Photos of the lounge room

I posted these on my Facebook page a while ago but realised I had neglected to post them here so here they are.

I'm going to make some curtains that match our new style over the next few weeks.

Have you liked my facebook page?

I am posting photos of the renovations of the lounge room every day there. It is easy to upload them from my android tablet so do it regularly.

You can go here to like Aussie Coffee Shop on Facebook. If you don't have a facebook account, you should still be able to see the photos.

Here is the latest photo with the lounges and television cabinet moved back in.

Dust everywhere.

Well the renovations continue. Today Steve has been getting the walls ready for painting. We have dust everywhere. I tried to get away from it by going into our room, only to be greeted by this:

It is all over our floor and Steve's bedside table. Now I am glad I have the left side of the bed. 

Here is the lounge room looking down from the dining room table end:

You can see how dusty the television cabinet is too. If you can't, here is a close up of it. 

I guess the walls will be really flat and perfect at the end. One day I will have less dust in my house but for now, I am glad that I  have a hubby that is interested in doing the house up. 

Tomorrow we will have a day off renovations until the evening. We need to empty the lounge room out for the sanding of the floorboards. It will be interesting keeping the children off them while we are sanding/staining and varnishing. 

Therese. 

Renovations.

We have had a lot going on here since the last post.

On Thursday, we travelled to Adelaide. We had a few things on and tied them all into the one visit. Joseph saw the Ophthalmologist and Amelia went to diabetes camp. While Amelia was on diabetes camp, Steve and I went to Hahndorf to stay. Daniel, Sam, Madeline and Brigette looked after the boys for us so that we could have sometime on our own. 

Hahndorf was wonderful. Steve and I stayed at Amble Wren Cottage for 2 nights.  It was good to spend sometime together without the children and relax away from the busy life we have. 

Since coming back, Steve has been working hard on renovating the lounge/dining room. Here are some photos from the work he has done. 

Here is Steve finishing off the replacement of the wood that was running the wrong way.

All this took 2.5 days to do. Next we need to sand the wood down, stain the wood and then varnish. The sander is coming on Monday so for now Steve is working on the computer table. 

He made this bracket to hold the computer table up. 

I was pretty impressed that he made this himself. Once it is painted and varnished, I am sure it would look really professional. 

I will post progress photos as we do them. It is much easier for me to upload to facebook so if you want to see photos each day, you can go and like my facebook page here. 

I am still alive.

Well after 2 months of no posts, I am back. I have been thinking about giving up blogging and having less time on social  networks. It is a big commitment and sometimes it just seems too hard to keep up reading other people's blogs and post on my own. I do like having a journal of kinds to look back on though and really value many of the friends I have made through blogging. I keep up with many of these people on facebook but I am not keeping the memories that my children create as much there as I do here. 

So I am back. Here are some of the things that we are up to.

This week is the second week of holidays. We  have two weeks inbetween each term in Australia. School year starts in January and we have 4 terms that are around 10 weeks long each. Next term is the last one for the year. Then we will have a 6 week break. Steve  has next term off with long service leave. With school holidays and long service leave all together, he is going to be home for 17 weeks. I am sure it will fly but I am going to enjoy it while it lasts. The plan is to do many renovations during the holidays. So far he has painted the back of the house and started on the living/dining room.

Here are some photos of the back verandah been painted. Down one end of it, the previous owners started to paint it in pink, white and purple. It wasn't the colour scheme we wanted at all. 

We did the front of the house back in 2007. Here is the post with photos. It has only taken us another 6 years to get the rest done. 

The lounge/dining room was one of the first rooms we did. It was a place that we pulled out a wall to make two rooms into one. Here is the picture:

When we pulled the wall out we found one of the floor boards was running the wrong way. We had to rethink our idea of polishing the floorboards. 

We got floating floorboards but both Steve and I haven't really liked them. Because we are redoing the room, we decided to fix up the floorboards. Steve looked at YouTube and found a way to fix them and run the floorboards the rights way. 

Photos will come when Steve has pulled up the floorboards and run them all the right way. 

As well as the floor, we are going to repaint the walls and make new curtains. We are living in a dust bowl at the moment with all the rubbing and sanding on the walls but I am sure it will all be worth it in the end. 

Thankful Thursday.

It is the second week of the holidays here and I am thankful for so many things.

First, I am thankful for new quilts and covers to keep Christopher and Joseph warm this winter.

I am thankful for our quieter house and that my older three children are all living together.

