Folks, I’ve managed to lose 2kg between September 2 and October 1. Today I weighed in at 70.2kgs, which is essentially my goal weight for September. I’ve been going to the gym plenty – 5 times a week, which includes 3 classes (plus a teeny bit of elliptical to get my heart rate working), and 2 strength workouts. Ideally, if I was more motivated and loved exercise, I’d be inclined to do strength workouts 3+ times per week, but I’m just not, and I hate going to the gym. Why do I do it? For health, fitness, weight maintenance and bone density. I want to be able to run into my 80s if need be. I want to have strong bones when I’m 90 (if I live that long). I like fitting into clothes I bought in 2022 when I was thinner. I relate to being smaller, as I was pretty slender until my late forties.
My goals for October 31 are to lose another 2 kgs, or to get to 68.5kgs. I’ve had one major blow out since going on my diet, and I blame extreme hunger and eyes bigger than my belly! I had 2 drinks throughout September, and did not really miss drinking. I made a conscious decision to stop for the month, but not to be completely black and white about it, as there were a number of celebrations this month and I really did not want to be drinking horrible Prosecco and regretting my decisions in the morning. It has paid off, as has sticking to my calorie counting diet and being ruthless with night time eating (not snacking mindlessly in front of the TV). I have found this time around that my weight is fluctuating wildly about a kilogram every few days, which is extremely disconcerting. My previous efforts saw me lose weight very consistently. I put it down to water retention, mostly.
I’ve also tried to eat breakfast every day (some days later than others but not intentionally). This helps to even out my blood sugars throughout the day as I usually eat fruit and yoghurt with a smattering of granola. If I can eat 3 square meals a day, not large ones, with the occasional snack such as an apple, or a rice cake with dips, I feel I’m doing well. Like everything though, it’s pretty all-consuming. It would be nice not to have to THINK about my health all the time! But by making these changes habitual (such as going to the gym every morning between Sunday-Friday), by tracking my lunches, and ensuring I don’t eat too big a meal at night, I’m finding that this is working well. Habits, such as taking my medications and supplements every day, or eating breakfast, or going to the gym regularly, takes the stress out of the work. These are just things I DO. That being said, if anyone can encourage me to take a shower BEFORE I walk the dogs, that would be good… 🙂
Appliance garage etcEntire kitchenFalcon stovePantryPantry door spice rackSink and tapwarePot filler tapCheap and cheerfulPantry, storage, fridgeSmall shelf details
As promised, folks, here are some images of my new kitchen – the most expensive kitchen I’ve ever had installed; in fact, the ONLY kitchen I’ve ever had installed! As our place is a cottage, I’ve totally followed all the current transitional trends here: beige painted cupboards over white oak veneer (it’s paintable for future colour choices), cream stove, fluted glass on the glassware cupboards, floating oak shelves, brass door hardware, integrated appliances, artfully placed decorative items, a Falcon stove (gas but don’t hurt me as there’s an electric cooktop too on the side and the ovens are electric), a Zip tap, a pot filler tap and a shower-head sink tap. Um, what else? We installed a skylight above the sink and Zellige tiles in white up one whole wall and in the stove alcove. We installed cupboards right up to the ceiling to take advantage of the height for party supplies, as we regularly entertain. Our stone bench tops are a marble look-alike Quartzite called Domus in a satin finish (very chic!). The great thing about quartzite is that it doesn’t etch like marble, and is as durable as granite. We asked for an appliance garage to hide all the bench top stuff, which is really well designed, with cupboard doors that inset into the wall while using the appliances. We have a 2-part bin for recyclables and regular household waste, and we also had another bin installed for compost scraps. There are a billion electrical outlets that I had to insist on, including one at the end of the bench for small appliances, and another on the opposite wall. There’s also an outlet in the pantry that we don’t use, and several in the appliance garage. In truth, more than we need, but we’re not the end users, and others might want to put their appliances in different places to us. There were some minor hiccups with the floor finish – hence hidden under the cheap poly rug for now, and we had to insist on a better quality finish for the painting and small stuff, as there were some poor finishings that we did not love. Our kitchen cabinet installers, who incidentally have their worksite just 5 minutes from us, have kindly fixed some minor things as they have arisen and guarantee their workmanship for seven years, but they used top grade materials for their products so we are satisfied that we will enjoy many years in this kitchen!
