What we've been up to lately

Life just seems to whiz by of late, please tell me you notice it as well.

Progress on the dream house has seemed some what slow , in fact almost at times, its been at a stand still, up until the past 3 weeks that is.

The bathroom renovations are still on going but with a house that needs re peiring its not just a case of doing one room at a time. Piers around the area you are working on also need to be replaced to prevent cracking the parts you renovate further down the track. So no pretty pictures yet just mess & cracked walls......Yes, I am finding it hard to be patient.

There has been lots of rebuilding due to old termite damage, as you can see by the photos above they built great nests & had a real feast on some of the timber. Thankfully they are no longer active in the home.

This is what this room looked like before we purchased the house.

We have 95% of the fixtures & fittings sitting in a spare room ready to go & have even done a test run on a temporary wall in our living area to perfect the layout of our mirrors & wall lights so the dream guy could batten out the walls where they will all hang.It would appear that I have a knack of choosing heavy items so a little extra bracing is required.....ooops!

We have had a plumber in & all of the ground work is now done for the plumbing side of things, the electrical wiring is in place & we are just waiting on quotes from a couple of tilers for the tiling & waterproofing

The dream guy has been super busy with his electrical contracting business so even less time for renovating but I think the work side might be the priority at this stage.

If you need an awesome electrician & you're in the Hunter Valley area give him a call

MJE Electrical 0417945526

Sorry for the shameless plug

I am working on design boards for the rest of the house at the same time as this, trying to nail down the perfect kitchen design, including a butlers pantry & choosing the perfect paint colour as I want a cohesive look throughout the house, but these will all require a post of there own.

Until the next update.....

CHEERS

Trish xx

Renovation progress' at St Elmo

Hey everyone, whats going on in your world?

We have been busy here at St Elmo, mostly just turning it into a demolition site.

I thought I should share our renovation progress so far.

We have achieved a lot but to the outside eye it probably just looks like we are destroying the place, Like they say

"No mess, No progress!"

My dream guy has been working extremely hard, not just on our house but also at establishing his Electrical Contracting business. Up until a week ago he has been working his full time job whilst working for himself but now its full steam ahead with his business, so if you know anyone in the Hunter Valley/Maitland area that needs an AWESOME electrician then give him a call.

0417 9450526

I have picked up the perfect part time job as a Design & Sales consultant at Amber Tiles in East Maitland which I thoroughly enjoy, the owners & staff are all lovely which makes for a really nice work environment. I have  so much to learn but am really enjoying the whole experience.

So in amongst all this so far we (by we, I really mean my dream guy) have replaced all of our water mains as they were leaking & we had very little water pressure. You only had to tap the old galvanised water pipes with the shovel & they sprung a leak.

We ran new storm water pipes as it had never been done properly & just collected on the ground around the house, no wonder those wooden piers had rotted away.

We only want to do this job once so we are ensuring that everything is repaired along the way.

Sometimes that does feel like you have opened a can of worms & that we will never finish.

 We pulled out 90% of the cottage garden & have  turfed & built garden beds that are more structured & formal, requiring a lot less maintenance.

You can see how they were pretty over grown & the up keep would have meant constant gardening.

We really don't have the time for that.

As you can imagine, no electricians garden is complete without some sort of lighting.

I do apologise for the poor quality photos, but you get the general idea of the direction we are heading with this.

This project isn't complete yet so a blog post will come with better photo's a little later. 

We have installed wool insulation

batts into the ceiling as there wasn't any & our house was ridiculously hot.They have made a huge difference to the temperature of the place.

 Some more piers have been replaced as well as some of the floor joists, there are still lots of these left to do though.

Currently we are stripping out what was the laundry to make a brand new family bathroom. This was the original kitchen when the home was first built in 1906 so it has a fabulous old brick fireplace which we intend to incorporate into our design. While the floors are up we will replace the piers in this area.

We will need to run all new plumbing, install a new hot water system, a gas instantaneous style, as we are currently on electric hot water. We will also be installing  a water tank to catch some rain water for toilet flushing & laundry use as we don't have that here & our water bills are far to expensive.

