Pantry cupboard

Green inside the doors, and red door knobs. Might just sand it back a bit and leave it at this.

I found this lovely flower illustration on http://cargocollective.com/brittanyburton and am (probably) going to decoupage it on the inside of the doors cos the colours are SOOO pretty! Having fun cutting them out at least...

My place

I haven't been as chirpy as I want. Nor as chirpy as I have been pretending to be, neither.

The last few days I have crashed late afternoon and slept right through (fibbing a bit there - waking up around 8pm to do the drug thing, and the other drug thing - email!) and then sleeping through till the kookaburras start yodelling outside at dawn.

Back to St Vincent's on Thursday for the post-op check-up. I don't think I am tired cos of anything sinister, it is just that I was expecting miracles and that might take a few more weeks. It is only 5 weeks since surgery so p'raps I am still also recovering from all that anaesthetic stuff, etc. Not to mention a long time not being anywhere near 100%...

I have got PAGES of lists of things I really MUST do around my home. Poor neglected place. There are spiders fighting other spiders for space in the layers of dust. You get the idea...

On the Australia Day weekend (AD is January 26th for those of you who can't rattle off the national days of other countries...) Newstead Live! happens again. Lovely music!!!
The Beez - from Berlin - are the headline (international) act again. And again, they are staying with me. Hooray! They are all so lovely, though I was fucked totally last time with all the late night dinners we had in the week leading up to the Festival cos they arrived 5 days ahead of time. Not that I minded, it really was such fun.

BUT I WOULD LIKE TO DO SOMETHING MORE TO THE HOUSE BEFORE THEY GET HERE!!!!


This is what the pantry looked like before I got flooded. TWICE. Once 12 months ago today, and then again in February. So all the water came in through the damp-course (haha) and flooded the floor. And then a million bush rats and mice moved in to keep warm and dry.

Back in June S4, his darling Clancye and their mate Isaac came up and spent a few days moving everything out of the pantry, and S4 and I went shopping for all sorts of lovely paint, plaster, big wide pine boards, cans of expanding gap-filling foam, etc etc to be able to make the pantry vermin proof.
S4 used a big can of the sticky scary alien gap-filling stuff but there are still some gaps in the rammed earth walls that have to be mudded up. He also added a couple of ceiling beams to add false ceiling over (under) what is already there so we can add another layer of insulation to make it REALLY cold in there. On 40* days (like last week) it is only ever about 18* anyway. We still have to add the plaster. And paint it. After I mud up those gaps...

So - this is what my pantry contents still look like. Piled all over the kitchen table, under it, and in a couple of other temporary cupboards I bought at the Tip Shop (for $15...).

Poor old sink cupboard from the Tip Shop with more groceries etc stuffed uncomfortably into it. And still with the old sink intact but with a great lump of melamine on top of it so I can use it as  a proper bench. Temporarily...                                                                 

And I wanted to rip up all this revolting crappy not-enough-cement-in-the-concrete floor and lay more bricks like in the bathroom area.  And to add a couple of courses of bricks as a base under the Rayburn so it is up to the height of the one I grew up with. And because it isn't impressive enough without it's majestic four ovens. So it needs a plinth.      

But that isn't one of the things on my list(s).          

Installing the butler's sink I have sitting out in Outer Bungolia is on the list. Which means building a stand for it. And doing some plumbing, but that is OK cos most of it is sitting waiting from the temporary laundry trough that is still where I wash dishes. (Right photo below)                                                                                                                   

In the Library I want to consolidate all the bookcases (there are a couple more on that mauve wall at the far end, and a big one to the left of the doorway, as well as another on the east wall (about over my right shoulder from where I am taking this photo). And there are three more cases in Outer Bungolia which really should be in the Library so that all the books that are stacked two deep on some of the shelves can be allocated a proper home. And I want to add strips of timber between each to join them, and then paint them.                                                                                               

But that isn't on The Current List either.                                                            

                                                              

Both the floor in the kitchen and these bookcases are all on The Next List...                     

