Beyond My Control

Absence Makes the Home Owner Work Harder

I haven't been around much recently.

Not just here, in blogland, but also here, in my house.

I've been busy. I've been interstate, I've been overseas, I've been - finally, this past weekend, for the first time in way too long, years too long - to the holiday house, I've been social, I've been working, I've been busy.

The benefits of this to my house have been manifest.

I moved in here six months ago, give or take. At the time I moved in I had painted most of the house. Most. I hadn't finished the back room, and a few other places that I don't remember any more.

The back room. Technically the Sun Room. Really the tacked on extra room that used to be the outdoor space next to the then outdoor, now indoor, toilet and laundry. It's quite substantial for a tacked on room and has the same great floorboards as the rest of the house. It is, until such time as I renovate or sell, my dining room/study.

Except that since I moved in it has in fact been the Paint Paraphenalia Repository.

Back before I moved in I'd painted out the greeny-yellow 'feature wall' and most of the rest of the room. But the back wall was losing it's paint because it had just been slapped straight on wood by the previous owners with no primer. So I'd bought primer and left the drop sheets down and used the back room to store all the paint stuff, including the ladder etc.

The dining table remained in the garage.

For months.

Part of this was because the ceiling and then the back wall of the room started to leak when it rained. This was not a surprise; I knew there was a leak when I bought the house. But it started to get worse and worse. Until, on that Friday night several few weeks back when it absolutely pelted down, the back wall became a waterfall while I was out eating 8 courses at Grossi Florentino.

So, back room, drop sheets, ladder, paint stuff, buckets and old towels sopping up rain.

Being away a bit, and knowing I was going away again made me (a) notice this in a bit more urgent manner; and (b) do something about it.

Step one, a few weekends back I climbed up and cleared out the back gutter. At first it seemed not so full and I worried that a blocked gutter was not the cause of the gushing water. Which would have been distressing.

Then I discovered the small tree growing out of the downpipe.

Yep, that baby was blocked, and is now unblocked, and no more leaks.

Also no more excuses for not finishing painting the back room and clearing out the paint crap.

Of course, then I was away for two weekends.

But last weekend when I was home I grabbed half an hour and washed down the walls and applied the primer to the small areas that needed it. I wasn't then sure when I'd have time to actually paint. I was away this weekend, and next weekend, and maybe the weekend after.

Then, today, we came back from the Coast a little early and instead of crashing on the couch, I took the opportunity to finish the painting, and clear out the room, and bring in the dining table.

Having only an expected hour here, or an unplanned hour there, has been so much better for getting things actually finished around here.

Of course, there are still those bits of the house I haven't painted, but as I don't remember specifically what those are, they don't count.

Between doing the back room, and getting the new couch delivered, and buying the barbeque, I can now finally start to have people over and do some of my socialising here instead of elsewhere.

When I'm next home.

In three or four weeks.

Maybe Easter?

 

 

Before and After: the Wardrobe

This post requires a little bit background.

First, I would like to refer you to this post from June last year. The great shoe clean-out post. Really, it's worth re-visiting just for how all those shoes look set out across the floor. Anyway, at the end of the great shoe clean-out of 2009, I had 62 pairs of shoes.

Second, at the old apartment my bedroom was huge. And featured a semi-walk-on wardrobe with big mirrored doors.

Now, the new house. My bedroom here is also quite long, but the shape is less convenient.

See, giant window at one end. On which the previous owners hung a basically see-through blind so that the outside awning needs to by pulled down all the time for any privacy. (New blind is arriving this week.)

Door at the other end. Actually, there is no door, just a doorway. I'm suspecting the previous owners had an exhibitionist streak.

Anyway. See the giant built-in wardrobe down one side which renders the room relatively narrow.

