Sticks and Stones

The stones in our outdoor area have haunted me for years. Seven years to be exact. I never liked them, but could never justify spending the money to concrete the space either. So they were a little worse for wear, with scattered bark and leaves and patches.

 We recently had a real estate agent visit, and he suggested updating the space, thinking it would be a couple of hundred dollars. How wrong he was. When I told him the cost, and said that I would love to, but doubted it would make that much difference to the sale price he agreed with me. However we decided to spend a couple of hundred dollars on new stones.

2 cubic metres (ie a shit load of rocks) and a very hot sweaty morning later we had moved all the rocks into the outdoor area. It's made a huge difference and it looks just a little bit neater in there now.

We also picked up half a cubic metre of bark chips to freshen up all the garden beds. Thankfully it was a lot easier to shovel into place than the stones.

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Mailbox

Our mailbox was an ugly thing. So ugly that I don't think I ever took a photo of it. I couldn't even find a photo where it was in the background. So you will have to imagine. It was an old rusted basic mailbox that in an attempt to make pretty I painted to match the house. It sat on a massive red gum pole that once upon a time held up this fence

Pretty sure that is one of the earlier pictures of our house. Pretty, wasn't it?!?

So anyway, one night I went to check the mail and it was on the doorstep. Kinda odd, as our postie is lazy at the best of times. I forgot about it and went back inside. The next day it was the same thing, however I thought I would check for the paper too.

And that's when I discovered it. Our mailbox was missing. Some idiot had taken off with our crappy mailbox! Why you would steal our crappy mailbox and not our neighbours nice mailbox is beyond me.

So, we needed a mailbox quickly. It turns out mailboxes are expensive! Just a plain one like we had was $40! A fancy one was around $250. So I turned to my good friend, ebay.

Lady Luck must have been smiling on me that day, as I found a local seller who made mailboxes and they were having a scratch and dent sale. He had a phone number listed so I rang up wanting to know if I could get the husband to pick it up that afternoon. He was a lovely man who was not only going to be in his shed that afternoon for us to pick it up, he was going to sell it to us for $100!!! The company he sells them to sells them for $299!!!

I have looked over the mailbox in many different lighting conditions, and I can't find the dents or scratches in it. It looks pretty perfect to me.

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Veranda Poles

A few weekends back we decided to start work on our veranda (I swear it was how the husband shut me up about moving house). We knew one pole was rotting, but we didn't realise just how much - it was being held up by the lattice work! And both poles were the same. No wonder our veranda was lopsided (something we never saw until we jacked up the roof to replace the pole!)

The husband busted up the concrete by hand to put the poles, which was no mean feat given the footings of the veranda were half a metre deep!

Now to break up the rest of the concrete, but luckily the husband is borrowing a jackhammer from work for that task!
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Cubby House

Given that I now have a child, I feel it is perfectly normal to start planning a cubby house (prior to children it was just kinda weird).

So, whilst stalking the internet one night, I found this little beauty and saved it to the inspiration file. Isn't it lovely! You can see more at Birdie Blue
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Green Glass Goes

I have never been a fan of the glass around our front door, mainly because 4 panels were green, and one was clear (I presume that it had been replaced). It had a flower pattern in it, which was pretty enough, but a b*tch to clean - especially as the flat side was on the inside rather than the outside, so it stored every little speck of dust that came within a hectare of our house.

This year it was my aim to repaint the door and frame and replace the glass around the door (along with making the front of the house prettier).

Our door went from blue and white to dark grey and white one weekend, and recently I finally got around to getting the glass replaced. It went from this at the start of the year

To this a few days ago.

 (Notice the new weather strip that actually fits the door, they were curtosy of a rodent sighting tantrum).

From the inside it looked like this (notice the green glass at the sides, and clear etched glass in the middle):

 To this:

Oh, and whilst I was sick with a cold a few months back I painted the inside of the door. I was going to do the frame, but then the husband pointed out they would need to remove the timber thingies to replace the glass, so I didn't bother. 

It is a bit hard to tell, but we changed our minds on having clear glass installed, and went with a frosted glass, which is basically the same as what you find in most bathroom windows. There was a whopping $30 difference between the two glasses, and I always planned to get the glass frosted with that film stuff, and it just seemed easier to get it done all in one step.

