm trees. OK, I don't like them at all. I try not to hate anything. But palms turn me right off. Pretty much sub zero affection rating... So the biggest have already gone. There's one weirdly shaped one still to go, but  I've decided to keep the golden palms, because they are actually quite nice along the western fence line and I know they won't get much bigger than they are. They give some shade at least. It's a very deep garden bed, so I still have space to plant pretty things in front.

When I say banksia, by the way, I don't mean a bush. This poor thing, crowded out and desperate for light, was just one long, long branch snaking across the bed to find light. Some enterprising previous house ownder had tied it to the carport for support. It was a bit ridiculous. I checked online to see if it would be OK to cut it back, or would it just die? The experts seemed to say that Australian natives often get pruned back to the butt by bushfire, so if you want to chop it, do it. It will either survive or not. Thanks a lot, so helpful.

But anyway, I figured that if it didn't survive, I didn't want it there anyway. So I got out my trusty saw and turned leggy into hope. And hey presto, it has lots of new branches. They are also getting long, and they still have to come forward to get any light, but I'm going to prune them again to see if I can make it bushier and more lush. I don't mind if I have to wait a few years to get flowers again, as long as it is a better shape eventually. It has a lot more space now that the palm and several other things are gone, but it's overshadowed by the neighbours very large lilypily. The bed is not in any way sorted yet, but if I can start the process of taming, at least the poor banksia has a better chance. It doesn't look much yet, but a couple of years pruning and thickening and it should be reasonable.

On the other side of the front garden, there is a little melaleuca, a grevillea and a bottle brush. The bottle brush was really scraggly, so I recently chopped it back severely and it's just starting to leaf up lushly. I hope to make it into a much better shape, with lots more branches than before. I've already tip-pruned it once, to encourage a bit more bushiness. Poor thing, it looks pretty pathetic. But the neighbours behind us chopped theirs off about 60cm from the ground last year and it's now a lovely ball of new growth.

Out the back there is a large old frangipani, so fragrant and lush. Happily, it's the old common one, lovely creamy white with yellow centres. I like some of the colourful ones, but I really love the one we have. It has been trimmed in the past, making it quite leggy, but that's OK, it has a nice big shady canopy in the summer, and of course, being deciduous, provides some winter sun underneath. At present, underneath is just scraggly grass and some random bits of concrete. A nice touch, the concrete... it isn't anything, just rubble left who knows when and thoughtfully kept under the frangipani... yes, we are so lucky!

Next to the frangipani there are two very tall palm trees. Blah. They are going as soon as I can persuade Duncan to do the job. Of course, it's not simple and requires big ladders, ropes, an extra person, a chain saw, etc. And then we have to deal with the mess. I really need to buy a ute... But oh, the mess they make of the soil! I am going to have to hire a kanga or something to break up the ground so that I can plant anything else, it will be a horrible mass of roots. And as to feeding the wildlife, well, there are plenty of other gardens with palm trees. And I will be planting things in their place that are pretty, and also feed the wildlife.

It sounds like we have heaps of trees actually, but with a block of land our size, there is hardly anything, and half of that is going. I am planning on planting lots of new trees, pretty things that provide shade, flowers, fruit, leafy beauty and soothing sounds in the breeze. A garden in fact, rather than a few things dotted about with nothing in between. It's going to take time, but it will be lovely one day.

love Heather x

"We may think that we are nurturing our garden, but really, it's our garden that is really nurturing us." Jenny Uglow.

Time Passes

What can I say, time passes. Without permission sometimes... it just evaporates into weeks and months and trivial nothingness. It's busy, it's dull, it's hot, it's rainy, it's full of drama, fun, disappointments and satisfying moments; you get stuff done, you live it out. You wake up one morning and realise you have moved through a year. And, well, actually, that's not a bad thing. While there's life there's hope.

We haven't done much to the house. I've started my garden. I've painted two rooms - both of which are still unfinished. We had the external cladding tested and got the results.  Yep, the whole lot is asbestos. See our drooping shoulders and sad eyes? See our bank balance suddenly look completely inadequate?

