dream oven, could it be reality??

We went oven shopping today. It needs to be ready to be fitted with the kitchen in the coming month. We knew we wanted freestanding, probably a 900mm gas.

Love has struck us before though in the shape of these Agas

Unfortunately the debt aspect of an $10000 oven, plus heating only with wood, halted the dream quickly.

Today however we stumbled across a similiar style in gas, with 4 ovens, and less than a quarter of the price tag. So we are thinking, a lot. 

Here it is

So $2000 to find in a tight budget. Is it worth it do you think? Would you like it in a kitchen?? I do a fair bit of baking, and that will probably only increase. But itis such a lot of money. Aaarggghh can't decided, so are putting it to you guys, let me know what you think, it will give oyu more things to mull over.

Hope you're all having a great day.

Meet our newly acquired man toy.

Well here he is, or maybe she, I can't decide.

Nearly $6000 worth. I can't believe cutting the grass could be so expensive!

It has a 46" cutting deck which should mean it cuts down the time spent on it, plus hubby got the trailer for the back.

Looks like the weekend has been pre-planned with some mowing on the agenda.


Sorry no news currently on the house. Power and water connection should start this week, but nopthing is confirmed yet.

Rough garden plan

Yesterday we were fortunate enough to have a gorgeous day at Matilda, working in the garden, and having a lovely lunch with some of our family.

The view from th kitchen stairs

Hard clay exists here now

The soil is hard clay in the majority of the 4 acres that is no longer grassed due to builders trucks. So it was tough going for the hole diggers. It also made me nervous about my rough garden plan as digging in about 400 plants in front of the house would take sometime. So we are getting some organic material dumped and mulching, and we will leave this for sometime to improve the soil in front of the house.

The vegetable garden will definitely be built in a no dig style. Otherwise I think we would struggle to grow weeds, which doesn't quite fulfil my dreams of reasonable self-sufficiency.

I want a vegetable garden that looks like this......

or this

But many hours of very hard work and soil preparation lay ahead.....

Before and now, afters to come

Just a collage of the slight changes that have occurred.

Before the move

Now

Matilda now. Lots of renovation to come.

You can probably see the sunroom is open now. Also all the false ceiling in th kitchen area (to be kitchen area) is removed.  Plus the room with green in the corner under the window will be the bathroom, last seen covered in building sheets.

Oh no I joined pinterest

What a time waster pinterest is when you are having bathroom design dilemmas, or wondering about themes for kids birthdays, or looking for storage ideas, or just love beautiful things.

Not good.

I look at these gorgeous homes and try to imagine  my messy self, and my messy offspring, and basically how the space will look strewn with toys, childrens books and lots of cups of coffee. I am not a good housekeeper, but I constantly work to improve. Maybe I will have perfected it when the kids leave home. Hard to turn down a good game of trains in favour of mopping the floors.

But in my dream world my house will look like these spaces, everything in it's place, Martha Stewartish.
In reality stuff will be shoved in cupboards and dirty dishes waiting to be loading into the dishwasher.

Anyway you can check out my coveted images on pinterest - http://pinterest.com/timberandtin/pins/#

Can't, can't, can't

Bathroom ideas are being bandied around like no ones business!!

So I like VJ panelling. The builder doesn't.
I love mosaic tiles. The tiler doesn't.
I'd love pressed tin around the bath. The builder isn't sure.

Where is there sense of adventure????

Builders and the weather

We have been unbelievable fortunate with the weather. Lots of fine, cool windy days for the house removalist to finish up. Today they head home. Matilda is stumped, re-roofed and basic repairs are done.
 It feels like the end of Chapter 1 of this process, but this chapter was like a chapter in Lord of The Rings, long, and involved lots of twists!

Chapter 2 now. We have found a team of builders we really like and are hoping to have there quotes back tomorrow or Monday. They say they can finish the reno in 4-6 weeks. So we are expecting a blow-out of up to 4 weeks, but still that is ahead of our schedule.

Now I keep dreaming of a 4 week completion, which I can't imagine would ever happen, still it would be amazing.

So time to get our little house ship shape and ready for the real estate market. The smaller current dream is going back to one mortage, priceless, well actually about $1200 a month back in our pocket!

Will keep you updated as we move forward and can't wait for Chapter 3, the move in date!!!!!

Demolition when family visits

A lovely relative came to visit our new/old house.

So we put her to work!!

Down comes more beams and a door.

Down comes the false ceiling in the kitchen.

The view now from the sunroom.

The work continues.....