The bathroom is on This List. All of it. I haven't got a photo of it, but I think there is one on my website. Shall have a hunt for it and add the link to it if/when I find it.                        

It is ghastly.       Functional but still in the realms of "Bush Humpy".                                 

Not "primitive" - it isn't that good...      I shall spare you. For the time being...      

                                                                                         

The ABC Radio have just put out a warning for extremely high winds in a cool change that is hurtling up from the south west of the State:

"Issued at 9:45 pm EDT on Tuesday 10 January 2012.

Weather Situation

An active cold front approaching southwestern Victoria tonight will move rapidly eastwards across the State overnight and Wednesday morning.

Damaging winds averaging 50 to 60 km/h with peak gusts around 95 km/h are forecast for the South West, Central, West and South Gippsland and East Gippsland forecast districts and over parts of the North Central and North East forecast districts. Coastal and exposed elevated areas are the most likely regions to be affected.

The State Emergency Service advises that people should:

• Move vehicles under cover or away from trees.
• Secure or put away loose items around your house, yard and balcony.
• Keep clear of fallen power lines."



The tree feller fellows

.
Poor Just as well I had this 'heaving' tree cut down in Dec 2010. It was really close to the house (just to the left of the photo) and I was always concerned each time I came home after a bit of a breeze that it would be lying down on my home (and then I wouldn't have to do anything about the pantry or kitchen. Hmmm... Lovely old tree is still cut in lumps waiting to be stacked. Should add that to the Next List... We (we is not the real we cos I only paid and pointed etc, didn;t actually do anything lumberjackly) left one piece bench height - I might add a basin on top of it for the bathroom. Cos there isn't a basin in the bathroom yet. I could figure out some way of making a hole for the drain-pipe stuff. And some cute dish for a basin. I bought glass drilling bits at Aldi a few months ago just so I can make a plug-hole in something basin-like.  Ignore the 'poor' under the tree photo - it was the start of a sentence and attached itself there and I don't know how to remove it without removing the tree photo. If I can live with it then so can you.    

Doesn't my home look lovely!

PS. And I am going to give the blog a New Year freshen up sometime soon, too.

Balcony decking and house history

When I bought my home nine years ago it was really a BIG MESS.
The Draughtsman who came to look at the place prior to drawing up plans for renovations got out of his car and just said "Bloody hell! Get a bulldozer in"!!!!!

It didn't have any of this turquoise weatherboard upstairs, nor lovely wide veranda. Instead, there was a slopy (and sloppy!) roof made from bits of corrugated iron the bloke (who started building this.
In 1967...) had scavenged from the tip.
And bush poles holding up a veranda that was head height - for him, head-bashing height for me - and only about a metre deep.

Holding up the iron roof were a couple of rafters that were each made of two shorter beams just nailed together. So a bit saggy.
And then no ceiling, just silver insulating foil that was orange from the smoke from his pot-belly stove.
That didn't have a chimney...
The room below was 16' x 32', with brick floors. Mostly.
There were some patches of dirt...
Probably for his 11 dogs to dig in...

The rest of the house was 32' wide and 40' long.
It is built of a mixture of mud bricks and rammed earth for the walls. And gaps, The bloke was not very tall, so instead of buying a ladder he left gaps between the tops of the walls and the roof...
There were four small rooms, each 10' square, along the south side (which is the cold side of the house in Australia, like the north side of a house in the Northern Hemisphere) - a laundry, bathroom, junk room, and pantry.

The house is an Alistair Knox design - famous for wonderful mud brick house solar passive designs that were ahead of their time in the 1960s. More information is here and here on this amazing man and his designs.
However - HOWEVER!!!! - the builder of mine was not really a builder. He started, as I said, in 1967 - I found receipts - and in 2002 it was still far from finished! (Not just receipts, but all sorts of stuff - all his bills, wedding TELEGRAMS and cards, piles of newspapers, junk, crap and all sorts of shit. And that was just for starters...)