All in all, we have achieved a lot but the pretty stuff is still a while away.

The entire family is pretty excited by the thought of a nice bathroom though.

CHEERS

Trish xx

Life in the new house!!!

So here I am confessing again that its been a long time between blog posts.

So now I have so so much to tell, but most importantly we have moved into our new but very old home.

You can check out my previous post full of the real estate pics here

The real estate wrapped our front door in a bow, it was so nice to turn up with our keys for the first time & be greeted like this.

Thank you Ray White Maitland.

They also left a lovely gift basket full of goodies but the kids raided it before I could snap a pic.

We only have a single garage here so have temporarily put a shipping container in the back yard until my dream Guy can build his man cave.

We  have a narrow driveway so the crane driver lifted this big thing over the roof of our house.

I'm pretty happy he is good at what he does, no damage any where...pheww!!!

We used Tom Lawler Cranes for this job & I highly recommend them. Tom is a precision driver that's for sure.

Our lovely old home needs re peering, the floors slope off in all different directions.

As you can see by the above photo of just one of the peers, they are in a pretty bad way, this all all that is left of this one, it should be almost a metre long but has been eaten out by termites.

The termite damage is old & there are no active termites in the house now.

All of this is being replaced by adjustable steel peers, we only have to do about 48 of them....eeek!!!!

We knew this when we purchased the home.

Do you like how I say we... I don't really get my hands very dirty, I feed the worker, help with the clean up, sometimes I have to assist when it comes to lifting heavy things & most importantly take photos.

Doesn't everyone keep a wheel barrow in the laundry.

So the renovating has begun.

We are just taking it one step at a time but this part of the re peering process will allow us to build a much needed ensuite & set up the plumbing for a new main bath & laundry.

We currently have no water tanks for that all important water catchment from the roof to run the toilets & washing machine from & the way the house is set up at the moment it runs off two electric hot water systems , so it is a bit of a priority to address these issues as we go along, so we can be a little more energy & water efficient.

Its also a huge pain, if you flush the toilet while someone is showering as they lose their water & you cant run the washing machine & any other taps at the same time for the same reason.

Its time to make this 108 year old home a little more efficient!!

Stay tuned for my next installment, I have so much more to tell!!

CHEERS

Trish xx

We bought a house!

So its been a while since I did an update on the Dream House.

You may remember I did a post a while back explaining why we had decided NOT to build,

 if not you can catch up on all of the details here

Well the good news is,

 WE SOLD THE LAND

The better news is...

 we have purchased a new home or should I say a 108 year old home.

Meet St Elmo, Circa 1906

Isn't she pretty!!

There are a lot of great original features left in this house which I will share with you more when I can get my photo's to stop loading sideways

We have a LOT of work to do to make her shine again, which I am grateful for, as we still get to make it our own

There is still one of the  fireplaces left out of the three the house originally had & we actually intend on making this room the Master bedroom...ooh la la, it sounds so romantic, I cant wait!

We have met the current owners who are such lovely people & filled us in on lots of the homes history. 

They are the 3rd owners of this home, having lived there for 35 years.

Sheesh, I haven't lived any where for longer than 6 years, perhaps I will settle down this time.

The house was originally built as Maitland's maternity hospital, so if the walls could talk, there would be some amazing stories to tell, I'm sure.

Don't worry, I did ask if it was haunted & they  said they had never seen or heard anything in their 35 years living there but one of their grand daughters had said she kept hearing babies crying when she had a sleep over one night.

I was hoping for  something a little  more exciting than that, he he he!!!

I cant wait to move in & start decorating, renovations will have to wait until we build the shed so my dream guy has somewhere to be a tradie from again. But there will be tonnes of things to blog about at long last.

I cant wait to also take you on a bit of a tour around the suburb we will be living in.

Lorn is a Heritage conservation area, so the homes are all gorgeous old heritage homes, some beautifully restored & some in need of some love.

The streets are lined with beautiful old tree's & its all situated on the banks of the Hunter River.

Eeek , I have so much to share!!!

WATCH THIS SPACE 

CHEERS

Trish xxx