A + B = a home: January 2013

Monday, 28 January 2013

You want history

Well here we are again, seems like ground hog day! Brisbane is flooding. We have suffered cyclonic winds, constant rain and now flooding. Thankfully not as bad as 2011. Today I had to work from home as the ground floor was expected to flood (100mm), but the peak of the floods was lower than expected.

Anyway we have pretty much spent the last 4 days indoors, poor little Jackson has cabin fever. He really just wants to play outside. So happy one year anniversary to Aaron, Jackson, 152 and I. We made it! One whole year!

It's amazing to think that it's been a year, we really have come so far. So in this post I thought we’d do a little looking back at how far we have come, and maybe how far we have to go. Aaron and I are really keen to have the inside of the house finished by the end of the year, so what have we got left?
The biggest thing we have to go is obviously the bathroom, then there is the kitchen bench, pantry, carpet in the bedrooms, plaster and complete the spare room (next to kitchen), wardrobe doors in master skirting all through the house, windows in spare room, windows in kitchen and lounge, doors and door jams and architraves around the doors. I think that’s it, not too bad. Haha yeah right.

So how far have we come, pretty damn far but when we talk about it, it doesn’t seem like that much, Lets start from the beginning. One of our first jobs was to build a fence so little Jackson could be kept in the backyard, only a few months ago did we build a more permanent structure. Secondly Aaron spent sooo much time up in the roof putting sark up, the sark is to help with leaks and also insulation. After that we, with the help of our friend Jacob put all the ceilings up. After the ceilings came the walls, once they were up we plastered and sanded the ceilings and walls. Both Aaron and I had never done this before and might I say we did a pretty good job. Once the walls and ceilings were done, we under-coated them. After the walls came the kitchen I think, we didn’t do anything here except pay the bill and design the layout. We both love our kitchen, and really can’t wait till we get the ‘real bench top’ but the money for that at the moment is better spent trying to finish the house.

After the kitchen we put up the cornice, we really thought that was going to be harder than it was and we got most of the house done in one weekend. Oh and I forgot to mention that Aaron also spent a lot of time in the ceiling and under the house doing the wiring for power and lights. We spent so many days I think close to 100 only using one power point in the whole house.

So once the cornice was up we started painting the ceilings and doing the first coat on the walls. We chose a light grey colour for the walls ‘Tranquil Retreat’. Next up was the master bedroom wardrobe, Aaron built the frame and plastered it. It’s massive! Woohoo!

While we were doing the wardrobe we also started on restoring the windows, we have been getting these dipped and staining them. And honestly they look amazing! I guess I could say that about the whole house. We also started a veggie garden, from our little garden we had tomatoes, chillies, cucumber, strawberries, boc choy, baby spinach and raspberries. I think now the veggie garden is a little sun burnt and needs a little TLC.

Lastly we finished the internals of the wardrobe and added in two side fences and one of the biggest transformations to the house, polished the floor boards all by our little old selves. Again they are amazing.

See we have done a lot, or maybe I just padded it out! Haha

The last year has been pretty good to us, we made friends outside of work through Crossfit, which has really helped Aaron and I make Brisbane more of a home. It’s also been very trying, renovating, saving to renovate and also planning a wedding has sometimes been a big stress. But we are finally only 46 days away and really looking forward to celebrating it with everyone.

I have my hens this weekend coming and I can’t wait to see all the girls. Aaron will probably spend the weekend doing a few odds and ends and riding his motorbike.

So here’s to 2012 at One Five Two and may there be many more amazing years to come.

xoxox

B-

P.S. Thought I would do a 2012 Instagram showcase. I love Instagram! Hoping you don't need captions with everyone of these.

Moving day

Wedding invites - sent!

Pavlova passion fruit capcake - oh my!

Paleo lamingtons - so yummy

Our meeting place in case of emergency during the floods

Lamb rogan josh

mmmm pizza

Our plans, these are from the landscape architect we meet with last week

Sunday, 20 January 2013

Don't stop me now

Who would have thought, Aaron and I managed to fit in some work this weekend??!!

This weekend we focused on getting the master bedroom as finished as much as possible. So we did the first coat of paint, which now in retrospect wasn't the most brillant idea as it's a little too hot. The paint just dried a little too fast and now we have areas darker than others. Lucky its the first coat! Hopefully the next coat sorts it all out!

