3 hours into a LEGO marathon, this mum is just as obsessed as the kids!
Archives
Returning…of sorts
Eeek, so it’s been awhile since my last post! Amazing how time seems to gallop away from you when you’re having fun.
Since my last post I’ve grown baby number 3, sent Master 5 off to school, had said baby, navigated through homework and over-tired kids,& tried to stay relatively sane ever since(with a lot of help from my mom!)
I reckon now is as good a time as any to get back into blogging, especially with the addition of another baby boy! I have tried to load a few photos but it doesn’t want to work, so before I throw this phone against the wall, I’ll sign off and try again from the home computer another time…
Ooo, look, I worked it out…
The House…Part 3 (rebuild)
Despite our good intentions of regibbing ourselves, we eventually decided to get someone in to do it for us. Totally worth the cost let me tell you! I did, however, staple waterproofing paper to ALL of the walls, interior ones too. And the dramas with the staple gunS! Yes, 3 staple guns were involved! The first one was Hubby’s, one he’d had for years. Which I managed to break in less than an hour!Needless to say it wasn’t a good start. I then bought a replacement one, it wasn’t the cheapest on offer but definitely wasn’t worth much more. Hmmm should’ve asked the Bunnings guy about staples because who knows stuff like each gun has a specific type of staple?? So I just bought the size that was on the packaging on the gun. Turns out you have to get a specific brand too! Geez, I was spitting mad when that one wouldn’t work! One last trip into town before I totally threw in the towel on the whole damn thing! Luckily there was a very helpful man on hand who pointed me in the right direction for both gun AND staples!
I even put in the insulation myself! Measuring, cutting, placing! Lets just say it was itchy work, even with gloves on!
A 2 man team took just a couple of days to get all of the gib up…it would’ve taken us weeks I’m sure!
Kitchen. Yes, that is a blurry child running across the bottom of the photo!
Lounge
Hallway
3rd bedroom
What a difference it made, it was starting to feel like real house again.
Next up were the gib stoppers (Strait-line Plastering, I highly recommend them,found on Builderscrack.co.nz). It took about 5 days for them to get the plastering done & dried enough for me to paint. And to get the gib cove up. The guy who did the gibbing measured up the amount of cove we would need so I just ordered it all through our builder. When it came to all the walls being up, the gibber asked what size cove I got…uuuuuummmmmmmm, there are different sizes?? Of course, the cove I got was too small! Due to the house being older, the walls are slightly taller than an average new-build these days. Only by a few cm’s but enough to make the standard size cove look ridiculous & not adequate to cover the gabs between wall & ceiling). So back to the builder who was, thankfully, able to return & reorder the cove in time for it to go up!
Lounge. You can see the larger cove at the top of the walls
Boys room. Plastered & cove up
Oh, let’s not forget the electrician who came in between & putting in of insulation & the walls going back in. And what a mess electricians make! A friend of a friend who was amazing, making sure he stayed within our minimal budget (who knew electricians were so pricey??). He wasn’t the messy one, but his young apprentice was a tad on the lazy side. Dropping wires etc & leaving them all over the place. Despite there being a bin/cardboard box to dispose of such crap! Hubby was quick to drop a very obvious hint about it which made a difference for about an hour! The brush & pan were never far from my hands! We still have outside lights that need to be connected, & proper fittings for all the overhead lights inside (currently just bare bulbs) but we aren’t in any rush just yet. Maybe in the new year when things have settled down after baby boy’s arrival….
Yay, painting time!!My father-in-law and one of my brothers-in-law came to help me paint while Hubby was at work. It was exciting to see the colour go up on the walls, but oh how tedious!!! I did the ceilings, I even researched the best methods! I certainly don’t envy painters their job!
We were under pressure to move out of our rental place by this stage so we were trying to get everything done so that Hubby could get the plumbing done, and the builder could come in and do the skirtings & window/door surrounds. Which then also needed painting! (Farm we were on was being leased out & included the cottage we were renting. It had been okayed that we could stay on until we were ready to move into the new COMPLETED house. But of course, the farm worker they had suddenly walked out on the job so they had to organise someone else pronto. The people they hired needed accommodation, so guess who had to move out pronto?)
Kitchen.The only photo I could find of just the painting…see, no window surrounds yet
And then Hubby made an executive decision, while talking to the landlord of our rental on the wed (11/6) that we would move out on the sat(14/6)!!! Then came home to tell his stressed out, over-it-all, pregnant wife! Let’s just say there was swearing and tantruming, and possibly some tears involved. While he could get up on Thurs morning & head off to work for 10 hours, I had to look after a 3 and 4 year old, paint, clean, pack up the rest(most) of the rental & organise to change the date for the carpet layer to come…on top of the usual day-to-day running of a family!