Things I never expected to love so much: the pot filler tap; the Zip tap (filtered cold water, hot water, and sparkling water), the pantry, and the appliance garage. Things I expected to love: the stove, the great French door fridge, the amazing bench space. Things that bother me: not much! We had to argue for better storage options in the dead corners, and as mentioned the floor sanding was botched (we refused to pay for it in the end). It’s a small kitchen with limited storage at Jess height, and we could have used another cutlery/appliance drawer – we were given 3 but there was an option of adding a fourth, as one of the cupboards is quite deep. There were issues with the under sink option and I realise we could have just had cupboards here rather than the awkward drawer unit. We also had to buy a bunch of portable shelves from KMart as the installed cupboards flanking the stove chimney needed more shelves. Missing from the final install: a light over the sink (we lost the space for one when we installed the skylight). That’s about it. It’s a dream to cook in and perfect for the size of the house. It’s not VERY modern, and lacks the curves that are so in right now, but this kitchen is old fashioned in a way that suits the house, and should be good for 20 years.
Folks, our renovations are complete. We had a few hiccups, but that is to be expected with a high end kitchen/ bathroom renovation. I look forward to showing you the results of the kitchen really soon, once I upload all the details and design choices to the computer (as they are on my phone at the moment and I just cannot).
In new information, last year in late September I suffered a L4/L5 disc bulge and was in terrible pain. As a result, the last year has seen a number of personal frustrations and I took time out of work in late November to concentrate on my recovery and do some travel. It’s amazing how debilitating a minor back injury can be!
I don’t know if I mentioned this, but in 2021 I was at my physically largest I had ever been, to the point at which my doctor, who had only met me a few months prior, thought I was normally that size. I was 90kg, felt terribly unfit and my boobs were strangling me! I went on a very expensive weight loss regime through an accredited service that included a dietician, exercise physiologist, psychologist, DEXA scans and weekly pep meetings. I was on a strict diet of only about 1200kcal per day for 9 months. Guys, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was not fun, my metabolism dropped from a regular resting rate of 1580 to about 1250 and I was HUNGRY ALL THE TIME. Now, I’ve never before needed to diet, and I love my food, and I don’t have an eating disorder. But I tell you, counting calories and being permanently hungry is a sure fire way to develop an ED! Sure, I dropped from 90kg to 63kg, and I looked amazing. But I was always tired, sore, cold, and frustrated by such a rigid diet. Over time my weight has crept back up to about 73kg, which is 10kg higher than my lowest weight. I’m not sure I need to be 63kgs again when it mucked around with my metabolism so much, but I DO want to fit into my size 9 /10 clothes that I’ve been waiting to wear. One of the issues I’ve encountered has been physical incapacity, and this has meant a loss of momentum. We’ve travelled a lot this last year, and each time we do I don’t exercise, although I do walk heaps! Being on holiday also means lots of alcohol, eating lots of yummy food, and basically losing all the good habits I spent a year building. So it’s back to the drawing board for me.
It’s a September reset. It’s 16 weeks until December 25, and I’ve realised a lot of old habits have crept back in. I’m healthy now, so here are some things I’ve decided to do to lose about 7kgs and fit into my old togs for summer.
No alcohol for September, probably the rest of the year, unless it’s a very big celebration (birthday or Xmas). I’m perimenopausal anyway, and alcohol leaves me feeling a bit depleted. It doesn’t affect my mood, but does affect my health. I don’t need the bloating.
Back to a calorie deficit diet, focussing on lots of protein (>100g per day), fibre (>25g per day), decent carbs (~70-100g per day) and low in fat (<50g per day). I use an Australian calorie tracker and it works pretty well. I aim to stay below 1500kcal every day, which seems perfect for me especially if my protein and fibre goals are so high. I don’t get wildly hungry with this amount of food either.
Cutting out added sugar. I actually hate this, because desserts and sweet treats are life, but my sugar intake has risen a bit. I’m not a huge sugar eater, but it all adds up over a day. I refuse to eat fake sugar, so I have to work on this. No more tim tams, chocolate bullets or violet crumble with my morning coffee.
Supplements to aid health. As a perimenopausal person, my oestrogen is depleting rapidly, and while I am on a hormone treatment plan, I have been advised to add the following: Vit D, magnesium glycinate, iron, creatine, collagen, calcium, plus anti-oxidants in pill or plant form. All of these aid in bone density, heart health, and things that menopause removes from the system, including all the f**ks.
Upping my exercise regime. When I injured my back, I was unable to get to the gym, so I stopped going consistently. I actually love exercise classes such as yoga, Pilates and body balance. So the aim is to get to 3 group classes a week, strength training 3x per week including with my personal trainer, 2x elliptical sessions per week at home, and walking the dogs every day, trying to get my steps above 7500 per day. Living in a hot climate, getting my steps up is quite hard, so building good habits is crucial for this step.