We also put up the arcitraves around the windows, when I say 'we' I mean Aaron. We had to take the piece in the middle over to a friends house to thin it a little. Other than that it seemed like pretty smooth sailing for Aaron. I'm sure I was pretty busy doing something.

So after we finish the windows, we just need the carpet, wardrobe doors, wardrobe drawers (dad is providing us with them in about 1 month and 20 days), skirting and door architraves. So nothing at all...ha!

Other than that I don't know what else to tell you, the house across the road is coming along. They have blocked our view, annoying, but what can you do??

I think our next project will be the door jams and doors. We are going to use the original doors, just sand them back and repaint them.

We also need to fit in a few wedding things, but as always, they are a secret. ssshhhhh

B-

The photos are pretty crappy due to the sun, I couldn't be bothered editing them. Yes I do it for a living...

Drinking a beer and working

Oh the fan is working too!

Cutting in

Rolling

Thinning, thanks Tim!

That's the middle bit I was talking about.

Frames going up

Blocking our view, I'm sure it will be lovely though

My little man! Had a little hair cut, looks like a sheep!

Sunday, 13 January 2013

Where do we go from here

First week back at work and it was a drag! Why do we have to work! Damn money!

So my post this week contains nothing, we are going to take some time off until after the wedding.

We may do a few small odd jobs but nothing major. It's too hot and we have worked full-on for a year and need time to have a little chill out before our up coming vows.

So this week I thought I would share with you the lovely stools we bought for the kitchen and of course a pic of Jackson.

Stay tuned!

B-

xoxo

Our technicolour stools - love em

My fav pic of Jackson from last year!

Saturday, 5 January 2013

The end

Well its the end of two weeks holiday! Boo! Hope everyone had a good Christmas and have an even better 2013!

Our house is really starting to look like a home. It's amazing what a difference the polished floor boards make. It makes the room lighter, looks bigger and generally just cleaner. I spend my time now cleaning the floors.

Gosh its hard to remember everything we have fit into two weeks but I'll try.

Firstly we started out moving everything from the spare room (next to the kitchen) and kitchen into the master bedroom and then we put the living room into the spare room. I'm pretty sure that was the day I found an injured possum up the tree, so in-between keeping an eye on her and the baby we moved everything in the house. The RSPCA came and saved the possum, the possum bit the lady and the lady took the possum away. I must remember to call and see how she is. Poor little thing.

Day two we spent on hands, knees and bums nailing and puttying the floors. It wasn't the worst job in the world but it wasn't great, I still maintain hand sanding the walls is the worst job.

Next we went onto sanding. We first tried the floor sander and edge sander in the spare room (next to kitchen), this was before we moved the living room into the spare room. Anyway we spent the afternoon sanding the rooms and then the next day must have been Christmas, so we spent the morning sanding and then headed over to Missy's for a Christmas feast!

Boxing day we spent all day sanding, the edge sander shat itself so we had to hire another one from Bunnings, this was a great idea from Aaron as we didn't end up a day behind. Boxing day night we cleaned the house from top to bottom ready to coat the floors the next day.

So... for the next few days we spent coating and sanding in-between coats, we hired some fancy machine that sanded in-between coats, it was a life saver, otherwise we would have been on hands and knees with the little hand sanders. BORING! now that would have come close the worst job in the world.

FINALLY the floors are complete and they look amazing! What more can I say, yes there are some scratches, but what can you do. Yes there are some places where it isn't great, but Aaron and I are probably the only ones that will ever know.

So we had a few days off, we spent it with Luke and Jacob (Aaron's friends), we swam and went to the beach and pretty much just relaxed.

We have spent our last weekend just doing little jobs around the house. We have finally put the screen doors back on, they look great! Just need to add the flyscreen.

Aaron is as I type is installing the ceiling fan in our current bedroom and master bedroom.

I've spent some time working on little pieces for the wedding.

We wern't successful in getting on the block, which is a bummer, Aaron and I were really keen on doing something different for a few weeks. But anyway now our focus is the wedding. Only 69 days to go!

For the next few weeks we will just finish off little jobs such as architraves in the master bedroom, flyscreen on the doors, stuff like that.

That's it, two weeks off = amazing floors.

B-