Ok its Official..."I'm a Wally"

I've lost our DSR camera. I had all these great "before" photos on it, of our rental property we are getting ready to sell.  And now that we are at the pointy end, and I am gearing up to take the "after" photos, I can't find the camera.

I have looked high and low, near and far.  I have obviously put it down in the most ridculous of places.  Argh ... so frustrating.

Then the other night I backed the car out of a car park, straight into another vehicle. Yeah sure, most of us have done something like that.  But the car I was in, had a reversing camera.  Thats right I watch myself back into another car.  Fortunately, only my car came off second best, and that was a fairly minor scratch.  But seriously...I am astounded at my stupidity.

On a lighter note, here is another ebay find

This one was only $5.50, I am a very happy with that.

The dining chairs I showed you last post have been transformed.  I can't wait to show you all.  I was going to sell them and try and make a little profit, but I like them too much now. 

I will show you the photos... when I find my camera.

Take care

April fools day - no fools here

A lot has been going on in "the Hallway" lately.

The rental property I discussed last time, has been vacated and we have had a look.  It is safe to say we were very disappointed with the way the property was left.  But that is a whole other post.  And I want to get some after photos, before I show the "before" photos

We have managed to get a good start on the property, but the next two weeks I am somewhat preoccupied.  Why? I hear you ask.  Good question.  I start a new job tomorrow, and I have two weeks of (intense) training to get through.

I am super excited about this job, it is a work from home position, which is something all "mums dream off, isn't it?  Well, it is for me.  The role a health advice hotline or nurse triage.  But it means there isn't the long 1 hour commute that I am was doing.

On to the serious stuff.

I have bought some great bargains on ebay this week. These are all ebay listing photos, so excuse the varying quality.

Yep, my love of baby blue/duck egg blue continues.  At $25, it was a little gift for me, from me.

 I didn't really need the dining chairs, but for $15 for the 6, I couldn't let them get thrown out. Thats $2.50 a chair, I would only have been robbing myself if I didn't get them.

 Not really a bargain, but I got 8 lights for $120.  I have seen them for around $100 for 1 light.  These are to replace the broken ones at our rental... hmmm, thats for the above mentioned "other post".

I am still devastated, I didn't win this beauty

at $53, turns out this was a bargain, I just didn't know it.  Anyway, I will just need to keep my eyes opened for something similar.

Until next time...

Duck egg blue

Duck egg blue... I think it is my favourite colour right now.  Just take a look at my header :-)

Source: google.co.nz via Sarah on Pinterest

I am desperate to paint something duck egg blue.  I know,  why not a house, I hear you say??

We own a rental property that we are planning on selling.  Internally it was originally painted a green colour, which at the time I loved.  But that was over ten years ago.  I did paint some of the rooms about 5 years ago, but was never really happy with the result.

I will post pictures of the house when I get access to it.  Next week, I plan to go and have a look at what work needs to be done, so that I can get it up on the market as soon as possible.  I haven't had a good look at the place for five years, hopefully I wont be too shocked.

 This is a picture of the front of the house 5 years ago. Yeah not a great shot, because the point and shoot camera that cost us a small fortune, about 5 years ago, didn't have a zoom :-)

And a loverly picture of me, lounging on the couch, again about 5 years ago.  This is just to show the colour of the wall, from memory this is a fairly true representation of the colour.  That couch, by the way was a elcheapo couch hubby and I bought when we were first married.  I didn't like it much then, you can probably tell by the look on my face.

Sadly I don't seem to have too many more pictures of the property.

I am not planning on painting the whole house duck egg blue, but rather the main lounge, laundry, and kitchen.  These three areas get the main sunlight, and they have white built in cupboards with a grey laminate top.  Don't screw up your nose, again from memory the grey laminate top looks very nice, just the wall colour I could never get to match.

Anyway on to the duck egg blue inspirations:

Source: norskeinteriorblogger.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: housetohome.co.uk via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: lonadeanna.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: fancybuffalo.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Until next time...

Getting to know the House.

I guess I had forgotten. but each house has their own bit of quirkiness. 

You know, the small stuff that you put up with, that don't really annoy you enough to fix. For example, the door that only locks when you hold the handle a certain way, but it never bothers you, because you know how to hold the handle, so it locks easy enough.

Anyway, we are trying to deal with this house's indiviualism.  The house is about 8 years old, and the owners have  lived here all that time.  But the ensuite didn't have a toilet roll holder.  Did they just sit the toilet roll on the ground??