Geez I was spitting mad! Luckily the kindy the boys attend could take them on the Friday so I could at least attempt to get things done. Unfortunately there are only so many hours in a day and, despite there being 3 of us painting, it didn’t quite get done. The cove & skirtings could really do with another coat of paint and some of the window surrounds need a tidy up after all the gap filling I have done since. And most of the doors need doing too, but they can wait just a little while longer, until the sun becomes more reliable & Hubby can unhinge the doors for me to paint outside.
Hubby was able to organise 4 of his mates to come on the Sat morning to help move our stuff (we have only moved 2.5kms down the road). Alot of the stuff had been packed but there was still loads to do, which I thought I would easily be able to do on the Sat morning while the guys were loading/unloading. Rookie mistake! The guys arrived on time, which in itself must be a first for these very helpful men. I was still in my PJ’s, rushing around getting things organised into piles of what was to go on the trailer & what wasn’t, namely the clothes that I was going to change into once they left. Luckily I checked before they left because in all the chaos my clothes had somehow made it thrown in somewhere! Rescued in the nick of time. When they left I was still dizzy from the whirlwind they created in their wake! (Thanks to those strapping young men;-) )
I was able to get everything hoovered/cleaned while they were unloading at the new house and by 11 we were officially out of the rental. Keep in mind we still didn’t have lighting, although the electrician was able to do a quick job to get us electricity before we moved in, or carpets or a kitchen! So we put a sheet on the floor of our bedroom & put mattresses down for all of us to sleep on, camping style until the Tues when the carpets went in. We put the lounge furniture in so we could at least relax warmly for the weekend, before having to move it all into the kitchen area the night before the carpets went down.
First night in the new house. No lights, carpets or kitchen!
Lounge. Before carpets, busy hanging curtains in front of the fire
I love my curtains!Hubby was studying for an exam the next day!
Carpets, oh what a difference they make!
I, too, felt like running down the hallway on the new carpet!
And then the wait for the kitchen…because the benchtop had to be made & ordered we had to wait almost 2 weeks before we finally got our kitchen. A guy Hubby has worked with numerous times on job sites, we highly recommend him. A perfectionist! In the mean time I became the master of the gas BBQ for dinner!
Midway…
Almost done…
Completed but still a tad on the messy side…
I quickly snapped a photo just now…
Still a tad messy! Boxes of baby stuff that are awaiting a space in storage until needed! Floors will eventually be redone too
We are still not finished…will we ever be?? But those things will happen as we go along. All 3 bedrooms are complete (well, except for touch ups to skirtings etc) and that is the most important thing 🙂
If you made it to the end of this post, well done you! It didn’t start out as a long post but I got carried away. Thanks for sticking with it! I may do a photo-only post of before & after shots next…if I can be bothered
Ninja Turtle Party
So Master 4 became Master 5 last week & requested a Ninja Turtle Party. I immediately turned to pinterest & made a plan. First up was the invites (again by my sister-in-law over at Creative Box), but I didn’t get them out in time as his birthday was the first week after the school holidays, so only those I had contact info for got invited *my bad*.
I did at least whip up a cake the night before his last day at kindy for him to share with his friends there (kids start school the day they turn 5 here, although I kept him home on his actual birthday. What with it falling on a Friday, I didn’t see the point of sending him)
His cake for kindy
A pretty easy party theme to cater for actually, which is always a plus…
Green Jelly as “Toxic Ooze”
Oreos as “Sewer Lids”
Fanta in the convenient turtle colours (red, orange,blue & purple) as “Radical Refreshments”
Cupcakes from a box mix (surprisingly good) as “Cawabunga Cupcakes”
We had pizza, of course, as “Mutant Pizza”
And a variety of snacks as “Ninja Nibbles”
Appropriately coloured plates & napkins completed the look. The cake I made from a community-famous recipe & just plonked artfully placed an edible image on the top. It went down a treat. The boys enjoyed baking day!
The lollies turned out to be sour…REALLY sour. And chewing gum on the inside! Which was NOT on the packaging. Luckily the sourness put most of the kids off anyway.
Master 5 was spoilt rotten & we have been building Lego everyday since!
Master 3 eyeing up the motorbike model!
Everyone was knackered!
The House…Part 2 (demolition)
Demolition, apparently the best part of any renovation! Not for me though, the mess is just overwhelming! Luckily my father-in-law & brother-in-law where up for a good demolition & helped me demolish the inside. Hubby was busy with the outside & the plumbing…which was so obviously something the previous owners did themselves as it was shocking!
I did attempt to keep some order in the chaos…
And then this ended up being the scene in most rooms *sigh*
Looking from the lounge straight through the boys room & into ours. I cleared all that rubbish into skips, alone! Hubby did the third bedroom & thought he was all that!
