FINISHED!!!!!!!!!

You know how you watch those renovation reality TV programmes, and theres a furious amount of work happening in a short amount of time, people are crying, throwing things and all stressed out!! well.... guess what we've been doing!!! exactly that... well to be fair, not EXACTLY that, but enough of that that we are really really glad to be where we are right now.

Carport = FINISHED!!! That was a major, half of it happened in the rain - that was fun.  Washing line in, Garden shed reclad and painted. all the doors hung, door handles done, window latches done. furniture moved in and the house has been dressed! This was a GRIND.  One day at a time, one task at a time.  At times it felt like those silent comedy movies that play funny music while people zip around in fast forward.  I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with how its all come together. Such hard hard work!! After 5 hours of cleaning today - I hope you enjoy looking at these photos as much as i do!!

a bit manic

We have been blowing through the list of things to do.  Ive got my stride on, along with warm socks - summer is almost over proper.  We lit the fire the other night. Funny how quickly time can pass.  

All these little jobs take up quite a bit of time, run over here and paint that, while its drying, fix up this, attach that then go back for a second coat of paint.  It feels sometimes like chasing yourself round and round, but jobs are being crossed off left right and centre, so we must be making progress.

We have about 1 week left and then we are FINISHED! What?! Thats right. Completeo.  Just one last week of renovating.  It feels a bit unreal that we might be finished soon.  

I put off painting the exterior window for SO long.  These are before photos, they did need quite a bit of sanding! thank goodness that jobs over now!

Shutters are on! Exciting!

Tick Tick Tock

The list is getting shorter! 

The weather is so nice. Im outside painting exterior windows today. Lovely!

smoke alarms up

Laundry Cabinets in

One side of the exterior windows done

Door hung and handles on

Cabinet handles on!

The Calendar

A photo-less Day! As part of my excellent list making - i threw all the jobs onto a calendar - titled  Calendar of Doom.  Not really.  But we are on the Final Countdown.

There are a whole lot of little jobs to be done, latches for windows, new door handles, smoke alarms, cupboard handles.  Ive taken to filling up the trailer with junk to come on home, with the school holidays starting next week, I'm going to be on kid patrol AND finekity little job doings.  BUT! in the second week...... in-laws are coming! which means - kids get grandparent time, and maybe just maybe, Reilly and i will get to have some time out too!!!

aaaannnndddd.... she's BACK!

OH LORD! do i hate being sick!  Nurses make the worst patients. Honestly.

Usually when i get sick, i tough it out - suck it up - carry on. blah blah. then reilly gets sick - and it annoys the CRAP out of me when he wants to lie around in bed. Im supremely unsympathetic.

So to bite me in the ass, i got sick. So sick all i wanted to do was lie myself down somewhere, preferably dark and warm, and sleep!

Instead i drugged myself to the eyeballs and went and slapped a coat of poly on the floors yesterday morning.  I crashed and burned afterwards, but at least i got something done!

Last night i started to feel like the world wasn't ending, and this morning i woke up and wanted to write a list! if only list writing and crossing off was an olympic sport! Gold medal winner right here!

So - in the end two coats of poly have gone on the floor (Reilly did the second coat because he's good like that).  Then TODAY i got the tiles down on the laundry floor.  what fun!

Making a decision and sticking with it

Today was challenging.  I'm sick! Boo Hoo Me.  I guess its my turn.  Unfortunately, you don't always get the luxury of lying in bed and getting better - so - into the house it was.

The day went like this:
Sanding, sanding sand sand sand - then scrape a bit. Sit back and have a cough.  Listen to RNZ and have a good laugh - then cough again.

Wash down walls and kitchen and every other dust ridden part of the house - dust was in every cupboard, every nook and every cranny.  We had an air gun on the compressor so that was quite fun to use and useful for the blinds.

Go out and find some stain to stain the floor.  Originally i wanted to stain the floors BLACK.  Im in love with black floors.  Then we sanded and it was such a lot of work.  People tell you (at Bunnings and Mitre 10) that colouring a timber floor is a sacrilege.  So we decided to just polyurethane.  But i didn't love that idea.  So today i compromised with a dark brown stain.  I got it on quickly so that no one could change their minds!

I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!  Sanded with nothing on it, it was going to be way too much wood.  But this..... this is so good. Its sic! well. I'm sick.  Ive come home and pilled on clothing, had a hot drink and now i need to get in a hot bath.  I have to feel better tomorrow - its polyurethaning day!