The old owners had the head of their bed against the window, but I don't like that for a number of reasons, so I've turned my bed sideways - as the room originally intended it, I suspect, before the wardrobe went in - and there's enough room between the end of the bed and wardrobe to get through, just, and it opens up the space at the other end of the room by the door. That will be the subject of a further post after a purchasing trips over the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, the wardrobe. Four heavy white doors that were technically meant to slide, but which were a battle to move. Two extra long hanging rods, one of which hung loose at one end. And a built in shelf/drawer combo at each end. In manky chip board, and with the drawers so far into the corners that they didn't open all the way.

I decided after living in the room for a few days, that the wardrobe doors were going to come off. The bedroom is going to become a bedroom/dressing room, and as the doors are a pain in the arse to move, I decided it was easier to just take them off.

So - after flirting with breaking my already stuffed arthritic toe by dropping the first door on it - the four doors are now happily in the garage. And my arms have had a week's work-out by carrying them out there.

Then - having appreciated out loud, not for the first time since I moved in, the years of watching Dad in the workshop or working on his various houses - I bought and measured and cut new hanging rods that actually fitted and would hold the clothes.

Next was removing those horrid drawers and shelves, which nothing I owned was ever going anywhere near. I felt even better about this decision when I start to pull them out, as the chipboard and wood was all in pretty crummy shape and while I couldn't quite pull them out with my hands, it didn't take too many taps of the hammer to get them all out.

Ultimately I'd like to paint the inside of the wardrobe white, but I was not up for painting today, and I wanted to unpack at least some of the giant plastic tubs of clothes and shoes. I've been living out of giant plastic tubs of clothes and shoes since the beginning of May, and I needed to at least feel like I'd made a little progress with unpacking them. I can't do all the folded stuff until I buy a new chest of drawers (next weekend, probably), so the shoes it was.

Since June 2009 the shoe numbers have gone down and up. More than a few of the original 62 were disposed of in the packing for the move. But, you know, I've been overseas a couple of times, and I had almost 4 months without a mortgage, and Saks started shipping to Australia, and I had to buy more flats because of the Old Lady Foot, etc etc.

So now there are...74 pairs of shoes.

And in the new wardrobe, they all fit. After removing the evil drawers and putting in the shoe rack from the old apartment, and a new one, there's even a very small amount of space for some extra pairs without spilling on to the floor.

Here's some of the after:

The shoes are done now, the rest isn't, but I do feel a huge difference actually being able to see everything, and not to have to fight with the doors. Leaving the doors on would have lead to be forgetting half my wardrobe, I'm almost certain.

We'll return to this once I get the last of the furniture and sort the other side of the room.

In the meantime I'll resist the temptation to immediately fill those last few slots with new shoes...

ETA: Sunday Lunchtime I found 5 more pairs of shoes in the bottom of one of the giant plastic tubs-o-clothes. The shoe racks are now full. So that would be 79 pairs, then.

Before and After - One End of the Kitchen

Depending on how one looks at it, the kitchen in my new house is either great or deficient.

Having lived in it for a week or so, I'm going with great.

Sure, there's no cavity for the fridge so it has to go where a good sized table could go, and the benches aren't wide, and there aren't enough drawers, and there's only a single sink. 

However, there is room for the fridge and for the big shelving unit I had at the old apartment which houses, easily, the microwave and the cookbooks and other things that don't need to take up bench space elsewhere. And I've already figured out what I'm doing with a smaller table at that end which I'm actually looking forward too. 

But that's what we'll call the unfinished end of the kitchen. i.e. the fridge and shelves and microwave are there, and the other area where the table I haven't bought yet is filled with boxes and other random stuff.

The other end of the kitchen is now, pretty much, finished. And it's pretty great. Because it has big CUPBOARDS! And BENCH SPACE!

I didn't do too much to the kitchen.

I replaced the grotty door handles that, inexplicably matched the bench tops but were in much, much worse shape.

Plain silver handles made the difference without much effort at all:

And, of course, I gave the walls and the inside of the cupboards a new coat of paint.

