Goodbye House As We Knew You!

A very large portion of the weekend was spent moving house! All the beds are now in the loungeroom, we packed away the kitchen and removed all the remaining items from numerous cupboards to either the garage or Nana and Grandpa's house. 

The loungeroom...

the garage...

I'm happy to say four carloads later plus several bike rides, Nana's fridge is overflowing as too the bedrooms but we are now settled into Andy's parents house. It's home for the next month or so while the bathroom, toilet and laundry are demolished at our place. Once the ensuite and master bedroom are finished we will be able to move back there.

The next two weeks according to Paul are going to be the most exciting as the biggest changes occur to the inside space! So with a little nervous excitement we closed the front door knowing we can't go back and wondering if we have made the right choices.....

Renos - Day 23

A relatively quiet day - a little more work on the roof mostly removing tiles before focussing on cleaning up and re-organising the building materials on the site as the big skip bin goes early next week.

Grandfriends' Day

Each year the school has a Grandfriends' Day and luckily for Ella and Katy both Nana and Grandpa were able to attend. There were lots of activities planned in each class thus no time for the Grandies to rest! Nana visited Katy's room first where she listened to Katy read and then answered a series of questions on the olden days! Grandpa went off with Ella who was very keen to test her maths skills against him - it was a close race apparently! After half an hour os so, the Grandies swapped rooms. Grandpa made a photo frame with Katy while Nana played old fashion games with Ella. It seemed like everyone really enjoyed the morning and we were chuffed to see this appear in the next newsletter -

Renos - Day 20 & 21

The focus continues on installing the colour bond roof with two more section completed.

 Before....

After.......

Work also began on the extension roof too. It's really taking shape now!!

Renos - Day 19

Everyday more building stuff appears on site and today it was a massive skip (to be filled with roof tiles!) The car has been relegated from the garage to the end of the driveway and now to the verge. We've also had to move the bikes into the house to create more space in the garage as the windows have been delivered plus we couldn't get past the massive skip anyway!

Did I mention roof tiles? Yep well Paul and Tom finished the first section of roofing replacing the tiles with colour bond (Jasper is the colour). In the process Paul also discovered  that we have squatters who have recently moved into our soft warm roof space. Actually he got a big shock when he removed a tile to have a possum jump up! Currently the possum count is up to 3. Will be interesting trying to get them out when the time comes!!

Renos - Day 18

More walls are erected including the doorways and cupboard section thus completing the extension.

O @ Sandhills

The ACT O Champs were held over the weekend at the Sandhills, just outside of Bungendore. With soccer (and one girl sick), plus bathroom stuff delivery, finishing painting the fascias and removing the laundry cupboards, we decided on giving the Saturday event a miss.

Laundry stripped bare!

Despite the crisp Sunday morning (-5.8ªC!), it was a cracker of a day with the sun shinning brightly. Fortuitously Andy had only pre-entered himself and Ella which worked well as I was still battling a virus (heading into its 4th week) so was more than happy to be Ella's shadow in the novice class. Andy ran in the M35 class as there was more old man competition in this class rather than in his proper M40 class.

On the way to the start, I asked Ella what were some of the important things to think about while orienteering. Her first comment was to look out for dangerous animals like snakes!! After a few carefully worded comments, we got talking about orientating and reading the map!

The first section of the blue followed a fence line through some thick bracken, then uphill to a dam before a long downhill stretch along the track and finally following a taped route for the last two controls to the finish. Ella lost a little momentum in the middle section but otherwise did fairly well.

Within a few minutes of arriving at the finish, Katy and the rest of the gang were keen to go around the blue course too! So off we went - Katy, Mira, Max, Abby, Zoe, Roy and Lewie plus Bob A and Shep. The group soon splintered with Max, Zoe and Katy running at the front, Abby and Mira singing and walking along with Roy floating somewhere between the two groups and little Lewie bringing up the rear. The dam halfway around proved to be too much of a distraction with all the kids  diverting from the course, opting to throw stones. At least this allowed little Lewie to catch up again.

Luckily we got going before anyone went for a swim with the fast downhill road section. Then is was a short adventure through the bush emerging at the finish and running in altogether. A great time was had by all.

Renos - Day 16 & 17

Day 16 was spent placing the steel beam into the roof above the dinning room and well you can't actually see anything from the outside hence the lack of photos!

Day 17 and we have the beginnings of walls in the extension!

As a result we lost our window in the toilet,,,making it dark and cold!

A Visitior

Last week I went into the garage on different days only to discover a similar scenario - random boxes or other small things knocked onto the floor. At first I thought nothing of it. After the third time I questioned Andy and we both came to the same conclusion that it was highly likely that we had a visitor tucked up somewhere thinking this was their new home after leaving the garage door open one night last week.

The next morning after I left for work, Andy while getting the girls bike out to ride to school prodded the double bed mattress the most obvious place for such a visitor to be residing.  Sure enough this little face poked out! With no time to deal with the situation immediately, it was resigned to the 'tonight to do list!'

And so that evening under the cover of darkness the possum was coaxed out of the warm sheltered garage (that had no food) with some apple. According to Andy as soon as the garage door began to lower, the possum doubled back on the top of the fence hoping to get back in. Luckily he was too slow for that! Let's hope that we have no such visitors when the roof is being replaced!

Renos - Day 13 (&14 &15)

Weather forecast wasn't looking great - rainy for the next few days... Paul and Tom focussed on inside today. Turns out Day 14 & 15 we both too wet for building.

Spot the difference with our bedroom....

The new wall frame including the door to the future main bedroom!

More Weekend Work

Soccer takes up Saturday mornings. Despite this we have still been managing to find time to do our weekend reno jobs as requested by Paul. Most of the gutters had been removed, with the intention of beginning the roof transformation from tile to colourbond. Therefore our main task was to clean and paint the fascias.

The temperature made it just up to the required minimum for painting thanks to the beautiful sunshine and so began the slow process cleaning, sanding and painting. With the ground sloping down to the road, the front section of the house is always the hardest to reach this a little more challenging. However several hours later we had completed the job.

Meanwhile the girls kept themselves amused by building a fairy garden in the front before heading off in search of friends. Katy ended up at Sofia's while Ella played Minecraft with Marcus.

Soccer Fun

The girls are really enjoying soccer. We have manage to get Ella to all the Thursday training sessions so far which is helping to develop her ball skills. While Ella is tied up with her coaches, we take the opportunity to play some kick to kick with Katy which may or may not involve taking Pippa for a walk at the same time! The weather has been cool but sunny which is great too!



Ella has loved playing against the other floral teams (Wattles, Orchids, Waratahs, Violets, Bluebells) especially if it has someone from school in it! Last week the Blossoms had their team photograph. I was blown away by this very slick professional activity. Each player was individually photographed, then the team together with coaches and manager doing serious poses and crazy ones!!

Unfortunately Katy's was sick so skipped peewees. While she recovered at home from the previous nights interrupted sleep, Andy caught up on a few jobs including taking delivery of the bathroom stuff!

Renos - Day 12

Great breakfast entertainment once again with a cement truck parked outside the kitchen window at 7.10am! There were 4 concreters on hand  - one filled the wheelbarrows, two ferried the concrete to the pad and the last one did the spreading. The job complete by 8.30am except for the unlucky concreter who had to hang out in his car parked out the front all day - checking and smoothing out every 40mins or so!

Renos - Day 11

Every day our house looks more busy with building paraphernalia!

Cladding begins to go up.... 

and up....more work for us instore as it will need 2 coats of paint!

Final touches on the groundwork for the slab all systems go for the morning!