So, we ground to a halt for a while, to rethink our thoughts, hopes, plans and bank balance. We haven't really started up again. For a while it made me hate the house, and feel very unsettled. Then I realised, it's just a bump. OK, we are going to over-capitalise on the place now, with a lot of invisible work, but we aren't doing a flip for profit, we are hoping to be living here for a long time.

We knew there was some asbestos - the lower level walls and the eaves, but we had hoped that the cladding wasn't. If we weren't going to do things, it wouldn't matter. You can live with it, if you aren't cutting into it. But if we are going to change the front door and the windows out, and extend the kitchen, we are going to be messing about with it.

The rule in Australia - at least, our part of it - is that you can remove about the equivalent of half a wall by yourself, if you use all the right precautions. But we are not interested. We will save up and get someone in to do a proper job, and clean up properly afterwards.

The problem is, you can't just "un-clad" a place and leave it half naked. You have to re-clad. The cost just doubled. We can't do it in small bites either, it's all going to go at the same time.

And... while we are half naked, so to speak, shouldn't we make the most of the opportunity and put in a pile of insulation? It makes sense to make the house as green and comfortable as possible in the future. It will be so much nicer to live in. The cost just rose another few thousand. And... now that we think about it, all those windows need to be replaced. Suddenly we aren't looking at doing one window at a time, at our leisure. Before our nice new cladding goes up, we should do the windows, because if they are a slightly different size, we'd be double working it. And maybe having to {{shudder}} patch our lovely new walls. Ugh.

Now we have a rather major job on our hands, with a rather bigger budget than we can currently cope with. And we live here, so it will be noisy and messy and gosh I hope it doesn't rain while all this happens or we will have to redo all the inside too...  Not that we will be here when the asbestos is removed. We and the cats will be out of there big time! So that is why we have ground to a halt.

The question on everyone's minds now is.... does the inside plasterboard (drywall) contain asbestos too? Gulp.

love Heather x To the question of your life, you are the only answer. To the problems of your life, you are the only solution. ~Jo Coudert

The Plan

You have to have a plan, right? Even if it changes, you have to start somewhere. It didn't take me long after first walking into our house way back in the middle of last year, to work out exactly what I wanted to do with this place. And really, I haven't much changed my mind about it. A few little tweaks is all.

Whenever we have anyone come to the house who want The Tour, the first thing they say is, "This is nice. I love the floors." They are usually a little surprised by how much we want to do to the place. They are also surprised with how big it is. She hides it well, but this little house isn't so little after all! It's a three bedroom split level (I've probably said that before) with one living room and a skinny little kitchen/dining area. But there is a downstairs, level three, with two biggish utility rooms. They make a big difference to the overall living area - or they will, once we have our wicked way with the place.

This is a rough plan of the top and middle levels of the house as is. It's not to scale. In fact it may be wildly inaccurate... I'm sure the kitchen is smaller than that, and there's six steps up to level 1 where the bedrooms are. But it's good enough for the moment.

Looks fairly straightforward, doesn't it? The rooms are comfortably medium sized - not big, but not small either. You can fit furniture in and get around it, but there's no wide empty spaces.

Unfortunately there's no real entry, you just walk straight into the living room. I've never been a fan, but hey ho, not much I can do here, it is what it is. There's a fireplace in the corner of the living room and an arch {{shudder}} into the kitchen, which is the original 80s pink laminate (yay) with barely any bench space and not enough cupboards, so we have a chest of drawers in the dining half of the room to help out there. And a teeny table. The steps lead you to the bedrooms and bathroom. Back to the kitchen and out the back door, down some rickety rusty steps and you can go into level 3, where there's a laundry, a loo and two rooms we aren't allowed to call real rooms because they're too short. They're livable though, and we plan to use them as rooms. They are under the bedrooms. Pity there's no internal access.

The plan is to knock out the back wall entirely and build an extension twice as deep as the porch. I will have a new kitchen right at the back and the old kitchen/dining area will become the new dining room. We will only be adding about 3.5 metres out, but it's a bit complicated because of the very low pitch to the original roof. At first I wanted to just continue the slope and make a skillion roof over the new kitchen, with clerestorey windows, but apparently that would add about $50,000 to the cost... and our budget for the whole extension including kitchen units, is way less than that! Oh well... Back to the drawing board. The plan for the new kitchen stands, we just need to rethink the roof. We want to add French doors and a little balcony off the dining room too, with steps leading down to our vegetable garden and opening up the whole space to the morning light, as it faces east.