Another thing I did was to buy a set of bathroom scales. I’ve not owned a set for 30 years but the time has come to be accountable to the figures on the scale. When I weighed myself yesterday I included all the other stats: height, weight, sex. The scales also measure fat percentage, BMI, visceral fat, water percentage and metabolic age, which was a bit of a shock. I need to get my metabolic age back to my actual age as it’s sitting at 66! Now, weight loss will support this metabolic movement down. So losing 7kgs will bring my BMI down to 24, my fat percentage down as well, and my muscle weight should increase. As a perimenopausal woman it’s really hard to manage body changes, so I also need to be kind to myself if my goals aren’t met at the timeline I’ve set.
Men don’t have the same issues as testosterone improves muscle growth much faster, and metabolic function loves high testosterone I believe, so I have to work within the parameters of my own imperfect ageing female physiology. Yay. 😬
Anyway, that’s my life right now. I’ll talk about my latest pottery-making craze in a future post. 😜
There have been many changes at Chez Jess this year since last I wrote. For a start, all of our chickens died unexpectedly and suddenly overnight and we never found out the reason why. I had one of the chickens autopsied but there was nothing outwardly or inwardly wrong with them. I suspect poison but there was no evidence. A tragedy and I’m not sure I will ever really recover from the loss as I cannot help but feel it was all my fault. If we get chickens in the future there will be some changes here to ensure they are safe and sound, including re-siting them to the backyard. I miss my girls and the trauma of their death still shakes me to this day.
In other, rather more exciting news we have a new bathroom! Of COURSE our quote came back at double what the original quote said. Of COURSE it did. You’ve seen the plans – up and down they were gorgeous, and I knew they would probably be a bit exxie… but at $800k it was more expensive than the property is worth. We cannot justify the cost. After I finished weeping I realised we can still do the kitchen and bathroom, even if we cannot do the top deck just yet. I think the deck will be a year off, and maybe prices will stabilise a bit, or perhaps just go up. At any rate, it’s not going to happen this year. So we have gotten started on the kitchen, bathroom and some other much needed additions to the house, including more solar panels and a fast charger for our new electric car (work vehicle), roof insulation, some skylights in the kitchen, ducted air-conditioning throughout the house, 3-phase power (boring but necessary), and if funds stretch far enough, an exterior paint job, and a wine cellar installed under the stairs. In truth, the wine cellar is already there, but the IKEA Kallax shelves have limited potential…;)
Prices for building work in Australia are breathtaking and far more expensive than other similar places such as the USA. This is because we pay our tradespeople extremely well. But oh, boy, the cost bites. So let me show you the bathroom as it was, and as it is now. First up we have the moodboard. Since we now cannot afford the schmicko ensuite and walk-in-robe, we had to make the family bathroom the one we use all the time.
We lightened the colours and made it gentler and softer so that we wouldn’t be shocked every time we walked in the room. One of the issues we discovered early on was our design team did NOT want us putting in a floor-based vanity unit – they wanted us to have a floating unit that was light and bright. Well, says I, you need to find us some extra storage then, as this is now our main bathroom and a one-drawer vanity is absolutely not enough. So they did a clever thing and added a hidden unit in the wall. I’m thrilled with the result.
We chose a special bidet toilet from Caroma but although it now works well, the people at Caroma were pretty terrible and the information in the installation and user guide was singularly unhelpful – it was missing at least 20 pages of really important information. Still, we have worked out how to both use and fix it (especially since there have been numerous black-outs where the electricity has been cut for renovation purposes). A bidet toilet is a really useful addition and we are seeing so many people put them in their houses now.
We selected an above mounted sink which, after living with other options, I prefer, as I can place my makeup against the sink and not have it tumble into the sink itself! We have a pill-shaped medicine cabinet that stores more of my stuff, and we have a repeating vertical stripe pattern throughout, which shows up in the textured glass shower panel, the front panel of the vanity, and the VJ board throughout. Some other great ideas include a shower LEDGE rather than ALCOVE – much easier to navigate, and even though we live in a hot climate, adding a heat source via the lights/ extractor fan has proven rather useful in the cooler months.
There are plenty of curves to choose from, too: the pill shaped vanity lights (nom nom), the curved glass and mirror, the curves in the tapware, and the curvy pattern in the wallpaper. I don’t have all the product names and suppliers available to me but rest assured they are all available in Australia.
