Small changes

It seems like we have been working so hard and keeping ourselves busy with a list full of things to do to our home, yet only small changes are noticeable. Time has flown by and the most recent stint on school holidays has come and gone. My hubby and I have been busy in the gardens, both front and back, stripping them both down to nothing. The front has been replanted but will take a few years to properly establish... Like they say everything takes time and I am one impatient lady! Ha. Never the less we have made it through most of the hard work and we are almost ready to sit back and watch it all grow. Here are some latest snaps of the happenings at Miller Street! 

Big thanks to my brother for doing this great paving job for us out the front. Of course it wouldn't have happened without the relentless hard work and help from my hubby either so big kisses to him too. #ryanrebbeckpavingandfencing. 

Looking forward to finishing things off before we get started on the internal works. Excited it's all coming together! 

Settled in!

Well it's been a few weeks now since we have been in the new place. We have painted and painted, cleaned and cleaned, and tried very hard to make this house our home. Finally after many long nights and weekends we have done it. The house is looking good and starting to feel like we belong.

So stage 1 of our interior re-design is now complete and we are just waiting on the plans for stage 2 from our builder and architect. Once again, here are a few pics to show you how far we have come.

This is our entrance way coming in from front verandah. We threw out the old fabric chandelier, took down all the picture hooks and coat racks and added fresh paint & a new light fitting.. thanks Bunnings!

Before we moved in this hallway was 'clutter city'. It had furniture everywhere, an old run down linen press on the right and was just really shabby looking. It has some good features though like the width.. my friends say they are hallways for ladies with prams! This one connects the original house to the extension and through the arch is the open lounge room and access to the yard and rumpus room. Our bedroom is on the left and bathroom is on the right. The archway will be knocked out in 'phase 2' and the glass doors and windows will be moved further to the right to allow for the kitchen to be moved down here. I am not a real fan of being able to see straight through to the back yard from the front door which is the current situation. If you look closely enough you would be able to see our 'weed city' out there which is not so much of a nice view; and plus its bad feng-shui. It's the old saying "money comes in, money goes out"; but this will all be fixed with the re-modelling design. It works for now.

the 'backroom'. If you have seen the previous pictures of this room you would remember it used to have brownish cornices and cream walls. Our furniture is nice and 'cosy' back here... it only just fits in! Dining table on the right overlooks the back yard for now, it's not until we finish the shuffling of rooms and knocking down of some walls until we will have a proper open space for this. Our beautiful kitchen is being picked up and moved out here and we are closing off the sliding door to the carport. I took this photo standing in a spare bedroom which will also be opened up by knocking down the dividing wall and then this entire space will be big enough for kitchen and open plan lounge and dining. We don't want to do too much out here just now because it will all be knocked out soon... bring it on the demolition!

The start of something big

Okay so if you have read my last couple of blogs you would know that we have bought a 1920's bungalow which we have now officially moved into. The house is in okay condition, it has a brand new kitchen and bathroom which we absolutely love; some of the ceilings and door frames have been replaced but it really needs some TLC. There are mismatched floors everywhere, skirtings and power point sockets that are not even fixed to the wall, a really shabby laundry and second toilet that looks like a timber sauna, doors that don't close, doors that don't open, weeds galore out the front and back and not to mention the DIY timber decking around the pool that is just a tad dangerous... the list goes on.

So before we moved in, we set ourselves a goal to finish four main rooms, which meant painting, painting and more painting. We chose the entrance-way, master bedroom, guest bedroom (because Ian & Jany have come to visit from Bendigo) and the front Lounge room.

I must say, it has turned out pretty well and was worth the countless days and hours of painting which, is all mainly thanks to Ads who has been on school holidays which worked out brilliantly. We got through most of it, with only a second coat remaining in the hallway and bedrooms and of course the floor coverings which we will do last.

Here are some before and after pictures of how it all started:

 BEFORE:

We started with two layers of undercoat on everything... walls, skirtings, door frames, window frames, you name it, we painted it!

Then we chose our colour... we ended up going with the one in the middle which is called Navigate by Taubmans. Believe it or not but there is actually a colour on the left which you can barely see (5 colours to choose from in total).

 

 

AFTER

This is the guest bedroom (right) that was before painted purple. We painted the picture rail, cornices and skirtings in white and the walls in a light grey (soft apparition). We hung new curtains in charcoal, added our own furnishings and presto...

On the left is the lounge room. New paint, curtains and our furniture have really modernised this room. Still need new light fittings and floors.

I will post some more pictures of the other two rooms once they are ready.

Our very first home... SOLD!

Well today we can officially say that our home has been sold! Although it has been under contract for a few weeks now, as a purchaser there is always a sneaky 'get out of jail free' card that you can play to get out of settlement... that is until the finance is approved and signed. Fortunately for us our purchasers didn't do the bail out, and we can now stop stressing about having to pay two mortgages.

So the 'sold' sticker was happily rolled out on our for sale sign yeterday afternoon. Great news!
Bit sad to see this home go though.

It's been a while...

Well it's been over 12 months since we last posted, and as usual life has had it's ups and downs. Our biggest achievement however has been the purchase of our new property in Prospect and the sale of our first home in Kilburn.

Although it doesn't seem like a big task from the outside, buying and selling is actually pretty stressful. Having to make sure everything is spotless and in perfect condition for open inspections, putting away all your 'homey' things like photographs and personal touches which make it feel like you are living in a house rather than your home. Even those 45 minutes that you have to be out of the house for whilst the open inspection is on, we were left wondering what to do with our time and the dogs.... weird. Normally I would be dying to get out of the house and do stuff, but I think it's the stress of knowing you can't be there whilst complete strangers walk through your most private spaces. 

Anyway, I'm glad its all over and the acquisition of our new property is certainly keeping us busy for now. We have a full scale interior re-design to tackle! Mind you, the house is beautiful, classic, roomy, and mixes the old with the new... completely liveable but we want to make it 'our' home and put our own spin on it. It will take a lot of hard work and not to mention a few $$$ but in the end we will have our dream home and somewhere for us to create a family and build memories.

Over the next few weeks we will keep you posted with our progress on the renovation and re-design, but here are some snaps of what it currently looks like:

Our new 1920's Bungalow in Prospect SA

Kitchen

Main Bathroom

Open plan family and dining area over looking backyard