Valentine's Day In The Bedroom

Long-suffering readers of The Hedge are well aware that this 70's house is full of weird architectural foibles. Beams traverse every single room & when we moved in 8 years ago, they were still in their rough, raw, murky brown, untouched state. They aren't just one big piece of timber, which quite frankly would have been a dream to deal with. Oh no, they all are 2 big individual timber planks bolted together & that creates one major problem, they are open at the bottom, just as these images from the main bedroom illustrate.

This has given every spider & bug within a 20 km radius an open invitation to set up home & we are fed up. MOTH's given up counting how many times something furry has dropped into his open mouth in the middle of the night during one of his snoring sessions. So 7 weeks ago, after a particularly nasty incident, he had a hissy fit & decided to seal up the bottom of them all, starting in the main bedroom. Uttering those famous last words, 'I'll crack on Mills & get it done over the weekend', 7 weeks later he's just finished. 

  

And this is the reason the job has gone on so long......these windows. Again a foible of an architect smoking something not bought in a flip packet over the counter we reckon. Every bedroom & the family room upstairs has this weird arrangement, a bank of 3 windows which pull out for airflow. All well & good you may say, except over the years the timber has become water damaged, swollen & rotten & impossible to open. There is a big window at the bottom that is easy to open & lets in the cool breezes, so we could really do without the top 3.

And just like the open-bottomed beams, they have become an absolute haven for the extended family of the spiders & bugs already warm & cosy. So just as he was finishing, he came hurtling out of the bedroom waving his arms. 'That's it, I'm gonna shove a big piece of plasterboard over those windows & don't say a thing Mills!' 

And so he did, during the longest, most intense heatwave we've had in 120 years! 

The beams are so much better, these are the ones directly over the bed head. No more screeching MOTH in the middle of the night.

The bit over the curtains is much improved, good job mate. 

 Enclosed beams = happy Millie.

While he was on a roll, he also ripped out the glass window over the door leading to the dodgy en-suite (that baby's the next project!!) & replaced it. A fiddly project, but well worth the effort. Ta mate.    

And on a really exciting note to end, The Hedge has another engagement. Son #3 popped the question to his girl while on a trip to the Grand Canyon on Thursday & she said yes! So it looks like we'll have 2 weddings this year, yippee!! It's the weekend dear Hedgies, so go enjoy. xx

A New Year At The Hedge

It's high time to rid your blog rolls of the Hedge's Merry Christmas post, so just a quick update on what's been happening here.

• Chrissie came & went in a flash & baby Gracie now has a direct line to Peppa Pig via her new Peppa cell phone.
• MOTH & I hopped in the car on Boxing Day & drove to Melbourne. It's a long 7 hour drive & by Bordertown we've well & truly run out of things to say to each other. But this year was a breeze thanks to Pinterest & the great 4G network on my phone. I managed to add a further 1,278 pins to my account on the trip over & back......how good is that! 
• We did Chrissie Mk11 with MOTH's family, caught up with our mob of lovely Melbourne friends, spent quality time with the 3 Melbourne sons & hit the post-Chrissie sales with a vengeance (well at least I did!)
• Work has been full-on since the 2nd week of the year, lots of nerve-racking, complex cases to welcome me back. I just want it to get easier......
• We've just lived through one of the worst heat-waves in decades, think 5 days + of unrelenting 110-115F. The poor Hills wild-life really suffers in this weather, this photo of a koala trying to find some shade on the verandah roof of my favourite store Maple, in Stirling's main street sums up how we all felt on Day 6.
• A shiny new PC has been installed on the desk at home, I'm optimistic that it may provide me with the impetus to post more regularly, although I think I just heard a collective global laugh from Hedgies everywhere!
• The main bedroom has been totally out of commission for nearly 3 weeks. As usual, what started out as a small 2 hour job, has turned into the full catastrophe. It's too complicated to explain now......pics & an explanation to follow soon.
• The birthday fairy waved her wand at me & added another year to my passport.
• Sadly, no offers for full-time work in the media have been forthcoming since I dropped that less-than subtle hint in my Chrissie post. MOTH's offered to act as my appointment maker, so Helen McCabe from Bauer Media's PA had better be prepared for the call from His Smoothness. Although I'm not sure his opening line of 'Gidday love, MOTH here, put me through to Hels will ya.' will achieve the desired result!
• How are things in your world? 

Pleasing All The People

Every now & then I'm reminded by an incensed Follower that this blog is supposed to be about renovating & not all the other 'stuff'. OK, so to placate the said Follower from their Unfollowing threat, here's some images taken in 3rd bedroom yesterday - not pretty huh.

