Work In Progress

Our little house is a work in progress.
We always knew it would be and we were happy with that.
There is the garden to sort, bathroom, painting all over the house inside and out. Woodwork that needs replacing. Carpet to eventually be replaced etc etc.
I know for some this would drive them mental, but for us we are happy to just potter along and do things as we get to them.
Ok sometimes I am sure we could do with a little motivation, and yes life does just seem to wizz past us but we are getting there.
Of course unemployment does not help this situation at all!

1 little area that always needed sorting was the bathroom window.
It was fine and stable, does not leak and opens when needed.
However it was clear glass in the window.
Yep, someone in their ultimate wisdom had never put in frosted glass?
Now this didn't cause too many embarrassing situations as the window is actually higher than you realised once you got out on the driveway.
But we still discussed the fact we needed to get frosted glass in there at some stage.

The solution was presented to us by a friend....don't change the glass just place a frosted sticker on the window.
Steve finally remembered, after about 2 years, to find a website and low and behold they did all manner of different patterns on a frosted sheet that sticks to your window.
Very easy to install and very easy to remove if no longer required?

And guess what....due to the horrible weather that is hitting New Zealand as I type, he put it in place today and it took all of 15 minutes.

Now I can shower in peace knowing that no one can see me whilst there!

Garden Update

We moved into our house here 4 years ago.
The back garden was a complete mess. Still is really although we have done a lot of work on it.

When we moved in there was a large area of tarmac out the back for no reason. There were large ferns halfway down the garden that cut off the back area.

Before any work

Of course we started, very slowly I will have you know, clearing the ferns and other rubbish from the area. As you can see there really is life at the end of our garden, another house!

After a little large amount of clearing, which was very slowly done! We got rid of the ferns and all the other rubbish. This included all the tarmac that was once in the back garden where the play set is situated in the above picture..
We have stuck a retaining wall at the very end and are slowly filling in with soil. Seeing as there was a difference of 75cm between the lowest point and the highest point, then we are requiring a rather large amount of dirt.

In December last year a friend put us in touch with a Bobcat owner who regularly had truck loads of soil to be dumped. So he came and visited and agreed that if he had anything to dump in this area then he would dump with us rather than taking to the council dump way across town. Win win for all really.
He dumped a few loads before Christmas and then everything went quiet.

Of course we then hit winter and weather has not been the greatest for digging out plots of land etc.
So last week Steve decided that we could maybe look at buying the final cubic meters that we required.
My first question was "Where the hell do we buy that much dirt, cheaply?"

So I called the bobcat owner and asked if he could help, did he know of somewhere we could buy soil cheaply and could he also help us deliver it? Sure he said and suddenly we have dirt coming out of our ears.

Seems he called a few earth movers in the area and found one of them had just started a job in the local area. So I came home on Tuesday to a pile of dirt on our front verge.
Next afternoon came home to another pile of dirt, so Steve and the boys decided to start moving it round the back. However whilst doing this Wayne showed up with yet another truck load of dirt!

Don't ask me how he managed to get the truck down the side of our house, it is so tight, although the only advice we gave him was please take the hedge out before the house!
The boys were once more in their element and helped at every possible moment.

Whilst writing this post this morning, Wayne has already arrived with yet another truck load. It is dumped out the front and he will be back either tonight or tomorrow morning with the bobcat to shift it all round the back for us. All he is asking is money towards his time, nothing for the dirt!
If it is anything like last time he used the bobcat here, then the boys will be in for a real treat again.

At this rate we will have grass seed planted in a few weeks and maybe a lawn to play on by February! Wow

Spring Time

For us here in New Zealand, the clocks have changed and the weather is getting better.
It is having 2 steps forward and 1 step back at the moment, but the sun is shining more and the days are so much more enjoyable.

Yesterday was one of those days when the sun shone and it was glorious.
The garden was showing proof of it too so thought I would share it with you.....

excuse the weeds in between the slabs, these plants are ground cover and they have done nothing until the clocks changed and the sun started getting to them each morning. Wouldn't mind but the tab said 'shade loving ground plants!'

Proof of a great sunny day, full line of washing

strawberries coming along nicely

Lemon tree went in Nov last year, has grown beautifully and even has buds on it

Courgette plant, although may have to move as I think it is too high in this built up area

Steve was convinced this tree in the neightbours garden was dead and then suddenly, hey presto, blossom

Garlic, growing well

Tomatoes starting well

Alex wanted some roses in the garden, yellow one which has grown at least double its height and ready to flower. Will show pictures of flowers when they bloom

Potatoes and more potatoes

Rhodo in bloom

Red rose waiting to burst its colour

Other red rose waiting to burst

Sunflower starting to poke though, need to move that irrigation pipe though!

Sunflower poking through, this seed was taken from flowers grown last year, so wasn't sure if it would grow or not

Hydrangea growing nicely, although not sure on colour, will let you know when flowers appear

Camillea still in full bloom

We have done some major work to the garden and I really should show you all sometime.
Just need to sit and go through all the pictures and work out which ones to show on here.

When It Rains It Pours!

