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

Oh The Pressure!

MOTH reckons old age & a nagging wife have slowed down the completion of the upstairs home office to an elderly crawl. That combined with the fact that I ripped down the rubbish window coverings & tore up the carpet last year & binned them, has left the ambient temperature in the room during a bitterly cold Hills winter at about -5C. And with no heating whatsoever, we could have stored a dozen bodies in there in tip top condition for days!

However after a 'pleasant' domestic discussion recently, he's back up there trying to make some progress. It's a strange room & we've spent many an hour pondering over it's provenance. With a big separate side entrance leading outside & a sturdy lock on the outside of the door into the upstairs corridor of bedrooms, like a lot of other odd things here, it's had us scratching our heads. All we can conclude is that the original owner/builder back in 1972 was one of Stirling's GP's & due to the large size of the room, we think he may have used it to consult from.

The large bank of original bookshelves span an entire wall & that's where the present trouble is centred. Prior to the reno, all our files & work stuff were shoved willy-nilly into it. A disaster of odd 3 ring binders, old manilla folders, boxes of discarded computer cables etc - it was a real mess. All our books were in a big old bookcase on the opposite wall.

 

In a fit of pique I had a melt-down & decided massive rationalization was needed. 7 boxes of books went down to the Stirling Charity Book Hut & the bookcase has gone on Gumtree. I took the pic above as I was about to start sanding the wood back after MOTH had painted the back walls the standard Solver Parchment. I can't show images of the rest of the room 'cos it's a mess of ladders, paint cans, discarded power tools & general reno junk.



They've had a million coats of Zinsser to stop the old stain bleeding through, MOTH's over it. Zinsser's Sales Manager must be busting to put up his Power Point presentation at their next Sales Meeting showing 609% growth for Q2!

 



A before shot looking towards the big window at the other end of the room.

 

Staring at them, with just some touching up to be done on the wall, I had a horrible thought. As this is supposed to be a blog about our reno & may be viewed by at least 3 people & their dogs, I'd better lift my game. So I turned to that fountain of all things 'housie' Pinterest & did a search for 'Bookcase Styling'. I got the shock of my life - 56,791 pins loaded!  

 

It appears I will need to colour code everything, pull in unique pieces of objet d'art, channel Nate, Bunny, Suzanne et al & then arrange everything just so. All indication of our current Tax receipts, Super & Insurance stuff & general detritus of everyday business life must be hidden in something called a Kikki-K box. Above all it must look like I just casually tossed it all together in about 30 minutes. Oh, & then when that's all done, I need to upload it to my Pinterest boards & wait anxiously to see how many repins it gets. Geez life in 2013 is complicated!! 

 

 

A Bit Of A Fizzer

Well dear Hedgies another Easter came & went in a cloud of 'I will do this & that' but I actually achieved little. I had a whole list of projects to tick off, least of all trying my hand at sawing our hideous front door in half, performing some nifty surgery to the top & installing some glass & voila, a great Dutch door just the one in the pic. Sadly after MOTH caught me unscrewing the door from it's hinges & 'requested' a detailed explanation of my intentions, my big Easter project was suddenly derailed, surprise, surprise. Even though he hasn't got the slightest understanding of Pinterest, he reckons it has a lot to answer for.

We were kindly invited to meet the other set of prospective grandparents for the first time over lunch on Easter Monday. MOTH's been laid low by that most horrendous of medical maladies.....the Man Cold, but managed to get his act together long enough to accompany me. Once again I had to pull out the List of Things Not To Talk About In Front Of Strangers To Make A Good First Impression. He managed to adhere to most of them, but I noticed the other Glammie rolling her eyes a couple of times at a little tid-bit of family scandal he couldn't help but share with her. Sadly I was too far way at the table to give him a gentle 'tap' on the leg, so far more was revealed than was necessary. Anyways, these things are always scary, but when MOTH's involved my anxiety is lifted to whole new levels.

I've just enrolled puppy Lulu in a Calm. Controlled. Centred 4 week training course, but I reckon Alexis at Scholars in Collars could retire to the Bahamas in a nanosecond if she did swapped dogs for husbands in her workshops. I'd be willing to pay double mate.