THIS is what we found in one corner in every room! Birds/rats nests!!! Needless to say we are so glad we decided to spend the money on regibbing instead of just repainting the old walls! I, of course, used being pregnant so that I wouldn’t have to go near it. And then my parents brought up the fact there could be lice in there!! Needless to say I had an itchy head for days every time I thought about it (no, none of us actually got lice, thankfully)
We hadn’t originally planned on demolishing the kitchen but once we got started & realised how truly disgusting the kitchen was (the stench of mice droppings/wee was enough to make me gag) we decided to bite the bullet & get a new kitchen. SOOOOOO glad we got rid of that hideous coal-range!
Before: Hubby secretly enjoyed this I’m pretty sure, despite the moaning about what a mission it was
After: So much more space
Ahhhhh so much better without all that rubble (looking from our room through to the boys room & into the lounge)
And some of the changes on the outside…Hubby’s project ‘coz I hate detest would rather he did it. He worked hard on re-doing the outside spouting and doing all the plumbing under the house, before getting stuck into relocating some of the trees that were right up against the house, blocking out all the sun. He also chopped a few foreign ones down as they were just overkill & in the way. Don’t worry, he has replaced any trees cut down with native trees/bush but in better positions.
The boys loved their “jungle” of cut down branches
Hubby spent many hours chopping all the scrap wood into firewood
I will have to remember to take an updated photo of the backyard…
The House…part 1
So I keep meaning to sit and actually document our house reno project but it just takes so long!And I’m usually exhausted(& pregnant!) & my 3 year old has turned into a demon from tantruming hell. Whoever said “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” clearly had no dealings with a 3 year old! But I digress…
Easter weekend we took over our new place & got stuck right in. The place was neatish on the surface but boy, did we find a few surprises (luckily nothing structural though). I will keep the posts short(ish) & as un-wordy as possible as no one likes a post that has too many words & not enough photos, right?
I’ll kick things off with a few before photos & go from there….
Lounge
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
Hallway
Laundry
Previous owners had started renovating…
Previous owners had started renovating…
What will be the boys bedroom
3rd bedroom
Main bedroom
Back garden
Back garden
Front yard
I’ll post about the first few days of demolition renovation next time…off to watch House Rules 😉
Not gone
Eeek, it’s been more than a month since I last posted anything but I have a good reason…we bought a house & it was/is in serious need of some TLC. Which is what we have been doing tirelessly since the Easter Weekend.
I will do a more informative post as soon as I have the energy to use my brain for anything other than the logistics/plans/budget/organising tradesmen/running 2 houses/keeping my kids fed etc etc
1st day in the house…everything in that photo has been removed! Well, all except for the child of course, he has to stay
Stay tuned & I’ll be back soon
Nappy Clutch
So I broke out the ‘ol sewing machine a few weeks back. I had a baby shower to attend and wanted to make something to go with the very boring, but practical, gift of nappies & wipes. And pinterest delivered! A nappy clutch for a handbag on a quick outing. Or to grab out of the nappy bag when you’re out & don’t want to lug the whole bag with you. Genius!
There were a few different designs floating around the web. Mostly on etsy stores. So I decided to wing it, sort of. I read a few blogs, and methods, but couldn’t find one exactly how I wanted it to be. I wanted this look( from sewingbarefoot) but with a window so the Mamma-to-be could reach the wipes without having to take the whole container out. I couldn’t find any directions for cutting out the window & making it look decent. So I just took a deep breath & cut! With the hope that any imperfections could be hidden under some bias tape.
I didn’t use her measurements as I was too lazy to convert inches to cm, I just placed a nappy and wipes container on some fabric, added a little extra and cut. Not the most accurate of sewing methods but this time I was lucky. It worked out pretty well I thought!
I also didn’t use a strap, and for the life of me I can’t remember why I didn’t! Probably because I was too lazy I forgot I ran out of time
I then had to work out how to sew around the hole using bias tape. Grrrrr it took some skill and patience I tell you! But I got there in the end. Layering it all took some brain power too. I wanted as little fuss as humanly possible. I used Winnie the Pooh fabric for the outside layer, because who doesn’t like Pooh bear, right? A plain white for the layer you see when the clutch is open, and so it’s not the yukky back side of the Pooh bear fabric sticking out. And then a bright red for the 2 pockets. I added a piece of elastic & a very cute ladybug button as the closing mechanism.
I couldn’t tell you the actual measurements of things because I didn’t write them down as I went along. But its easy enough to do yourself if you have a nappy & wipes case to use as a guide. I even did two more while I was doing this one, but changed the clasp bit to a strap with velcro. To have as back ups just in case any other of my friends was thinking of popping out a kidlet.
JPEG of The Week
Jpeg Of The Week
AfricanKiwi 