Since MOTH's crook back has eased off enough to let him back at it to a degree, these wardrobe doors have been ripped off their hinges & are propped on the trestles getting the Smart Prime once over. Except it isn't just one coat, it's bloody hundreds to stop that rubbish varnish stain bleeding through! He's also put numerous coats of Solver's Parchment on the walls, chased a whole heap of wiring through the brickwork & done an enormous patch up job to the holes he bashed in the bricks to do this.

We invited a son over for a Sunday roast dinner recently & unbeknowns to him, he had to help MOTH fix the new ceiling plasterboard to its frame before the meal was served. It got done but not without some dramas. All I'll say is that there was a 'failure' of the fixative by a certain serial renovator & a large piece of plasterboard hit the deck via the son's head. Let me tell you the conversation over dinner was unusually subdued. All the ceiling plastering & top coats have been done & most importantly we have downlights (sorry Ms. Velvet & Linen!) that work. I hope that's the last whinge I hear from that Follower for a while. Isn't renovating fun.

Hedge Clippings

The last of the camelias & rhodies for this season looking gorgeous in the Bathroom From Heaven - farewell 'til next year my beauties, I'll miss your spectacular blooms!

Yes, your eyes don't deceive you dear Hedgies, progress in the 3rd bedroom is happening. MOTH's dodgy crook back is letting him do some limited stuff, so the plaster board for the new ceiling started to go up on Sunday. And yes apparently the can of JB & Cola in the centre of the shot is important for the correct placement of the nails in the frame. One piece of plasterboard.....

....and then another. And that's as far it got!

Digging Deep

This is the external view of our bedroom, I love it.

On the other side of all of that foliage is this - the wall that our very schmicko linen headboard is attached to & there is a problem. Somewhere in amongst all those leaves is a very important downpipe that collects a lot of water from our roof when it buckets down. The pipe runs down the wall, then under & along the paving in our little courtyard & then down a deep trench off into the garden. It's the original c1972 jobbo & it's mightily stuffed. The water is not draining away & is pooling at the base which means there's the possibility of a damp issue in that wall if it's not repaired pronto. This should be a job for Russell the Plumber, but you know MOTH, he won't spend a cent on anything he can vaguely do himself.

So this Sunday morning it's all hands on deck, or in this case, on courtyard. I want at all cost to preserve as much of the Ornamental Grapevine as I can in the 'repair' process, as I think it's a lovely feature of that part of the house. Plus it offers great shade & keeps the bedroom considerably cooler in Summer. The boys have been co-opted in return for beer & a roast dinner. They'll need to dig up the pavers, replace the downpipe on the wall, run it down along the trench, organize the run-off & replace all the pavers just as they were while MOTH 'supervises', as his crook shoulder is still giving him heaps. I've told them if I trip over any of the replaced pavers that aren't sitting flush, they're immediately out of the Last Will & Testament of their mother. Wish me luck, I reckon I'll need it!!

Another Day, Another Room

After a huge weekend in the garden, this is where I found MOTH last night, making a start on the grotty 3rd bedroom. It's further along the upstairs corridor next to the Bathroom-From-Heaven. On the other side of this wall is the even grottier untouched large family room which I use as my home office.

This room is really a mini clone of the completed guestroom, just a lot smaller at 2.7m. x 4.3m. So just like it's fancier sibling, it will have its ceiling dropped, as the very weird tall raked look with beams c.1972 is just a haven for spiders & other creepy crawlies. The height also makes the room almost impossible to heat & is bitterly cold in the dead of a Hills winter. And yes, in case you were wondering, that is the original '70's light fitting, it will be 'archived'.

So MOTH's started to put the frame up around the walls ready to attach the plasterboard (dryboard) ceiling to. To do this is an 'interesting' exercise for a couple of our advancing years. We both climb up ladders, then as MOTH uses buckets of adhesive & nails to do the fix, I balance the board on my head to keep it elevated. Over the past 16 years of renovating together, we have perfected this technique. Photos will not be forthcoming.

The wardrobe is the original, a smaller version of the one in the Guestroom. Thankfully this time, MOTH won't have to relocate it to another wall, it can stay where it is. We'll paint it & keep the original handles, they still look OK & function well.

It will look like this, once I've used a zillion coats of MOTH's special recipe undercoat to make sure the old varnished timber finish doesn't bleed through the new topcoat. As soon as this room is finished it will become a cramped holding bay for everything that's in the final room, my home office. Once MOTH gets cracking with that reno. I'll need to set up elsewhere to work, so I guess this little room is where I'll temporarily end up. Not the prettiest of posts today, but the After pics will hopefully make up for it.

Kiss And Say Goodbye

This post is 'dedicated' to the noisy koalas in our garden, who have kept MOTH & I awake for the past 3 nights. Almost to the day & right on cue, our local boy koala once again put his Barry White CD's on the koala stereo on Friday night & went off looking for luuuurve. As posted in previous November's here & here, the koala breeding season in The Hedge's garden is short & sharp, extremely noisy & every year is conducted right outside our bedroom window.

