First Renovation project!

We have been in the house for a week and already we have made some changes!
First we changed the locks on the exterior doors and had them keyed alike. Nothing like knowing you hold the only keys to your home.

When my mum sold her house and moved to China, she forgot to tell one of her old time friends. This friend kept going to the old house for over 6 months trying to catch-up. Thankfully she had lost the key ma had given her, or she would have let herself in!!!

I had nightmares of this happening with us, so it was definitely the first thing I wanted to do. Now I sleep soundly knowing only the people we give keys to can get in.

We also, while we were changing door knobs, put locks on both the toilet and bathroom doors, since no one likes getting caught with their pants down, haha!

The first real renovation task we did was painting the orange backsplash. Orange and black mottled, textured tile. Awesome and modern in the 70's-80's, but definitely not so now. Along with the exposed brick, it made the place look very dark and moody, especially at night.

Thanks to the lovely pinterest, I discovered a while ago, that it is possible to paint tiles! So I thought, why not! We looked up a few how to's and decided to go for it.

Before shots of the kitchen:

Here in Australia, we have the White Knight system for painting tiles and laminate surfaces. Three products for the system are Tile and laminate cleaner, tile and laminate primer and tile paint.

Basically, you clean the tiles, prime them, sand, paint, sand, paint again. It cost us about $100 for the products above as well as sand paper, painters tape, a brush and microfiber roller and tray.

 

Because the grout moved straight onto exposed brick, clean lines were an issue, since painters tape can't help. We did the best we could and we will tidy it up with a smaller brush.

This is the first coat of primer. It looks rough as guts, and we were nervous that the orange would still bleed through, but we were now committed to action!

The first coat of primer was interesting to put on, since it took so much paint to cover everything. I went along with the paint brush heavily loaded and made sure the grout was covered, then my other half, Michael came through with the roller and neatened up the brush marks. Since the tiles were textured I had to cover the surfaces with the brush since the roller missed have the dips. It is just lucky that they were so small that smooshing paint into the grout meant I got most of the tiles anyway.

The second coat went on much easier, much to our relief. The primer is cream, but we went with white top coat, but that didn't seem to affect it much at all.

The top coat was interesting. It was thick and sticky to paint. It went on tacky like how half dried paint feels. It was very challenging. Once again, it took a lot of paint to make sure we got everywhere and it didn't spread very well at all. We used the same process of Me brushing and Michael rolling out for a smooth finish.

Once we had finished we came to realise a horrible and rookie mistake. We had forgotten to read the label and it was oil based paint... We needed mineral turpentine to clean the brush, roller and tray (as well as my hands)!

We had none and if we did it would probably have still been packed in a box!! Michael had to rush down to the hardware store while I tried not to touch anything!

We got the turps and cleaned it all off, and we waited... The product says give four hours to dry (2 to touch dry). We hit 12 hours and it was still sticky! It took almost 30 hours to dry and by this time we decided that the coat we did, which was probably thick, was enough. We had to peel off the painters tape, and we caulked the gaps between the tiles and the bench top with white silicone.

We are very happy with the improvement and we will finish the touching up later, but for now we need the kitchen back!

Here are some after shots!

We definitely recommend it to anyone who can't afford the money or time to re-do their  entire kitchens, but want to update or change the look!

More projects to come!!

Ashley

Moving!

There is nothing like that sold sticker on the sign that tells the world "I bought this place!!!"

The big day came and went! I write this as we sit in our new home of a week. We are sorting out the little kinks that always come with 'new' houses.

The water heater is a gravity fed, which means we have no shower pressure :( First world problem, I know!


I must admit, it has been quite stressful, getting everything done on time. At 4:45pm on the Monday, 10 days before the settlement date, we found out that probate hadn't gone through for the vendors, since it is a deceased estate. Basically, we were told the house couldn't be sold until it did. Needless to say there was no sleeping that night!! I spent the next day on the phone freaking out, since no one thought to tell us that we could possibly not have a home! Probate was granted exactly a week before settlement, which was a relief to us!