So I really got a bargain - the Draughtsman was right - it really was a bulldozer renovation. I paid land value for the whole kit and caboodle, so got what I paid for...

We took 10 or 12 tip truck loads of rubbish to the tip, as well as having a huge bonfire, that burnt for 2 weeks. We SHOVELLED dirt out of the place.
S4 used to say "This house has nothing but potential" and "This is the only house where you wipe your feet as you leave".

The floor is red bricks laid directly onto sand. In some places he added builder's plastic down first, in others - zilch!
And in other areas there were large areas of dirt he hadn't got around to bricking.
The floor along the western end is mushy concrete, where he didn't add enough cement to the mix, so it is all flaking and dusty.
The floor in the laundry and junk room we ripped up and laid more bricks.
The bathroom floor was mostly easy - it had proper leveller under the vinyl. But only sand

under the leveller... So that came up, too and we laid bricks there, too.
The pantry floor had a great pit in the centre of it, and a hole to the outside world at the bottom of the wall. And holes in the ceiling. I think his idea was to fill the pit with water (and breed mosquitoes) and use it as a cool room. We filled the pit and the wall hole in. And laid more bricks.
He had a generator (which he took with him) and the front door was piled to the ceiling with blown up appliances.

All of which just needed a replacement fuse. He didn't know about $4 fuses, and went out and spent $$$ on another microwave/toaster/TV/whatever. The wiring was also bits he seemed to have scavenged from the tip. Short lengths of electric wire joined, not with proper little box joiners (cos they cost $$$), but with plumbers tape...

You are all probably crying now, so I wont dwell any more on what was!!!! Now, there is an upstairs with French doors facing South, East and North with little balconies

out of each, over the veranda roof.

Ever since I ran out of money back in 2004, and then got sick in 2005 (so no money AND no energy), nothing much more has been done to the house after the initial reno frenzy.
A few months ago, The Sweetheart and I decked the North and South balconies - the East one was done years ago. And we were so clever and worked so well together and it all is such a lovely feeling to be able to walk out onto the balcony instead of balancing on the joists!The upstairs is 16' x 32' - like the downstairs. It

is now my studio - at the North end, and my bedroom at the South, looking out to thousands of acres of State Forest. I only have 5 acres, but the Forest backs right onto my fence so I may as well have a Million Wild Acres!!!


The top photos are the South balcony, and these ones down here are the North balcony. You can see the roof to the rest of the house is higher than the veranda.
This is because there is also a mezzanine - The Shelf which runs along the south side and east-ish side of the big room. The living area has lovely almost double story space, and has wonderful acoustics. Not to mention a great balcony rail to hang quilts over.  You may be able to just catch a glimpse on the right of the bottom quilt photo of one of the big posts holding up the roof. They came from Victoria Dock in Melbourne and are over 100 years old.

Here is a bit of rock art S4 did - lots of lovely sandstone around here, just waiting to be used. Lots of rock walls in kit form...









And this is some of the lovely wattle that flowers through most of winter. There are four or five different ones around here which start flowering in June and carry on right through to September. Lovely splash of gold amongst the green of winter.

More stuff!!



I am beginning to do some creative things to my kitchen.
Lots of my house still needs finishing/renovating/even BUILDING (like the bathroom which is still 'temporary'!). I have written a bathroom blurb here.
The kitchen doesn't have any cupboards in it.
It never did.
Nor a sink.
Not much of a stove even.
My Best Sister brought me a wonderful old four oven Rayburn stove from Tasmania as a house warming present when I first bought the house. The concrete on the floor was put down with not enough cement in it so it is all flaky and dusty. The bathroom and laundry area (10' x 30') was the same but I have ripped that up and laid lovely old red bricks in it's place. I want to do that to this kitchen area too. Just need to get some energy from somewhere!

the left hand drawer of kitchen cupboard

Anyways! I bought a couple of entertainment units. Since everyone (else) in the world has gone crazy for enormous flat screen televisions there is now no call for the sort of cabinets that used to hold a 'normal' telly, along with drawers etc for CDs, DVDs, videos and all those other useless bits of wiring, remotes, waranty docs and manuals. I have one pine unit which will fit snugly into the pantry, and this one as a bar in the kitchen.