 I bought a suctioned toilet roll holder, and it looks great.

The laundry door wouldn't lock.  To lock it, I thought I was going to break the key.  Our rental manager said, "yeah, I noticed it was a bit stiff".  That is the understatement of the year.  A little bit of filing and that door locks so easily now - the latch wasn't aligned to the lock.  A 2 second job (not an understatement).

There is a light switch in the kitchen that doesn't appear to turn anything on.  And a light in the kitchen that doesn't turn on (and yes I have change the globes).  I think the two should work together, maybe the wires are broken??

The ducted floor heating and cooling was only coming through one vent.  That was until we worked out that the four light switches at the front door controlled the vents (we just thought that they were another faulty light switch).

We have solar hot water, and for the first week we were here we had gorgeous hot sunny days, and bountiful hot water.  The second week, it rained constantly.  Day 2 of rain and we had no hot water, and couldn't find the switch to turn on the hot water back up.

There have been many more "getting to know the house" problems, however, I am feeling as though I am getting to know this house a little better.  Including the location of our water mains at the front gate.  Yep see that little green arrow, its down there, in amongst the trees. 
If you ever need to know, I will draw you a map. :-0

Until next time, take care xx

Everything I know about chickens

... and that is not much.

We inherited 3 chickens (here in Australia they are also known as "Chooks").  The owner of the place left them behind.  I have always wanted chickens, but never got around to it.  But when we heard the owners wanted to leave them behind for us, I was so excited.

The first week we were here, the chickens didn't lay any eggs.  We hadn't got around to getting any "chook food", but we were giving them our table scraps.  Their coup was also disgustingly dirty, with chook poo everywhere - Yuck.

I don't know much about chickens, but I personally wouldn't want to lay any eggs in that place.  So I spent a Saturday morning, making it my business to make the chickens happy. 

I cleaned out their coup, and put down fresh sawdust.  Cleaned their water and feed bowls, giving them fresh water and I bought some laying pellets and mixed seeds.  I also made a nesting box.  At this stage it is just a cardboard box layed on its side with sawdust in it.  I have elevated it slightly off the ground. 

They have a roost, where they sleep at night.  By my little bit of research onto chickens, the roost should be higher than the nesting box.

So after one week of no eggs, this is what I got that Saturday afternoon...

Thats right, 5 eggs.  Sadly, they were not in the nesting box, but rather outside amongst a small blackberry bush.  But they still tasted just as good.

Every day since, we have had at least 1 egg, and the last 3 days they have increased production to 2 eggs per day.  They are still laying the eggs under the blackberry bush, and not in my nesting box. 

Funnily, I love my chickens, and I especially love the little clucking sounds they make - I find it very soothing and tranquil.  The kids also love feeding the chooks, and it is a special treat when they hunt for the eggs and find them. 

The above pictures were taken with my phone.  I really must find the box that has my battery charger in it so I can charge the camera batteries.

Take care until next time...

We Have Moved \0/

Firstly let me thank all the lovely people who sent their kind thoughts during the move.

We have moved!!! And we came out the otherside, relatively unscathed.

Here is the house tour.  Sorry, no pretty pictures, but you will see the chaos we have lived in for the first week.

The above photo is of the entrance.  The house walls are green, but the phone camera has made them a blue green, in real life they are more olive.

The below photo is the view into a living area and at the back is the study.  Don't be alarmed, it still looks like that.  Picture it, I am sitting behind the pile of boxes as I type this.

  

This is the master bedroom. Yes, I slept on the floor for a week.

This is the spare bedroom.

 

Back to the entrance, and turn left you get to the dining room, with second living area at the back of the photo.

 Finally the kitchen.

The house is big, and has 9' ceilings.  It has lovely bones (if you can see throught the boxes that have been dumped).  Sadly, it is green.  We are only renting it (at this stage).  And because there is a chance the owners will be moving back into it, I wont be painting the walls.  In order to make this house my home, I will need to decorate around the colours.

Moving Boxes

Image

Where to get moving boxes???  Money is a bit tight at the moment, so hubby and I have decided on principle that we could spend money elsewhere instead of on moving boxes.

So where do we get boxes that are free? 

When we moved into this house 5 years ago, there was a removal company that offered free moving boxes, as long as they were returned within three days of the move in the same condition - and you didn't need to use them to move.  This same company offers similar service but you now have to use them for removals - they are not very cheap.