 To add insult to injury, my darling other half spent weeks refusing everybody's help to move, stating "we can do it on our own, we'll be fine"... Meanwhile in the background, I could have strangled him! After speaking to him rather un-calmly and giving him a tour of our real house, we accepted any and all offers to help.

Weeks out I started packing up boxes and going through our monumentous amount of stuff. It is amazing just how much we have collected in the three years we have lived together! As many moving tips suggest- packing is the perfect time to look at all of your possessions and decide whether or not to keep it.

I honestly think 21 big garbage bags worth of stuff left my house, to both the bin and the Vinnies (an Australian thrift shop).

This was the first of about 3 loads to the thrift shop. Lots more went into the bin over a few weeks. The lamp I got from an old boss over 3 years ago who was giving it away... It never even got a light bulb or plugged in!

The boxes also started piling up, lovingly nicknamed Mt. Boxmore. Which took up our guest bedroom. Oscar, the devilish little boy loved all the nooks and crannies that were created and even found a way to climb them!

While doing the dishes one night I heard a mewing coming from the room, and it sounded a bit suspicious. Upon investigation I found this...

Little Bugger is on the guest bed we had upturned to make room for Boxmore! This was about 2 weeks before the move, and MT Boxmore grew to about double this size!!

We had 13 people help us on moving day and a truck we hired. Boy am I glad himself listened to reason! The boxes were loaded in less than 20 minutes and a majority of the move took 5 hours!

We are still unpacking slowly- it is so hard to be motivated when there are still a million boxes to unpack after this one...

My fingers are itching to start renovating to help make this house feel like home!

Im going Home!

As of Sunday last week, my fiancee and I... Bought a house!!!

This Bad Boy right here!

Ok, technically we don't own it yet. We have settlements and finance and legal mumbo-jumbo, but still... We have put our signatures to paper saying we shall buy it!

It is three bedrooms, 1 bathroom about 5 minutes from our current home (we are renting). It is a fixer-upper, but with the handy-man Michael and his family we should get along famously! His family build an entire 4 bed/2bath, 2 story HOUSE!


I have so many plans for this house, I am bursting with excitement! Every time I lay down to sleep I find myself making plans!

Speaking of Plans, here is the lay out of the house

 

The decor of this lovely home is... well... Dated, to say the least!

 

So yeah- The old just ooozes out of the pictures!!!

We are currently waiting on a few things, but we hope to move in mid-May!

More Pictures and Plans and hopefully some before and afters are coming later this year!

About Me Update

My Gosh it has been a while since I last Posted!!!

So many things have happened! I became an Aunt, I helped my friend get married and best of all, I GOT ENGAGED!

My now fiance proposed on the 25th of September, which is our 6 year anniversary. I was so over the moon and not expecting it at all!

So Now I am in the midst of planning my engagement party! I am not the best planner in the world, and it is becoming a logistical nightmare. There have been personal and familial issues of not being able to attend, food concerns (vegetarians, vegans, celiacs and diabetics!) as well as the invitations!

We have settled on the 24th of this month and the invitations went out 2 weeks ago. In my infinite wisdom, I didn't bother to keep a list of the guests I have invited or even their addresses!!!

I am hoping to start posting more as I find things to make, do and create.

Thats all from me for now!

Ashley

DIY Cat Condo

The first DIY project I want to share with you is one of the biggest ones I have undertaken so far.


When I first got Lilly, I bought her a 3 tier cat scratcher from Cheap as Chips. It was tiny compared to her and she never went on it, much to my dismay. So I sold it on to a friend and set about looking for a better one for her. It needed to be bigger to allow her on it without having to worry about it tipping over or being uncomfortable.

