Bits n Pieces....

Well Saturday was busy, the skip finally arrived...wasn't as big as i thought it would be, hmmm...can we fit all the boxes etc into it?....was going to be a tight fit....so, when Tony got home he started on filling it...in the mean time Adee, Ash and Esther along with Lincoln, Esthers baby and the dogs arrived to watch the Grand Final...
The Lounge, Rumpus, Study and Hallways were blocked off with large sheets of cardboard, not a good idea to have 7 dogs running rampart through the house...and yes, all except one were Berners...the exception was a pug ( who thinks he's a Berner).
Watched the first quarter of the Grand Final, whilst eating lunch, then went outside to help Tony fill the skip.....he jumped and jumped on the skip trying to fit everything in...didn't quite make it, so for the next few recycle days, we will have to cut the cardboard down and get rid of it in the bins.
Sunday.... we got rid of some more boxes..yay!! and Marion collected the brass bed, mattress and base and two side tables.......boy!, we now have some space in the alfresco.   :)

Monday.
Tony was on two days off, so we decided to put up the lights in the Master bedroom, WIR and Hallway...that took nearly half a day....as we had to assemble the darn things first.....did the two in the Master bedroom and when we got to the Hallway light, it came half assembled did we then realise that we had put the first two up with the rim on upside down....so poor Tony had to undo some of the light so he could turn the rim up the other way...it does look so much better now.
Finally, we are able to put the chair we bought into the niche in the ensuite...at this stage there are only the fans for the Alfresco left sitting in there.

Tuesday.
Busy day today.....doing what, i hear you ask....it was one of those days when you barely get time to sit down but in the end when you look back, it looks like you haven't done much at all.
We organised with Telstra to get the phone connected today...2 hours he told us...yeah! right!....8 hours later we get a call to organise for someone to come out on Friday to connect us.
Our fireplace has been acting up, it is taking me at least 4 goes to get it to ignite, so we rang Jetmaster, who tell us that apparently at one stage water got into the pipes...oh? nice of someone to let us know this.....so now we have left a message with our SS to get something done about it.
Yesterday Tony organised a plumber to come out to have a look at our recycle tap out the front as it looks like it is leaking underground...the bobcat has run over the meters on several occassions, so they can fix it....he was supposed to come out today, but we didn't see anybody.
Today we moved our outdoor table from the garage into the Alfresco...once we get the courtyard grassed it will go out there but for the moment it can live under the alfresco.
Moved all the boxes from the craft room into the garage where the table used to sit.
Then we started putting the outdoor lounge setting together...this was done late in the afternoon...it got a bit cold and then the rain started, so we decided to go down the street and get food for dinner.

Our puppy is improving each day...but she still runs on full power....she does learn quickly tho, which is a blessing, still have the occassional accidents when she doesn't quuite make it onto the pet loo.  We love her to death.
Found all of Mia's soft toys that had been in storage, so Nikki thinks it is Christmas, Mia get rather possessive of Patch, which is a large soft puppy that we got for her before we picked her up...Nikki rather likes him...and as Mia did, shakes the living hell out of it...he is also good to cuddle upto when you sleep...Mia tonight was holding patch down with her paws and snapping at Nikki so she couldn't get to it..."My Patch, get your own"

Hallway light

Hallway

Light above the bed in master bedroom

Light in the retreat in the Master bedroom

Nikki playing with all the toys

Cuddled up to Patch to sleep

Update...

Not alot worth mentioning has happened during the week as to be expected.

We finally got around to putting up the mirrors in the house as well as my horse pic in the lounge....we had to change the placement of the horse pic and the big mirror as the mirror was way too big and heavy to go over the mantle, at the moment we have a smallish rectangular mirror above the games table in the lounge niche, but I'm not sure if it will stay there, will wait until the wall sconeces go up before deciding.
Talking of lighting, finally heard back from Beacon in regards to the different colours for my Grosvenors lights...I am going to return the wall lights and they are going to give me different coloured ones still in the same range...the sconces were way too creamey....the other lights were all in different colours but they all blend in so they aren't too bad, they were ordered last night so hopefully by next week or the week after. This means that Tony can now get the lights up in the Lounge, Hallway and the Master bedroom.

Currently i am waiting for the skip to arrive so we can finally get rid of all the cardboard and rubbish sitting in the Alfresco, then i can get my outdoor lounge set up and the outdoor table can come out of the garage.

