Sanding and polishing the Blackbutt floors

Hello there!

Wow I sure have been slack in updating the blog lately.

If you follow me on Facebook you may have seen a before photo of the lounge room emptied ready for the sanding to start on Friday night. But before we could do that, we filled the knot holes with epoxy resin so we didn't get little kids toes stuck in them. Some of the holes were ok but some it just soaked straight through but did smooth them out a bit so not to bad.

The epoxy just leaked straight through this knot hole.

Here is Chris the floor sander at work. He worked Friday and Saturday and still needs to come back next Saturday to do one last sand and coat.

After the first coat it looked like this. However, the final effect will be matt.

While all that was happening out the back, Dave ripped up the hallway floor, levelled it and glued down the yellow tongue ready for floorboards. It feels so solid now, it's great.

The house is nightmare mess at the moment, but things always look worse before they look better so I just have to battle through the dust and clutter.

Cheers,
Nat

Fireside bench seats

We now have a new place to sit.

On Saturday I went out to Ikea to pick up some things to make the fireside bench seat cushion.
For $59 each I got two toddler bed mattresses made from foam. I also bought some white material from Ikea (could be a mistake as they are already getting kiddie finger prints on them so this may change to navy or something more forgiving. Dave bought some chipboard from the hardware shop and I borrowed his staple gun. Here are the bits waiting to be assembled.

 And here is the bench before.

I managed to cut the foam pretty easily with just my sewing scissors.

Then I cut out the fabric and stapled it to the chipboard with the foam in between.

Here it is finished. Much cheaper than the $360 each I was going to pay for an online company to make it for me.

 

Then I went to Kmart and bought a few new cushions.

 Then I saw a Reindeer cushion in Kmart a few days later and added that for a festive look.

It is a great place to sit and the kids love having a little nook to sit in and read (who am I kidding, they are playing on the smart phone).

Here are the details of the products:

Ikea Vyssa Slappna Mattress for junior bed 2 x $59
Ikea Minna white fabric $35
Chipboard $15
Kmart lattice cushion 2 x $10
Kmart dream big cushion 2 x $10
Kmart reindeer cushion 2 x $10

Cheers,
Nat

Moving the kitchen bench

So yesterday after work, Dave's brother helped Dave move the stone bench top off the kitchen island and they put it into Heidi's room.

Then we rotated the bench around so that Dave can pull up the floorboards, dig holes and put in some new stumps.

Dave's brother disconnecting the benchtop with Sammy watching on.

 Benchtop gone.

 We will keep it safe in Heidi's room until it is time to put it back on.

And here is the kitchen with the bench spun around. The whole room feels different like this. I would like to keep it this way and re-do the kitchen. Well a girl can dream.

Cheers,
Nat

It's like camping

You know when you go camping and you are surrounded by bugs and cooking smells mix with the smells of the earth. Well our kitchen feels just like that at the moment. Dave is digging holes under the kitchen floor so every so often mud gets splashed up and dirt is wheelbarrowed across the floor. The kitchen smells of dirt (most of it untouched for many years) so I have been burning scented candles to try to disguise it. Mind you those candles don't do much do they.

So here is what I am talking about.

 Ok so maybe you don't get the sound of a jack hammer when camping. Just an added bonus for us.

Got to love washing mud splatters off the walls.

While he was doing that, I did the first gloss coat on the stair risers in case the floor sander comes this weekend. He suggested doing one coat of gloss then sand then the last coat or two.

We have a plan to get the floors down before Christmas. Let's see how that goes.

Cheers,
Nat

Small Ikea haul

When my Mum was here, we managed to make a trip out to ikea without the kids.

Here is what I got.
These Soare placemats (for $2.99 each for Ikea family members). I got 5 of them.

 

More of these coat hangers for Sam's bedroom.

 This berry smelling candle.

 

A new dish brush.

 

And this cute pink lamp shade for Heidi's room.

So much more I wanted to buy but I didn't want to get in trouble with the hubby. Next time though, he he.

Cheers,

Nat

Halloween and other happenings

So last weekend was an extra long one in Melbourne (well for those who took a day off on Monday and then had Tuesday off for Melbourne Cup) and there was a bit happening. Firstly Mum came over from Tassie for 3 night which was brilliant as she hadn't seen the house (or kids) for quite a while. It is fun showing it off to those genuinely interested,

Halloween found me making spider biscuits with Heidi:

 and decorating the house. I turned the dirt pile into a graveyard.

 We had spooky music coming from the from room like chains rattling, wolves howling and ghostly noises.

 Here are the cherubs all ready to go trick or treating.

 The following day was Sammy's 7th birthday.

He wanted to get a fish tank so we now have some extra members of the family and our first pet since losing Jerry our golden retriever 5 years ago. He got 4 guppies but we will get more soon.

 He is a Star Wars fan so I made him a Star Wars cake.

Not much news on the house front. Still digging holes and painting the staircase. Waiting to hear back from the engineer about a change to the drawing too.

Cheers,
Nat