The Renovations Continue: Garden and Laundry Edition.

 When I bought my house back in 2016, I knew it had many problems but loved the feel of it and saw potential. One of the interesting quirks was that it had an external laundry.

Now I grew up with an external laundry which we  enclosed on the back of our house in about 1976, along with the new family room which was de rigueur in the renovations department at that time. We engaged a builder who turned out to be a bit of a cowboy - misreading the measurements for the second bathroom adjoining the laundry which meant we ended up with an enormous luxurious laundry...and a teeny tiny bathroom. It was so small it needed a sliding door! The builder was a lanky Dutchman by the name of Henk Graauwelman (who could forget that name) who, at the same time that he was providing us with an indoor laundry, built himself a house in Blackwood with an external laundry. My house. Yes, you wouldn't read about the coincidence!

Anyhow, it was already in a pretty rough state by the time I moved in and I always thought I would convert an indoor area of the house to be my laundry at some point, but when it came down to it, I decided I quite liked having the noise of the machine and piles of washing away from my kitchen and dining area...so the external laundry persisted. Well it has got worse in the last 10 years and, knowing I have visitors coming at Christmas I decided I was too embarrassed to have a laundry like that any more.

Exhibit A

 

Horrible cupboards that back straight on to the wall, doors that don't close....

Exposed plumbing......

a sink without a proper tap...this one spouts like you've hit the mains!
 

As so often happens when you get used to things, we've just put up with this. Its so bad that I rarely (never) clean it, because its too horrible to go in to and somehow doesn't seem worth it!

So works are underway! The plumbing and electrics have been rerouted and the cracked white tiles removed from behind the sink.

 At the moment the old cupboards are still in place but they are coming down soon and I DO need to wash the floor...although it's only going to get filthy again once they start installing everything....

The quote has come through for the carpentry and I am resuing left over tiles from my ensuite makeover so I'm hoping I can get this done for a reasonable price.

My front garden is another matter. It too was always a bit dodgy but I have worked on it over the years and from time to time it looked quite nice...or at least loved.

Now, with several years of overseas travel (where I invested very little time in caring for it) and through the passage of time, the retaining walls are collapsing and major works need to be done.

 

The random bricks were already there when I moved in...but the collapsed drain is a direct result of the sleepers moving.

Interesting shape on that sleeper back there. Every time I water this section the water simply runs out between the sleepers and is wasted :-(

 

 This was never pretty but the very wet winters we've had have left the sleepers rotten and covered in moss.

 Don't even start me on these steps....

 The approach to the house is dodgy in the extreme and has meant that a dear friend with a disability and even some elderly friends now, cannot visit as it's too tricky underfoot.

 Nice new roof though!!!!!

Look at this mess, about to collapse!

 And so, the new designs have been drawn up! The garden man is visiting this Sat to horrify me with the cost of changing all this...

Here's the plan......

 

 Of course I won't be paying him to plant all these plants. That will be a me job once the form is established. It's going to be big, dusty work! Stay tuned for updates!

 

A Real Bedroom!

 It is finally finished!

 

I have new windows, new blinds (motorised!), freshly painted walls, new floors and a new rug! And yes, despite my daughter's protestations that 'you live in the hills mum!', it has a coastal theme :-D

I have changed up the arrangement so that I have a music room down one end and I wake up to look out through the big windows in the morning.

 Here's my music room...

 Complete with Dad's guitarist... And here's how it fits behind the bed...

 A little weird but I like it and it's making good use of the space in the room.

And don't even start me on my walk in wardrobe <3

which is a little slice of heaven!!!!

The new bathroom is good too but pretty similar to the old one, sans broken tile.

So what is next I hear you say? Well, the front garden has collapsing retaining walls and the outdoor laundry is a disgrace. Plus I've recently been shown that some of my wiring, out to the carport, is non-compliant, open as it is to the elements. As a result I will be having sensor lights installed which will not require us to turn them off from inconvenient places in the house. A bonus on top of not being electrocuted....so that's next on the list!
 

Legacy

 Many many years ago when Mum and Dad were hale and hearty but thinking ahead, Mum asked me what I would like her to leave me in her will. I was horrified.

"There's nothing you have that could ever replace you and Dad" was my reply and at the time I meant it.

As the years passed and my beautiful Mum succumbed to Alzherimers and my darling Dad to heart disease, somehow the things that they owned, that had graced their walls and mantlepieces for years, began to take on more meaning.

In October 2024, when I went over to help my fabulous Middle Sis start the heartbreaking task of emptying out their home, I was encouraged to choose the things I wanted to take back with me to remember our beloved parents. There were some weird choices.

These are my Dad's academic caps, from Grammar school to PhD.