This cabinet has a pull-out drawer shelf at either end (see top photo) which had a couple of vertical boards with plastic thingies to hold DVDs and CDs. So I pulled them out, and cut the timber into lengths to make them into horizontal shelves, and nailed them in.



useful drawers full of jasmine

Just totally perfect for herbs and spices, and all the small things that get lost in a big cupboard.
The centre has two doors that fold back into the unit with another unit inside with shelves where the TV and DVD player etc sat, and more drawers.

interior of kitchen cupboard



One of the Woods Ware Jasmine plates (cups and saucers, jugs, bowls, whatever) which is tucked away in the bottom drawers and shelves of my new unit.

the Wood's Ware Jasmine china I collect



The answer is 42. Painted on 10.10.10 - 101010 or XXX

 On October 10 I made this painting to celebrate 10/10/10. There are 10 x 3 hearts cut from handmade Japanese papers, as well as three x 10, and three x X. Somewhere in there is perhaps going to be a shadowy 42 because in binary 101010 is 42! There are bits of gold leaf as well as a warm and cold cream (ha ha not Ponds...), and metallic sparkly paints. It is a long time since I painted. I think I shall have to do more of it (I need the practice for starters!)

Teddy, and a barbie - with new clothes

I have also been knitting dolls' clothes. And teddy clothes. This is my poor old Bare Bear who I have had since newborn. He is called Bare Bear because when I was three I threw him in the copper when Mum was washing clothes and all his fluffy mohair fur fell out...These are the first clothes he has had since I took him out of the nightie Nana made for Uncle Ernie 89 years ago. Still got that little nightgown, too! I have made a lot of barbie doll clothes, and even smaller knitted ones for a couple of tiny teddies who are about the right scale for the doll's house I am making (see below!). The tiny garments are knitted from one play tapestry wool on 1.5mm needles. I have also made some blankets for the doll's house beds in fine crochet silk, and the one ply wool. Good fun - fiddly but achievable when I am feeling tired!

doll's house bed with knitted blankets

OH look!!! a tiny doll's bed with knitted bedding! Next plan is a weeny small patchwork quilt using fine Liberty cottons and some silks I have stashed away!

This is a smaller scale doll's house that I have been making for years! It was a rather crude kit I bought in San Francisco when the boys were little. I put some of it together with their help a long time ago, and then put it away as it was rather too fiddly for little boys...

cutie pie doll's house and furniture I am making (yep that is a quilt!)

Some of the other furniture there is from the weekly installment doll's house I am currently putting together.
The quilt hanging behind is one I bought in SF back in the 1980s. It is hand stitched reverse applique and made by Hmong refugees who had gone to live in America from northern Thailand/Laos.

Tiny Teddy's new clothes

The very small teddy with his new cable knit jumper and woolly shorts!  That is a dressing gown on the needles.
The patterns are from the booklets that came with the weekly edition packs. We started buying this back about 1997 - it was supposed to be 100 weekly installments costing $10 each. Then it wandered up to $14 or $15, and to even monthly intervals. AND THEN - when it got to 100 installments it kept going for another 25 installments...

It took YEARS to collect!

All up these five boxes of kit must have cost about $1,500 (I could have had a REAL bathroom for that price!). Sadly - or surprisingly! - I am missing only one installment (somewhere in the mid 50s). It is the one that has quilting in the booklet, too. I don't know what part of the house is missing.