The plan is to knock a hole in the wall between the dining room on level 2 and the bathroom on level 1 and make a stairwell leading to the lower level 3. There's a big cupboard in the bathroom just now so we won't actually lose much of the bathroom, just a tiny bit and of course, the cupboard. But we will gain internal access to the lower level, which will mean it will actually feel like part of the house.

The plan is to add lots of storage. At the moment it's pathetic, just the one cupboard. I want proper places for the esky, the Christmas tree and decorations, the suitcases, the tool box, etc, as well as the usual things like linen and brooms. So there will be a linen cupboard in the upstairs hall, floor to ceiling storage cupboards in the laundry area, a small walk in cupboard off the family room and more storage in the study. However, we are actually doing something weird and taking out the built ins in bedrooms 2 and 3. I know, controversial... more on that later.

The plan is to knock out the wall between bedrooms 1 and 3, and put in a new built in wardrobe for bedroom 1. At the moment the wardrobe is on the end wall, making the room short and hard to place furniture in. We have to have our bed half way across the window and I hate that. Moving the wardrobe makes a lot of sense, even if it's going to be tricky - the wall we have to remove is probably a load bearing wall.

The plan is to redo the bathroom completely and to add a bath. Bliss.

The plan is to remove all the asbestos sheeting from the downstairs outer walls and extend them slightly. We will put in new walls, and lots of windows for light.

The plan downstairs on the lower level is to make a walk through laundry/lobby area with French doors, a study and a family room, and extend the existing toilet to make a shower room. And add lots of storage cupboards.

The plan is to take out all the ugly corroded aluminium sliding windows and put in nice new timber sash (double hung) windows. And have French doors or similar leading to a balcony from the dining room, and from the laundry/lobby to the Pavilion (our outdoor dining area) and to replace the solid front door with a half or mostly glass one for some light - the house is so dark, I want light, light, light!

The plan is to remove the front porch roof and put up a nice new one, new railings too, and actually to extend the porch across the front to the carport, build new steps leading to it and make it somewhere we want to hang out.

The plan is to paint and refresh absolutely everything, inside and out, ditch the carpets in the bedrooms and refinish all the beautiful wooden floors, add lots of new power points and some nice lighting, a few sky tubes for some extra natural light, and take the whole place into a contemporary fresh modern cottage feel.

And that's just the house...

love Heather x

Reassurance and Bargain Hunting

I have been itchy to start renovating for the last two months. We've lived here long enough now to know the flow and light of the place, and to work out what the first job has to be in the long chain of events, to change our minds about a few things, and make some decisions about colour, etc. Now it's time to actually get down to it.

We like this house, but we are changing things, small, medium or major, in every single room and corner, and inside and out. Oops, poor little house, I pat her now and then and reassure her that we do love her, and that we are making things better. Yes, yes, I know it's slightly eh... off-normal... to chat to a house, lol. But houses have personalities and needs too. And reassurance has never hurt anyone, right?

We have been "gathering" in the lead up to actually doing things. Not much, but a nice start to the things we need to buy. Our local big hardware store has had a bit of a sale, and we've scored a few treasures, much to our delight and to the delight particularly, of my Scottish husband... nobody loves a bargain more than a canny Scot! He sometimes goes slightly wobbly and white when I'm talking about what I want to do to the house, but I just pat him and reassure him. Actually, several of our friends have gone slightly wobbly and white too. But faint heart never won fair maiden, so I'm willing to have the brave heart and carry everyone along with me on this fabby, messy adventure.

Background before bargains: The Pavilion (which is what I am calling our outdoor dining area) is paved with slippery ugly mottled beige tiles, definitely not outdoor floor tiles. We have been thinking of decking the whole thing in either hardwood or pallet wood. I mean, slippery, for a start... and beige? They show every little speck, of which there are many in an outdoor setting. Sweep, sweep, sweep...