Our soft furnishings and decor were purchased almost entirely from Pillow Talk as they are my favourite homewares store – well, OK! They are RIGHT next to my gym. Dangerous. We bought 3 different towel colours, which I switch out when I need a break – just 2 of each, in grey, mustard and teal, all available in 2024. The floor mat and hand towels were also from Pillow Talk. We splurged just a bit and bought a slender vase from Dinosaur Designs that perfectly complements the tones in the room, and pairs nicely with the soap dispenser. Finally, we threw in some old baskets that I had in a former life to hold spare toilet rolls and towels and stuff, and we are done!
It’s been a long time since my last confession, and this one’s a doozy. I’m a murderer. Of rats. Given my love of backyard chickens, rats discovered a prime feeding ground of grain and sunflower seeds and grew a rat colony under our house, in the toolshed. Given that the toolshed is attached to the house and that the chicken coop is conveniently situated right next to the house (only place for it), rats took to our grain supplies with joy and a desire to grow their family. I was ok with just a couple of rats – at the time I didn’t know if they were Australian Bush Rats, or some other native animal, but recently the merry squawking, night time raid incursions and dog agitators just got too much. It was also the smell of rat doo doo wafting into the house that sent me over the edge. We tried humane methods of rat removal but this proved totally unsuccessful, as the rats laughed at our pathetic attempts to set traps and refused to politely enter them for humane removal to the local creek, where pythons would have enjoyed the free meal. Anyway, given the large family group that was fast developing into a township, I saw no alternative. I called the pest people.
I’m impressed with the speed with which our Norwegian Rattus Rattus colony was despatched, but I am suffering psychic trauma from literally walking on the rats AS THEY LAY DYING IN PLAIN SIGHT, and having to collect them for disposal. We have collected 27 dead rats to date – 4 large ones, and all their children. Now, given that we live in a hot and humid climate, there has been a bit of a smell situation emerging as sometimes we were unable to locate some of the dead rats fast enough, and we’ve encountered a few little smell bombs behind shelves and under boxes. We’ve also had a couple of moments when the doggoes have thoughtfully brought said dead rats INTO THE HOUSE FOR EATING PURPOSES. The poison used for the rats CAN kill other creatures if consumed in large enough quantities, so it is fair to say this situation was not ideal. Happily, the dogs have not eaten the dead rats, preferring instead to roll in their rotting carcasses or to present them as a gift for me. Thanks, doggoes. Suffice to say, the rats are now no longer a problem this year, although I suspect we will have to maintain the poison traps for the forseeable future, given that I like my chickens. I will suffer the karmic consequences for sure.
In other news, we’ve had some interesting scenarios with the new front garden beds. Initially the plants grow like topsy, then, without warning, some of them die. This is even when there is plenty of water, so I’m a bit confused as to why they just top themselves – one particularly egregious example was a crazily thriving rosella hibiscus, beautiful fruit and everything, that one day just keeled over and died. Still, some plants have survived ok, including a warm climate nectarine, a lime tree, and some silver dichondra. My hibiscus has survived total neglect although other bushes probably need a good cut back and some feeding, such as some rather ratty looking coleus plants. I’m particularly pleased with my two passion fruit vines. They have grown like crazy on the perfect hot, sunny wall and there must be 50 flowers on there now. I’ve been watching the four fruits that have so far appeared on the vines – no animal has gotten to them yet, but I imagine it will be fisticuffs for the fruit between me, the fruit bats and the possums. I don’t really mind as long as they don’t eat the flowers and give the fruit a fighting chance to grow! I don’t water my plants very regularly, but there has been enough rain over the last few months that I haven’t needed to. I’m not much of a gardener, and frankly, I’m of the opinion that if it survives its first year, it’s going to survive in the long run. This is not to say that this will occur for vegetable plants. I’m aware they need love and attention, but surely my perennial herbs should survive! But no, they get eaten by animals, or they die off unexpectedly.
We’re nearly back full time at work since our leisurely holiday series, which included a few days in Melbourne at Xmas with the fam, and show time in Sydney. Our weekends tend to be quite full with activities and it’s easy to neglect the garden, but after a year it’s still looking mostly healthy out the back, with only three plants dying overall. My mum, who’s a keen gardener, says there’s always a 10% die off of plants in the first year, so our record is pretty good. It’s time for a solid weed and feed for all the tropical plants, and I’ll get to them in the next few days.
So, no photos of the garden this time but I’ll take a few (not of the dead rat count) to post in the next few days, now that the chook fence is up and working well. There’s not much more to share, except that plans for the renovations are travelling well and we should be able to start the work in the next few months, depending on supply chain and workforce availability. Below are the images I’m loving of our new kitchen, bathroom and back deck, which are part of phase 1 work. The first image is the current kitchen. Serviceable – sort of – but with an unworkable pantry, a mostly dead oven and stove, and nowhere to put the microwave. The next images are of the new and vastly improved kitchen with my beloved Falcon range and a really lovely neutral palette in case I want a new colour scheme (the kitchen and dining room are currently multicoloured, but the lounge room is green – I might change this at some stage to blue, because I can).
