Public holidays

I’ve lost count of the number of conversations I’ve had about the fact that I work on public holidays, and that I really don’t mind because I get two weeks of extra annual leave to compensate for them. For some reason, today feels a little different. The kids are off to their new school tomorrow, making this school holidays one of the biggest in terms of change that they have experienced in their young lives. It feels like I should be at home, sharing their last non-school day of the term with them. Instead, I’m going to work, where I will effectively be as in-charge as anyone else. That means the “I feel like staying home” feeling is clashing directly with my usual “if all else fails, be in charge, it’s more fun” feeling.

Still, work has to win this one – too much to get done today and nobody else to do it.

Cheerio!

A thousand words (or so)

Pride in a new home is not a new or even rare thing, but we do feel it in our new home, so I will now (after much promising) attempt to share some of it. You have all seen the front of the house, although I will repeat it here:

 

That was the sight that greeted me when I first drove up to the front of the house to have a look. When I reached the top of the stairs, I saw this:

 

At that point I decided to buy the house. I hadn’t even looked inside. On the off chance there was a major chemical manufacturing facility to the left, I glanced in that direction and saw this:

 

At this point, with the place already mine in my mind, Beloved K arrived, and was also suitably impressed with the view. She, however, wisely decided to look inside the home before deciding to part with the cash. On the deck, she saw this (without the tables, chairs and cat):

 

Inside the front door, there is a loungroom to the left:

 

And there is a bedroom (with ensuite and walk-in robe) to the right:

 

The kitchen looks like this:

 

And the dining/second living area looks like this:

 

Child A sleeps in here (after much furniture rearranging):

 

And Child S in here:

 

I couldn’t leave you without some outside shots, so here are the continuation of the deck around the western side of the house, the view from that side, and the back yard:

    

And the prize, of course, will go to the author of the first comment that points out which photo shows the now famous me-constructed gate!

Cheerio!

The gate

For all my internalised feelings of inadequacy when it comes to working with my hands, it appears that my (assisted) efforts to hang a gate and decorate it nicely have paid off. OK, so I had already hung the gate (as described in the previous post) but it was a work of epic proportions and required a greater flourish in the telling.

The gate materials were a kit or two from Bunnings. I realise having personally mined and refined the steel myself would have sounded more heroic, but let’s face it, nobody who reads this blog would have believed it in a second. Assembling the pieces in the right order was a cinch…..drilling holes in to steel to make it stay together was where my courage failed somewhat. For some reason at some point years ago I developed a highly attuned aversion to stuffing things up. I can’t imagine how that was since my attempts at manual labour were so few and far between. I know I did a few things right (and even once developed muscles as a teenager that I have never had again) but it is the memory of getting things wrong that seems to have stuck.

Anyway, putting the actual gate frame together turned out to be the easiest part of the whole deal. I was really worried when I had to pre-drill holes in very tough steel posts on our existing deck to attached the hinges and the latch. I managed this, hung the frame and sat back for a couple of rainy days marvelling at the fact that I had destroyed neither the deck nor the gate to this point.

Yesterday I carried out the relatively easy job of spraypainting the gate to match the posts on the deck. We came pretty close with “Killrust indian red”, which is closer to brown that the name suggests.

Today was the challenging part – attaching 14 steel “eyelets” to run steel wire across the gate, keeping the wires at the same level as the existing wires in the deck fencing. To cut a long story short, the Beloved K provided sterling aid and ingenius ideas that helped us to get the job done just 28 drilled holes, 14 eyelets and 8.5metres of steel rope later, it is done.

I still don’t have pictures of our home for you, but the time is coming, and you can bet that the gate will feature at least as prominently as the view from the front of the deck.
Ahhh…the legend of the hanging of the gate is growing already….I can feel it!

Cheerio!

Moving experiences

It is a little hard to comprehend that it has been a mere six weeks since I last blogged. Much of our world has changed since then, not least because we wanted it to. I haven’t returned to work yet, but it is already good to know that when I do I will not be spending upwards of two hours every work day just getting there and back. I have another week of holidays before I go back to work, so I will be spending time doing house stuff, enjoying the company of Beloved K and kids A and S, and (hopefully) relaxing to the best of my ability. I’m still hopeful of getting at least one round of golf in somewhere, but at the present rate of golfing invitations I will have to go and play a round by myself – not a disaster, but it can be a lot more fun to share the game).

What can I say about moving house? Beloved K had the packing plan down pat before I even finished work, so I just had to follow it. A workmate loaned me a trailer, which took some of the bits and pieces pressure off, and the rest of it barely fitted on the truck. Dents and scratches now adorn all of our wooden furniture pieces, although the piano came through OK (with an excessive amount of shoving uphill by me – removalists would not have managed it by themselves). Overall, however, it was a lot more pleasant than doing it all by ourselves. We were not as physically destroyed as we had been after most of our previous house moves, and that left us in much better shape to do the unpacking and arranging.

My handyman skills have come to the fore more than ever before. I have successfully hung the dryer (second time in five years), I have put three nice hooks on the walls (one in the ensuite, two in the walk-in wardrobe) and – the toughest of all – hung a new gate frame, hinges and gate at the new house. OK, I still have to finish the gate, but significant progress has been made and it is just finishing touches to go. The fence around our deck/balcony thingo is one of those steel frame and tensioned wire jobs, and making the gate match is the challenge. You wouldn’t believe how much the sets of wire, turnbuckles and eyelets cost….and drilling in to steel makes me nervous (by virtue of the fact that you can’t undrill it once it’s done. The scale of my achievements, however, still pales in comparison to what Brother Joe will most likely achieve in his first week of renovating his new abode. I’ve heard all sorts of renovation advice over the years, much of which can be distilled in to “if you won’t risk breaking it, you can’t fix it”. Good luck Brother Joe! We’re barracking for you all the way.

There are no doubt more happenings of the last six weeks that I will think of after I blog, but I wil try to record them as I think of them. Next post will include pictures of our new abode….promise!

Cheerio!