Yukky Outdoor Tiles

Throughout the top two levels of the house, we have lovely hardwood floors. We aren't certain what timber it is, but Coastal Blackbutt is a favourite contender. The living room and hallway have polished floors, the kitchen and bathroom have been covered over with tiles and the bedrooms all have carpet. But the timber is under all that cover up, hopefully in good condition. It feels solid anyway, but we aren't quite ready to take up the carpets. Blackbutt is fairly commonly used for flooring, decking, etc in Queensland, and is really attractive, with a warm brown to slightly pink tone. Luckily for us, it's termite and fire resistant, which is another reason to hope that's what we actually have in place.

Living Room Floor

Now, onto the fun bit: bargains!  We went to the local big hardware store just before Christmas, to pick up a couple of punnets of flowers, and ended up having to hire a ute to bring home the plunder! While I was dithering between lobelia and alyssum, Duncan had wandered right up the other end of the place and he sent me a text, "Found some flooring for the deck, come and see". Well, I don't need much encouragement.

It was pretty. It involved no work taking pallets apart. It was cheap - reduced from $80 a pack to $28.90 a pack, oh my! We ended up buying the lot, 19 packs, each pack covering 1.92 square metres (don't ask me why they couldn't round it up...), even thought we probably only needed half that. But at that price, I was happy to fling it about in all sorts of places. Visions of a plank wall in the dining room, etc floated in my head.

The New Blackbutt Flooring

I turned slightly to the left and found stacks and stacks of tiles also reduced to clear. I didn't have a plan for the bathroom tiles, but I had a feeling I was about to make a quick decision! We ended up with big plain white tiles teamed with some gorgeous blue and green glass tiles for a feature stripe. The white tiles were reduced from $12.99 a pack to $8 a pack and the glass tiles were reduced from $20 a strip to a lovely $2 a strip! I overbought, of course. Better to have too many than to find, six months down the line, we didn't get enough. The plan (hastily cobbled together while I stood there) is to do both the upstairs bathroom and the new downstairs shower room the same. It makes it a lot easier and will give the place a sense of continuity. Also, it simplified the whole choosing tiles thing. The more I look at them the more I like them.

Bathroom Tiles

Since then, we have bought our cooker hood for $300 off, a gorgeous little handbasin reduced from $342 to $37... yes, $37! That one is the perfect size for the downstairs shower room. It wasn't what I had in mind, but sometimes the Universe knows better, lol and who am I to argue?

Little Handbasin

And yesterday, the kitchen and living room windows came home with us. Oh sooo excited about them! All the windows in the house need to be replaced, they are really disgusting old corroded aluminium sliders - ick. I'd love to replace them all with timber sash (double hung) windows. As in... I will, haha. Yesterday we went to a demolition/renovation barn to see if there was anything that would fit any of our windows. And there was, approximately.

We found two matching timber sash windows exactly the right size for my new kitchen (when it's built) and a set of three obviously from the same demolition that we can use for the living room. We will have to modify the frame for them, as they will end up wider, but that's just perfect in my eyes! I was wishing the living room window was wider, so woo hoo, now it will be :-) Total thumbs up. And the best bit is that the windows are only varnished, not covered in twenty layers of old paint. Bonus! I will be painting them, but avoiding the stripping stage suits me just fine. I forgot to take a photo of them, but I will.

It'll be a little while until all these things are in use, but I'm glad we found them at their bargain prices. Our budget is tiny for all the things we have to do, so bargains are a must.

Oh, and guess what? Excitement! The flooring we bought matches the living room floor! I can use it in my kitchen extension, and there is enough for the downstairs room too. Oh my goodness - JOY!

love Heather x To the question of your life, you are the only answer. To the problems of your life, you are the only solution. ~Jo Coudert

Making a Start

We have now been living in our new house for about four months. Did we ever live anywhere else? I seem to recall we did, but we have settled in here so well, and it feels so comfortable, that it's hard to remember the feeling before of being accidentally itinerant.

Work is slow - well, we have hardly done anything really. It would be tempting to just jump in and do everything before you move in, decisions all made and once you're in you're in, but that's not us. Houses have their own personality and it's better, especially when the house isn't brand spanking new, to let it have it's say. To slowly reveal secrets of lighting and flow. To encourage you to see past what's there to possibilities you didn't think about the first little while. Living in a house allows insights and nice little aha moments to flourish, if you stay aware. And it has to be said, having to be frugal helps, because it stimulates creativity!