The next images are of the new family bathroom (guest bathroom, really), which is going to be loud and obnoxious because I want it to be a talking point. Don’t mind the repeating patterns – the green tiles will look a lot more natural and earthy than that as they are Zellige tiles, and I’m loving the pink terrazzo but I’m sure it’s crazy expensive and I’ll be happy with an earthier version in tans and terracotta on a cream base. The old bathroom looks fine but is not.
Finally: an image of the new deck, with the old for reference:
I’m really excited about the deck as I want to be able to work outside and lounge about, which is somewhat difficult at the moment as the current deck is not insulated against the heat, so cannot be used in the middle of the day. The new deck will also be accessible from our bedroom, which is probably the most exciting bit of all. We’ll have French doors to the deck from our room, and I’ve asked for louvre windows as they enable good airflow but this might change depending on availability of products and if my designer persuades me to change that design. Super exciting.
In the wind-down to Xmas I have only one teeny paid job to do, plus my tax (I hate doing my tax, even though I always get a little tax bonus). This wind-down has been perfect for my mental health as it allowed me to slow my work down gently, and not crash me into boredom and frustration – is anyone like me, and very goals-focussed? If I don’t have something to work towards I’m a screaming wreck. Meanwhile, before we head south for the summer (I know, who goes south when the heat is in sunny Qld?) there are still plenty of things to do in and around the garden.
Tropiscapes have been and gone, not without some dramas for them regarding our recalcitrant arborists, who caused no end of delay and frustration. Landscaping is not cheap, let me assure you, and I made the hard decision to do the remainder of the work at the front of the house myself. I moved some granite rocks to improve the size of the garden beds at the front of the house. As previously mentioned, this is the area that gets nearly all day sun, so I wanted to put in mostly food plants with a couple of decorative bushes for funsies.
The first thing to do was move these teeny tiny granite rocks – minimum 6kg each, up to more than 25kg, from their old spots (you can see where they once were) to the new garden edge, which doubled the size of the garden bed on each side.
This didn’t take long on the high side, but boy did it take forever to dig out and move the rocks on the low side! No points for guessing that the earth had moved DOWN the hill, over the rocks, and that there were a heap of old roots encircling some of them. Fun. That was my exercise for the day. Sore for several days after!
I thought I would never get the earth moved from the driveway into the beds. It was perhaps the hottest, most humid day all year.
On the most humid and hot day of the year, prior to a rather large rain cell developing in the afternoon, I personally moved three cubic metres of soil off my driveway onto the waiting garden beds. Oh! And I did sweet FA about preparing the beds. The earth was so compacted I just gave up and decided to lay the soil straight over the top. Of course there was rather less fresh soil on the old bed. Y’all, I had to fill that new bed! I survived the day – just.
This was at about midday. I thought I would never finish the job, and because rain was forecast, I had to get that dirt off my driveway before it ran off the driveway into my new garden beds….Surprising how far 3 cubic metres of soil can go – for a hot minute I thought we’d ordered too much. Amazing what a bit of rain can do to damp down the beds. As it turns out we had too much cypress mulch so we used it to spread over the rest of the front garden on the chookie side. Cypress mulch is amazing as it repels termites and keeps the earth super cool and damp.
Once I had laid the soil I went and bought some plants from our local Bunnings. Turns out they’re low in stock right now, so I ended up buying lots of different thyme, some rosemary, lemon verbena and lemon balm, a perennial basil, some oregano and sage, a chilli plant, some curry plants, even some samphire. These plants act as ground cover and low bushes and make great cover for the beds, and all are great herb plants that love full sun. For small trees I planted a miniature lime, a rosella hibiscus and a warm climate nectarine. I do not believe for one minute we will get any fruit off them before the possums chomp them, but it’s an ecosystem. Gotta live with the little beasties. For decorative plants I bought two different Coleus (love those leaf colours), some Dragon’s Breath, Dichondra, a Persian slipper and a hot pink hibiscus. Hubby was getting a little too eager to spread the remaining mulch and I had to get the plants in the ground before he went psycho with the shovel! So I flung them into the ground at speed. I removed all the Brazilian wandering iris and the grass plants prior to digging up the beds, so I put them all back to grow amongst the food plants, and I can safely say nothing has died yet. The persian slipper plant had to be moved last week – it was in full sun, and its leaves were literally burning, but even that has revived nicely now that it is in the shade. The wonky hedge thing on the right of the image below is a fun white Powder Puff tree. It was already there and makes a super cute flowering hedge, sitting in between two mature golden cane palms.
