What is next?

I'm finally getting around to reading my subscription of Home Beautiful and I'm wondering what the next motif fashion will be.  We've had cats, dogs, bugs, now there are a lot of birds around.  My money is on, or maybe just what will be my next motif of choice is, the tree.  

I say that as I look at the beautiful peppercorn tree that hangs over our side fence and still extends at least 10 metres into our backyard.  The late afternoon light is just peeking through the boughs, not enough to blind me, but enough to illuminate the small weeping mullberry a little further across the yard.  The leaves are all a golden yellow and its almost glowing in the crisp light. 

The tree is a magnificent creation.  It encompasses strength and fragility, shelter and the bareness of autumn, minuteness of its seed to the enormity of a 100 year old tree.

Image via Flickr

Tick One

After posting about needing a desk for hubby, I went to a second hand shop I've been meaning to visit for a while.  They do a mix of new and second hand with most of the second hand things being commercial office furniture - not exactly what I was looking for.  I mentioned to the assistant when I walked in what I was after - an old style large wooden desk - and he said he didn't think they had anything.  I continued up to the far back corner of the warehouse and squeezed inbetween pieces of furniture with my 2 little ones trailing behind me, to lo and behold...

...there it was!  Exactly what I was looking for and delivered today.  Its huge ( I've added the mug for scale).  40 inches deep and 62 inches wide.  The wood underneath is pine and it has been painted a dark brown.  Its not perfect in condition but it suits the style that we were after perfectly.  We did have something similar up to a year ago with only 2 drawers which had gotten very loose and wonky and the top was a very thin pice of plywood that I had covered in vinyl.  It ended up as firewood before we moved interstate as we really didn't think it would make the trip.  This piece on the other hand is solid.  I dont' think the couriers were too happy when it wouldn't fit through the front door and had to be carried around the back and through the french doors.

And no, its not going to be living in the centre of the room.  I had envisioned it under the window over the heater but I forgot that it had a back 'modesty board' on it.  Oh well thats Hubby's job when he gets home!

Hmmmm

My self imposed mini budget of yesterday may have been blown out of the water already.

Image via Flickr

I've had one person around to give a quote for heating and their suggestion was to do ducted heating which will possibly be about $5k on its own.  I am getting more quotes next week but his argument for ducted was very good.  Used properly, it seems a much cheaper option in terms of running costs than gas space heating.  On thinking about it, a well done ducted system, although costing more, will add more to the value of the house than a simple space heater.  We shall see what next weeks quote suggest.

Little things

I know you are waiting for photo's of our new home.  I haven't got it tidy enough yet to give you large scale pictures but I want to share with you a couple of things I really love.  They are only small details but so beautiful.

Firstly is the leadlighting around our front door.  Its just lovely to look down the hallway, which is relatively dark, and see this beautiful glass work.  We have had a good look at it and think it is all original.  There are only 3 minor cracks in the glass and all the glass matches so we don't believe there has been any replacements. (Pity there is an ugly fuse box there though but at least it is behind the door)

Secondly is when you look closer at the front door.  There is the modern chain and deadbolt but there is also a slide lock.  It is beautifully embellished in a way you don't see functional items treated a lot anymore.

If you look closer, you can see a rub mark near the slide.  There is quite a groove in the wood where the thumb of everyone who has lived here over the past 100 years has rubbed.  To add to the connection with previous occupants, we have received the original title to this property as it has been digitised.  To have this document, on vellum no less, is quite magical.  To see the names and occupations of previous custodians let the mind wander.

I hope this satifies your curiosity for a little while.

Swoon

Image from Hopewood Country House

I've just seen this picture over at Glimpse of Style of the lovely Hopewood Country House.  I can just see this as my extension.  Not sure how it would function in summer ( or winter unless its double glazed) though if it is part of the open plan.  Maybe it could be my own private little studio and workroom though?  Dreams abound.....

Reprioritising

Image via Flickr

Well we've been in our new home for all of 3 weeks and I've already had many ideas for extending and renovating.  My latest involves extending the existing extension ( what a mouthful!) and then flipping the current layout around.  This would give me lovely morning sun in a new sitting and meals area, a new kitchen, dining, a main bedroom with ensuite and move my husbands study into the extension which would make his current study into a kids lounge.

I have no idea how much all this would cost but it sounds really nice.

We are fortunate enough to have not spent our limit on buying this house so we have the financial room to borrow this money if need be.  Our position at the moment means that we could actually have the purchase price and interest on this house paid off in 7 years time with no hard yards ( fingers crossed interest rates don't skyrocket in the mean time) according to online mortgage calculators.  

When I plugged in the figures for borrowing to do this renovation and still making the same repayments we are now, it blew out to 19 years and multiplied our interest component by a factor of 6!  The interest alone would be more than we borrowed to do the extension!

This got me thinking and looking at our budget.  What if we went the other way?  If I could find an extra $100 or $150 a week out of non essentials, we could own our home outright in under 5 years!  We are a single income family and my husband is a teacher so we aren't on a huge income but we do live simply.

There are some things I do want to do to our home to make it more homely for us but I'm thinking of setting myself a challenge to do these things well and on a tight budget.  We don't actually NEED much but there are some things that will make home much more comfortable for us.

These things include:

Heating for the extension - this needs to be done urgently as its getting really cold here and I have a young son who wakes at 5:30am!

Curtains for the extension - 6m of french doors to be covered

Painting

Extending the deck - our plan is to do this for next summer

Hubby to make beds for the boys new king single mattresses

Desk for hubby

Outdoor table setting 

Cupboards for the living area - plain white to the roof ones so they are more like a wall than cupboards.  My dream ( not a good phrase when talking about budgetting) is to have this contain a kitchen office.

Now can I do all of this for around $5k?  The heating will probably be $2k in itself

Of course there are many other things on my wish list but maybe I can console myself with thinking that there will be something better than what is currently available in 5 years time and continue dreaming.  Of course that won't stop me talking about them though....  thats for another post though.

It's starting to rain...

Thanks to Justine Clarke, I have had this song in my head since yesterday morning whenI woke to find it raining here in Central Victoria.  We haven't had rain since December and it was a very welcome relief.  

Our dire looking lawn has started to bounce back which is more than I can say for our box hedges.  They were left without water in the settlement period which happened to also be the hottest part of the summer so all bar a few plants seem to have perished.  We've pruned them heavily and kept the water up to them as we can but if they don't show any signs of reshooting after these soaking rains, I think they will have to be replaced.

We are settling in to our new little home nicely.  The boys are loving the yard and do laps of the house daily with either a pram or block trolley. I've told my husband that we will hve to install a ramp on the side where there are currently 3 steps when the boys get bikes. The back lawn is covered with a smattering of balls, the trampoline is positioned so they can climb on and off of it from the deck without our help and the cubby house gets a daily visit from the littlest man.   Birds flit in and out of the yard - Indian Mynahs, Rosellas, Magpies, and even a Rainbow Lorrikeet or 2.

We had a lovely welcome from our neighbour who shared a bottle of bubbly with us on our first night.  She has also offered us the services of her 2 teenage daughters as baby sitters which, once the boys get to know them, we will take them up on, I'm sure.

I have got a lot more posts up my sleeve, just now to find time to do them all.  I've been wondering what direction to take this blog in and I'm still unsure so if you can tell me what you'd like to hear from me, that woudl be lovely.  Also I'll be looking for decorating opinon too soon so feel free to decorate vicariously through me if you like.

Nice to be back

x H