DIY lace bunting

Remember how I posted about about facing my sewing fears, and sewing lengths of lace bunting for reception decorations?
Here is a visual reminder:

The more I looked at it, the more I realised I wasn't entirely happy with how the ribbon was hanging-it kind of puckered a bit, and just didn't hang quite as well as I had hoped. What to do, what to do?

I unpicked it all, and started again! This time I researched it a bit more, and discovered biased binding was more appropriate. 18 meters of unpicking.... 

But.... it looked fantastic on the night, and I was much happier with it! You may even catch a back view of the bride... (excude the blurring of the faces...)

one job finishes, another begins

A few months ago we almost repaired our front eave, after we (finally) fixed the leak in the roof. Unfortunately we were a board short, so it wasn't quite finished. Last week we* remedied that situation! We no longer have a hole above our front door! I'm quite sure that is terrible feng shui. We haven't painted them, as we are planning on repainting the exterior next year, and the eaves will not remain yellowy, creamy, peachy...

It feels so good to finish off a job. 

Oh wait...

We now have a hole in the eaves out the back. Again, we had a leak that we couldn't figure out, after siliconing everything possible, and trying everything we could think of. Hopefully we will be able to find the source quickly, so that this hole doesn't hang around for as long as the front on did! Luckily our leaks are pretty minor, and actually only run into the eaves, not the house. 

*This is one of those posts where when I write 'we' in regards to doing something, I mean I had nothing to do with it...

Actually, I did clean up afterwards. 

Do you have jobs that never seem to quite get finished?

fixing downstairs

After our burst pipe we had a few things fixed. We had to wait a few months to see what damage there was. Some of the initial damage went away-the walls and skirting went back to normal after they dried out, but some things took time to show up-like the floors. 

A few sections of the roof had bowed quite badly, so they were replaced. Unfortunately, they repainted it green again, which we then repainted a few months later. 

The downstairs floors also began cupping due to the water damage, as that is where the water lay. The moisture levels had to settle, and that took a few months. The floors were originally stained to match upstairs, but we took a risk and didn't get them re-stained after they were sanded. I'm so glad, as they are such a lovely colour, and a quite bit lighter. It actually shows a lot less dust too!! These photos are from after we repainted the walls and ceiling. I love our downstairs floors so much-so glossy and smooth. I REALLY want to do our upstairs ones now, but they are a little way off yet...

We also got two new vanities, as the chipboard did not hold up too well. We were quite limited with our choices due to the small bathrooms, I have a little DIY improvement coming up. 

Sorry about the bad lighting-it's hard to get photos before
or after work at this time of year!!!

Downstairs is basically finished now, with the floors refinished, and the walls, ceilings and skirtings all repainted. We do have to do something about the lights down there actually. We are going to buy a new bed for downstairs and turn it into our main spare room. It means that anyone staying with us has their own area, and bathroom, and we wont wake them when we get up early in the morning. Eventually we will move our current lounge room setting to the room under the stairs, and get another TV, but that is a few years into the future-probably when we have kids..... 

it's ok

I've been a bit stuck with my blogging lately, and I think I've realised part of the reason why. I keep thinking-that's not good enough, I haven't finished that, there is no furniture, the garden is a bomb... Well that and dealing with a patient who had his wisdom teeth removed, along with general life, work and wedding craziness!
We bought our house knowing there was lots to do, even if most of it is fairly superficial surface stuff. It was the only way we could afford it, and it is a work in progress. Some rooms have no furniture, some are missing furniture, and some have the wrong furniture, we have rusty lights, chipped paint, missing putty, a jungle garden and no fences-and that's ok. We have holes in the eaves, a purple checkerboard kitchen, and I don't always clean as often as I should. We have had leaks, and have made mistakes, and learnt along the way.
Without further ado...

Empty walls and STILL no bedsides

Rusty lightS and multicoloured

Steep jungle garden-it's worse from up close-6 foot high...

Chipped, flaking, broken windows

Painting needed

Roundup starting to wrk

Weeds will grow-lawn won't

Holes and different rusty lights

Can you count the four wall colours

More dying jungle

Sometime L or I will feel overwhelmed with everything we have to do, and wish we had bought a nice new house in a subdivision somewhere, but it never lasts long-our house has heart, it has history, and we literally fell in love with it the first time we saw it. It will be all the more special once we have made it ours, because we will have done it ourselves.
I guess sometimes I look at perfect houses in perfect blogs and feel a bit down. Hopefully this does the opposite for you!

It's all ok. I'm happy to wait to find the right thing, I'm happy to wait to buy something that I love, we don;t have heaps of extra money lying around at the moment (ahem, wedding...), and all of our little jobs will get done.

What are you happily living with at the moment?

roof's broke, you fix it?

I have decided my little two year old nephew needs to stay here all the time-he gives the best squeezes, he's super fun, he's good for my muscles-you should see how toned my arms are!-and he guilts grown men into doing things!

He told L his 'truck' was dirty, so it got cleaned. He told L the grass was 'too big', so it got mowed. Best of all, he told L that the roof was 'broke' and 'fix it?'. And it got fixed. Love my little man!

Our awful hole

Backing up a bit-when we bought our house we knew there was a small but persistent leak in the eaves above the front door. One of the many joys of an old house!! We had our building inspector look into it, and the roof was dry, there was no other sign of damage. It would take a good 40mm of rain for it to start leaking, and was just drip that would leave a small puddle, but some of the wood in the eaves was rotten. We siliconed (by we I mean L... entirely) every screw and nail. Didn't work. We tried everything to try to work out exactly where the leak was coming from. Eventually L and his mate S, the chippy, pulled some of the front eaves down to get a better look up in there. 

Hated it

We (L...) would do something, then we would have to wait for rain. It wouldn't work. We had 2 plumbers come to look, they did stuff. It would rain, and then that wouldn't work. The worst part is, it was right above the front door, on the front verandah, so having big gaping hole in the eaves looked awful. We (L...) eventually narrowed it down to the valley, on the roof join. He was afraid that it was too shallow, which would mean quite a big job to fix. 

Littlest forman trying to creep out

Just as we narrowed it down it stopped raining. For almost 6 months. So we were in limbo-we didn't want to fix the eaves until we knew the leak was fixed. 

In late January one day, L got back up onto the roof, and pulled a bit of the sarking (a type of insulation) out from around the edge of the valley. He noticed that in a few spots it was hanging out a bit. 

Australia Day weekend came, we had over 200mm of rain-and no leak. We had a few hundred more mm of rain over the next two months, and no leak. Such a simple, quick, cheap fix in the end and solved! We think that the sarking would get wet and start absorbing water, and when it was wet enough it would run down the inside of the roof out onto the eaves. 

Progress

Progress

Anyway my littlest man told L that the roof needed fixing. L and S went and played golf this morning, and came back and decided to fix the roof. Today. They started straight way. My nephew was soooo excited-he loves L and S and their 'trucks', and then there were tools-nail guns, circular saws.... he could not contain himself! Unfortunately, they were a board short, so we will pick that up this week, and S will drop back in one day and put it up. Already though it looks so much better! It was such an eyesore right at the front of the house.

Finished for now

Then we will need to sand and paint, but it already looks so much better. So happy that job is (almost!) done.