Then, it was all a matter of lighting. The whole kitchen/'dining' area has two ceiling lights, one over the 'dining' area and one in the middle of the room. None over near the sink or the work area, none under the range-hood.

I fixed that with a couple of cheats. A lamp on a shelf, which I intend to keep though I may change the actual lamp. And a trip to Bunnings (lots of them recently, it's conveniently located just around the corner) for a light, a couple of screws in the wall, and now, we have light!

I still intend to paint the tiles, and have the interior of one of cupboards to paint, but it's pretty much done now. Until I renovate in a few years, of course.

And look, all this spare bench space:

The Most Important Thing I Have Learned This Week...

...is that I really need my microwave oven.

It was an unexpected piece of information, I have to say.

And yet, when I give it proper consideration, quite a reasonable conclusion.

This has been my first week in the new house. My first week living alone for the best part of four months. And my microwave is in the garage.

It is in the garage (I have a garage!) because when I was moving everything into the house a week ago I wasn't sure it was going to fit, so I sent it to the garage with a lot of other things - including the dining table until the room it goes in (not technically a dining room) is fully painted - until I got everything inside sorted and figured out whether I'd have to buy a new, smaller microwave.

Because my microwave is big. Very big.

It is, in every sense of the word, a classic. Also a family heirloom of sorts. It was the first microwave we ever had in the family and dates back to either 1980 or 1982. I can't remember specifically, but I know it's one of those two years. When my grandparents decided to help my parents out by buying them a, ta da! microwave and a ta da! video recorder.

They made stuff good back in the 80s, because the video recorder still works - though there's not much need for Mum to use it anymore - and the microwave certainly still works. It's a Sharp Carousel, and I'd take a photo of it in all its glory. If it weren't in the garage.

It turns out that I'm not going to have to part with it, which I really didn't want too, because it will fit in the new kitchen. I just haven't had the energy to go and get it out of the garage in the dark any night after work this week.

Though I've been sorely tempted.

Tempted because it turns out I really need it.

I need it to reheat the pasta I cooked on Monday night to eat on Thursday when I came home late from the hairdresser.

I need it to defrost the mince I bought and put straight in the freezer out of habit.

I need it to heat a small amount of the bottled pasta sauce to put over the fresh ravioli I bought on the way home tonight. (Classy, I know, but it's Friday and I'm tired and it could have been toast for dinner which, several of us concluded on Twitter during the week, is perfectly reasonable.)

Living in a household of three for the last few months I rarely used the microwave. To heat the odd bit of pasta sauce, really. But living alone, where I cook for two or three so I have things ready for when I get home late on weeknights and can't be bothered cooking; to defrost the odd chicken breast because I've bought the regular two or three in the pack but cooked one and frozen the other two; to heat some sauce that I really, really cannot be bothered going to the stove and the extra pans to do, then I really need it.

I don't ever cook anything in the microwave. But I re-heat and defrost a lot, which I have, this week, come to think is more the domain of the single person living alone than anyone else.

So my fabulous, old, never had a problem with it microwave is coming straight out of the garage and on to its shelf tomorrow.

I just hope it still works after the move and the storage and the next move. And must find the box which the tray is in.

On the Floor

I haven't really unpacked yet.

In fact, since my last post I know that I've unpacked exactly one box - the one which contained the DVD player - and some food from the green bags still living on the kitchen floor.

But that's ok. Lots of work and dealing with the new commute etc etc. (The new commute is not all that much longer, but I'm having a little trouble adjusting, which I'm sure will become less of a problem as it becomes lighter in the evening).

Despite still living amongst boxes, I've been thinking about what I need for the house. Need. Want. Ok, want. And partly need.

And yes, I need a new couch, and a new chest of drawers, but the thing I need which I've never had to buy before is: rugs.

I've never lived in a house with floorboards before. Remarkable, I know, but I've always lived on carpet and/or tiles. Quarry tiles, even. Quarry tiles on the floors and on the bench-tops, in fact, in the house I grew up in.

