The end

I'm very embarrassed to be finally writing this post a year and a half late. But with the phrase "better late than never" in mind, I would like to share with you the post I have been looking forward to writing for so very long.

Although, now that I look through the pictures, I'm thinking back on all the good memories and how hard we worked - it brings a tear to my eye. We miss it there.

Anyway, before I cry.. :)


The front loungeroom.

This picture was taken by the realestate agent before we moved in. It almost looked the same, minus the picture and the fire guard. The carpet was a remnant, threadbare and loose. The nice new wallboards you can see were hiding rising damp and missing render, and a mouse highway.

The loungeroom when we were done fixing the mess, turned into a comfortable, cozy, beautiful room.


Bedroom 2

This is the spare bedroom. It had nothing on the floor, cracks all over the walls and a huge cupboard taking up most of the room. It would always have to remain a single-bed room, so that's what we did.

I really had fun stripping back and painting that door. :)


Loungeroom 2

The before pic was an agent photo again - and the lounge looked exactly the same when we moved in minus the TV, stand and chair. Infact, this was the first room we slept in, because it was mid winter, and freezing - not to mention drafty as well.

 

 

This room was the most challenging room to renovate by far. The walls in the before photo are what people referred to as hemp-board. They covered the brick wall behind, which needed a lot of repair. The concrete floors were removed, and a massive amount of sand, rubble and bricks were shovelled out of the bedroom window, one shovel at a time. It was after living with no floor for far too long when we found the builder of our dreams - Gary! He came and gave us direction and put in the new floor. Straight floors, with insulation and everything! Bliss!!

There was a new ceiling put up, plaster work all around, painted in lime wash and carpet, and oh my gosh! We *loved* this room!

The master bedroom

The before picture doesn't even begin to describe this room. It felt like Alice in Wonderland, with the ceiling going in one direction, the floor falling to another. In short, we didn't sleep in here until after the all the renovations were finished!

A room full of sand and odd things, like an old torpedo bottle, an old shoe and even a skeleton of a cat! Everything weird and creepy - another reason not to sleep in there! Haha. It was a really comfortable and warm room afterwards though.

Bedroom doorway, completely rebuilt - before and after.

Lime is an amazing paint to work with. It goes on so dark, and turns into a beautiful pastel.

Through to the kitchen

Instead of a "ramp" made by the concrete sloping down into the kitchen, we made it step properly down into it. The step we made with a section of the old mantle shelf above the fireplace in loungeroom 2. It fit perfectly and it was so beautiful once the ugly white paint had been sanded away.

The kitchen

Probably the room that had least done, yet doing it made one of the biggest differences to our lives and to the look and feel of the place. First up, we took out that horrible vinyl floor, and eventually we found Sten, who made the kitchen more than workable, but a pleasure to be in. (Sten is the Ikea island bench, by the way!)

Oh, and replaced the tiny sink, and the useless rangehood, and added a single-drawer dishwasher as well. Oh the luxury! Painting the kitchen was a surprisingly big job, but it made such a difference. Yellow is so much more uplifting than .. whatever the original colour was. We still don't know!

Oh the cupboard! The previous owner left that thing in the kitchen, full of mouse stuff! YUCK! Now THAT was the first thing we got rid of, come to think of it!

Oh our Nectre Bakers Oven. We miss that during the winter - baked potatoes and enough heat to make you open the windows. :)


The bathroom

The original bathroom was very cramped and cold. Not exactly somewhere to relax.

This was Gary the builder's finest work at the Old Miners Cottage. A bathroom to be comfortable in. All the walls, floor and ceiling were replaced. We basically started again. For a small space, we did our best to make it open and airy. We loved this room so much, because it made us feel human again after a long day.


The back room

Essentially, an enclosed veranda, very unfinished and under-utilised space.

 

A bit of paint and a lot of sanding of the floor, and it just helped finish off the area. It made a nice "mud room", where coats, hats and shoes were removed.


The Laundry

Just a simple paint, tidy-up and adding a little storage. It was actually quite a simple transformation. Mum and Mike came down to help with this last little thing, and did a bang-up job too! I suddenly felt like doing the laundry after that. It was a pleasure to be in there!

