Before & After #56 - more garden
Sunday, 22 October 2023
One of the many joys of the big north facing windows of the St Helens house is the view over the garden that we've been working on since the house was finished. We've gone from this: .jpg)
To this: .jpg)
It's lovely. And it's not just the outcome, it's also the knowledge that this is the result of our hard work as well as the forced labour of many (most) of our friends and family - from planting to digging to watering to shovelling loads and loads of topsoil and mulch around. We're having a constant battle with the the wallabies and the occasional deer - every time I decide a plant is mature enough to un-cage (they seem to mostly focus their attention on the supple new plants), they decide it's still delicious and nibble it down to the ground - they owe us $100s in nursery costs. The grasses seem to mostly have survived although there are a few they simply won't leave alone which is weird as to the naked eye they look exactly the same as the one beside it which is untouched.
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Before & After #55 - the driveway
Saturday, 26 August 2023
When we made plans for the first phase of landscaping for St Helens, we agreed that we would have a gravel driveway as it would be a) cheaper, and b) possibly nicer than a whole lot of concrete. And from a distance it seems fine: .jpg)
But actually it's been a major pain. Firstly, whenever there is heavy rain, lots of the gravel just washes down into the street, leaving ankle-rolling ditches and holes: .jpg)
Secondly, it's a bit yukky to walk on in bare feet as the gravel sticks to your feet or any bags you put on the ground - pretty early on we re-used Jo's pavers to create a way to hop from the door to the bins without touching the gravel - it just required a leap off the doorstep to start with. .jpg)
But the worst part is that every time someone walks across the driveway and into the house they either have to spend a minute getting the gravel off their shoes, or we immediately get gravel footprints and little pieces of gravel everywhere inside the house. It's been really annoying and messy and I've spent way too long vacuuming the entrance area and sweeping out the garage. We also need to sweep and mop the doorstep regularly to keep it from looking awful. About a month ago we agreed the annoyance outweighed the hefty cost of getting the driveway concreted so we organised a local crew to come and fix it for us - it was my job to supervise the work (well, be around for questions) this week which is why I've stayed on in St Helens. Before Jon left we went outside and marked out the approximate position of the new work - as you can see we had differing opinions about the coverage in some areas! .jpg)
The job itself took two days and a revolving crew of about 6 blokes. A bonus of the work was getting the drain in the driveway replaced as it's been a bit of a hazard since it was installed. .jpg)
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By Tuesday afternoon the concrete was poured and by Thursday I could walk on it and start on the cleanup process - there was a lot of concrete in the garden and splashed onto the side of the house and posts. I spent a lot of time with a scrubbing brush and scraper cleaning up edges and wiping surfaces. .jpg)
Now it's nearly dry and looking great - it's been such a pleasure to walk in and out of the house without leaving a trail of gravel! There's still some dirt and gravel the contractors need to come and clean up but aside from that it's looking schmick. .jpg)
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and as another bonus, I've been able to re-re-use Jo's pavers out the back! .jpg)
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Before & After #54: Window Sills
Saturday, 6 May 2023
Painting the window sills at St Canice Avenue is fiddly and time consuming, and I'm constantly shocked at how bad their current condition is, but the end results are worthwhile: 
before: 
after: 
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Before & After #53: Woodbox
Tuesday, 7 March 2023
The fire pit at St Helens is looking a lot nicer now that we've done all the landscaping - consequently it's getting a bit more use from guests. We don't guarantee that there will be wood for it (they have instructions to buy it from the service station) but it is nice to provide it when we can. Up until now we've just been using an old ikea bag for the sticks, but with a few different guests staying before we are back to refill it, we needed a better and dryer way of storing it. I investigated buying something but that would have cost a few hundred bucks so then I investigated what we had lying around the house, and it turned out we had something perfect - our storage seat that we never sit on: 
I had to do a few structural repairs and saw off the arms and back, then I coated it with waterproof bitumen paint.. 