Matilda now

Not too much change but the stumping has been happening and it takes quite sometime.

 Today I am hoping to work out how to take out the louvres. Hubbie plans to reuse them in the treehouse so they need to stay complete.

A comparison shot of this room is here

A before before picture of this room on here it used to be the toilet room and the shot with the glass cupboard which you can see open on the left.

The room is filled with rubbish as our skip doesn't come until next week and we can close this door!

The terrazo floor isn't visible but it is around the base of the toilet, I'll do another shot when I have emptied the room.

The driveway  has commenced which means the concrete truck can come, and the skip, excellent news.  Unfortunately my phtotography does not do the driveway justice but it is quite lovely winding down the hill through the trees.

A cover of compacted road base will go on top to complete it. I can't wait to take my first drive down.

.... do you think?

Yesterday I was thinking about our house, yep I spend a huge majority of my life thinking about the house, and I thought of a name.

Well she is set amongst the gum trees, near a billabong, in the country -
so what about Matilda.
It has a nice Grand old lady feel to it. When I said the name aloud it felt right in every way.


Have a great day.

Interesting dilemma

The proposed bathroom has a raised terrazo floor where the toilet used to be.
If you aren't familiar with terrazo it is a speckled concrete floor laid quite thickly straight onot the hardwood floor. It is reasonably unattractive..... alright very unattractive!
 Apparently from my research this would have to be jackhammered out, not cheap and doesn't always end well with the floor having to be replaced.

So options as I see them:

1. Jack hammer it out with the possibility of replacing the floor - not cheap!
2. Raise the whole floor level to meet the terrazo platform - a definite possibility.
3. raise just the section across the back of the bathroom where the bath will be to step up to it - not sure whether this would look ok?
4. Or tile over it as a raised platform under the bath and run the bath across the corner on the platform like this image, we could add two windows and have a similar style - worried about how it would end up looking?

Source

Any other ideas?

Where we are at so far....

Just our progress in pictures.

tiny laundry rooms for inspiration

We actually got inside the house yesterday. The workmen were off having lunch so we had a good wander inside (my first, eek).
As happens some rooms were bigger than we imagined, and some were smaller. To add to this we thought the back of the house would be about 1.2m off the ground. But with the fall away the back left corner is now 2.4 high. So we get a completely different perspective on the rooms, and a space for the car, trailer and ride-on.

The room we had always imagined as the laundry (Floor plan ) has beautiful views and no floor. Both these things make this rooms purpose change in our minds. One, because to replace the flooring won't be cheap and two, perhaps someone should enjoy the view as a bedroom.

So I tried to decide whether I could live with an external laundry downstairs, with only external stairs to access. Not ideal!! Especially on acreage witht he red clay dirt, I wash A LOT!! Floor plan

So perhaps I could steal a bit of sunroom off the bathroom (1.2m x 2.2m) and make a tenny tiny laundry until we find the funds to start building in downstairs, probably when the kids leave home, 'snort'.

So here are a few of my teeny tiny laundry inspirations

 Source

 Source

 Source

Source

What would you do, keep a large utility laundry room, or make a bedroom with a view?? We are still trying to decide.

Gushing...

The house is stunning, it simply is. What a relief after having not laid eyes on it prior to the move.

Gorgeous huge arches.

Double hung windows that must be 180cm tall.

High ceilings, I would think over 9ft with beautiful VJs (which for those who don't know are vertical wall timbers, like beadboard in appearance) and ornate ceiling roses.
I had trouble taking it all in yesterday.



Below are some pictures of it yesterday during the rain.  

It is all ours.

We never dreamed we could afford a house this beautiful, with a landscape this amazing but we have managed it, (with a little budget acrobatics). I can't wait to watch it transform in the next few months.

Our day in pictures

section 1 coming down the road

 Section 2

 section 2 side-on

Then as it comes down the slope to our site...

Section 2 (bedrooms, bathroom etc)

Section 1 in position. I adore this photo it gives you the dream of what it may look like when it is finished amongst the gum trees, and the sun drenched verandah!

What a surreal feeling watching our house travel around the streets and finally land on our block on its site.

The weather was beautiful, but an hour ago the heavens opened and we had hail, rain and winds. Fortunately the house should have been tarped by then.

A few tears of joy have been shed!! Alright quite a few.

We will head back out when the wild weather settles and the house should be almost joined. I doubt the stumping will start now though in this weather.

(Sorry about some of the picture quality all 3 cameras died from the numerous pictures being taken so we resorted to phones.)