Below is a photo of the booklet front page. It was developed by Del Prado, originally it seems from Spain, but then from the UK. Each installment came with a part of the house, instructions on how to construct said part, and a 6 or 8 page booklet that went together to compile a whole book about all sorts of aspects of dolls' house stuff.
Sometimes the wooden bit would be a chair, or a dresser, or half a wardrobe with the other half the following week (fortnight....month...sigh), or a piece of wall, floor, ceiling. Absolutely impossible to construct really until all the pieces were acquired!

Fortunately I DID get a ring binder with separators for each of the construction instructions to keep them orderly.
However, all the other bits are supposed to go into binders to make into about 6 different books. Don't have them, haven't been able to source them online either.
Nor did we get the transformer for the electricals - lighting etc. But that is probably cos it would have been different wiring or even voltage if it originated in Spain. But do have all the tiny light fittings and bulbs etc.

Cover of doll's house booklet

The bottom right hand house is similar to the one I am making. Mine has a narrower hallway in the centre rather than rooms, is two storied with two more rooms in the attic.

So far I have got the bottom left hand room done, and the downstairs hall as well as some of the dear little furniture. It is really lovely silly fun!

right side with new shelves

Oh will you just look at that!
Here is the photo from the top of the page that I thought was lost!
I am not going to risk trying to relocate it again...
This is the right hand pullout drawer/shelf unit. That is the pantry door in the background, and the sink is to the right, lounge area to the left on the other side of the unit.
It is high, high enough to lean on whilst entertaining guests on the other side and I am on the working side creating a meal!

And cheap as chips.
I bought this on eBay for about $80. It was a craftsman-built unit, solid timber as well as classy veneer (not crappy chipboard and plastic!) - weighs a tonne!

I thought I was immensely clever to think of upcycling one of those redundant units (or two of them really!).

Apologies if this is difficult to read and with a messier than messy layout. Suck it up. Next entry will be better I promise - I am at The Sweetheart's on the eccentric notebook to add insult to injury!

Pantry Upcycling...

My pantry was appalling when I moved in. The previous owner seems to have closed the door on it about 1990 and hoped it would all go away.
There were exploded and rusted jars and tins that had dripped all over what were once rather nice WIDE pine shelving. It didn't smell too bad (!?) but was all blackened and sticky - like molasses over every shelf.
So we just hauled it all out and burned the lot.
There was also a great pit in the centre of the floor with a mud brick wall beside it and a hole in the wall to outside. The idea being that the hole was filled with water, air rushed in through the hole from outside and cooled the pantry. All I could see where teams of snakes, bush rats and spiders marching in...
So the Smellies and I filled it all in.

Since then the pantry has had a mish mash of shelves made from planks and besser bricks, and old pine dressers. The dressers are lovely, but impractial really.
The room isn't at all antechinus proof. Nor mouse proof...though the antechinuses mostly keep the mickey mice down totally cos they are such lovely carnivorous little marsupials.

So this is what it all looks like when you open the door:

It now has a bricked floor but is very messy. There isn't enough storage. It needs seriously sorting.

Am also VERY inspired by Poppytalk! Check that lovely pantry with it's baskets and golden shelves. (Country Living, Photo: Keith Scott Morton)


The other week I had a brilliant idea for cupboards.
I am upcycling old timber TV cabinets.
This sort of thing on eBay.
(If that link has expired think about those pine uglies with a big gap in the centre for the tv, and with glass doors either side, a shelf or two for DVD player and VCR, and some cupboards or drawers at the bottom for vids, cables that belong to nothing, old dvd covers without their contents
Everyone (else, ha ha) has WIIIIIDE screen tvs now.
Consequently, they are flogging off their monstrosities for peanuts.
Incredibly cheap cupboards and shelving!!!
I bought one yesterday for $110. It is 2400 long and the pantry is 2400 square. So that is one wall taken care of!

Off to pick it up today.

That is my Friday Flaunt - my brilliant greeny idea!!!!