Dusty!

We hit it yesterday.  Some parts went really well, other parts not so great.  Overall we're really glad we're doing it ourselves, but this is definitely one of those jobs you would consider paying someone else to do!



The kitchen was particularly difficult with some kind of glue clogging up the sander every 2 seconds.  I spent about an hour scraping away and only doing about 30cm before i was ready to throw in the towel.  Luckily Reilly had a trick, went and got an attachment for the grinder and away he went.  Ive still got quite a bit of sanding left to do.  So thats me today. Joy!

Getting back into it

Slowly!!

Were being kind to ourselves.  So were not doing anything too taxing today.  Thank goodness!  While we were in hospital we had the driveway done! its so much better! Half a day and BOOM! Reilly pegged it out, came back later, and it was all taken care of.  Thats pretty exciting.  It need a good rain to wash it down.  Carport will go at the end next weekend.


Today we went there and levelled out some of the lawn with some of the scrapped off driveway top soil, it seems like it wouldn't take long, but in fact it took a good few hours.  I got the easy job of sowing the lawn seed.  Inside i went around and prepped the floor ready for sanding, thats a crapper of a job, crawling around on hands and knees nail punching and filling.  But its all done now, and Reilly and i are heading in tomorrow to sand the floors - alone - kids are staying home with my brother and his partner so they won't be any where near the dust.  Respiratory illness is no laughing matter!  Im very excited to see the 'after' photos to these befores!

Practicing being grateful

Ive been busy over the last week learning some very important life lessons.  There have been quite a few times where I've looked up at the sky and said 'Really'? Universe/Karma/God?

But in the end, I'm overflowing with gratitude.  Our baby is on the mend, after 5 nights in intensive care, he's turned a corner and its a big deal.  and i feel overwhelmingly lucky, lucky to have so many friends and family who have helped, txt, called, dropped off food, coffee and hugs.

There was one particular night, i was sitting on my front steps at 1am waiting for my sister in law to arrive and stay with the kids while i went back into the hospital because he was deteriorating quickly. It was dark, the stars were out and it was very still.  I haven't had any reason to pray in the last few years, and i thought maybe that would help, fear is a great inspirer.  But i couldn't, it seemed hypocritical and cliche.  So instead i talked to my mum... to my nan and grandad... and to Neroli.  I wasn't looking for a miracle cure, i was covering my bases, its horrible to think of it now, but i wanted them close - so that if we lost him, i would know that he wouldn't be alone.

We are so lucky to live in New Zealand.  I know there are a lot of people who have hard luck hospital stories, but we have had one of the most amazing experiences where across the board people have used all of their knowledge, skill and expertise to pull our little guy through.

So, in the end, its about having an attitude of gratitude.  We're lucky, and we really know it.

Update

Sometimes life is long..... but sometimes its not.  Ive been reminded of this over the last few days.  There are experiences that you have that force you to change, and I'm not saying that i needed this, but I'm definitely focusing on being grateful.  Our wee fighter, Noah is just 8, but he's the hardest working strongest little dude i know.  We are heading into 3 nights in ICU.  That sounded so scary to me, but the reality is, if you need ICU, it can be a very very safe place.  Noah has an type of pnenumonia that can go undetected and cause an acute onset of asthma.  Breathing is something we pretty much take for granted, until you start counting the breaths that someone you love is taking, and boy did he have to work for it.  He's stabilised and he's improving, apparently not enough yet to be let out of ICU, but he's coming back to us.  Some people like to say that we have a crap health system, that its messed up, useless.  But thats not been our experience AT ALL.  As i sat with Noah over the last few days its become apparent that we are incredibly lucky in New Zealand to have a free health care system that is able to respond immediately when you need it to.  At one point there were 3 doctors and a team of 4 nurses working away helping Noah, they escalated him when he needed it and we have been lucky enough to have eyes on him almost continuously.  We are really really lucky, he's not quite out of the woods, but he's definitely on the road to recovery.  Happy actual princess birthday was spent with our boy Noah, and today - happy wedding anniversary me and Reilly has been spent, with a little bit of sleep and a whole lot of 'we got this babe'.  So from us to all of you - we're holding it together. Tired, but in light of everything - doing pretty good.