We need now to do something about the chookie side, but we’ll leave it until next year, once we have done some carpentry work to keep them confined to one section of the garden. The basic plan is to move the rocks out from the left side by about a metre, build out the bed there and plant some basic bitch plants there to support the chookies and give them some fresh plants to eat and shade under. This side as you can tell is rather rudimentary but now that the Waterhousia tree (from the Lillipilli family) has been trimmed, the Murraya hedge is going great guns and even my lemon tree (not shown) is fruiting like crazy. Let’s also of course assume the possums will eat all the little lemon buds. This is not as awful as it sounds as the plant is not yet big enough to support all the lemons it has already budded. We also have an azalea or rhododendron in the corner nearest the house – not my favourite plant – but it thrives and we’re keeping it for now.
So two weeks later and I decided to buy a blueberry bush because 1/ it was available and 2/ it’s not a raspberry bush with prickles and spikes. I planted it where I had left a big clear patch at the front in preparation for a rubbish bin plinth we hope to build next year. We have just had a week of torrential rain and it looks like summer will be cool, wet and super steamy. It was so wet that the rain moved some of the mulch away so this weekend will be about moving the mulch back where it came from and sugaring the nut grass that has decided to spread amongst our Little Dugald side hedge. I tell you what, though, the plants have grown like CRAZY since we planted them – with the the native thyme and lemon verbena more than doubling in size and the rosella hibiscus the same. Amazing.
Still too wet to mow the lawn! We will be replacing some of the lawn with stepping stones but again that’s a job for 2022. The powder puff bushes need some pruning and it’s amazing how messy it all looks after a week of rain, but also how heartwarming it is to see all the growth.
Out the back all the major work has been done, but the hubby and I have decided to expand one of the garden beds as we can’t grow lawn there – which was made very clear when the rains came this week – the area turned into a mud bath. We will be moving the smaller rocks out by about a metre, filling the expanse with new soil and cypress mulch, and moving some of the smaller plants forward. We’ll also add some more of the plants Tropiscapes selected to give that bed more consistency with the other side. We also bought a few metres of grass/ sod that has really taken, so I think we may end up adding more once all the building work has finished and all the water tanks and veggie beds are in, etc.
See the bare patch on the left of the picture above? That’s where we will expand the garden bed. Shade loving tropicals will love it there. The grass in the foreground is lovely thick sod, and the remaining grass you see (same colour, different grass, plus weeds) is probably not actual grass, so we’ll lay some more sod next year once we’ve done the building work.
So here’s the thing I’ve discovered about myself: that I really enjoy working in my garden, creating a beautiful, welcoming tropical vibe there. Here’s an image of the garden at night – we had set it up for a birthday do just a few days after finishing the front garden:
I think once all the main work is done I will buy some festoon lights and have more garden parties like this one. It looked perfect and even though I knew the grass was patchy and the working side of the house was ugly, this still looked just sublime on a perfect summer’s night. And isn’t that exactly the point of a beautiful garden?!
There is some massive plant action on the way! The folk from Tropiscapes are here this week, building steps into the garden, planting beautiful tropical plants and preparing the garden beds. We will have to keep on the watering duties over the next few weeks while the plants establish – something I’m not really very good at, so please Rain Gods, rain every day for at least an hour so that I don’t have to water the newbies!!
Here’s some images of what the garden looked like before demo day: very pretty but full of weeds and rather poor soil. And, typically, the agent hid all the leaf litter on the ground in the photo to pretend that it actually had a lawn. Not true. Too much shade from the very important enormous tree on our boundary, which we have just had trimmed by an accredited arborist. When I say trimmed, they removed most of the satellite branches and all of the lower leafy cover, to satisfy the urges of our neighbour, who wanted it removed entirely. Which we entirely disagree with, because of the important ecological benefit it provides for the wildlife, not to mention that the world is heating up – you don’t remove mature trees from yards unless they are DEAD. There is much more light into our yard now, and certainly more viewing spots for our neighbours into our bedroom 😉
Here are some images from when the garden had undergone Demo Day:
These images are a bit fuzzy because I had to reduce their size to get them to upload to my email account. Yes, I could use Google Drive. No, I’m not going to. Tropiscapes removed most of the weeds and nearly all of the non tropical plantings – which weren’t thriving in any case, and we’re in the process of making the garden a truly tropical paradise. I can assure everyone that this is an enormously expensive proposition, but IMHO worth it. We’re not doing the front yard yet, because we have a few things to complete before we tear up the ground, so the house will have this rather odd selection of perfectly planted beds and several scrappy ones!
