Category: Our First Home

Yay sustainability! We now have solar power!

Max is very excited, as this has been on his Wishlist since we first purchased this property!

We are both looking forward to generating some serious sun power this summer!

Remember back in September 2017… When we started renovating the front room ensuite…. Yeah well it didn’t quite go to plan…

Long story short… We thought we uncovered asbestos… Yup… FUCK. Cue total emotional breakdown…!

I completely shut down… We locked up the front room and proceeded to pretend that section of the house didn’t exist. For almost 2 years.

This year we knew we needed to sort it out, get it professionally tested & just deal with whatever the outcome would be… Yay adult life.

Turns out the tests came back negative for asbestos… THANK FREAKING GOD! We popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate!!!

The ensuite Reno is now back on track… After a not so brief hiatus! >.<

Time to get back on the Ryobi Sander!

Deconstruction – CHECK

Reconstruction – CHECK

Plastering/Painting – CHECK

Tiling – DUE JANUARY

Completion Estimate – LATE FEB

Oh. Yeah… Check it out!

I finally have my perfect pantry solution (as the current pantry in this house SUCKS)… Happy Birthday TOOOOOOO MEEEEEE!

Shelving unit from Mocka: https://www.mocka.com.au/porto-bookcase-unit.html

Jars from IKEA: https://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/50213551/

Bulk Organic herbs, spices, flours, nuts & dried fruits from Terra Madre & The Source: https://www.terramadre.com.au & https://shop.thesourcebulkfoods.com.au

So at the same time our beautiful new baby chicks were hatching, we found out that the remaining huge tree in our back yard, was dangerously close to splitting completely in half… In the direct line of our house – Over the top of Max & my bedroom!

Whilst tidying up the chook yard, Max had discovered a massive, MASSIVE hole/split in the trunk of the beautiful old tree. On further inspection, we noticed that the section facing the house had a bit of a lean to it…. So we immediately called a family friend (a retired arbourist) – who removed a diseased tree in our back yard for us back in September 2017. He took one look at it on Good Friday and said it needed to be felled right away (as in like yesterday…!) as it was very unstable and could fall at any time.

8am Easter Monday Steve & his wife Lisa arrived as did both our sets of parents and by 5:30pm we no longer had a beautiful, old, shady tree in the backyard. I cried a lot!

It was a long, sweaty, emotionally challenging day… But we are very thankful for fabulous friends and family who all chipped in to help us clean up the massive mess and immense amount of timber left over once a tree is felled. Firewood for daaaaayyyyyssss!

We have also lost all privacy from our neighbours…. YAY… NOT!

When Max & I moved into our first home, built a fabulous chook house and rescued 4 ex-cage ISA Brown hens… Never did we believe the journey those silly chickens would take us on!

Out of the 4 hens, by Feb this year we only had one left… Ilona.

Because they were rescue hens, we didn’t have any information on them. No age, medical history, or previous living conditions… Only that they were ex-cage hens, no longer needed & were to be killed.

We figured that when we got them they were probably 3+ years old & had experienced a pretty hard life. As sad as I was when they died, (spaced out over 3 years) I was happy that we had given them a better life for their final years.

That fact that Ilona out lived her feathered buddies was quite comical, considering we had named her A-Loner and now she was all alone! Yet, she wouldn’t stop nesting (on nothing but air) week in week out… I would lock her out of the house, remove the nesting boxes, coax her out into the garden… But she was determined to hatch something! Silly broody bird!

So….. We contacted a family friend to see if she had some fertile eggs we could pop under Ilona & wait to see if she would actually hatch something. We were given 9 eggs and Ilona was absolutely stoked to see them & hopped onto the nest straight away, set about fluffing herself up & bok, bokking happily she sat… & sat…… & sat!

And then….. on Good Friday, the first of 7 baby chicks were hatched!

We ended up with 4 females and 3 roosters & one very, VERY happy foster Momma Hen!

Now that we have this fabulous new herb garden, we felt that we needed a nice spot close by to put our Baby Webber Q. It used to sit on this el-cheap-o stand we picked up from Bunnings over 6 years ago, but neither of us really liked it…

Max had some old pallets left over at work and we came up with the grand idea to up-cycle the old stand and repurpose the timber from the pallets… Into a brand new BBQ Stand!

Voila!

The only item we needed to purchase for this project, were some stainless steel screws! Pretty happy with how this little project turned out!

If you need us . . . This is where we will be!

My Sister and Brother in-law gave us the first hanging chair for Christmas 2017 and I have absolutely loved it. At the time, Max and I had discussed getting a second chair but didn’t really have anywhere to hang it. So when we re-designed this new “Zen Zone” we were thrilled to find the exact same chair was still available!

We have been spending our evenings out here and it is the perfect spot to unwind.

Hanging chairs are from Temple & Webster online.

Three months ago, we moved an old veggie garden (see post November 25th, 2018) and it is now a happy and healthy herb garden!

The new location has proved to be much better for sun/shade/rain. With the added benefits of some locally sourced pig-poo compost, (suggested by Mum) which has done the trick and the rosemary in particular is absolutely thriving and has tripled in size since I transplanted it into this garden bed back in November.

Max and I have been enjoying using the fresh herbs in our cooking, eating freshly picked homegrown tomatoes (that actually TASTE like real tomatoes) and the most deliciously sweet strawberries!

The possums have also been attempting to savour our harvest . . . hence the wire guards around the tomatoes and strawberries . . .

We are currently revamping our old BBQ stand, which we hope to move into a new location near the new garden bed . . . So watch this space for update No.3!

About this time last year, I decided to create something a bit different and a bit more permanent on our blackboard wall in the kitchen . . . See blog post from March 12, 2018.

I started drawing one shelf, then two . . . Then a few curve balls got thrown Max and my way, causing our current plans and way of living to be put on hold.

2018 was a very stressful, rough and challenging year. We had to re-think holiday plans, our newly set goals, our renovation timeline was scrapped, I went back to working part-time, Max started a new job, we simplified our life, we questioned our decision to move back to the country and we relied heavily on our parents for guidance and emotional support.

I personally struggled with trying to figure out how to manage the mammoth list of things we needed to fix/renovate around the home as well as with my own need to try and fix our lives . . . All the time wishing we could go back to how it had been.

I struggled with anxiety and depression.

I was harbouring a lot of hate and anger.

As a very private person, I was receding into myself and putting on that brave face of “everything is A-OK” . . . When I should have been asking for help. I was exhausted.

. . .

Then, I realised the things I had to be thankful for. For what I have that others do not:

I have an amazing husband,

I live in a beautiful part of the world with two sets of parents less than 10 minutes down the road, who have shown unwavering love and support,

I have very close family and friends,

I have a home, providing a safe roof over my head,

I have my physical health and I am able to work,

I have a job, which I love,

I have vision and creativity,

I love a challenge,

I have a beautiful and affectionate (yet slightly crazy) cat,

+ many many more . . .

. . .

It has taken me almost a year to get to this point, but today was what I hope is a turning point. Signified by my need to complete the third and final shelf on my blackboard wall.