FYI

• the boy koalas are highly vocal.


• they advertise their mating prowess with loud snarling calls, deep bellows & grunts which are meant to impress the females.


• the female lets the boy know she's up for it by emitting a sharp, screeching noise similar to a fighting cat.

• the male chases the female across the ground or up a tree until he catches her, or unless she can outrun or fight him off.
  

• the deed then takes place, with the ensuing noise between the two of them described as a cross between 2 ferrets fighting & a chainsaw.


• it only lasts for 90 seconds & the male then packs up his CD's & moves on, looking for luuuurve in the next tree.

Unlike other years, there was no sign yesterday morning of either party. MOTH thinks they headed off to a stand of eucalypts next door to bask in the afterglow & sleep it off. As we are desperate for a peaceful night's sleep, we are hoping that Barry has weaved his magic & all this loud, amorous cavorting is well & truly over for another year!

In Bed With Millie & MOTH

Here's my long-overdue post of our recent bedroom 'tweak'. My dodgy, on-its-last-legs camera plus a cold, grey Winter's day is responsible for the less than optimal images today, so apologies all round for the rubbishy definition.

The funny slopy ceilings & weird quirky window shapes are still there, but I've become so used to them I find them strangely attractive! There's nothing like a bit of 70's architecture for a good laugh.

I'm really happy with the new padded headboard & new linen. I'm still hunting for the right throw pillows for a bit of colour against the white damask. So it's a bit stark presently & MOTH reckons it's like being tucked up in a hospital bed!

A Before image. We said farewell to our beloved old brass & iron bed & the long expanse of bare wall at the end of the bed.

And now we are footless, with a lovely big, useful wardrobe covering the bare wall. We couldn't take the cabinetry flush up to the ceiling 'cos of its high raked, sloping nature. Que sera sera & all that. So who gets up the ladder with the vacuum cleaner occasionally to clean the top will be decided with the toss of a coin!

MOTH & I did have a bit of a 'discussion' as to how much space I he was allocated!

The wardrobes are surprisingly compact & still leave us plenty of room to walk around the bed. Golly I need a new camera!!

I had a tailored, box-pleated valance made out of the same fabric as the padded headboard. It wasn't a cheap exercise but I love the result.

Looking outside the bedroom window today. My favourite tree is showing its Winter face.

This the same tree as it is in Summer - so lush & shady.

I don't have a Before image of the Master Bedroom, it was so revolting I was too distraught to take one. However, think exposed red/brown brick walls, dark beams, brown varnished woodwork, green shantung spider-infested curtains, swirly multi-coloured carpet & a built-in wardrobe complete with olive green aluminium frame & brown smoked glass sliding doors on the day we moved in. Very similar to this Before pic of one of the other bedrooms. Truly hideous.

I've Got Storage!

.......well, I will have by the end of the day! The Installer is here putting in the built-in wardrobe in our bedroom this morning. The cardboard Porta robes we've been living out of since moving in 4 years ago are on their last legs, so today is a momumental occasion. Now off to have a huge clothes cull....... do I really still need that c.1989 size 10 glitzy red sequinned evening top with the mega-padded shoulders or is it time to be ruthless!

A Change Of Plans

MOTH convened a meeting of the Development Assessment Panel here at The Hedge last week. We looked at what we've developed so far, what's currently in progress & what's on long-term plan. As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we don't have any storage in our bedroom. The plan has always been to knock a big hole in the end wall at the foot of the bed & build a WIR/Dressing Room that extends out into the garden (in the 2nd pic, the long wall to the left of my favourite window in the whole house). A big job, but MOTH did a similar thing at our old house & it turned out a treat. However, the property has a big sloping drop just outside the wall, so it would have meant building a structure high up from the ground. Another issue is that the major pathway that weaves its way right around to the rear of the house is smack bang in the middle of where the little extension would go. So a major incursion into the garden by Mr. Landscaper & a whole new path would be needed as well.

So after much discussion, we have decided to forgo building & opt for Plan B. Install a big bank of built-in wardrobes along the bedroom wall. After much research, & seeing some absolute shockers of dodgy closet manufacturers, I've found a Company who's cabinetry has a good degree of simplicity & style & gets the Millie tick of approval (see pic above, but in Antique White USA finish & NOT with those long handles!). In many ways, I'm glad we've made this decision, although MOTH's disappointed he won't get to do his building thing. The list of jobs still to be done is a mile long & I reckon his time & energy is best served getting stuck into those - try another bathroom & the new kitchen & laundry for starters!
Image: Philosophy Gifts