On a different topic....my new baby puppy arrived yesterday....I had to go to Narre Warren to get her...took me 2hrs as i went cross country to miss the city traffic, she is settling in well, Mia is still not quite sure what to think of her....new house....new puppy...OMG....damage control, she's a chewer, so nothing is safe not even the cats....for those who don't know I have two 10yr old persians, a black one and a blue (gray) one...and they are just the same size as the puppy, so she thinks they are puppies and treats them like one, poor Rex has been pounced on, attacked, barked at...he is NOT impressed......oh yeah, puppy's name is Nikki, or Zaanz Cherry Bomb.
Added some pics of Mia taken on Thursday at the Royal Melbourne Show

Mirrors in the Entrance way

I put this one in the toilet....why?...cos i could

This is the mirror i'm not sure about

Lounge

lounge

Mia and Nikki

This was after being told off for peeing on the carpet

Nikki

Zollikon Oh Me Oh Mi.......Mia at the Royal Show

Mia with Emma (her breeder) before entering the ring

Hanging....

Today was a day for hanging things.....Tony finally got around to putting up the floating shelf in the study, also did the towel ladders in the ensuite and the bathroom.
Our sheds were delivered today.....about 3 weeks too early, silly saleswoman didn't write down that we wanted them in mid October...we can't put them up until the spa has been installed as the big shed is going behind the spa fence.
Now that the robes have been installed in our bedroom, I finally got around to putting the clothes into their homes...mind you I did alot of culling....still to finish yet, now i have to find places for the shoes and handbags, but that can wait until tomorrow.....at least the ensuite isn't as crowded now that i have unpacked all the boxes from the robes.

Yay...now we have somewhere to hang the towels.

The Rumpus or Ruckkus room

Front end of the rumpus room

Pics...

Some catch up pics...

Mostly of the Kitchen as it is completed.

Wall sconce in the Rumpus Room...the feature wall behind it is in Dulux Sea Elephant

Leaf plates on the coffee table in the Rumpus Roon...originally these were going in the Family room until i change the accent colours.

Dancing figurines on the buffet in the Dining room...carrying on the red. black & white theme through the Dining, Family rooms and Kitchen.

An old wine cabinet we had...the original knobs are on the right, I changed them to the ones on the left which really gave it a new lease of life, also put the same knobs on the new buffet so everything matches.

My beautiful panel glides over the alfresco door, love the way they let in the light.

Kitchen

More kitchen.

And again...

All 3 items were bought at different shops, uncanny how they all match....different brands too.

Red clock..

Another view of the panel glides

Wardrobes....

Finally the robe inserts have been finished in our WIR...it was a nightmare.....told you in a previous post that i got the measurements wrong, at least Tony was able to get around that by cutting off the ends to the appropriate lengths....so, we did the hanging wall first....came up really well, started on the shelving/drawer section....this wall has shelving on both ends and two sets of 4 drawers with two shelves above in the middle sections.  Did the first shelving section easily enough, then we started on the first of the drawers....with no instructions we were going off the "what screws, went with what" to try and build it.....after scratching our heads for awhile we finally figured it out.....made up the first of our drawers...easy...yay!!, went in to put the tracks on.....first on fitted...the second one wanted to sit out at the end.....much too-ing and fro-ing and head scratching....so Tony measured the distances of the pre-drilled holes...yep, the RHS holes had been drilled wrong...some how they had transposed the measurements, I am so lucky that i have a handy and resourceful husband....he just drilled some more  holes in the right spots....works like a charm :)
Started the second unit....god damm it!! the silly morrons had totally mucked up one of the side panels....they had put the melamine on the edges on the wrong side, so the part that faces us was pure chipboard, while the back wall got to look at the melamine.......fixed it.....looked at the same pieces in the inserts for the Craft room robes...even here they had mucked up by giving us two left hand sides and no right side....so we nicked one of them and put the holes where they were supposed to be......making this unit was a cinch as we now knew what we were doing.....
Next came the hard side, the last lot of shelving which had to be cut down.....but Tony managed to get everything under control, just alot of fiddleing around.
The end product was worth it...they really look great, just as i had imagined them.

The Craft room inserts are now going to go into the garage, we will put a backing board on them to hold them together.....we have to order new ones for the craft room as i had once again badly miscalculated...it is such a bother getting old....but this time I had made the mistake almost 18months ago when designing them...with a wall of just under 1.8m, I wanted shelves on both ends (so they'd fit into the robe) and two lots of drawers....what did i order?.....two shelving units and only 1 set of drawers, only realised it when we went to check out the drawer units and i could only find one not two.....I was so angry with myself....I hate making simple mistakes like that.  I suppose we are lucky that we can reuse what i did order.  Now the thought is that we won't order the new arrangement until after Adee n Ash have moved into their own place, this way they can bring their tall boy with them to keep their clothes in.