I did some internet research; there really is so much to be found. I couldn't find one that suited us or her that I liked and looked viable. So, I decided to design my own. It turned out to be quite easy. I started on graph paper and pencil and tweaked until I came up with a design I was happy with. I then used the 3D shapes in word to make a model.

The Bottom curvy thing is a hammock that she can sleep in and the higher curvy thing is a piece of tubing that I saw in another design that I thought she might like.

Because I had an inordinate amount of free time on my hands I created a scale model of it using cardboard and straws. I made a few modifications- the tube was moved over and another platform was put in below the hole to the top deck to make it easier for Lilly to get up there.

Choosing the measurements of my design turned out to be the hardest part for me. I ended up making a decision based on the measurements available in MDF boards at the local hardware stores. It measured 90X45cm at the base and would stand around 150CM at the top of the top box.

Michael then helped me figure out what materials I needed to make it and how to create a cut sheet. I can't remember the size of the sheet I ended up using, but it was the biggest one available that I could get all my pieces from. The uprights were 2 pieces of 2X4cm pieces nailed together to make a square.

I bought the piece after finalising my cut sheet and took it to Michael's Dad's house to borrow his power saw. I have never used power tools before, and he helped me to first accurately draw out the cut lines, and create guides to cut. I did all of the cuts except 2 that required free hand cutting, which would have been disastrous! I still helped by holding it in place.

My first cut! So very exciting for me! I am very nervous around power tools, especially those that can cut through solid objects like butter. My overactive imagination always substitutes fingers and arms for said objects with obvious and gruesome consequences.

All the cuts complete! I took all the pieces home and considered it a day well spent. The next task was covering the condo. I considered carpeting, as is popular with many cat trees and condos but it turned out to be very expensive and very hard to cover. I Then considered faux fur, which is another popular covering choice. It too was expensive and I had a budget to stick to... Not really, I just didn't want to spend that much money on covering materials.

Then I stumbled on the perfect thing <cue the angelic lights and halleluiah choir>. Polar fleece. Yep. $4.99 a metre, hardy, thick and oh so fluffy! Perfect! I chose red and black materials <my go-to theme>. All the horizontal pieces are black and the verticals red.

Using my trusty staple gun I began the covering! It is quite simple, cut out the material to fit the piece plus and extra inch or so. Pull one side over and generously staple down. pull the opposite side as tight as possible and staple. It would do well to perhaps mention somewhere in here that you must make sure your staples are of the right length so they don't go through the board :/

The material was thin enough that folding the edges like a present wasn't too thick and you could just staple it down. It took about 2.5 hours to cover all of my base pieces.

With specific pieces, make sure you get them the right way before you cover them. the little triangle piece I covered the wrong way and had to pick out all the staples and try again (nearly going the exact same thing again).

Covering the holes was a little trial and error. I didn't take pictures of the black hole, which is the one I did first. Here is how I covered the holes.

 Cover the piece like normal, making sure that the material is taut in all directions. Cut 4 lines through the hole, making sure that you don't get too close to the edge. Trim off the tip. Pull tight and staple.

Do the same for the remaining flaps and voila! If you cut too close to the edge, the board will show through and it will not look as nice. To cover the boxes I screwed them together and covered the whole thing, one side at a time. Michael came in handy as another set of hands to pull and hold while I stapled.

Once everything was covered it was time to start assembly. I mentioned above that power tools are not my forte, this extends to drills as well. Michael, being an electrician, uses drills everyday so I leave any drilling and screwing to him, so that it comes together straight and without a trip to emergency.

I nailed in those little extra pieces of wood to make the bracing for the platforms, not only are they straight and level, they are completely my handiwork <smug grin>

 I ran out of covering material for the top box, and decided to hold off until I was sure Lilly liked her new condo and would use it. above is her first time on it. below is about 2 weeks later when we moved it into the lounge room.

The condo spent a good 6 weeks like that. and Lilly was fine with it. I realised that she doesn't like enclosed spaces and so I modified the design of the top box to leave out the front plate for the scaredy... cat.