What we bought, is a split level house built in the late 1960s on a block of land that is 759 square metres. It's not exactly pretty, and there's a lot of bits needing some loving, but it's a good house, solidly built from brick and hardiplank, with asbestos thrown in for fun (yay), but with no other little nasties like white ants or rot. The walls and ceiling are all nice and flat, which tells us the frame is good. There's roof insulation, and solar panels, and lovely hardwood floors, mmmm.

You go up a short flight of steps to the middle section, that has a little front porch, a back porch, a living room and small kitchen/diner. There are three decent sized bedrooms and a bathroom (no bath though) on the top floor, and under that, downstairs, are two "utility" rooms, a laundry and a toilet. Legally we aren't allowed to call them rooms, because the ceilings are only 2.1m high. Drat it, why didn't the builders just break out and add 30 measley centimetres? Oh well... they are entirely livable (even if we can't put in any ceiling fans or chandeliers) and we have plenty of ideas for them. And there is a lovely big covered area out the back that I christened The Pavilion. It's such a bonus.

(Note, I take photos with my iphone, it's all I have. Sometimes I will have better photos, but not usually.)

OK so the window shutters and the front porch roof and railings are a little "granny" but that's easy enough to update. We are going to gently undress this little house and give her a nice new look. I'm thinking less of the 1980s Granny and more of the Contemporary Cottage. You'll see. But there's going to be a lot of work to get her there. Not in an Extreme Makeover kind of way though, more like a gentle unveiling of her own inner beauty, shedding the shabby clothes and making the most of what we have.

We haven't just been sitting around doing nothing, but it's only been small steps so far. Funny what a big difference they've made to how I feel though. The very first thing I did was to take down the Grungy Golden Globe light fitting in the hallway at the top of the stairs and replace it with something a little more Glamorous and Girly. I think I forgot to take a photo of GGG, but it was kind of like this, without the fluting:

Yeah... SO not the look I want in my life. We took it to a charity shop. Now it has a white organza ribbon and crystal thing in place, that I picked up at K-Mart would you believe, for about ten dollars. It makes the whole stair and hallway so much brighter! It's probably not the final choice for here, but the brown light thing was just not going to live through the first week with me!

The next thing to go was the revolting and very large and dirty shadecloth thing that had been put up out the back. Presumably it was to give shade to the back porch and enclosed concrete patio area - it gets pretty hot where we live in the summer. But people, the back faces south, and in the southern hemisphere that means away from the sun. 

The kitchen, which looked out to that area, just felt dark and OMG, did I say the thing was dirty? Ugh. Green algae, black mould, leaf stains, and general ickiness. Really, I don't have a place in my life for ugly. Not to mention, we couldn't see the sky! There is something beautiful and blue up there, or beautiful and stormy, or dark and starry, with birds and bats and clouds and the light of sun or moon! And lovely big trees in the garden next door that we couldn't see either. All we could see was ugly fence, trellis (more on that later) and mould. 

But then Duncan started taking the shadecloth down. Oh my goodness, what a relief, I could just feel this claustrophobic weight lifting and I'm sure the house did too! The light was amazing. After a few months, looking at these photos again makes me just cringe! So bad.

Gotta love seeing your man at work being all manly and all. He so earned his Brownie Points that day! We folded the ugliness up and put it out near the bin. And then there was just this: 

I spent days just grinning at the sky, lol. It was bliss. 

love Heather x

 To the question of your life, you are the only answer. To the problems of your life, you are the only solution. ~Jo Coudert

Owning It

We are reluctant renters no more. That house I spoke of in the last post? We got it! It wasn't quite a smooth sail, but it is indeed ours now.

After our offer on the R Street house had been rejected, we had driven out to look at a house again that we had previously looked at, that was not quite right. We knew it wasn't quite right, but we just wanted to make sure, you know? And we were right. It was OK, but not The One. Then I suggested we go look at this other house that was for sale, in a street nearby. I hadn't told my husband about it before because he'd made noises about not really thinking much of that kind of style of house. But we pulled up in front and he got out and peeked in over the gate. The lady who owned it noticed and invited us in. I didn't find it all that appealing actually, but as we walked around, Duncan and our daughter both really liked it and I let them sweep me up in their feelings.

