As you know, I’ve had my house in Fentonbury up for sale since December. We came within a whisker of having it sold but the sale fell through, partly due, no doubt, to the fact that the place was rented out and looked like one of those houses that bring down values in a neighbourhood.

You know the type: long grass, overgrown bushes, 5 cars parked all over the yard plus various motorbikes, quad bikes and trailers, a caravan (naturally), a trampoline and swingset, a loose dog, loud music echoing across the valley, a cloud of suspicious smelling smoke emanating from behind the shed, black plastic on the windows of said shed, a worm farm on the front porch and a dead wallaby decomposing in the back yard…. and that’s on a good day!

Now the house is empty I’ve been working towards making it pretty again. Last week Merrill helped me take up some furniture, and today Wayne started trimming bushes in the yard. It was overgrown before. Now its like the Big Bush Massacre of 2012.

I tried to explain, there’s a fine line between pruning and killing.

He insists he knows what he’s doing.

Hm.

Anyway, I thought I’d share some photos of the house now. Besides the furniture I have on loan from Rosie at 20th Century Artifacts in New Norfolk and the items Merrill has loaned me, I pretty much used what I had.

So… first tour, the dining room. Its the first room you enter when you enter the house. This room, as well as the living room, bathroom and hallway, were all wood panelled after I bought the house. The paint colour in here is Dulux Vast Escape.

The table is an old 60s table which we had in our kitchen when I was growing up. When I moved out Mom gave it to me. It went from Griffith, NSW to Athens, Greece, back to Australia to Melbourne and now to Tasmania. Its a pretty well travelled table.

The chairs came from a 2nd hand shop in Melbourne many years ago. Since the colour scheme of the day is deep red, I bought a dark red table runner and red roses for the table.

The curtains were recycled from Merrill’s house to Wind Dancer’s guest room to here. Swapping curtains is another hobby of mine…

My collection of white vases comes in handy as display on the built-in bookcase. A couple of my wildlife paintings to add a bit of colour and an old fan, some old books and an egg basket full of balls of twine add a touch of interest.

The fireplace was painted grey when I bought the house, but I stripped off the paint to expose the original brickwork. The brown over the fireplace is Dulux Columbia and matches the feature wall in the living room.

The bookshelf next to the armchair holds some board games (cause I love playing on quiet evenings at home) and some art books. I added a lamp stand with a bare light bulb. I found this at the tip shop yesterday and love the height of it next to the armchair.

I needed a bit more colour in that spot and I had a basket… I went outside to where Wayne was hacking up a holly bush and grabbed some twigs…

 Some old books, a couple of jars of walnuts (why not?) and old kitchen scales complete the bookshelf.

That’s all for now. I gotta get some sleep! Stay tuned for the kitchen – coming next!

 z