One day I had to go past Spotlight and decided to duck in and get the final materials. It took me all of half an hour to assemble and cover the top box.

TADA!

A short break and a few modifications, but it is complete. I left the hammock and tube off because I realised that she just would use them. I used the front plate of the top box for the bottom and store my green bags in there since she won't go near it <lol>. I also left off the top platform because there is no way she would ever go that high and I was worried about possible topples.

 The top box isn't secured down, but it is so solid it isn't going anywhere. I covered the inside of the box with remnants of material to make it pretty. I painte the posts black to tie it all together. Since taking these pictures I have added a toy dangly-thing from the top post and my childhood sheepskin in the top box where she naps. She gets few on the middle platform where any of the dogs we dog sit can't reach.

All in all, this build cost around $70 for the MDF boards, supports, covering material and hardware. Considering that something of this size costs well over $200 online I am very chuffed and happy.

Hope you like it!

Bye for now!

<3

About me

Hi there!

Welcome to my blog site, I am totally surprised you found it! This is my first post, so I thought I would tell you a little bit about myself. This is actually my second attempt at this, since the first was somehow deleted while I tried to fiddle!

The title has had a few people confused, it is rather odd. I am shocking at naming things an it turns out that <shock> blog sites are the same. The reason I started this blog site was I was laying awake late one night last week, wishing I could share with someone my world. I have been getting into Pinterest lately and I have been reading all these blog sites, and decided that I would love to try and do the same! I have an incessant mind that loves to mutter to me when it really shouldn't. Hence the name :)

Moving on!

My name is Ashley, I am 22 years old and I live in the glorious hills of Adelaide. I live with my partner, Michael in a 3br, 2 b house on a tiny street. As of the 25th of September this year ('12) we will have been together for 6 years! It has gone by so fast! I met him at Judo- his best friend brought him to the dojo were I was practicing. We are not engaged and nor do we plan to be anytime soon. My family are completely non-romantic and don't really believe in marriage as a requirement for a "successful" relationship. Our best friends are getting married next month and just watching them stress out is more than enough to put me off weddings and consider eloping. We have been modified Fructose free for over 3 months now, and it has been quite the journey that I would love to share!

We have a cat, called Lilly. She is a 2 year old domestic medium long haired tabby. Michael bought her for me for our 5 year anniversary (which in wedding anniversary is fur, lol). I love her to pieces, and so does he when he thinks no one is looking. She is also the most unphotogenic cat in the history of photography!

I graduated last year from Flinders University, Bachelor Education, Bachelor of Arts. I am now a fully qualified Junior Primary/Primary Teacher (k-7, 5-12 year olds). I am currently a free lance relief teacher, so work is very sporadic and unknown. Michael is a Crane Service Technician and fully qualified electrician.

My interests are ridiculously varied and many. I play Word of Warcraft, horde, and I have three level 85s- a holy/shadow priest, Varsalis, a Survival Hunter, Naraelina, and my bear tank, Aanya. I am an officer in my guild called <No Excuses> and we are 4/8 heroic DS. By everyone in the game, I am known as "Nara".

My characters: I love Xmog!

I also play the sims 3 on occasion. I am highly tech savvy and I love browsing the web. I read two online comics regularly: ctrl alt del <CAD> and Looking For Group <LFG>.

I am a creative soul, I enjoy cross stitching, colouring in, writing stories and doing DIY crafts and projects. I am an avid reader, loving Tamora Pierce and the Sookie Stackhouse written series.

In a month I am going to be an Aunty and the pic below is my latest cross stitch for it. Once "it" is born and I know the sex, name and birth date, I will put it in gender appropriate lettering next to it and frame the lot. It is a tradition in my family, that I thought I would continue into Michael's.

Pattern found here

The reason for this blog is to share my life, projects and different bits and pieces with the world <even if no one actually reads it>.

If you are reading this, then I hope you enjoy :)

Bye for now!
<3