We arranged an official inspection, talked to our mortgage consultant, researched flood plains information and possible new Ikea kitchens, had a pest inspection done, met with a solicitor, and did all the usual pre purchase things.

It felt like a compromise though. I really struggled with my feelings of it being "just another house" for weeks, while going along with the whole purchase thing. Once the loan was approved, neither of us felt like woo-hooing and it was all a bit anti-climax. People who know us were all so excited for us, but we were like, "yay" instead of YAAAAAYYYY and that felt a bit scary. What had we done?

The first thing that strikes me about buying a house is that you stand in it and look around for maybe 20 minutes or so making a decision about a very large and important part of your life. You mull over it later, you think about it (a lot) and discuss it with other people, you wonder about living there, actually being and living there, and you work out the trek to work and the shops from there.... but really, it's that few minutes while you are in it that decide you. You don't really know what the neighbours are like, which is important for all sorts of reasons - whether they like cats for instance; what it will be like in different seasons, what little nasties may lie concealed within the walls or roof, what the soil is like for growing things in, whether there are wild teenagers up the road that will burn rubber past your doorstep. You just get a feeling and for whatever reason, think it will all be OK. Luckily for most of us, that works well enough.

When we were on our way to sign the papers at the solicitors, the agent from the R street house phoned and said that the offer that gazumped ours had fallen through and did we still want it. Eeep! We didn't until then.... so the solicitor said she'd wait and start her searches etc the next week. We went back and had another look at R Street and you know what? We didn't like it nearly as much! It had SO much work to do on it, and we both felt like we had a lucky escape! Suddenly the house we were buying looked a whole lot nicer!

Even so, it wasn't until two days after we had picked up our keys and started moving in that I had that feeling of belonging, of being in the right place, and that it wasn't "just another house". I smiled because it was home, simple as that.

love Heather x

To the question of your life, you are the only answer. To the problems of your life, you are the only solution. ~Jo Coudert

Reluctant Renters

We are going to buy a house. We have been reluctant renters for seventeen years. Seventeen years of 3-monthly inspections by sometimes rude and dismissive agents, who expect the world to smell of fresh paint and carpet shampoo, just like it does for the Queen; but are super reluctant to have any repairs done, whatever the need or urgency might be. Seventeen long years of not being allowed to hang any pictures, choose a colour or a window dressing, put up a useful shelf, or make a place ours.

We have, in that time, lived in six different rental houses, three of which we have had to leave because the owners put them on the market. It makes for unhappy children and cats, and too much packing and unpacking, unsettling and resettling, and that's not even considering removal costs and all the gardens I've started and had to leave, just when they were starting to finally look nice.

However, I'm grateful and glad to say that we are now in a position to look for a house. I've been trolling the online sites for a few months now, while we were still not quite ready, and keeping a bit of an eye on the market, learning a few interesting things as I have gone along. These things, for instance:
* how many chickens you're allowed to keep in town, and how far from the boundary fence they have to be
* that you have to get permission for almost anything with the council, from a retaining wall to lopping dead branches and how much all that will cost
* how much it costs to replace rusted through guttering
* the right way a deck should be supported as opposed to the unsafe and scary way
* what it takes to bribe your builder friend to take a look at a place (a loaf of herb bread)

And a whole lot more. I'm happy really, that we didn't go for some of the houses we've viewed, with all the lessons I've had afterwards. I have become a much more discerning viewer.

We put in an offer on one last week. It was not the first one we wanted, but it was the first one we had a chance with, really, because the houses have not really been hanging about long. The owner accepted our offer and it was quite exciting because it had so much potential and so much lovely garden space. Our joy lasted almost 24 hours, until someone put in an offer higher than we were prepared to go and it slipped through our fingers like fairy dust. I wanted to stamp my foot (at the very least), although I was very brave and said through slightly gritted teeth, oh well, it wasn't to be.

And people are so philosophical at you.... and I know they are right, but I wanted them all to bring me tissues and wine, not knowing smiles and "Oh well it wasn't to be" commiserations.