This is his university football team photo. That's him front row right.

I rescued a piece of rock from the garage, kept in a plastic bag marked Dive 2, which I knew had come from his submarine dives on to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in 1994. It's a piece of the infamous Black Smokers that spew out molten rock to create the ocean floor and continue pushing the continental plates apart.

Image Credit: https://www.le-comptoir-geologique.com/black-smoker-glossary.html

Here is my piece of the ocean floor, retrieved by robotic arm for my Dad as he watched on from 3000m below sea level. Now on my fireplace....

And of course there are the sculptures from Zimbabwe:

All these pieces surround me with the sense of my childhood and my oh so loved parents. They have little value except to bring back the memory of the days they arrived in our home, the stories told by Dad of their acquisition and the delight (and sometimes otherwise!) displayed by Mum as she found places to locate them.

Of course there are Mum's things too. She loved art whether it was paintings, photography, ceramics or unusual jewellery. She loved to visit galleries showing local artists and on one occasion she fell in love with this oil pastel picture she called 'The Three Ladies'. 

I couldn't get a good photo of it at night sadly, the light and the flash are reflected, but you can see the three faces all peering down at....what is it? What are they doing?? 

Mum loved to challenge her guests to speculate about what they were looking at so intently. I love to remember this and hear her mischievous suggestions. Are they telling fortunes? Playing cards? 

Not to be left out, my Dad found an artwork by the same artist. He was learning classical guitar at the time so of course he chose this piece. Again, I haven't been able to capture it well, it's now in my music room...

They're not marvellous pieces but the sense of home and love and life they evoke cannot be measured.

And just for good measure, here is one of Mum's originals gracing the stairs into my sewing room...

I remember when she brought it home from painting classes. It hung in our home until they moved to the UK, was passed on to my Bestie's beautiful Mum who passed it back to me when she down sized and I moved back to Australia. So much life it has witnessed.

Well that's enough nostalgia for now. I have Mum's table cloth on my table, I wear her jewelery constantly and during the last show, my make-up scarf was one gifted to me by Dad.

I am surrounded by the outward physical reminders of their extraordinary and enduring lives and love. That's some legacy.

My Darling Dad Continues to Give

All my life my dad has given me significant 'things', things which have shaped my life. From a typewriter when I was a budding author at 11, to my first camera, digital clock radio, my first car,  an answering machine, a prototype word processor when they were not much more than glorified electric typewriters, my first digital camera, kindle and all sorts of upgrades to my computers as technology advanced. Of course the most significant thing financially was the deposit for my first real estate purchase in Sydney all those years ago. 

He didn't spoil me though. Alright, maybe he did, but I was always grateful and aware of his generosity. I took nothing for granted. The flat we bought in Sydney benefited us both. He maintained an interest which multiplied many times over in the short time before we sold it.  Many years later we did a similar thing in the UK with similarly pleasing results.

When my life crashed down a marital roller coaster in 2014/15 Dad was there to catch me again. We bought a house together again, this one suitable for regular parental visits from overseas. Sadly, there were only two visits before Mum's Alzheimers had progressed to a stage which meant that she couldn't travel.

But I digress. 

When we bought the house in 2015/6, the building inspection report man had a lot to say. The house was pretty 'run down' in terms of maintenance, but I was pushed for time. My marital home was already sold, I had parents and a child to consider and we just needed somewhere to live. 

I loved the house. I loved the split level, the cathedral ceilings, the western red cedar paneling, the mid-century modern features so reminiscent of my childhood and the location close to shops but down a bosky hill which made it feel as if we were in the country.

We moved in during the summer of 2016, hot and dry. A few months later we experienced the first rain and suddenly I had twelve bowls out catching drips in the dining room. I consulted a roofing man. His verdict? "You need a new roof".  There was no way at that point in time that I could even CONSIDER a new roof. Patching began.

Over the next eight years no less than 4 roof repairers told me the same thing. Unfortunately, I still did not  have the wherewithal to undertake such a mammoth effort. With enormous debts of gratitude to the Bank Of Georgia (see my previous post) I was able to keep it patched but the night I woke up with water dripping on my head marked a turning point.

So the devastating loss of my dad opened up a few doors.

I got my roof replaced :-D 

This was step one. 

Since that post I have also had my fence replaced!

 

 

A quick reminder....

 

 And then we moved on to the windows.

 The original windows were  trashed when I moved in. There was rot in the corner of all the timber frames, so significant that geckos could get in! Here is a sample....

 In addition, the windows were designed with the opening section near the floor. Useless when hot air rises!!

So I got new windows <3 I Love them so much. AND they're double glazed!!!

