An update

Hi all
Have been mightily slack in doing the updates - but here is the latest one.

So we have had Crosie's family staying recently and that wonderful view that we have? well it did not show it's face until AFTER they had all left! hmmmm ....

Updates for this post include Reginald - who after a long wait, has finally made it up onto the wall - yes that would be a dead animal on the wall in the lounge! While not most people's idea of interior decorating it was the one consession that i have made for wee Crosie as Reginald does mean a lot to him. Now that i am used to having something dead on the wall it's not too bad - but his pheasant can stay out in the garage!

We also have some babies - this time in the form of a Sydney Silky chook and her 6 babies (3 black, 3 white). Crosie certainly is not impressed with them, but they are cute! Not sure about their egg laying ability so will do some Googling and find out more about them.

Only two weeks to go before the rest of the carpet goes down so it is all hands on deck to get the gib stopping and painting done in time. The last third of the house has been gibb-stopped with only minor touch-ups regquired and then we need to start on the man space - thankfully that is only one room. Below is a pic of my sewing room, oops the spare room!

Have one shower operational - the one in the ensuite and am really pleased with how the tiling work has come up. the other shower has been tiled and will be waterproofed this week, with it becoming operation in the next couple of weeks - once the painting has been finished.

It's a great feeling to see that we are coming to the end of the hard work inside, then we can start on painting and landscaping the outside! Have already started the landscaping drawings - but of course this will evlove over time.

A little more chainsawing over the weekend - it's quite surprising how much the pine trees have grown since we started, so there are 10 plus that have been earmarked for topping and a couple came down to open the view that we have - made a huge difference when Crosie did it yesterday. Can now see Mt Taranaki from the kitchen bench!

Loving my kitchen - plenty big enough, well it could be a smidge larger and then it would accommodate all my baking moulds etc. Am surprised at what i have accumulated over time. Still missing are some wineglasses and mugs - but then the garage is still full of belongings - looking forward to having that hidden in spare bedrooms!!

Look at the cute pic of the boys - they had a busy night and decided that they needed to sleep all day!

Happy New Year to all!

What a fantastic Christmas / New Year we have had, with lots of visitors and seeing the family for Christmas dinner - including my gorgeous great-neice, Eloise!

With 16 people there for dinner, we had heaps of room.

Here are some of the latest pics - yes they are mainly of my pantry, but hey I LOVE it!

The very long (3.2m) bench

My awesome pantry in all it's glory!

The latest wildlife to arrive on our doorsetp - two peacocks - though these were not bought to us by Rama, he was too busy watching wide-eyed from INSIDE the house!

We have also started tiling the showers in the house - we are using 600 x 300 white tiles with a 100 x 300 pebble strip on the walls and the floors are a 400 x 400 pebble tile - we are please by how it looks so far:

The main bathroom

The ensuite - with the walls painted Dulux - Double Glinks Gully

Oh and here is the wall that I still have yet to wallpaper and Crosie enjoying sitting on his la-z-boy watching his tv in the lounge. Yes, ocassionally he is allowed to stop working!

314 days and now ..

I have a kitchen!

Yes on January 30, 2010, I officially lost my kitchen - well I knew where i left it, jsut moved out of that house, let tennants move in and use. Crosie and I moved into the Portacom aka Love Shack, and began our adventure.

On Saturday 11th December, i finally got to use an oven in my own house - you have no idea how excited I was, though a little scared as the first thing i made was a Red Velvet Cake for lunch with the girls. Have now used the stove top to poach eggs (which on any given day i am rubbish at, but that is a WHOLE other story!).

Appliances - soon my pretties you will be in your new home!

Below are pics of the kitchen being moved in - the island bench is 3.2 m long with 2m clear either side of it - yes seems huge, yet i do not think that the bench has been clear yet! Bear with me with the pics as i am still moving the kitchen over from the workshop (where it was shared space with the quad bike, man tools etc).

My pantry is soooo cool and filling fast. Crosie was amazed at how fast i am actually filling it up - he wanted to know where all the food had been in the workshop - umm those steel drawers were jammed pack full of food. Though i do think that i am fast running out of space. Have not found a dinnerset, several boxes of glasses and other crockery, then there is all the crystal that is actually sitting in a friend's garage (promise it will be collected this week Trish!).

Have spent two nights in the new place - we do have a functioning toilet inside, but still have to go across to the manspace for a shower. But the bath is up and running in the other end of the house.

Some of the lights in the kitchen / living room

This week sees Crosie laying the kitchen and entrance flooring and then starting on the waterproofing for the showers, so i can tile over the break. As well paint the outside, start landscaping, finish the other third of the house in time for Waitangi weekend family get-together! So only a wee bit left!

Oh and look after the sheep, do the normal chores ...

What can i say - we are loving it and loving the space! Think of living for near on a year in your bedroom at home - which is what we have done - and then move into a space that is bigger than your current house! We are loving it! And loving opening all the boxes and finding things that "we" didn't know "we" had!

The painting has begun ...

Yes the painting has begun and what was the first room to be done? Why the scullery was - am on countdown sleeps until i get my kitchen, sans bench-tops, but they will come soon. Concrete takes a little while to cure, but we need to make them and decide on what colours we want in the concrete!

If one takes a day's leave from work, what does one do? paint skirting that's what!
30 x 12m lengths were done in two colours - no not on the same skirting, but for the skirting and the bits that go around the windows inside.

Two-thirds of the house now have selant paint on and dear Crosie is busy doing another sand, then we will start putting the paint on the walls - yippee!

Rooms with a View

Check out the rooms with views!

We are incredibly lucky that we get some amazing views from our house - see below!

The Spare bedroom view

Our bedroom view


the view from the lounge


The view while cooking (once the kitchen goes in!)

The long awaited gib stopping pics

Our Bedroom The lounge



The living room - check out the height of the ceiling


The hall from our room to the living room

is it time to stop?

Yes it is, gib stop that is!

Yes dear Crosie has finished all the contstruction and now its onto the gib-stopping. A job that he doesn't like, but from what is on the walls, looks pretty good to me!

We are concentrating on getting the lounge, living, study, entrance and our bedroom done first, so we can move in. Plus we have to ge the living area done so Mr Kitchen man can come and install our kitchen - how cool is that going to be!!!

We now have both power and gas on to the house now, not just an extension cord running between the buildings - a little more secure methinks.

This also means we can have a lovely bath in our wonderful bathroom - though the cats are a little curoius as to why we want to sit in water.

A quick cat story: after spraying a mound of dirt with weedkiller, little white fluffy and the ginja ninja were playing in it, which meant that the little white fluffy was rolling around in weedkiller. Long story short Crosie turned on the shower and he and the little white fluffy had a shower together! Poor wee fluffy was like a drowned rat, oddly though he was quite relaxed about the whole affair and has since got back into the shower, albeit it wasn't on, but he got in voluntarily!

Gib stopping pics will be loaded in the next day or so!