I am thankful that Daniel has the opportunity to go to World Youth Day again.

I am thankful my new laundry. (pictures coming)

I am thankful that Steve and I still get out alone at least once a week. Today we had lunch together at Cafe Primo.

I am thankful for the strong wind that dried all our washing today.

I am thankful for bloglovin and been able to follow my favourite blogs.

What are you thankful for?

Therese.

Let the clearing begin.

Today is the first official day of holidays (when you don't include the weekend).

We had an early start but not as early as we hoped. Madeline, Brigette and I have joined Curves. We had our first workout this morning. We were suppose to meet the trainer there at 7.30 but I slept in and woke up at 7.40. We got there at 8.00 and went around the circuit. It usually takes about 30 minutes but we took a bit longer today because we were been shown how to use the machines. We will go back tomorrow and Wednesday but won't be able to on Thursday due to other commitments. Friday we will go for the last time this year because they shut down for the Christmas new year break. After that, I am going to try and go every Monday - Friday.

As I mentioned last week, we are in the process of changing rooms. Steve and I decided we would go through the entire house and have a complete clean out. We rang a mini skip company today and we are going to have one delivered here on Friday. We started our cleaning today and have a nice pile ready to put in the skip when it gets here on Friday. It will be here for 3 days and we are pretty sure we will be able to go through everything by then and have a clutter free home.

Once my house is had it's clean out and we have finished our Christmas celebrations, I am going to do a heap of sewing.

Source: blog.sewserendipity.com via Therese on Pinterest

I have been looking for a dress pattern to wear to mass for a while and haven't really come across one that I am really  happy with. Yesterday, I came across Bebe.

Source: blog.sewserendipity.com via Therese on Pinterest

 It is just the kind of pattern I have been looking for so bought it last night. Because it is coming for Texas, I will have to be patient. I have the cleaning out this week and lots of sewing I need to do for the boys too.

Enjoy the last week before Christmas. We are getting excited about Christmas here now.

Wordless Wednesday: How our garden grows, continued.

Wordless Wednesday: How our garden grows.

Laundry.

I hate laundry. I think I have probably written that many times on my blog. It would have to be the job I hate the most. It is just never ending and huge with all my children.

I think it has been more of a pain for 18 months now because we have had my washing machine set up in an old bathroom.

We changed the old laundry into the children's bathroom and since then, we have had the washing machine up on an old door over our bath in our old bathroom.

It is the next job we are doing in our renovations and we finally have the money to do it.

So I am looking for ideas.

Here is a picture of the idea I have for our laundry.

Our laundry space is much smaller than this one but I like the set up of the washing machine, trough and cupboards. We could do it along the wall that the bath is in at the moment. I think I want some softer colours for the paint but love the wood colour for the cupboards. Steve was a plumber before he was a teacher so he knows how to do all the plumbing and put the hose from the washing machine to the trough.

I will show colours and progress as we do all the work.

Weekend wrap up

We have had a great weekend here.

Joseph got his first pair of shoes today. He has been walking in them a bit but is still getting use to them so was crawling around in them too.

Amelia had a netball game yesterday. Their team won 7 to 5 so she was pretty happy about that.

Today I cut up a huge big pumpkin that my friend Ellie gave me. We have a lot of boiled pumpkin. I am going to make some pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread with it.

Steve and I walked to town yesterday for our food shopping, Since we were only buying for breakfast, lunch and snacks, we were able to put the shopping in the basket under Joseph's pusher and push Joseph and the shopping home. I would love to buy a shopping trolley on wheels that we could take for it though.

We have been having a lot of trouble with our TV reception. Whenever the weather gets stormy or overcast, we have interference with it. Today Steve moved our antenna and it has been fixed. We have perfect reception now.

Steve took some photos of our backyard so that you can all see how the plants have grown,. It is really nice sitting out there in the middle of the day. I will often go out and sit in the sun with my coffee and phone at recess time. I read all the blogs in my reader while I am there. This is just one of the things I love about my new phone. Here are all the pictures:

Lastly, this weekend, Steve posted our 1470 post and this post is post 1471.. Only 29 posts now till we have 1500. I am thinking about having a give away for it so stay tuned.

Outdoor entertaining.

Today was a public holiday in South Australia. It is Adelaide Cup day. Our friends the Mahers came to spend the afternoon with us.

We had a lovely bbq lunch inside since it was pretty hot outside but after Mass they came back and we had a lovely dinner outside. Fr. Paul our parish priest also joined us for tea.

