Back Into It Again!

Well, Christmas has come and gone (first one in the new house.........complete with Christmas tree, as promised to my grand-daughter, Leila!) I've had a busy time with other things, including the "Images" exhibition in Hobart that opened in mid-December during which I sold eight of twelve works (which is pretty good these days!) and the annual music camp down at Camp Clayton on the north-west coast. Renovations have been at a standstill because there has been no time, but I'm just starting to get right back into it.
Yesterday I ripped up the old, stinky carpet in the second bedroom to get it ready for re-finishing the floor and refurbishing the windows. It's a nice sunny room - the middle-sized of three bedrooms in the house, and the one I have been using since I moved into the house.......despite occasional wheezy problems because of the horrible carpet. Here's what I pulled out: dusty, dirty stained carpet full of animal smells and disintegrating underlay.

 

Then I had the rather horrible job of removing the strips of spiky timber around the perimeter - the ones that hold the carpet in place. They have a name, but I can't remember it. I removed all the staples that had been holding the underlay in place and any left-behind nails. Scrubbed the floor with water and bleach to remove lingering odours and started stripping the paintwork on the window. There is a dated, but serviceable built-in wardrobe and cupboards in this room and I think I can make it fresh and new with a decent paint-job and some new hardware (I've seen some brilliant ceramic knobs in Ishka - might get some of those) The room is now ready to go with paint and floor finishing.

 

Of course, I had to move everything out of the room, so I can work on it unimpeded, so I've moved into the first bedroom that was renovated and which Leila had most of last year. (She moved into a share house a few minutes walk away from here in late November)

I'm not sure if this move is permanent - I like the room, but waking up to your own reflected image in a wall of mirrors is a little confronting!

 

The garden continues to improve and be a delight. I'm harvesting home-grown vegetables: potatoes, zucchini and herbs so far, but I have tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers, beans and beetroot which will be ready soon. I have created a lovely spot to eat down the back with a big market umbrella to provide shade.........had some friends to lunch last week to "christen" it. I'm loving having this sweet alfresco spot - something I always yearned for......it was always too windy and exposed at my previous house, so it just wasn't practical.

I'm really glad I  didn't stint on expense with my new oven - it bakes so well that cooking is a joy. If I'd settled for a cheaper option, I think I would have regretted it!

 

And finally........I'm using the lavender bounty from the front garden to create small gifts like these lavender bottles. I'm going to make some lavender bath salts and some sachets as well.

 

 

 

 

 

Tackling The Kitchen

I love to cook. I love baking. I make my own bread. The kitchen is an important space to me, because I spend quite a lot of time in there. The kitchen I "inherited" with this house was dirty, smelly, with an oven that only worked partially, mismatched drawer and cupboard door handles and a lot of damage to cupboard doors and walls. (It looked like they had endured a few fits of temper!)

When I first moved in, the most important job was scrubbing everything down (multiple times) until I was satisfied it was at least clean, even if it still looked shabby. I had to put up with it like this while I got on with a few other more pressing things, but once I was able, I started repairing the holes in the walls, the kicked in cupboard doors and replacing broken catches (ALL of them!) I bought a new oven and had it installed by an electrician (definitely NOT a diy job!) Oh, the joy of simply being able to bake again!

Walls, ceiling and cabinets painted and the kitchen started to feel fresh and renewed.

Before - old oven on the way out!

Starting the tiling on the old/new splash back

 I could have called in a company and had all of this old kitchen ripped out and replaced with a brand spanking new *bland* one, but I really wanted to see how well an old kitchen like this could be refurbished and repurposed. These drawers are made from dove-tailed hardwood - you won't see that in your melamine-coated MDF flat-pack kitchen! And money is an issue - I'll save it wherever I can.

On ripping off various stuck-on finishes etc, I uncovered these lovely burnt orange tiles on the wall behind the stove and above one of the benches. I really wanted to keep them, but of course, the tiles could never be matched and I needed more  because the newer stoves don't have that high back like the older ones and I also had to take off an inch-thick melamine splash-back that was worse for wear. So I chose some tiles that were a contrast in both colour and texture and went to town employing my  skills as an artist to design a graphic interplay between the old orange shiny tiles and the new grey-toned matte ones. In my head I could see how it might look, but the reality, when it was done far exceeded my expectations……I LOVE it!

I chose greys and white for my kitchen colour scheme - nice and restful, but with the zing of the surprise orange. As serendipity would have it, some of my best cookware is also orange. This was meant to be.

Same view showing the tiling job completed - before and after painting the cabinets

When I bought the oven, I also bought a range-hood and because it was one you just plug into a socket, I decided I could install it myself. This was a fairly big job - I had to make an MDF box to house it, attach the box securely to the existing cabinet and wall and install the hood. (It said on the packaging, that it was a two-man job to install it, but with a bit of ingenuity, I managed it by myself……two men = one woman?) All that remained was to fill in the space with a piece of plywood and paint it to match the cabinets. Astoundingly, is is all straight and neat!

This is what I was replacing………!!

New range hood

I would have liked to have put in some new bench tops, but because what I'd like is expensive, I decided to do a refurbish job on the old tops until I can afford new ones. There is a special laminate finish that is available, so I decided to give that a try - I got it tinted to a tone the same as the cabinet doors, but a shade darker and just followed the instructions on the tins for prepping and doing the job. There was one burnt, damaged area that I had to repair before I started. 

One bench top completed

The finish is so good, you can't even see where the repair is. It remains to be seen how durable this is once I start using it, but it probably only needs to last for a year or two.

So the kitchen is now pretty much done. For now. Except that I'm going to put in a microwave cabinet and some open shelving above the refrigerator. I love my kitchen!

Next job? not such a big one…….repairing and repainting the small dining room adjacent to the kitchen.