We had a few scrapes to get to this point – our arborist is the worst communicator ever, and had booked in to do the work just when some massive storms were predicted. Obviously they cancelled, then wanted to come in on the Monday, when our landscapers arrived – after also delaying their start, for the same weather reasons. Some minor argy-bargy chest beating ensued, complaints were made, but in the end, it all worked out, except for the bit where they need to do some stump grinding and haven’t booked that in, even though it could have been done at any time in the last month. SIGH. Here are some shots of the work at the midway point:
I love that the garden beds look so much nicer than the rest of the “lawn”… so, don’t ask me to name ANY of the plants that have just gone in – it was hard enough working out the name of my Waterhousia tree at the front of the house, which has also been trimmed beautifully and now everyone can see into our house.
In other news: have you ever thought that you’re really over social media and that you’d be very happy never looking at Facebook ever again? Well, I’ve had enough, yet again. I enjoy seeing what friends and family are up to, but most often nowadays people don’t post at all and it’s only the pages you follow – such as news and infamous folk – that are the consistent posters. Every now and then I purge myself of FB and have a long hiatus. I can’t remember the last time I deactivated my account, but it’s all there in case I need to access it again. FB and other socials are not always the best vehicle for developing good mental health – or even healthy online habits, so I’m ready to take the step and remove myself from it for a while.
That’s enough for now – we’ve lots more to do and I’ll show you the “finished” sections when they’re fixed.
Our little housie is about to get a nice big new plan for an update, and hopefully the bank will give us lots of money to do it!
Since we bought our house in July 2020 (yes I know, in the middle of a pandemic, but no time like the present, hey!), Australian house prices have literally gone bonkers, and our house is now worth 20% more on the real estate market (possibly more because we live on a fantastic street) than a year ago. Not that we want to sell, OH NO.
So last post – was it three months ago? Feels like forever – I was talking about extending our bathroom and kitchen just a soupçon and squeezing in a bit more space for a better bathroom and maybe a better wardrobe. Truth be told, my fave builder of all time Rachael said adding only a few metres’ space was a big cost for minimal benefit. So I said “well let’s go big, then”. What we want to do is update our house with a new lockable garage, she-shed, brand new WIR and ensuite in the main bedroom, new family bathroom and new kitchen, new back deck and new lower deck. Go hard or go home, I say.
This house needs a lockable garage, particularly for when there are hailstone storms – more common than you think, here in SE Qld. Our rather exxie car needs to be protected from the weather; the possum poop; bird poop, and bat poop. I had a subsequent brilliant plan to build a new ensuite and WIR on top of the garage, thus protecting us from our neighbours’ noisy entertainment deck in the summer, and adding vital real estate to the main bedroom. My builder loved it, because she gets to build new and there are minimal changes inside the house that need addressing, new wet zones notwithstanding.
We can then incorporate the toilet into the renovated family bathroom, and crib more space for the kitchen, which will be fully gutted and replaced. YAS KWEEN. We will also tear off the old back deck and add a brand new deck that extends all the way to the end of the main bedroom. It won’t have an external set of stairs as there’s already stairs inside the house, which means it will be a tad more secure. The deck will be super simple, 5 metres by 9 metres with a gable pitched roof and lots of insulation so that we can enjoy it all year round and entertain out there. The main bedroom will have French doors onto the deck. My idea of heaven!
Downstairs the fun continues in a cunning way recommended by my landscape gardener. She suggested constructing a deck over all the higgledy-piggledy concrete (concrete that’s beautifully formed, though – it’s not old, just a series of odd design decisions). Magic. The deck will be about 5 metres deep and the width of the house, with a step-down each side to the new garage and the north-facing garden. In front of the deck there will be an under-deck garden of ferns and plants that need only filtered sunlight, which will also provide an extra layer of privacy for the downstairs area. This means that for minimal invasion into the main house, we get a lot more utility value out of the house and greater liveability overall, and we add square footage without going overboard with the bedroom numbers.