With damage that is.
Yes we have suddenly started to get some much needed and waited for rain.
No problem there, mind you, we desperately needed it here.
However, what we didn't need was all the damage that we have had in our house over the last 3 weeks. Some from the rain and some not...!

Damage #1 - The Paddling Pool

When we returned from our holiday away over Christmas, it was stinking hot. I took one look at the garden and decided we could afford to purchase a cheap paddling pool for the boys to play in when it is so hot. So I rushed out to the shop and got a lovely little thing. We blew it up and filled it with water. The boys had a ball in it.

We made toys from sponges, just like I had read about in my Family Fun magazine. This went down well too. They got thrown about and splashed with for hours.

Unfortunately, 2 days after getting the pool,  the below picture is what we woke to one morning.

My thought, which turned out to be correct, was that a cat had got in the pool and put a claw through one of the sides whilst getting themselves out.

I tried desperately to fix it, I managed to get it to go up after finding the hole and repairing it, but sadly the next morning it was back down again. Mum and Steve even helped me 2 days later, although then we found another hole to fix. By this time I was getting frustrated with the pool and decided that it obviously was not going to survive. Hey, 2 days was pretty good, although very annoying.

Although Alex was not too worried about not having a pool, he found alternative arrangements!

Damage #2 - The Gazebo

We have a lovely paved area out the back of the house and this gets used in the summer all the time. For nearly 2-3 months we always have dinner out there in the evening. It is always so warm and cosy there. However on occasion, I have realised that it would be lovely to have a gazebo there, make the area more user friendly during the day when the sun is blazing down on us.
We found one just under 2 weeks ago and decided that in fact this was perfect. We managed to get it at half price, but even then it was expensive.
So we spent the afternoon erecting the said gazebo and glorifying in the wonderful shade we now had. We were good sensible people and tied it down with pegs and guide ropes as supplied etc.

However, several nights later we gained a lot of rain and sadly this did not go well with the gazebo.

No where on the instructions did it say it could not be up in rain, ok not a torential storm, but a little rain. If we had known some rain was going to fall during the night, then we may have considered taking it down, but a shower or two, then no. However on day 6 of having this lovely thing it sadly collapsed on us at 4am.

Now as you can see from the above pictures, the main frame of the gazebo remained standing but the above bracket in the middle of the roof had totally buckled.

So we rang the store and explained that it had colapsed and we felt this was not exceptable.

The manager agreed and put another aside for us to replace this one.

However by the time we got to the shop we had decided that in fact we did not want another. The manager had informed us that it was in fact just a light, thin, cheap alluminium gazebo that was to be taken down at the first hint of wind or rain.

We however never read anything like that on the instructions and seeing as it retailed at $400, we felt that it would have to be a little ok (remember we got it for 1/2 price).

The funny thing is, I had a feeling that it would not last and that it would be damaged before the end of the summer. I didn't however feel this would happen within a week of having it!

Damage #3 - The Boys Bedroom Ceiling

This weekend just gone, New Zealand got hit with a torential storm, ok now, nothing like our friends gained over the ditch. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, but enough to cause damage and really ruin the weekend.

I ended up sleeping in the boys room at some stage on Saturday (nothing unusual there either) and it is a blessing that I did, because this made me aware of the dripping sound that was going on in there and so therefore I was aware of how long this sound had been going on for.

Turns out we had water coming through their ceiling.

 

So a quick call to the Insurance company on Sunday morning and we are now awaiting the assessor to come and view the property to ensure no damage has been left unsorted.

Damage #4 - Bathroom Tap

So the paddling pool had died a sudden death the weekend before, the Gazebo had fallen down early hours of Saturday morning. The ceiling was leaking in the boys room 24 hours later on the Sunday morning and at 10am on the Sunday morning I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and found that the mixer tap in the bathroom would not turn properly and therefore was only allowing hot water to flow from the tap.
Now if you have ever tried to brush your teeth in hot water you will know how yucky this is. Although my other worry was that it got hot very quickly.
I am not sure how, after everything else that had happened over the 1 week period, I managed to keep a straight face as I stood there and informed Steve that now the tap was broken too!

I think he was ready to call the Estate Agent and list the house to the lowest bidder just to get away from it all. Ok, so apart from worrying about the roof, nothing else was extremely serious at all, just really annoying that everything we had dealt with was crumbling before our eyes. Seemed like everything we wanted to do was coming together really nicely but then failing at the last moment.

So we are back to using the umbrella out on the patio with the table. I have brought the boys a new pool, one with ridged sides, however the weather has been crap since then so have not actually got it out yet. A builder friend came and assessed the damage on Sunday morning and he thankfully sussed out the tap for us and also commented on what he thought should be done with the roof and ceiling.

However, as I write this post now (it has taken me 2 days to write this post!) the assessor has been to the house. He is not concerned with the ceiling in the boys room, nor the carpet, he feels things will dry out nicely, although if it rains again and more water comes through then we will have to consider taking the ceiling off in their room to see exactly what is going on, that is if a builder finds no problem with the roof.

So the sun is now shinning, there is no worry anymore and slowly everything is righting itself. The school summer holidays are almost over, 1 more week and then life goes back to normal again. Hoepfully by then our damage streak will cease to exsist!