I attached a handle to encourage people to lift the lid (and not think it was just a seat) and now it looks pretty good:  
It should keep everyone going until we're back.
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Before & After #52 : Pizze thingies
Thursday, 2 March 2023
The last time I was in St Helens I accidentally melted the bejesus out of the pizza lifter things by leaving them on top of the pizza stone while I heated it up: 
So I needed to make some new handles. I turned to our dead stump next to the driveway to find some replacements: 
And voila: 
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St Helens Garden Projects
Saturday, 14 January 2023
With just us four left here on Friday, being in this house felt so normal it was very much like being at home - at least for me anyway. The kids don't quite feel the same way as they chop and change beds and bedrooms depending on availability. I've been here 12 days now - it's still great. Today I took some photos of the garden before heading out for a run: 
Quite the change from this a week ago:  
After hauling mulch all around the garden Jon has his heart set on completing some other projects around the back of the house while we are here. He's going to be busy: 
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Before & After #51 : Footstool
Saturday, 9 July 2022
I am no upholstery expert but I figured in this case I couldn't do worse than the state of the Denny's foot stool before I started.. 
Yep it's not perfect. But it's better: 
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The Kauri Wood
Tuesday, 14 June 2022
When we tidied up dad's shed a few months ago we came across a lot of wood. Most of it was scrap, but there was also a pile of long planks taking up a fair bit of floor space - in fact they made it impossible to access many of the shelves without awkwardly squeezing your feet alongside them. Those six thick and 3 metre long planks had been there for at least 20 years - Dad had shipped them down from Sydney when he went to clear out his mum's place many years ago. Mum had previously learnt that these were kauri wood planks, reclaimed by my Sydney grandfather who worked for the Tooth's brewery in Sydney. He re-routed the wood from a certain tip ending when the brewery's wooden hop vats were replaced with stainless steel ones (which he helped design) a zillion years ago. It seemed weird to me that the brewery would use such expensive and rare wood in the first place, but in all likelyhood, when the company bought the wood in a job lot a hundred years or so earlier, it probably wasn't valued very highly. A few months ago I got Zali to help me lift one of those dusty, dirty and insanely heavy planks onto the roof racks of the car and we drove it home. Later that day, after I hauled it singlehandedly off the car, nearly killingmyself in the process I noticed it had a lot of termite damage on the underside. Looking closer still I realised the holes running widthwise through the plank would make it next to impossible to use for anything. So with much annoyance I dragged the plank around to the side of the house and left it there - thoroughly regretting moving it in the first place (as now I was going to have to get rid of it). I went about my business for another month or so (trying to avoid eye contact with the plank lurking next to the wheelie bins) before I suddenly felt inspired to give it another chance. I pulled out my electric planer and ran it over the top.. 
Huh, I thought to myself. This might actually be ok. So I continued planing and sanding and filling the gaps and holes, and leaving other imperfections (for character of course), and staining and sanding then staining again..  .png)
Until I eventually decided I actually needed another plank to finish my projects so I took Jett with me and we collected another one. This one was in even worse condition than the first but now I had a solid plan and technique so it didn't matter. In the end I made a long entertainment 'plank' for the new shack, and 3 bench seats. The wood is lovely and heavy and has weird holes and termite marks and a long history and I love it.  
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Before & After #50 : Jett
Monday, 20 December 2021
Speaking of weeds, last Thursday was Jett's last day of high school, and also the last day of wearing a school uniform. If you can call it a school uniform. It was held together with safety pins all through his final term. 
He wore his school uniform better back in his Collegiate and Sandy Bay Infant School days..  
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Before & After #49 : Rug Replacement
Monday, 8 February 2021
After 15 years and 15 tonnes of dust, dirt and food scraps deposited into it, it was finally time to replace the red rug.. 
for a less shaggy and hopefully easier to clean version. It's a bit more boring colour wise, but it does allow the artwork on the wall to shine even more. 
