Our house is just as I dreamed it would be.

Big, open, unique, with a big overgrown garden out of which I would discover many beautiful things. (Amongst the finest treasures are a pond and fountain, a pair of offshore riggers boots, countless bits of timber, piping, and limestone blocks.)

It will need some work, yet be fine as it is, and it would be a place where I could express my creativity in my own living space.

Home, I think people call it. Yes, home. It's been a long time since we've called a place our home... since 1999... We've been travellers, and have now got roots.

The house has 2 front doors. One through the centre of the original house, and one into the turret. The turret door is a big wooden one with a custom made key. We now use that as the main entry.

The first thing to go was the pink hallway in the centre of the original house.

Trusting our feng shui senses we all agreed... "paint the wall."

We got to it, starting with NO MORE GAPS, sealing everything before the paint went on.

It feels GOOD, to be doing this, such a pleasure to add to one's own space, to make it beautiful.

Graciously, the previous owners allowed us access to the property (prior to posession) to clean, paint and garden before moving in.

Which is what we did for a week, day and night. (sometimes all night)

It took almost 20 tubes of no more gaps to fill the gaps between the walls and cielings and between the cieling and the beams. I've yet to do the floors.

Many many many many many many many many many hours later, there were no more gaps to be seen.

It was, as they say here in Australia "Schmick".

(That means 'spot-on', or 'perfect' in other english dialects.)

Then, the paint.

The beams can stay, but they're going to be white. Nice semi-gloss finish.

Windows, skirting boards can be the same (geez, there's a lot of skirting boards!).

Cieling white, walls coloured.

((looks nice now, eh?))>>

One of the things we wanted for our house was for it to be filled with light. Bright and spacious with an indoor-outdoor feel.

Yellow was a great choice bringing in stimulating light and highlighting the greenness of the garden beyond.

The kitchen (<<) has a skylight and brings in a LOT of beautiful sunlight.

Many blessings to the previous owners for allowing us to do this, it made A BIG difference to our lives and we appreciate your kindness.

I did not expect to have a pink kitchen. It's beautiful.

We found a bucket of dark red and toned it down with the BIG bucket of white paint we had and ... viola'!

The perfect shade.

Tila painted the entire wall save the FAR corner above the shelving.

This is me, laughing while painting the pink wall>>

She's a REALLY good painter, and her lines (between the walls and cielings) are GOOD.

Hooray for Tila!

he bathroom is cool. It's got a cast-iron tub. The colour change was unintentional, and we REALLY prefer the new colour.

We found a tub of the original, (as above) mixed it with white (toned it down) and repainted. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh yes, fresh and clean.

(And GOOD practice for the five other rooms to come.)

Every corner schmicked, every gap filled, undercoat on, first coat on, final coat on, wait... done.

Only several dozen more.

It was a BUSY time, with hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of time spent here, making our home more beautiful.

We've got a PHOTO GALLERY of photographs of the time, some of the boys and most of the house.

It's a new process I'm trying out to see how well it fits into Globaltickit.

Instructions are at the top of the first page.

Peace....

RENOVATING
Photo Gallery