House Update

It's been some twenty months since we purchased the house we are renovating. We thought we would have finished, sold and be part way through our second renovtion project by now. Unfortunately we totally underestimated just what a poor state of repair the house was in so work is still in progress. The good news is it's almost finished with just one bedroom, the dining room and rear garden still to do.
Our first project was to renovate the flat in the basement as we had a tenant waiting to move in. This was completed and I posted pictures of the flat about fifteen months ago.
Here's a few more pictures showing before and after shots.

Guest bathroom on the ground floor

I was hoping to remove and keep the mountain scene tiles above the old bath as something to remember the old bathroom by but unfortunately broke them trying to remove them. Shame, as they were hand-painted!

Children's bathroom first floor

Both of these bathrooms were undertaken at the same time and were out of action for about five weeks in total. Good job we have four bathrooms in the house!
A change of tiles and bringing in a curved shower screen have made this children's bathroom much more spacious

My beautiful kitchen

I'm not sure whether green wallpaper, yellow curtains, barbie-pink work surfaces and wood-effect cupboard doors were fashionable in the fifties and sixties or whether the previous owners had colour-blindness mixed in with a large dose of bad taste? Either way this kitchen was awful and I hated cooking here. The kitchen is now my pride and joy and is a much more practical layout.

Kitchen and breakfast bar

Where there is now a functional breakfast bar used to be a floor to ceiling cupboard, part of it can just be seen in the picture on the left and the picture below. Removing this monstrosity makes both the kitchen and adjoining dining room a much lighter and spacious place. 

Kitchen seen from the breakfast room

This picture is taken from the adjoining breakfast/sun room. There was a wall here but we had a large unglazed window knocked through which not only opens the room up but lets light flood in. It also allows me to watch the 'Simpsons' on the wall mounted TV whilst I'm cooking!

Lounge

 This is the lounge room. I used to like pink until I moved here but the amount of pink in the place was overwhelming. Taras and his Dad, Bob, rendered the brick fireplace and it was painted with a suede effect paint. I made the fire surround out of an old single headboard and tiled the hearth with slate. Taras, with just a little help from me, laid the beautiful parquetry tiles. The large folding doors have been replaced as the old ones were rotten and we weren't terribly keen on the mexican themed etched glass!

Mexican themed old door

"Tasteful" old front door

For a joke we put the old Mexican-themed doors on ebay. We never expected to sell them but amazingly sold them for over $100.

Furnished lounge

The lounge room was completed just before Christmas and is a much more comfortable and enjoyable place to sit and un-wind. The bi-fold doors look great and really suit the style of property. There were no doors here before and it's good to be able to close them.

Lounge with view of hall and front door

 

Isle of Wight (May 2011)

During our visit to the UK last year we visited the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of Britain. This was my first visit here and I was impressed with the place. The weather was good to us, it involved a ferry crossing and our hotel was excellent.
I had heard that the Isle of Wight is slowly disappearing due to marine erosion but was still shocked to see the scene below. This car park used to be much bigger, but is being reclaimed by the ocean!

World famous multi-coloured sand cliffs at Alum Bay

Shanklin Village

Thatched buildings in Shanklin Village

Me looking at the giant leaves of the Gunnera plant, Shanklin Chine

The Needles, Alum Bay

Parents' visit

Late last year my parents came to Australia for a visit of one month. This was their first, but hopefully not last, visit. Understandably they were not looking forward to the 20+ hour flight but, upon arrival in Sydney, they admitted they actually enjoyed it.
Shortly after they arrived we travelled to Canberra's 'Floriade' with Bob and Rie Natalenko.

Thousands of tulips at Floriade

Whilst in Canberra we visited Parliament House. Below is a picture of Mum, Dad, Rie and Bob inside Parliament.

We visited Black Mountain and went to the viewing platform of the Telstra Tower. Mum and Dad are standing in front of a model of the tower in the reception area.






 Here's a few pictures of Mum and Dad during their stay in Sydney

The Opera House and Harbour Bridge

Chinese Gardens, Sydney

Chnging the points on the Zig Zag Railway, Lithgow

Zig Zag Railway, Lithgow

Featherdale Wildlife Park

Ded feeding a Wallaby

New Zealand

During their stay my parents wanted to visit New Zealand so, with Taras and myself, we headed to the South Island for just under a week. We flew to Christchurch, scene of the devastating earthquake earlier in the year (2011). Unfortunately the City centre is all but destroyed and a cordon stops you entering what was once a beautiful place. Several smaller quakes have since hit so re-building the city is proving difficult to say the least. We stayed for two nights here exploring before flying to Queenstown.
Here's a couple of pictures from Christchurch.

Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Mum and Dad in Christchurch Botanic Gardens

Upon our arrival in Queenstown we picked up our hire car for the rest of our stay inNew Zealand. We covered many hundreds of kilometres and spent at least five hours a day driving. I have to say that whilst the driving was tiring, at no point did I feel under pressure from other drivers, unlike in Australia and the UK. The scenery was absolutely breathtaking, the people were very friendly and we stayed in some fantastic B and B's and hotels.

Mum, Dad and me aboard a boat on Milford Sound

Scenic Milford Sound

Milford Sound

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seal at Milford Sound

Mum, Dad and Taras on the balcony of our hotel in Queenstown

Dad taking a well earned rest after a day sitting in the back of the car!

Mum and Dad at the waterfront, Queenstown

The Rain Forest

Maybe the title is a slight exaggeration but my idea to introduce a rain forest area in a corner of this front garden in Wollongong has worked far better than I could have imagined. The ferns, bromeliads and alocasias amongst others have worked really well alongside the pool with cascading waterfall. The dry stream bed running through the garden not only adds to the atmosphere but also has a practical use in diverting rain water away from the house where it used to pool around the front door.
This garden  is still under development, mainly due to most of my time being spent on renovating the house. Now the house is nearly complete I hope to be able to spend more time working on this garden. More pictures to follow in a later blog.