It's nice and soft NZ wool. 
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Before & After #47 : Deck Projects - Part 2
Saturday, 25 April 2020
Last summer I spent a lot of time cleaning and restaining our deck and generally making it look a lot better. I think you'll agree that it looks quite nice now: 
But one thing that has always let it down is the view of my work area from the relaxing area of deck. It normally looks much worse than this: 
So I've been thinking about making some sort of screen for quite a while. So over easter I joined the queues of people definitely only making essential purchases at Bunnings and got the supplies I needed. Then I built this: 
It looks a bit like it's floating there, but it's actually on wheels and in a track that's attached to the ceiling, so if we ever need to move big things across the deck, it can be rolled back a bit: 
The back side of it looks a bit plain, I'll probably paint that at some stage, but for now I'm happy with the result.
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Before & After #46 : Deck Projects - Part 1
Friday, 17 April 2020
Mum and Dad have had a few of these old bottle crates hanging around for at least 30 years. They are remnants from when dad used to get some sort of soft drink (not coke) delivered by the crate-load of glass bottles. The empty bottles would go back out in the crate and the delivery people would swap it over for a fresh crate every few weeks. I guess there came a point where the system stopped and mum and dad ended up with 3 empty crates. Since then they have been kicking around in the garden being used for various things. I've had my eye on them for a while, so I offered to take 2 of them off mum's hands recently and she was happy to get rid of them. First step was to wash them. Then 'revitalise' them with red spray paint (I'm glad Bunnings is still open). 
Then re-do the coke markings. This was a fiddly job, but like a moth to a flame, Zali sniffed out the craft project, took over and finished them off nicely. 
In the meantime I made the tops with left over wood from other projects. 
And voila! 2 new seats/side tables for the deck. 
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Before and After #45 - Garden Project
Tuesday, 25 February 2020
For the last few days I've been transforming the failed vegie patch into something a bit less unsightly. It's been hard work and has involved a few trips to the tip, plant shopping, and about a billion wheelbarrow loads of mulch. I'm pretty happy with the result and hopefully everything will grow despite the shadiness of the area which is what caused the vegie patch to fail: Before: 
During: 
After: 
The other patch of garden we landscaped a few years ago now has been going really well although it's been quite dry lately so some things have suffered a bit. I'm looking forward to some rain so the grass returns to green:  
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Before and After #44 - Jett's room take 2
Tuesday, 22 January 2019
Zali has spent the last 2 weeks alternating between pyjamas and my red painting overalls as she set into action her plan to makeover Jett's bedroom. It's been a while since his room got a makeover - I remember doing it while Jett was at childcare way back when we first moved in... I never really got any proper before photos, the before shown below is his old room in Sydney. 
This time around it was goodbye to the blue stripes and colourful spots.. 
and hello to a bold new colour scheme that Jett chose and Zali refined, as well as a bit of new furniture. 
 
And it looks pretty fantastic! Zali did a great job with the painting which took almost all of the first week to prep and execute. I did a good job of coping with having to buy 7 different coloured tins of paint and a whole lot of new paint rollers. I was very concerned about the beautiful new carpet but it survived without a drip of paint falling on it (that I know of!). Anyway - it looks awesome and Jett loves the result. Well done Zali!
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Before and After #43 - Kitchen Update
Saturday, 2 September 2017
Now that the troublesome rangehood is installed I can finally post photos of the finished kitchen. The rest of it was finished about 4 weeks ago so it has actually been in use for a while now!
Just as a recap, our old kitchen was essentially sound, but in need of an update. So my plan was to keep the below-bench carcasses, replace the bench top, oven tower, overhead cupboards, and also to install a new unit surrounding the fridge. .jpg)
Aside from the range hood (which came out of its box looking like it had fallen off the production line and rolled down a long set of concrete steps) everything went smoothly.