The trouble is, you have to fall in love with a house, to make a move on it. You have to see yourself there, to imagine the daisies you will plant, the shelves you will hang, and how your stuff will look in it. You have to sit on the porch with a cup of tea, if only in your imagination, and watch where the sun goes down. Only then do you know that you could live there. And by then you're invested in it, emotionally.

It's kind of scary though, how quickly you can switch allegiances, lol.... oooh, does that mean I am fickle? Or that, having lived in eleven houses since I was married 27 years ago, that I could make a home anywhere?

So... we had a house for almost a day, and I was very reluctant to believe I wouldn't be living there. Then three days later, I found a new one I could love. We're both pretty excited about it, although I know that's a slippery slope... but.... I can imagine growing daisies there, and putting up shelves, and sitting on the porch, and .... well, you get the picture. Duncan's been doing all the calculations and I've been designing a new kitchen for it and we've been trying not to let our imaginations run too wild until we get past a few hurdles. But it's fun to dream and I'm happy to do that with a few if it takes a few to find The One.

love Heather x

To the question of your life, you are the only answer. To the problems of your life, you are the only solution. ~Jo Coudert

Fixing Chairs, Part 1

I have a confession. People who know me know this, but people who don't know me may be surprised. Or horrified. Or intrigued.... I not-so-secretly have an old chair fetish/hoard/issue. What can I say, they are attracted to me - they just follow me home, honest.

I have too many for the house, more than any sane person could ever need even in a bigger house than we have. Which I will probably never have. And they are mostly the kind that look like rats have been nesting in them for a while, or that someone put out on the street for garbage collection (which is true in quite a few cases...), but they have potential, even if it's only me who can see it.

I have quite a collection in the house, but the garage holds the worst ones, the ones needing to be done up. I'm not showing you a picture of the stacks. I do have some pride... Oh alright then, I have no pride, lol.

There are dining chairs picked up curbside by a friend who thought I might like them. She lugged them home two at a time in the rain, bless her, by hand. I do like them, but my darling doesn't. He has the strangest aversions to things, like mango and lavender for instance, but when he doesn't like something, he really doesn't. So the dining chairs aren't for me. But I will do them up regardless and pass them on, useful again.

There are old armchairs from the Victorian period, swing back chairs from the 1940s and one Edwardian armchair with very nice lines that we picked up out of a skip/dumpster one night in Portobello, near Edinburgh, when we lived in Scotland. There's a little cane chair for a child, and probably a few others actually... And there's a few in the house that need some TLC too.

They are diverse and generally in terrible condition, but they all share something in common. They have good bones, they are - well they were - well made and they have character and they deserve another chance, poor things. Oh and the other common factor is that they are very patient. They've all been waiting ages for me to do something useful with them.

I started today. I picked out the two matching 1940's Swing Back chairs (I have two others that don't match, but let's not go there...). These were from a dear old lady who put them on Freecycle, hoping that someone would take them on. They were given to her parents when they were married and she always loved them, but she couldn't do them up and it was too expensive for her to get someone to do it. She made me promise that if I decided not to do them, I would offer them up again for someone else. Fat chance, I love them! They were a bit disgusting and my husband was a bit grossed out, but he has come to trust me (silly boy) so he loaded them in the car and took them home with glee (on my part). That was a mere four years ago. You can't rush these things!

Here they are. They're the same, just been painted a few times and put in different rooms, apparently. They're pretty gross, Duncan was right after all.

 Too much paint, too much dirt and too much sag. 

 The side view. See, they have nice lines, very curvy and they are surprisingly comfortable to sit in too. I've always like this style. 

OK, they are pretty disgusting... One can only assume those stains are sweat. Ick. And the paintwork is filthy too. I guess they were in the garage for a while even before they came to live in mine. 

So. I started on the yellow one. I tipped it upside down to start hauling out the upholstery. Everything had to go.

There were a few tacks. A few billion. OK maybe not billion... Would you believe thousand? ... Any takers for a few hundred? 

 What I'm saying here is that it was well tacked. But it was obviously the original fabric, because there was no double tacking, it was one lot only. Just plenty of one lot. 

Top and bottom. 