 So the next step was window coverings....

It was not easy. The configuration of the walls and previous window openings meant I couldn't get the curtains I wanted so I went for blinds...and since I was restricted to blinds I thought I might as well get the luxury of MOTORISED!!!!!

Meanwhile back in November, when I had flu, I had dropped glass onto my bathroom floor. Of course it smashed on the tiles but, the devastating extra consequence was that the tiles also broke!! 

 It was such a tiny break but it was visible and annoying so I called the insurance people. Yes, they said, you need a new bathroom.

???????????

Apparently, if you lift floor tiles in a bathroom you damage the waterproof membrane so the entire thing had to be ripped out and re-waterproofed and re-tiled!!! It seemed a good deal. I dutifully picked my tiles, as close to the originals as possible. and prepared to be without an ensuite for a few weeks. 

Work started a few days after my return from Christmas in the UK.  I was back at work already and the weather was fierce. The skip had arrived, a number of preliminary things had taken place and we were preparing for the big 'rip out'. I lay in bed, on top of my covers (it was hot) checking my phone at 6.30am, before getting up for work, when a strange noise outside caught my attention. A few beeping noises. Sounded like a reversing truck. Hard rubbish removal maybe? Unperturbed I went back to checking my phone. Some 5 minutes later a man, large as life, walked into my bedroom! 

May I help you? was all I could manage! 

The poor fellow was SO embarrassed. He had decided to start early to beat the heat and had asked the office whether the property would be vacant. They had (erroneously) said yes. I said ' maybe at 7:30 I'd be on my way to work...but not at 6:30!!!!! hahahahah

I laughed and laughed. I'm not sure he was as comfortable about it.

At the end of that day the bad news was delivered. The original bathroom had been installed incorrectly and instead of rendered walls I had gyprock glued to brick. It all had to come out. THEN they had to apply to the insurance company for permission to re-render the walls. Three weeks later work started again. There were many knock on effects from the rendering: sink in wrong position, needed moving, mirror now in wrong position, needed resizing.....

The previous photo was taken on the 30th of January. They finally signed off on my bathroom in April, but it is done.

 

Meanwhile.... I had organised for my hideous walk in wardrobe space to be reconfigured.

Here's before...

 I get a bit tingly when I look at the refurb. I LOOOOOVE it.

 Oh my G...everything is behind doors!!!!!

 Oh my WORD how good is this??????

 Even with things in it!!!! love love love

So the last thing to happen in this part of the house is the flooring. Decisions have been made this weekend so fingers crossed there will soon be a finished product to reveal.

 

The biggest heartache is that I can't show it to my Dad. 

 

 

 

 

Grief: Part 1

'Where do they go?'

As I watched the Temple Grandin movie recently, her heart rending question as she watched people and animals die,  triggered the grief in my heart. "Where did he go? He was just there and now he's gone! Where did he go?"

One never knows when its going to jump up and bite you. Grief.

This year has seen the loss of:

My darling Dad 

The dear, dear mother of Kindergarten Friend, my youngest sister's Godmother.

And my Bestie's beautiful mother (seen here with my own darling Mum).

Each one of them has taken a piece of me with them, wherever they have gone.

I'm not going to start with Dad. That is so huge I would never get to the other two extraordinary women who touched and moulded my life. I want to give respect to them and the manner of their passing; both tortured and peaceful. This in itself requires reflection. 

So. I bring them to you now in their prime, but let me also bring you context.

In 1965 we moved into our family home. It was the first house my parents had owned and was to be our home for the following 16 years. We arrived in this house as a family of four but added my youngest sister 5 years later. See that annex to the left? We built that. In this house we met two of the most important families in our lives. 

Further down the street (they were No 8 , we were No 11) was a family with a girl of a similar age to me. I have no recollection of our first meeting, although she claims to, for me she has just 'always been there'. She had a very different life to me. She was an only child and her parents were quite different to mine. Ok, VERY different to mine. 

Her dad was a practical man; tall, handsome, confident, at some point in my early life...a pilot!!! He built things. He fixed cars! With a country upbringing he understood animals, in a pragmatic way that at times shocked me. Cats were a case in point. Although he loved them, he knew when there were too many and when they had to go. One afternoon there were 20 kittens in the backyard. The next day there was one mother cat. The Bestie's dad taught me that there were different ways to think about things, animals being a case in point. I didn't always agree but I began to understand that my perception was not the only one. (Interestingly his daughter is now a member of the Zoo board, active in the conservation of animals).