The most nerve-wracking part was the installation of the bench top. Unlike more modern base cabinets which have legs that can be individually adjusted, the existing cabinets are built on wooden plinths, This means they are a lot stronger, but a lot less adjustable. There was a 2mm fall along the long length of the bench area which is apparently a big deal when it comes to stone. The other complication was the fact that I was keeping the glass splash back - so they had to slide in the bench top underneath the glass (rather than drop it down from above). Knowing this would be tricky we (me and Ezikit) ordered a bench top that was 3mm thinner than the old laminexr top, just to allow a bit of wiggle room, but it was still going to be a challenge. There was about a week between the finishing of the building and the installation of the bench during which I fretted constantly about it not being able to be installed, and worried about having to cancel the other trades who were dependant the bench top already being installed.
Much to my relief, the installation team of 3 guys were all really nice and appeared to be completely competent. After much huffing and grumbling about the situation when they arrived (they hadn’t really been briefed by Ezikit before they came), they went off to get the extra batons and packers that would be required and ended up doing what seemed like a solid job. It took about 3 hours al ltogether, during which time I sat nervously on the couch.
The next day the cooktop got connected which left just the plumbing of the kitchen sink which took another few days before I could get anyone in to do it.
All in all it took 13 days from the day I started demolition until the day it was finished (aside from the range hood). This included 3.5 days of building & installation, 3 visits by the electrician, 1 visit from a plumber. 1023 visits to Bunnings and Mitre 10.
And the costs? Well the appliances were about $4000 (double oven, sink, range hood, induction cooktop). The ceasarstone bench top was $4200 including installation. The new overhead cupboards, drawers, oven tower and fronts for all the old cupboards were $6000. I spent an extra $200 on ceiling and wall paint, plus extra money on replacing the daggy kitchen and outdoor lights since the electrician was around anyway installing powerpoint and moving light switches for the kitchen. In fact it was great to get a whole lot of other electrical stuff fixed up during this process. Until now the pantry light hadn’t worked for years, the kids new ikea lights have finally been installed, and some other broken switches have been replaced. All the stuff you live with because it’s such a hassle and expense to get someone around.
Anyway - by the time we’ve paid the electrician, plumber and builder’s bills which are still to arrive, we’ll be at around 18k I think. Whilst we’d originally planned that I’d be back at work and earning money before we started this project it turned out that I really needed to be around for the entirety of the 2 weeks to wait for tradesmen and supervise the building. If I hadn’t been thereI would have arrived home to see the cupboards installed at the wrong height, handles put in where we didn’t want them, and all sorts of other little issues would have been harder to resolve. It’s lucky that both the builder and bench installers had a good relationship with Eikit as we needed extra pieces of the woodwork to be made on the fly, and the installers needed to borrow some of their specialised tools for the installation. Needless to say I would have been absolutely stuffed if I’d tried to the installation imyself. My favourite parts of the new kitchen are the charging station, which is tidily hidden away into a little alcove next to the fridge:  
and the 'secret' cupboard which stores all the extra stuff we need for family dinner every fortnight, which previously had no-where to go apart from the games room or in very high cupboards I couldn't reach.  
Also i'm really happy with the hardwood cladding I did around the side of the bench. I wanted to add something to the design to make it look slightly different to a regular kit-kitchen. And it was fun to do it myself (with my new nail gun!) 
I really love the induction cooktop - it's so fast! and I really like the top oven - it's great for cooking smallish items and it preheats really fast. I'm still coming to terms with the larger bottom oven - mostly it's been fine but I managed to cook a burnt-on-top yet dry yet undercooked lemon and poppyseed cake in it last week - so clearly more practise is required! With the rangehood finally arrving yesterday I was able to cover the hole left by the old rangehood with the acrylic sheet I had custom cut for me. It's a bit odd, but a much better solution than buying and installing a whole new piece of glass. .jpg)
So all up it was a good experience. I'm so glad we've done it. I'd like to update the stools in the not-to-distant future - I've got my eye on a nice set, but for the now old ikea ones will have to do! 
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