Once the seat was completely free of tacks, I had to get the back off. The bolt thingy was rusted up a bit, but Duncan's trusty wrench thingy (technical terms) did that job for me. I have no idea whether that was the right tool for the job but it worked. I think it might be vintage too, it has a certain character as well. **I am reliably informed by my better half that it's not a wrench thingy, it's a shifter, which is an adjustable spanner. And it was the right tool. Hurrah!

Of course, there were more tacks. A lot more... 

Not so many on the flip side, thank goodness. 

The last few tacks! Yahoo. Hardly any blood and not many bruises to show for it all either. Some but not many... it's darned hard on the knuckles to slip and bash into the wood. My thumb was really sore too from all that levering. Oh my goodness, the levering out of the tacks. Blah! They were well pounded in and it was slow work. And it was really dirty work, I have to say. Putrid even. I could hardly believe how much dirt fell out of it. I mean you expect a little but some of this was dirt, not just compost, it had gone beyond the compost stage. 

The leftover detritus - it doesn't look like much but this was a black bin bag full!

But the afternoon's hard work paid off, because this one at least, is up to stage 2. 

One down, one to go. Plus a lot more work, because they are a bit shaky too. I guess that means I will have to actually pull them apart to re-glue. And strip and sand them. And refinish. And recover. I don't think they'll be done in a flash. 

I discovered under all that fabric that the frame is all silky oak. Now I'm not sure whether to make them back up the way they were, with the frame part covered, or to make a base and put a cushion on it, to let the silky oak show. It seems a shame to waste it. I'll see what the other one looks like. If it's still all silky oak too, I might just cushion them. I will have to ask Duncan about the practicalities of making and securing a wooden base. 

I'm pretty excited to have started. I hope to get the other one done before the end of the weekend, and the joints fixed too if possible. Wish me luck. 

love Heather x To the question of your life, you are the only answer. To the problems of your life, you are the only solution. ~Jo Coudert

Coconut Slice Recipe

Well the slice is all gone! Time to make another one.... I have to report that sorghum flour is excellent! It gave the base a whole different texture that took it from "ricey/shortbready" to a really lovely dense moist texture much much more like something between wholemeal and white wheat flour. But with a definite non-white feel. Love it! I've since made some waffles using sorghum flour in the mix too and they were great too. Yahoo! Pity it's so expensive, but it doesn't matter really, when you find something that works for you. I'm not diagnosed Celiac but I do react badly and for weeks when I have the smallest bit of gluten. I'm not even tempted.

My DH loooved the slice, by the way. He was in raptures with every bite.

So... what did it look like? This is how it came out of the oven (told you I can't do food porn - look at the state of that pan! On second thoughts, don't, lol):

And this is how it looks on my plate. Mmmm. No crumbly bits, just moist and excellent deliciousness. That's a small fork by the way, not a dinner fork, just in case you were worried about the size of my slice.

And now I think you would like the recipe. I have no idea at all who originally made up this recipe, or how much it's been changed over the years, but this is what my new GF version is, which I'm now sticking to. The original was brought home from school cooking classes by my big sister ... a few years back. OK a few decades.... lol.

Please note that I'm in Australia so my measurements are Australian standard measurements.

Also, I just use a generic brand of plain and self raising flours, from my supermarket. I like most of them, they work well enough for most things and it saves having fourteen different flours in the cupboard.

Gluten Free Coconut Slice
Base
125 g butter
2/3 cup Self Raising GF flour
1/3 cup plain GF flour
1/3 cup sweet white sorghum flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg

Melt the butter gently until only just melted, then add to dry ingredients, which have been sifted together into a bowl to mix them. Add the egg and mix into a soft dough. Press or spread into a greased and lined slice tray, 18 x 28cm.

Filling
1/3 cup jam (jelly for my American friends)

Warm the jam briefly in the microwave and spread carefully over the base - the base is soft so be gentle.

Topping
1 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup castor sugar
2 eggs

Beat all ingredients together with a fork and gently spread over the filling. Bake it in a moderate oven for 20-30  minutes or until the coconut is beginning to toast nicely. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Cut into squares or fingers and store in an airtight container in the fridge.

So there you go. Easy and delicious, old fashioned slice. Enjoy some with your favourite cup of tea or coffee soon. :-)

love Heather x

 To the question of your life, you are the only answer. To the problems of your life, you are the only solution. ~Jo Coudert