Waiting to start Kellys, well, we are waiting for the painter to come back and paint the internals of both her robe and the craft room robes.

See...just like a bought one...

Catching Up....

Am about a week behind in the blog, so I will do one blog today catching up on the last week.

Most of the time has been spent unpacking....now at least it has been a lazy unpack not the frenzy of the first few days.

Tony has been busy putting up the lights in the rooms that require them, all that is left are the Grosvenors in the Master, lounge and hallway, but they can't be done until Beacon sort out the colour fiasco.....when i first saw the  light at the begining of last year they had pale pink shades, and rustic look crackle, in April (09) when i ordered them they had changed to white shades and a cream coloured crackle....not as nice as the original colours but still nice, so we put them on layby, we ordered them in June this year....after Beacon checked that we could still get everything that i wanted....most of the Grosvenors came in in the white colours but we had a delay on two of them which, when they finally came in had a coffee coloured crackle.....much prefer the coffee.....now they are trying to see if anything else comes in the coffee colour, trouble is that the two with the coffee colour go into rooms where there will also be white crackle, so at this stage it is a waiting game, should hear back tomorrow (friday) as the manager will be back on duty and she had a meeting on Tuesday to try and sort it out.

Still haven't got the wardrobe inserts in yet, this time it is my fault....i measured on numerous occasions to get the sizing of the robes, and still got it wrong.....so now we have to cut a small piece off the ends to make them fit....also ordered a wrong section for Kellys robe, ordered shelves instead of a full hanging arrrrgggghhhh.

Warren and Jeanette came over during the week, so Warren helped Tony put his back speakers up in the rumpus room while Jeanette and I put together the two desks and returns in the study.

Finally finished unpacking the kitchen so i now have bench space and....spare cupboards...how long will that last...not long i'm guessing.
Family room is also finished....
Dining room is nearly done, just got a few items sitting on the buffet looking for a place to live.
Rumpus is finished
Study only needs to have some shelving put up and then its finished.

Kellys new bedroom suite and mattress are now here, so she is putting her room together, would help if she had a wardrobe....we are actually waiting for the plasterers to turn up today to sand the internal part of the robes in Kells and the craft room....they made a huge mess of the internal walls when they pulled out the shelving and hanging rods.

Our bedroom is upside down...most of it is clothing still in boxes, again waiting for the wardrobe to be finished.

Pantry is next to be done.....there are only a few boxes in there to be unpacked then i can organise the shelving.

Craft room is being used as a storage room at the moment.....not going to umpack the majority of the boxes unitl after Adee and Ash move into their new home, so it will probably go live in the garage while they are here.

All the rooms still have pics etc to go onto the walls, but we will do that when everything is in order.

Ordered a skip for today, just waiting for it to arrive so we can clear out the alfresco.

Our driveway should be dug out ready for pouring next week...progress, this means that the spa slab will also be poured.

Still waiting for the fencing guy to come back and do the long side fence, then we can let the dog out into the back yard instead of keeping her inside 24/7.

Austar came out on Friday and installed our unit, so we can finally watch TV again....yay!!

Curtains....

Wednesday, September 8th

Was very excited today, as this was the day that my blinds and curtains arrived, yay...no more looking at the tradies next door.

Potted around doing more boxes....tony's been flattening the boxes out and stacking them in the alfresco...knew there was a reason why we had such a big alfesco, on one side he has been putting all the rubbish which will require a skip, while on the other side are all the boxes.

The curtain installer arrived around 11ish.....he had an offsider turn up around 2ish, they finally finished around 5.30...big job.  Had a few problems, Luxaflex forgot to do the header and channelling for the blind in the rumpus room, and the factory had made up the blind for the dining room inside out. Besides that they are very very gorgeous....promise i will get some pics of them sooooonnnnnnish.

Amidst all this Adrian arrived with Mia and the cats, boy! did we have one super excited puppy on our hands.....the cats went exploring as they do and have settled in extremly well, but then they are super relaxed cats, they were very happy to find their scatching posts in the garage, the poor things have been without them for 12 months.

Still without the use of my cooker but had pulled out my George Forman steamer unit today, so at least we could have vegies now.