 

He was a gentleman in the old style, somewhat out of step with the swinging sixties when our families met. He insisted on opening car doors for us, going so far as to berate us if we didn't stay in the car waiting for him to do so! He saw himself as Lord of his Manor and protector of his women folk. It was a 1940s romantic hero role which left the Bestie and I killing ourselves laughing as we reached our Women's Lib inspired teens. On reflection, we should probably have valued his attitude more and looked for blokes who were at least a little like him!

The Bestie's mother was an exotic creature who completely fascinated me. She came from a family 'with money' (her sister drove an E-Type Jag!) and knew all about the 'finer things' in life. Unlike my mother in so many ways, she wore makeup. One day she let me watch her 'put on her face'. I remember that to this day and every morning as I go to work I 'put on my face' as she did, a mask for the person I must be there.  She defied fashion trends and wore what suited her. Unlike my own mother, when everyone else wore mini skirts she sensibly assessed her own best assets and took to kaftans. Through my Bestie she introduced me to musicals: 'Gypsy', 'The Pyjama Game', 'Camelot','Man of La Mancha'; we would sit for hours playing them over and over, and she would share her reflections on them: the drama, the love stories and the ultimately wonderful happy endings. She was a hopeless romantic and her husband was the love of her life. 

These two wonderful people supported My Bestie and I throughout the numerous and tempestuous ups and downs of life. They were our greatest cheer squad, our soft landing pad when we messed up and always a source of vibrant, challenging conversation and great humour.

We lost HH, the Bestie's dad in 2017. It had been a slow and steady decline into COPD brought on by the glamorous. manly smoking of cigarettes, so admired in the 40s and 50s. He quit on his 50th birthday but the damage had been done.  It was hard to watch this larger than life character shrink before our eyes. His latter days defined the character and values he had lived. It became obvious later that he had been covering for the Bestie's Mum's dementia for some time. As always, it had fallen to him to protect and care for his loved one, a duty he did not shirk despite his failing health. So concerned was he for his 'Little Fluff' that as he collapsed and lay helpless in the bathroom, he called through to her that he was 'alright' and that he'd be 'coming out soon'. It breaks my heart to think of it.

We had the Bestie's Mum for another 7 years and at times we wondered why.  Her dementia progressed rapidly and as she moved from Retirement Village to Nursing Home, everything about her that was 'her', leaked away. She lost her interest in arts and crafts, which were so much a part of our lives with her growing up. She couldn't concentrate on movies or music and eventually her physical health deteriorated in a savage and painful way that left us praying for her release. But through all that she maintained her unfailing good manners (staff always commented about how grateful she was and how polite) and her delight in the two of us. "You girls are so beautiful", she would say,'you make me feel alive."

 I was privileged to sit with her through her last week, singing to her, talking to her and attempting to find Bible passages that didn't involve Hell, damnation and any reference to smiting. On the day before she died, the Bestie, myself and The Diva sat around her bed, unresponsive as she was,  telling stories, sharing memories, singing, laughing and sighing in equal measure. We kissed her goodbye and said we'd be back tomorrow but she'd had the best day, so she left in the early hours of the following morning.

And with her went a huge part of my life and who I am.

 

Everything Old is New Again

 Well that's a bit of a misnomer of a title. I'm not bringing anything back, in fact, it's all going OUT!! It has been 10 years of recovering from the end of my marriage and moving in somewhat straitened circumstances to this quirky place I call home. I have made do with second hand things and old faithfuls but, courtesy of my darling Mum and Dad and the sale of their house, I feel the time has come. As a result I have been able to...

1) Have my roof replaced. No more drips on my head in the middle of the night!! No more floods in the kitchen or multiple bowls in the dining room!

 Here's the old roof. (ignore the weeds...that's a holiday job!)

Here's the state of the tiles....

They started last week...

 

And got this far before the weekend. As you can see, I'm having tiles replaced by Colourbond steel/aluminium roofing.

So, THAT's happening. 

2) Meanwhile the BA and I went sofa hunting. This is my current lounge. The suite is over 20 years old and in this slightly dark room somewhat dominates. It is also getting difficult for some of my older friends to get in and out of being as it is rather like a bouncy castle.

This is my choice for replacement. It will arrive sometime after Christmas (ohboy ohboy)

 

 

And yes! It has recliners!!!!

However, in the process of looking, the BA and I discovered the delights of the Zero Gravity recliner!

This was so sensational that I decided to get one for my studio!

 Studio currently. This is where I do all my creative stuff. I've recently got rid of the ugly second hand coffee table so I can do some aerobics in front of the telly, and the new recliner sofa will be green <3

3) Fence replacement starts soon I hope. It currently looks like this....

The collapse of the jasmine was the final straw :-D

 4) Window replacements will take place in November.

Current disgraceful state....
 

So that's about it I think.... stand by for updates as they occur!