It's not that boards haven't appealed; they definitely have. And pleasantly one of the previous owners of this house tore up all the carpet - except under the wardrobe in the main bedroom - and exposed the great boards. They're in good shape, but nicely worn in. Perfect really.

I'm going to need/want to cover them in a few places though. The bedroom - which I've figured out exactly what I'm going to do with, having lived in its slightly odd shape for a few days - and, of course, the living room.

So now I'm looking at rugs in all the magazines, and searching for rugs online, and trying to reach a conclusion. The bedroom and the living room are each hard in their own way. The bedroom because I've decided exactly what I want, including colour, and now have to see if such a thing actually exists. The living room because I have no idea what I want, and it's a pretty big decision in terms of colour and style etc.

I suspect I'll have to buy the couch first before making that decision. So time to start looking at couches, and rugs, and coffee tables. Damn.

New house stream of almost unconciousness

I'm here. In the new house.

All my stuff is here.

There is also food - though other than the fridge stuff it's all in green bags on the kitchen floor - and a cupboard full of alcohol.

I have made a path to see the TV, made sure I know where the clean underwear is, the bed is clear of everything but bedding, and I've set the alarm for tomorrow.

Frankly I don't care about anything else at this point.

Beyond exhausted. 

And have a busy week coming up at work, so I imagine I'm pretty much not going to unpack another thing until next weekend.

But it's done. Everything fits, it doesn't appear anything got broken in the multiple moves except a light globe which I shouldn't have left in the lamp anyway, the closets are large, and I finally have a living room which while not huge, requires me to go out and buy a second couch.

And the fridge is pristine, having required a thorough scrubbing after being in storage for almost 4 months. Hope to keep it that way (ha!).

My favourite thing to date: sadly, having a separate full size laundry with trough.

Before - Part Two: The Shelves (and a little After)

My new house isn't large. More cottage-y, really. Which is perfectly fine by me, even if I do plan to move things around and give myself some more space in times to come.

However, I have already made it larger by removing countless shelves from walls in several rooms. I unscrewed shelf after shelf after shelf and spakfilled hole after hole after hole.

Take the living room. At one end it looked like this:

(Excuse the dark photos).

Here's the state of the walls after the selves came down:

There were also shelves in the back room and the kitchen that have come down:

Gone, gone, gone.

Whole new space created.

Need to learn to take better photos.

Before - Part One: The Paint

Now that I have full internet compliance, I can begin with the first in a possibly endless series of house related posts.

I have noted to friends and family on multiple occasions in recent weeks how different owning this new house is to my old apartment from a decorative perspective.

When I moved into the apartment it had been refurbished. New bathroom, kitchen, carpets and paint. Nothing dramatic or spectacular - I'm almost certain the kitchen was Ikea - but neat and clean and neutral and done. Easy to just move in to. For the first few years I didn't feel the need to do anything to it, and then when I started to contemplate it, I didn't really know where to go. And painting it seemed like a chore when I had no separate laundry or outdoor space to store said paint and rollers and brushes etc.

The new house is different though.

I plan to renovate it in a significant way in a couple of years - its layout is a bit strange but there's much that can be done to cure that without extending the current footprint - but in the meantime it's more than perfectly livable. It's got good bones and the old carpet has already been pulled up by a previous owner to expose great boards. It just needs a bit of a spruce up. A new paint job, some work on the cupboard interiors, new door handles etc.

And I love doing it. Toying with it, changing things, pulling down fixtures. All that stuff I never even considered touching in the apartment, I'm relishing tackling in the new house. After all, it's calling out to be done.

So, some before pics. (Excuse the bad photography.)

The house came with three green feature walls. Each in a different shade. I am not a fan of the feature wall generally. I was particularly not a fan of two of these walls, one because it was an awful shade of what's known in my circle of friends as "Splice" green...

...and the other because it was a child's room with a tree painted on the wall and various decals etc...