Now I just need to paint the frame. Any suggestions on colour, the door is Hogs Bristle Full Strength on the door, Hogs Quarter on the inset panels, and the walls are Hogs Half.

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Front Door cont...

This is what our front door looks like when I finished planting two new plants a few weeks back. It was still blue, which we had decided to paint over for a fresher look.

On a hot summers morning I decided it was time to paint the front door. So I repainted all the white and was just about to start painting the panels when the husband had a genius idea of leaving the centres of each panel white. I love how he comes up with ideas that are incredibly fiddly for everyone but him!

So I decided it was his job to strip the paint off each centre. Unfortunately for my scheming, he pulled out the belt sander and made it a 5 minute job! Drat, I thought that would have taken him hours!

 Eventually he left me with 4 lovely wood centres.

After a few hours spent cursing the world of Watyl paint that goes gluggy really quickly, I ended up with this result.

Pretty chuffed with myself. I painted each of those centres freehanded, and managed to make very few stuff-ups along the way. I am loving the new look for our front door. The husband was right, the painted centres do lift the look of the door.

The next day I bribed the husband into painting the front of the house, which my cunning way of making him paint the door frame, rather than having to do it myself. I was given the task of painting the panels on each side of the door after my stellar freehand effort. Hmph! Am still yet to do that though.

Now to have the glass replaced to lovely clear glass.

I have plans to paint the step the same grey colour as the trim, and the windows will be the same colour again.
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Front Door Progress

One thing I wanted to accomplish this year was to makeover our front veranda. I have managed to talk the husband around to my way of thinking about this project, and he agrees that the posts need replacing, the tin on the roof quite possibly needs replacing, and the house needs to be repainted in new colours.

The first step of this project was to decide on a new colour scheme for the house. I compromised with the husband on this, as he didn't want to change the base colour of the house, but agreed to change the trim colour. So after a lot of too-ing and fro-ing, I decided on

as it meant that when we replaced some guttering, we wouldn't need to paint it, we could just buy it in colorbond. Smart thinking 99!

The next step was to buy some new pot plants for the front door. I wanted some slight contrast, so chose some black ceramic pots, and planted some classic box hedge plants in them. I plan to eventually trim them and keep them alive enough to become topiary trees.

Now to paint the front door and resurface the floor.
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The veranda renovation

Our veranda was starting to look pretty shabby. We had planned to pave it a few weeks back, but we had a massive amount of rain, which put a stop to that plan.

So we planned to do it this Sunday gone. But it rained. And put an end to that plan.

So Monday was the day. So we started with this

And with the help of a mates tractor (and my stepdad to weigh down the grader blade) we moved the stupid pile of dirt
.

Until we ended up with this

Now I must admit, I did very little, husband did majority of the work. All I really did was clean the tiles with dishwashing liquid and a broom. We still have a few things to do. Like cut pavers that wouldn't fit in the gaps. And to trim down the drain pipe and replace it with a square pit. The grey matting will be trimmed (it's geo-matting if you are interested, and is awesome. it drains water, but weeds can't grow through it!) and there is a garden bed going in between the last two posts in the coming days.

And to buy this bench from Bunnings, for under the window.

I am thinking of some nice bright cushions, some potted plants, a book and a big tropical cocktail :)
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Garden Plans

So, the husband and I have been discussing having a house warming (only 5 years after we moved in!) slash birthday party for him in the new year.

But before we do that, there is a list of things that need to be done. Starting with the outdoor area, which currently looks like this

The fence behind the chairs to the shed, is going. Because I want something to divide the two areas, we're going for a low box hedge that will come up to my knees eventually. The garden bed to the side, (where the wild things grow currently) I am thinking of going with some green tropical like plants. Yukkas, elephants ears, grasses etc.

Eventually I hope it will look something like this

Suggestions?

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Outdoor areas

The outdoor area will be our next big task, and we have started to talk plans (I know, we should finish one task before we think about another, but thats not how I roll)

I love tropical gardens, and tropical garden furniture. I would love to live in an area warm enough to have a tropical garden. Oh, and I need to find my green thumb. I think I lost it around the time I lost my first tooth!

So I am starting to collect ideas. I love the above outdoor setting, as it is large, and is something a bit tropical. I am currently debating whether we need the 8 or 10 seater setting. I am leaning towards the 8, but I guess it will depend on the boy
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