Things we probably CAN’T do right now: update the downstairs bathroom and laundry. That will be a job for another time, maybe in 5 years – they’ll do for now and there’s lots of storage in the ugly-but-serviceable laundry. There are a few other upgrades that may have to wait until the next round of funds (or big tax returns), which may or may not include ducted air upstairs, painting the exterior (we got quotes for this and wept), a built-in book case in my study and some other things. Other additions: lockable storage under the front of the house, which involves extending the batten design down to the ground and adding lockable gates at each end – a pretty simple job. Unfortunately chippies are in high demand and the cost of supplies is also high. The amazing builder who lives over the road could add the storage in a day (you should see how quickly he has constructed his garage!) but he’s way too busy for us as well. In the meantime, though, we ARE doing the back garden (won’t be impacted by the building works) and making the area more beautiful. The job starts hopefully this week. Given the rain and general crap weather though, they may start next week instead. Who knows?
Fingers crossed that by the time we approach our bank, cap in hand, we will be able to borrow lots more money to do the upgrades we need. There are lending caps, mostly to do with the value of the house and the borrowing ratio available to us, so it’s about getting maximum valuation for the home as it stands so that we don’t have to borrow more than 80% of the value of the house, thereby avoiding lender’s mortgage insurance (LMI). It’s NOT about our ability to repay, btw. That’s not an issue. Darn it.
On the weekend hubby and I took stock of our lovely Queenslander home in SE Qld and decided enough was enough. The never never plan will probably NEVER happen because it will no doubt cost a million bucks of money we don’t have and will literally be 10 years off, by which time we’ll either have moved or died 😉 . So we’re renovating our upstairs bathroom and kitchen! My old mate who did our last set of brilliant renovations has said she thinks she might be able to squeeze in this job, so off to the bank we go to see if they’ll chuck us another bit of $$.
I’ve not shown images of these areas online because it is just too traumatic – the kitchen is a mostly useful space but the bathroom is terribly inefficient in the use of space and needs a complete gut job – the last time it was renovated would be easily 25 years ago and while it was probably good at the time, it’s not a happy place for me or the hubby. So I’ve sent a bunch of images and footage to my mate, to see what she can come up with. I know her style and it’s perfect for the house, so I might even leave it up to her to design me something. I know, WHAT AM I THINKING. But I think her knowledge is so much better than mine these days and she has a great way with choosing cheaper cabinets and benches and making them look amazing. The only thing I will really really want to discuss is the stove and oven – I love the space they are in at the moment, but she might have other ideas. Also, I want a Falcon brand stove/oven. One that has both electric and gas hobs, because I’m no longer a great fan of gas, due to its earth-killing properties, and also because the gas stove we own is awful: doesn’t work properly. The oven door doesn’t close all the way and the handle is missing. This free-standing stove from Falcon is GORGEOUS – 110cm wide with a ceramic hob alongside the gas hobs, 2 ovens, a grill and a warming tray. But there are other fab styles too. Of course, this one is the EXPENSIVE model. SIGH.
Here’s a picture of our current crappy bathroom, which even the real estate agent didn’t really want to show, and our kitchen which has issues:
The toilet, located in its own WC next to the bathroom, has no sink, so its separateness is moot. The entryway to this bathroom is appalling – you have to sidle in sideways if you don’t want to bump into the shower door AND you can see right into the bathroom from the street because that is where the door was cunningly placed. The shower door is etched with limescale that cannot be removed – I’ve tried the magical CLR and it did nothing – and the bath, which we just don’t use, takes up all the space. I want to remove the bath, replace the awful vanity and sink with a LONG single-sink vanity (we don’t need 2 sinks – we need 2 prep areas!) and reorganise the space so that the toilet sits within the bathroom. There’s at least 4.5 square metres of wasted space in these 2 teeny rooms. There HAS to be a great solution.
The kitchen, constructed about 25 years ago, doesn’t even have space for a microwave oven – on the bench it goes, along with our kettle, toaster and coffee maker and bang bang and coffee grinder and compost bin and regular bin and letter holder and everything else I squeeze on there. The pantry door opens the wrong way. There are 2 corner cupboards and I can’t access the rear contents. The sink is misaligned with the window (due to the dishwasher position, no doubt), and has no stacking space for dirty dishes. The stove is nearly dead, and the dishwasher only likes the top drawer, not the bottom, so we have to rinse everything, wasting even more water. UGH.
If my mate can come up with a great design that’s reasonably priced I will be beside myself with excitement. I bet you’re asking now – where do we prepare food if the kitchen’s out of action? Well, we have a good sized laundry with a great sink, and a portable electric stove that we can use downstairs, which means we will actually USE downstairs…, and of course there is a working downstairs bathroom for our abluting needs…
Come to think of it, the kitchen and bathroom upstairs sit ever so slightly proud of the house – we might be able to extend this area a bit more if it still sits under the eaves…hmmm.
The house that Jess built. 