Image: eclecticrevisited.com via Millie on Pinterest

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.

2.5 Very Scary Words

Asbestos lean-to! Many of us have squared up to them during our renovation experiences & even MOTH puts his hands up in defeat & calls in the experts when demolishing one of these nightmares. Sam Crawford Architects got hold of this little beauty in Sydney for their clients & did a fab reno. The original house, a modest inter-war bungalow typical of the Waverley area was worth retaining. They removed the asbestos rear lean-to and created a new kitchen and living area which opens onto a covered outdoor entertaining space and added a plunge pool in the back yard for good measure. They retained the simple original facade of the house but it's now viewed through a translucent screen.....clever stuff!

It's no McMansion but I really like the vibe it puts out. A real little pocket rocket.

Images: Sam Crawford

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!

Weekend Wanderer

A big week here @ The Hedge is ending - THANK GOODNESS! We closed off FY10 yesterday at work & I for one am mighty glad to see the back end of it. I start FY11 today with a whopping increase in my sales targets, so it looks like the 24 hours a day I currently work, will need to be doubled to even give this fanciful target a nudge. Lots of lovely social things on this weekend, & a mad panic to find something to wear to a dinner in Sydney next week. A dash up the Freeway in the Millie-mobile to the see the ever-so-patient girls at Balhannah By Design is in order & hopefully I can come home with one of Ilse Jacobsen's pretties in a BBD bag.

Although it's time for BBD to tempt us with their annual range of Ilse's awesome wellies -gorgeous huh! One day Millie, one day.

While I'm over @ Balhannah, MOTH will be toiling away in the trenches - the dramatic dodgy downpipe story continues. Photos will not be forthcoming, I can't even bear to look out the windows to the shocking current scene in the courtyard. However, I noticed that a whole heap of gravel had been delivered yesterday, & he has promised me that he'll be starting to backfill all the trenches this weekend & he may even be able to start on replacing all the paving that's been uncerermoniously ripped up in this whole process. I reckon there's a Cooper's or three in it for you mate if I see pavers down by Sunday night.

Thank you to Rachel over at raenovate. Her feature renovation story today is yes, you guessed it US! We are in very snazzy company & Rachel had some really kind words to say about what happens behind The Hedge. Do swing over & say hi to Rachel here, her fabulous blog is full of wonderful Before's & After's & great ideas. It's the weekend, so go enjoy!

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.

Paint That!

While I refuse to let any thoughts of Christmas enter my head just yet, I have started thinking about the long Summer days after. We're not heading to the beach this year, as we want to save our pennies for our big trip away next May (yes, it's been postponed from this year due to a certain Serial Renovator taking on too many new client projects!). MOTH's not taking any time off from work, so after all our house guests depart in early January, it's just me at home at The Hedge - & I find that prospect absolutely delicious! However, I need to have a couple of projects on the go, & thanks to 2 of my dearest blog chums, I've been inspired.

Dear Willow has recently given the c.1983 china cabinet in her Dining Room the big make-over. Doesn't it look gorgeous all black & elegant & very schmicko!

Here's her Before shot. She noted in her post ' Here it is full of a hodge-podge-lodge of doily-lady stuff. I removed the top shelf in the center section, added the resident manor rooster and random stacks of vintage red books.'

And here is mine. Purchased in the same year, on the other side of the world. It has served me very well, but I've looked at it for ages now, wandering what I can do to tart it up. And thanks to Willow's brilliant idea, it's going to get similar treatment!

The delightful Deborah at Boxwood Terrace has also been busy with the sandpaper & paint brush. She added a glazed finish to her 2 bedside tables, the Before is on the left, with the ever-so-pretty After on the right. In her post here, she also introduced us to Stephanie from me and mrs. jones painted finishes. I have been stalking Stephanie's blog archives ever since for tips & hints of the trade!

Here's our bedside tables in their current state - very average, & now, since our bedroom makeover, looking positively dodgey. I think they'll respond very nicely to a new look once I've attacked them with the sandpaper. So they'll get hauled out to the back verandah too, along with the china cabinet. So that's the first 3 weeks of January 2011 accounted for I reckon. The only thing not to come out of this with any dignity will be my poor old fingernails. Off to book an After-Sanding manicure now!