Here is my list of cheap/free boxes.
1. Freecycle.  This is a world wide website but you join up within your community.  People offer up goods they no longer want or need for free.

2 Friends. Ask around friends/neighbours/family/etc who have recently moved.  They may be happy to loan you some boxes or even give them to you.

3 Work/businesses.  Obviously depending on where you work, but many places of employment have various boxes that are just thrown out.  I utilised the local hardware store and the hospital where I work.  From the hospital, I got 30+ boxes all the same size (which is great for stacking and packing the truck), and although small, they were very sturdy and held our breakables and books.  The hardware store had some good quality bigger boxes.

4. Ebay or other secondhand sites. ok they may not be free, but they are cheaper than from the shops, and you can look for purpose built moving boxes.

We have one week to go.  Most of the packing is underway, and we have boxes coming out our ears!

Any other ideas of where to get free/cheap boxes from?

Lounge Cabinet

We have two more weeks before we move, I am now less stressed and more excited.  The house is looking fantastic, and we have a tenant lined up to move in when we move out (at a higher rent than we expected).  I think it is because of all the work I/we have done over the last six months.

Its funny that I have lived in this house for 5 years, and not really liked it.  Now we are moving we have the house looking great.  Its also amazing what a lick of paint can do to a room.

 Anyhoo, I promised I would show you one of my improvements to a cabinet.

 Below is the finished project.  Love it

 And here is the same area before.  Hate it...

There are literally a thousand tutorials on how to paint furniture, so I am not going to show you that.  However, this cabinet was goint to be painted white.

The only problem was, the drawers had chunks out of the bottom corners, not so noticable when brown, (definately noticable in person).  But if painted white, the missing chunks would have stood out.

Wandering the aisles of my local hardware store, I was thinking that wood putty or some sort of filler would do the job.  But then I came across this little beauty...

It is really easy to use (make sure you use rubber gloves) basically you cut off the amount you need, knead it until the colour is uniform and then mould it to shape.  I found it attached really easily and I was able to shape it in place.  And then it was dry in about 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes I was able to sand it smooth and shape it into a better corner shape

Apparently you can nail into it and drill it etc.  I didn't need to do anything further, other than paint the cabinet.  We then installed the tv, attatching the tie down strap from the tv to the cabinet.  I was paranoid the kids will pull the tv onto themselves, but that baby is not going anywhere.

Somehow, I got lucky and there is a solid piece of wood that I screwed the tie down strap into, not just the plywood backing :-)

Here is the finished project.  And a gold star goes out to the person who can spot the patched up drawers.  Heres a tip - I don't even know unless I look at the back unpainted side.

The before...

...and after

Linking to these fantastic blogs

Before and Afters

Yes I have been MIA, but I have an excuse (again).  We are moving house.  An opportunity came up for us and, well, you only live once.  We are moving to rural Melbourne on 9 acres.  We are renting at this stage, just to see if we like the lifestyle - and who wouldn't??  Consequently, we have been madly trying to get this house up to scratch (i.e. finish off all the projects I have started), ready for someone else to live in.

This is just a quick post, with some before and afters. 

When I have a bit more time, I will go into a bit more details about some interesting repairs I have done along the way.  Bear in mind I haven't had time to stylise the photos (not that I am much good at that - yet), and I am still in the midst a lot of other projects.  Here is the up date so far.

Laundry

Laundry Before

Laundry After (with new freezer)

Tiles Before

Tiles After (using tile paint)

 Lounge Room

Ugly Messy TV Cabinet and brown dresser with chipped drawers.

Newly Painted Cabinet (with hubby's new tv - I have hidden everything in the drawers and the DVD player is under the cabinet)

Ugly brown lounge suit that seemed too big for the room, plus cream cushions and cream walls, all seemed too brown. (forget that the room is messy)

Rearranged furniture has opened up the room, and the purple walls have toned down the browness of the lounge suit.

Looking from our front door, this is the sight you used to see.  That room through the arch is the kids playroom, and the toys just overflowed into the lounge.

Now looks much brighter and there is a place for the kids to put their toys away.

Just another picture, looking from the playroom back to the front door.  The entrance, I have painted virtually white (Dulux Antique White USA - for the Aussies), and it has just lightened and freshened the place up.

There are other projects going on, including packing and cleaning (which I am sure you don't need to see).  More updates will come about the remainder of the house tidy up, when I have a spare moment.

And if I am not back before 26th January, Happy Australia Day everyone. :-)