Breeze blocks beauties...

 

I am loving that our current home has white painted breeze blocks instead of a window. It lets the air flow in and out and we have a fly screen that we attached in summer. I am thinking I would love to use breeze blocks somehow in the new home, maybe even an outside wall or screen.

 

 

Here are few ideas from pinterest that I love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lou x

A look back at our old "Enchanthing Forest"...

It's been one year since we said goodbye to our beloved home of 15 years.

What now stays in my mind about this home are all the wonderful times we had there. The many parties, like my baby shower, kitchen tea for my best friend and many family birthday parties.

 We lived here when we got married, went overseas and the most special moment was bringing our 2 babies to this home. We transformed our home slowly, from a small, out of date 2 bedroom home to a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home with a deck making it look and work so much better. After a year away from it, I still miss this home. But we knew that after all that time it was time to move on to a new adventure.

Here's some of my favorite photos from my old home.



The side fence became divine every August with the amazing fragrance and beautiful look of the Jasmine



The newly renovated main bathroom.

 



These flowers sprung to life after it rained.

The front courtyard provided privacy and was like having an extra room.

 

Newly planted Lemon trees



We loved the result of the pressed metal wall and would consider doing it again in the next home

One of our last gatherings, to say goodbye to our home.

Lou x

Parting is such sweet sorrow (Willy Wonka 1971)

If you know me personally you will well and truly know that 1 week ago we said goodbye to our beloved home of over 15 years for the last time. After much sole searching for the last few years we made the hard decision that it was time to move onto the next new adventure for us as we had outgrown our home. All the renovations prolonged our enjoyment here but we knew that with 2 young kids, it just would not suit us into their growing yeras. Its been a really hard journey for me, so it has been nice to have some respite at Mum and Dads gorgeous Guest House while we take stock of everything and really consider things before we move onto the next ouse. We have been looking every single day at the property market and are ready to pounce when just the right thing comes along.Hopefully it will be a knocker down house in the area so we can build something brand new, but we are carefully considering all options.

  Here is a look back at some of my favourite shots on the blog of the house. Goodbye house, I love you and will never forget you. 

Of course I will continue to blog about all my new adventures!

The Back Deck

This rooms final reincarnation: The TV Retreat

The front entry and ever changing front table ( the table stays with me baby!)

Our salvaged from the footpath front gate and our cute little "helper"

A Turkish Delight scented rose that we planted and view to the courtyard of where we turned a sand pit into a water feature

These selves stayed with the house, put the pretties came with me

Evie's beautiful room will be missed greatly. 

The courtyard in bloom

Our renovated main bathroom

Last but not least another shot of the front entry. In my new home, I will make sure there is a perfect spot for this table.

The house sold within the 2nd week and it was a 30 day settlement, so before we knew it, we had moved out and Im still coming to terms with it all. 

 Lou x

Half done jobs

Due to the rainy weather, lack of spare time and the fact of having 2 kids, we are noticing we have a lot of half done jobs at the moment. Our side gate that leads to the carport has been rotting away for a few years and the gate has not closed properly for about 10 years. So we just decided to rip half of it down.

This is the result, now we just have to sand the putty and give it a fresh coat of grey paint. 

It actually makes the courtyard look bigger and nicer.

Another half done job that has been stopped from the rain. In a moment of craziness, during a break in the rain, I started painting the roof at 5.30 pm, and now has been looking like this for the past week. Hubby was not that pleased with me. Hopefully, it will be finished soon as we seem to have a break in the rain. 

We have been regretting not getting the shed re-roofed when we got the rest of the house done years ago, but this is a quick and easy solution and it actually looks so much better being gloss grey instead of red/black fibro. 

Unfortunately / fortunately Evie wont be able to 

enjoy climbing and swinging 

on the gate now that it has been removed!

The gate will be up for sale soon on eBay

Lou x

Our new front gate

For years we have been wanting a new front gate to add a bit of street appeal as we have a high fence, boring paling gate that looked like the fence and trees , there are only glimpses of the house. We needed the gate to be a bit more special. We dreamed of a wrought iron swirly type of gate and had been unsuccessfully looking for a free or cheap one for a long time. Needless to say, no luck there but then one day we saw this....

See Evie poking her hand through, pretending she was jail.

It was on a local footpath awaiting council collection, so we snapped it up, hoping it would fit perfectly into the old gates spot (and also into our car). After getting it home, we sized it up and figured out a way to make it work, borrowed some power tools from my Dad, shaved of the sides and base a little, sanded it all back, gave it a massive clean, puttied all the nail holes and finally painted it the same grey as our fence. This took about 2 months of a little bit of work here and there as we have 2 kids our weekends are filled with many other things to do. We reused the same handle and hinges so the total cost was $0, except for the paint and putty we already had and a large amount of time, blood, sweat and tears*.

(*actual tears where from our little squirrels as they kept wanting to "help" us paint with the spray gun and lets just say my legs and shoes are now grey)

Sizing up the gate into it's final home.

 

Work in progress, the varnish was very flaky. Maybe why the previous owners got rid of the gate?

There was a lot of discussion and consultation with family, friends and neighbours about if the gate should be grey or white. My usual self would have advised WHITE, FOR SURE but practicality won out as even the grey fence gets a visible coating of dirty/mud/dust and I would not be able to stand looking at a white gate that has a brown stripe of dirt at the bottom. Also we decided that the grey would give a more subtle soft look to the entrance. We are very happy with the finished product, it works far better then our old gate and seems to improve the street view of the house and is obvious where the entrance is. 

The finished product!

Things still to do: Paint the bricks under the letter box, remove bricks under the gate and replace with some nice grey  large rectangular pavers that will create a path  out to the road to further define the entrance. ( when I cant find these mystery pavers for free or cheap).

Bye for now, Lou x