The final feature wall was in the living room, and I didn't hate that as much, but the more I looked at it and, frankly, noticed how dodgy the last paint job was, the more I knew it was also note going to be hanging around:

To come: getting rid of the feature walls, and befores, durings and afters on such subjects as Crazy Amounts of Inbuilt Shelving, and Matching Our Doorhandles to Our Benchtops.

Settling

As mentioned, I'm living with my friends at the moment while I'm between residences of my own.

It's been an interesting adjustment.

Not because of living with other people after living alone for the best part of six years, but more because I always spent a lot of time here before and so for the first few weeks I felt more like I was visiting and would soon be going "home", i.e. back to the apartment I've sold. 

This house has been my second home since my friends moved in a few years ago. My current room has long been known as "Uli's room" because when you're sitting up late on a Saturday watching football and drinking beer who can be bothered actually going home when there's a perfectly comfortable bed right there? And when on the rare occasions my friends go away, of course I'm going to come over and "babysit" my "nephews".

It's only in the last week that I've adjusted enough to know that I'm not going "home" tomorrow or the next day.  Not going back to the old apartment. Not that I miss it or regret saying goodbye to it in any way, I just think it took a little longer because I had moved to very familiar surrounds. But now that I've settled it feels like months since I lived there, even though it's been less than 4 weeks. 

How fast, and completely, those adjustments can be made.

The new routine is settled in to, the past seems like a long way away, the odd feeling is gone. 

Of course, I've probably adjusted a bit too much, especially to not having to cook or plan my own dinner every night. When I move into the new house - which I'm very much looking forward to, despite how settled I now am in the current environment - I think it's going to take a while to adjust back to "you are responsible for feeding yourself every single day and Percival isn't going to be there to make you that great chili chicken dish and Frey is not going to be making a giant pot of roast pumpkin soup when you come home from work".

But I'm sure I'll adjust to that too. Unless I can talk them into coming over to cook for me two nights out of three... I'll come over and babysit the dogs in return.

Moving. And sorting. And packing

Things going on in order of interest:

1.    I bought a house!  The hunt is over and, minor miracle in the current market, they sold it to me BEFORE the auction.  And while it's a little smaller than I was originally planning on, and slightly oddly laid out, it has a lovely feel, is on just about the perfect sized block for me, and is in pretty much the area I was hoping to buy (but where I feared I might be priced out of the market).

2.    I am moving out of my apartment - home for the last 6 years - today and tomorrow.

Things going on in order of priority and focus:

1.    Packing, sorting and moving.

2.    Work.

3.    I bought a house.

I am surrounded by boxes and plastic containers and packing.

This move has been an interesting exercise in prioritisation and "what can't I live without?". 

When I sold the apartment I knew that more than likely I'd be doing a weird half-move upon leaving here, rather than moving straight into a new house.

So I had to sort everything into three categories. The things coming with me to my friends': mainly shoes and clothes and about 1/10 of my To Be Read Pile.  The things going into storage.  The things going to my brother's because I don't really want them piled in a storage container, i.e. the TV and a few other things.

This has led to a lot of questions.  Will I need those computer peripherals in three weeks time?  Can I live without those shoes for three or four or five months?  Exactly which items in that giant drawer full of stationery are required?

Now that I have bought a house I have a good idea of how long things will be in storage, and I know that at the other end I'll have a garage giant storage room.  Which means I have been more willing to put things into storage - I CAN live without that for three months - and I have been packing more stuff in those giant plastic containers knowing I have somewhere to put them when they come out of storage.

Fortunately I only found out about my forthcoming ownership of a giant storage room after I had already thrown out, op-shopped or hard-rubbished a lot of unnecessary junk.  A process which was more cathartic than sorting stuff to keep and put in storage. 

But I know that next week, or if I'm lucky, the week after, I'm still going to discover that there's something in storage that I really need.  Much the same way as over the last few days I keep finding more things that would have been perfect for the hard-rubbish collection that took place three weeks ago.

Back to the packing.