It was a great night. Here are a few photos from it.

Group shot.

Bill, Daniel and Sam sitting on our retaining wall.

Our turtle pond (which is currently turtleless) and Jess in the corner. Our turtle has gone missing. Maybe a prayer to St. Anthony will find him.

Christopher. He had a fall just before tea. I don't know if that was why he sat over here on his own or if it was because all the chairs were taken on the paved area. He ws happy to come and sit with everyone once I put a chair there for him.

photos of the back yard.

Looking back at the paved area.

The areas with the wood around them are going to be for plants. We will put in mainly Australian natives so we don't need to water a lot.

Our turtle's pond. Plants will go around this too.

The paved area.

This is the last area that Steve is putting the wood around. It will also have some plants in it.

This and That.

I have to share with you all one of my quirks. Whenever I come to my blog dashboard, I see the number of posts written. When I see a nice even number (like 1400 posts) I get a thrill from it. I don't know why but seeing an uneven number (like 1401) just makes me feel like my blog needs another post. The same thing happens when I look at my sitemeter counter at the bottom.

This weekend I was intending to do a bit of sewing but when I sat at my machine on Friday night to finish off Joseph's overalls I couldn't put the presser foot down. This has happened twice before. It is always in the summer and I am wondering if it is an environmental factor that is making it happen. I have pretty much decided I am going to get the machine fixed and then sell it. I have a spare machine that I can use between now and buying a new one. There is a big Janome sale on in March though and they are my favourite machines. The only reason I have persevered with getting this machine fixed each time the foot has been broken is because it is such a great machine to sew on. I really love the way it sews and feels.

In the garden, Steve has made some really great progress. The retaining wall is up, the pavers are down and the turtles pond is installed. Steve thinks he will be finished in a couple of weeks and then he will start on the laundry. I will get some more photos up this week of the garden.

Have a great week everyone.

Pumping and home improvements.

Since coming home from Adelaide, I have been really busy. Any change to routine seems to put a kink in our days and makes me feel like I am not in the routine we need for everything to get done. The last couple of days have been better though and I am getting a lot done.

We have been looking into changing our internet, home phone and mobile phone plans. We are happy with the service mostly with our current providers but I was pretty sure we could get some better deals with other providers.

I have been spending a lot of time researching all the different deals and think we have come up with the best plan for us all. It will save us about 30.00 a month for every thing.

We have Christopher's pump basal rates all worked out. He has adjusted well to life with a pump too. He doesn't like pump change day much but that is only once ever three days. While we were getting his basal rates worked out I had to get up at midnight and 3.00 am to do blood sugar checks. I don't have to do them now we have the basal rate right but I have been waking up every night at that time anyway. I hope tonight I will sleep right through.

Steve has been working hard landscaping our garden. It is looking great. I cannot wait till it is finished. Here are a few photos of what he has done so far:

Here is Steve getting up all the grass so that we don't have weeds when it is all finished.

Looking back towards our house.

All the grass out and the dirt all leveled off to the levels we want them. The big area in the middle will be paved and have a retaining wall around the edge.

The pond we bought for our turtle. Our turtle has just about doubled in size and needs a bigger swimming area. This should do him nicely. We also have a mate coming to be here with him when we see Steve's sister again.

The paths around the garden area.

Some changes.

I have completed 4 covers for our lounge to go in the family room. Steve has also rubbed down the pine, stained it and varnished it. It has come up really well:

I want to do the back cushions again. They are just a bit too small. I measured the covers off the foam and they are about 2cm too small. I started them tonight and should finish them off tomorrow.

We also got our new pigeon pair of lounges for the lounge/dining room. Here they are:


Once I do the curtains, I will take another shot. I am really happy with our new lounges and the make over we gave our old lounge.

It is almost like winter.

This weekends forecast is for cold wet weather.

It is going to be a good weekend to sit and do some sewing.

First, we have bought some new lounges for our lounge/dining room. I will be making some curtains to match it. This is the fabric I have chosen for it. The roses match our lounges perfectly.


Next, we are recovering the lounge chair cushions and moving one of the old lounges into the family/home school room. I measured up the covers today and made the pattern. This is the fabric I will be using for it:


Finally, if I get sick of sewing or want to have a break, I also have recently bought some cotton ease to make a wrap for Joseph. I am going to use this pattern.

This is the wool I have. It is a lighter colour than I thought it was on the website but it should look nice.

Hope you all have a good weekend and keep warm.