And so..

2008

2013

It's goodbye from Marty and me, because less than two week after putting our old cottage on the market, a sweet older couple snapped it up. I hope the cottage is being good to them, and I hope they're enjoying their retirement there.

As for us, we were able to move to the farm we purchased years ago, and basically start renovating all over again!

If you would like to join us, we are now found at;

We did it for the Chooks!


Thank you to everyone who has followed us on our journey. :)

Laundry

The laundry floor is cleaned now too, ready for linseed oil. I'm so happy with the way the whole laundry has turned out!

There are lots of little things being done around the house, we're working on cleaning up the shed and clearing out a lot of junk. We're looking forward to painting a little cupboard for the spare bedroom tomorrow.. and there's a lot of random bits of painting to do around the outside of the house. Only small things left now. :)

As soon as they're done, I have promised myself a big blog post with before and after photos of the house - as it was when we got it - and now that it's in a much more finished state. Much easier to see the differences that way. I can't wait! :)

Back room

 

We're getting closer to being finished! A huge, heart-felt thanks to Mum, Michael and Mike for taking time out of their crazy-busy lives to come down and stay with us for a few days. They really were the motivation and action behind getting the laundry and back room started! They helped us get the old concrete sinks out - fixed walls - put up architraves around the windows that never had them - got cracking on the painting - solved our procrastination with their can-do attitudes! So thank you, thank you, thank you! :)

We mostly come into the house from the back door, so this area gets the coats and shoes thrown in it. The floors have taken a beating from years of paint and neglect, but we gave them a good scrub today and it's coming up pretty well. Next it needs a good wash and a few coats of linseed oil.

The laundry is to the right of the photo, but no pictures yet - not until after the floor is done tomorrow! :)

Everything is painted the same colours as the kitchen - Goats Cheese is the white, Cheese Stick is the yellow. It feels like it's taken forever! So many fiddly bits! We must have used at least 10 litres of Cheese Stick including the kitchen! Mum and Mike got us another 4 litres before they left - I swore we wouldn't need that much, but they were right!

Renovations are boring.

Really! We'd much rather be doing anything else. :)

Like playing games on the phone..

Haha! Actually, the reason I wanted to show off the kitchen again is because we got the cupboard looking oh so very cute. Take a look!

So we spent time painting the cupboard and we put some fabric behind some clear glass instead of the blue stripes. Perhaps it matches the kitchen a bit too well, but oh well.

That photo sure makes the floor look dark! Interesting..

We also replaced the bench seat in the ute for some bucket ones. It should make the trip up to the farm much more comfortable for Marty. See, I'm a fair bit shorter than he is, and what is a comfortable driving spot on a bench seat for me is a little uncomfortable for him! Also, he can recline a bit in these - well, as much as you can in a single cab. We're quite happy with them though! They came out of a wrecked Toyota Surf, so they're re-cycled so to speak. It was a luxury model though, because these seats have lumbar support and a couple of extra adjustments! Fancy! :)

Otherwise things seem to be plodding along at a slow pace. I've excluded the chooks from the half of the backyard closest to the house. A few bonuses are the lack of nasty surprises when walking outside (surprises that involve having to wash the bottoms of the shoes regularly - yuck!), and now I can plant seedlings into the garden beds without them being dug up for dust bathing spots. On the downside, I have to weed the garden beds now - and the chooks felt a bit sad for a few days without their usual dust bathing spots. Luckly they seems to have discovered a few more on their side of the fence, so they're mostly happy again.

We're concentrating on renovating the back room. It's basically a filled-in varandah, with a toilet and it leads to the laundry. It use to house the chest freezer when we had one, and it's now used as a mud room, for shoes and coats and hats. A couple walls were in need of replacement, so the plasterboard has gone up. It just needs finishing now. We'll pretty up the laundry as much as we can, and then get started on prettying up the garden.

Hopefully then it'll be all go for putting the cottage up for sale so we can move up to the farm and garden till our hearts content. :)