It happens in threes

So, first the fridge, now my computer and camera. Actually, I'm still holding out hope for the camera - perhaps the battery has just stopped working.. pretends to charge and does nothing once back in the camera? I'm really hoping so.

The laptop really did die though..
The search for a new computer was tricky. I like laptop computers because they use very little electricity in comparison to the desktop computers we owned years before. I wanted to support companies that appeared to be trying to do the right thing environmentally, so I used the EPEAT website to help search. I've settled on a smaller laptop (since I don't play graphics intensive games), with a gold star - an Eee PC. Hopefully it'll arrive sometime next week and I can tell you more.

Anyway, the last photo the camera took was of the fireplace in the loungeroom. I'd just finished putting a rough coat of lime plaster over the old bricks. It'll look nicer once it has another coat on!

 The mantle is outside, with every intention of painting it up. There's a little wood heater sitting in the back of the ute as I type. It's going to look great. More important, it'll more than heat the room this winter!

The hard part has been finding a small enough heater. Not because the fireplace is small, but because the room we want to heat is small. To get an oversized wood heater would mean we would either a) burn it too slowly and cause extra smoke, or b) we'd have to evacuate the room once the fire gets going, because it'll be too hot.

We've never used the open fireplace because they loose up to 90% of the heat up the chimney. The Nectre 15 is the smallest heater we could find that was also made here in Australia. It's 66.7% efficient, and can produce up to 12kW of heat, which is about 10 more than is required.. so I can see b above possible being an issue. Hopefully because it's a radiant heater, it'll warm the walls and floors of all the brick rooms, which tend to stay warm once heated. Maybe we'll only need to turn the heater on every second day or so. Only time will tell! We've got a little more rendering and painting to do before we get to try it out.

Work has continued in the loungeroom with lime plaster making it's way onto the walls, the area around the window getting some love, and the last of the wood that was once holding up the false walls is being taken down to make room for cornice.

Although we havn't finished any of the rooms yet, we're considering starting to renovate the bathroom already. Clearly there isn't enough drama in our lives. ;) We've ordered the tiles, have a good idea of what we want and our friendly builder has ran for the hills again! hehe.

Lots to do! Until next time.