Flashback. Were were we 12 month ago?

Every now and then I like to flash back through my blog posts to see how far we have come. This time last year we had been to the home show (didn't go this year)
and were weatherboarding the outside of the house.
Gee I am glad we are not back there now.

The other thing I was doing was painting the windows. Crazy to think I am still doing this. Well actually I finished all the windows on the weekend apart from the outside of the largest one downstairs. I need to take a photo sorry.

Did I talk to you about carpet? That is being installed on the 8th of September and next week we are having the Daikin reverse cycle units installed. That reminds me I need to pay that bill today.

I have been painting everything that I can at the moment. Yesterday I fill, gaped and sanded the fireplace mantel and the built in seats. Again I need to add a photo of that. I still plan to paint the top part a blue/grey colour, so I need to choose a colour soon.

So far we have had no word about the other built-ins. I am a bit sad about that as I was so excited. Seems maybe he doesn't want the job. That will teach us to ask family.

That's about all for now.
Cheers,
Nat

Take a seat; fireside.

As I mentioned during the week, the flu was doing the rounds. Dave had to take Friday off work to stay home with our eldest son. While he napped on the couch, Dave got stuck into the undercoat in the back room. So when I came home from work, the back area was so light and bright and fresh.

It really was amazing how much lighter the space was.. Hooray!

Heidi liked her new white play space too.

Then on Saturday he started on the fireside seating/drawers. He started with a box made of mdf then cut out the space for the drawers.

By the end of Saturday he had one done. Slacker!

Then today he did the other one.

And now it looks like this, all ready to make the drawers.

 

My job for the weekend was to prep and paint the big window in the living room. Even doing that had a huge effect on the brightness of the living room.

This little girl kept asking me to play chasings about every 3 minutes.

So now I have done one undercoat and two coats of gloss. I will see how it all looks tomorrow but suspect that it make need another one; at least in some spots.

Cheers,

Nat

Upstairs all painted

Finally!!  The upstairs and stairwell is completely painted. Ceilings were done by the painter last week, then I did the windows, skirts and architraves around the doors in the gloss Valpsar 'The Hamptons' colour. And tonight saw us finish off the rolling of the stairwell walls. I rolled the upstairs retreat, while Dave took on the move dangerous job of the high stairwell.

Cutting in the stairwell

Cutting in the stairwell

Here you can see the colour of the Valspar 'Montpelier' paint. It truely is a lovely shade. A very pale warm grey. 

Valspar 'Montpelier' paint

Below is the finished colour.

Valspar 'Montpelier' walls and 'The Hamptons' trim

Valspar 'Montpelier' walls and 'The Hamptons' trim

Valspar 'Montpelier' walls and 'The Hamptons' trim

Valspar 'Montpelier' walls and 'The Hamptons' trim

We have since replaced the door hardware but not when I took these pictures. The other thing that we needed were some door stops to prevent the new handles from denting the walls when opening. So I went to Bunnings and picked up some. Unfortunately they only have them in gold or silver. So I got silver and spray painted them in my good old Rustoleum Oil rubbed bronze. Oh and the silicone spray was to stop the new hinges from squeaking! Worked a treat.

Now we are looking at carpet. I chose a Redbook Carpet called Ripcord which is a solution dyed nylon in a sisal pattern. We are ordering it through Western Distributors in Sunshine and will cost about $3000 for the whole upstairs area and a runner down the stairs. Hopefully it will be installed in the second week of September if Dave goes and orders it tomorrow.  The colour we chose is the one in the bottom right of the picture below. It is in stock which makes it a bit cheaper.

I think once the carpet goes down the whole area will feel totally different. I remember the carpet going down in the bedrooms when we did the first reno on the house; and that was the think that really made it feel like a cosy house.

Apart from that we have all had the flu (minus Hubby) and have been taking it easy.

Cheers,
Nat

Can you handle this?

Hooray we have door handles. Dave was home today looking after a sick Sam and when I got home to take over nurse duties, he found time to get the door handles, mortice locks and strike plates on the boys doors.

My sick Sammy checking out the work.

Can you spot the pink screw driver?

Then, as I type, he is adding the door stop to have it all ready for painting. Hopefully the painter can do this on Wednesday or Thursday after he has done the ceiling.

Goodnight all!

Cheers,
Nat

Building the mantelpiece

Sunday was building the mantelpiece day. We actually got the piece of timber for the mantel from our staircase builder for a 6 pack of Jim Beams! Gotta love that.

Here it is getting installed by Dave and the trim that will go around the sides. It was a piece of ovolo trim underneath it to finish it off.

 

 Then we added some VJ panelling above with some pine strapping along the sides.

Gluing the back of the panelling before nailing it up.

Here it is now. Still needs a few things done but most of the hard part is complete.

I finished of the wardrobe painting today and did some sanding and filling of other walls, preparing to be painted.

That's about it at the moment.
Cheers,
Nat

How a-door-able!

So you may have seen that our doors arrived on Thursday. That night David began routing out the holes for the hinges.

Installing the hinges on the new doors.

Here is one with the hinges on.

New doors!

 Then Friday night he had two doors hung. Both the boys bedroom doors.

Drilling the holes for the hinges.

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Andrew is pretty happy with his ability to now keep people out of his space.

 

Sammy's door. Of course his is the squeeky one. Poor fella!

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 Then while that was happening, I was undercoating the internals in the wardrobe.

Undercoat of primer

Then today I did a coat of enamel. I think I will sand it and do one more though.

 You can see that the wardrobe doors also got put on today. They will be painted during the week.

The other thing that happened today, was that we spoke to Dave's brother who is helping us design the build in wardrobe for Andrew's room and also the TV unit and shelving. I had to draw up a sketch and he will come back during the week to measure it all up. I am super excited about this.

Sketches of cabinetry

 Finally feeling like things are really speeding along now and I am so excited about it.
Cheers,
Nat

Paint

 So on my day off yesterday, I worked on the painting upstairs.

I firstly, finished off the painting in Andrew's blue room. Then I rolled the primer on the kids retreat.

Before:

After:

Upstairs kids retreat, undercoat

Upstairs kids retreat, undercoat

Now to figure out what colour to paint it. At the moment I am liking two Valspar colours. The first is Montpelier and the second is called Flawless.

They look so similar on the screen but are quite different in real life.

Anyone used these colours or any other neutrals from the Valspar range?
Cheers,
Nat

Our doors arrived

I had to take a day off work today because childcare closed for their annual meeting. It kinda worked out well because the place we ordered out doors from, The Door Store, only delivered on the days I work. So they were able to deliver them today when I was home.

Door truck arrives on time

 Here are our little beauties. I think they were about $198 each. Solid timber.

And our hardware. We got the Antique Copper colour even though dowstairs all has the polished brass. These were $57.55 each and the mortice lock was $47.40 each.

 

The plan for these is, Dave will hang them and put the locks on, on Saturday and the painter will paint them next week.

Cheers,

Nat