small changes make the world of difference

Posted on February 15, 2015 by zefiart

I really do love the way the porch is looking these days. The potato vine I planted a couple of years ago has taken off and is threatening to swallow up the whole house, but it provides a calm spot to sit and read in dappled shade during the times when the sun normally sends you scurrying inside.

My various pots and containers with succulents and one pink geranium (I may be greek but I’ve never been a really big geranium fan) are all doing well.

I bought a couple of outdoor setting cushions for the adirondack chairs a friend made for us and they’re way more comfy and inviting.

Of course, we have to bring them in when we finish our ‘front porch sitting’.

Not cause of the dogs. Its the birds that worry us most.

We don’t call it the poop deck for nothing!

My plan is that one day we’ll put a roof over the back porch as well, making it more usable in all weather and a good spot for hot summer afternoons.

When that happens we’ll still have this little corner where roofing will be a challenge. I’m not worried. I’m thinking more trellis, a pink climbing rose I’m growing from a tiny cutting, and we’ll have an ‘arbour’ area at the corner of the porch.

How pretty will that be?

Or… I could go all Greek and put in a grape vine…

I have time… The rose is too little to go in the ground till spring and it’ll be at least a year before its tall enough to need support above the rail. I have till then to find a way to convince Wayne we need a roof on that side of the porch.

PS I apologise to geraniums for my earlier comments. I had no idea they come in so many varieties and colours. Thanks to Google, I’m now re-evaluating my stance on geraniums and will most likely become a staunch supporter of them in the future.

busy bees

Posted on January 7, 2015 by zefiart

When I say ‘busy bees’, I mean real bees, not me. I’m lying around the house trying not to move and work up a sweat in the heat.

And not to put strain on my aching ribs which have put a limit on the amount of oxygen I can pull into my lungs at any given time…

Do you have bumble bees where you are? We do. I’d never seen these bees till I came to live in Tasmania. They’re big and round and drone kind of like the Boeing 747 of the bee world.

Have I mentioned I love my new camera? Its a cherry red Nikon Coolpix L830 that I got almost new on ebay.

Have I mentioned I love ebay?

It has an incredible 30x optical zoom (incredible when I had a 3x with my old camera). Its very handy when you want to take pics of animals in the distance. Like the geese.

Of course, full zoom needs a tripod or you just get blur, but I have one of those. A Velbon tripod, in great condition.

I got it on ebay.

Naturally.

Did I mention we’re one goose down? We had three geese originally, they had 3 babies. Two girls and one boy.

Unfortunately one of the girls got into the yard before Christmas and the dogs killed her.

I was really upset. But to be fair, they did leave her when I called them. It was just too late. They’d already broken her neck and she died in my arms.

Wayne and I buried her near the dam.

Everyone said “Why didn’t you eat her? She’d have made a great Christmas dinner”…

How could we? She was our goose. She wasn’t bred to eat.

One of our new chickens is going broody. She’s trying to nest in a sky box in the chicken coop. No forethought on her part. I mean, what’ll happen to any chicks she has soon as they step out of the box?

Splat.

Anyway, we’ve been taking her eggs and she’s been getting increasingly cranky about it. Wayne thought that maybe we should just catch her and let her go broody in Stalag 13*. That way any chicks won’t have to skydive before they can walk, and will be less likely to be crow food.

I’m not sure I want chicks.

We have 4 chickens and currently get 4 eggs a day. Its hard for us to keep up with that. Sure, with the new law saying that people with under 20 chickens can sell eggs without going through all kinds of regulations and stamping of eggs, which cancelled out the previous new law which made it illegal to sell home laid eggs without accreditation, we can sell our eggs to support our chicken habit…

But having chicks means getting roosters as well as hens.

And that means we have to make a decision: what do we do with the roosters? We can’t drive them up the highway and dump them on the side of the road like so many people do. We can’t bribe people to take them, or smuggle one into every visitor’s bag as they’re leaving.

We can’t eat them cause by the time we know they’re roosters they’ll have names.

Sheesh.

Mom was wrong. I’d never make a good farmer’s wife!

*Stalag 13: Original dog kennel on the property when we bought it. Its been used to incarcerate escape artist dogs, house roosters (given to us by a friend for the pot, and accepted by Wayne who thought ‘no worries’ then found he couldn’t kill and eat them cause “they were cute”), and raise various clutches of ducklings to save them from aforementioned crows. I was considering converting it to a green house for winter, but hey, winter is months away and who needs a green house in summer?

anatomy of a fall

Posted on January 6, 2015 by zefiart

I’m feeling a bit better this afternoon. The pain killers no doubt helped some. I think I’ll live.

On one of my short breaks from the ugly purple recliner I thought I’d take some photos for you.

These are the culprit tyres.

And this is a diagramatic re-enactment.

I don’t care if that’s not a real word.

Ouch.

Imagine me lying on my side, elbow bent underneath me bottom left, my feet up between the two tyres. Not a pretty sight. Luckily no one around with a smartphone.

Please note the gravelly clay soil. Much like cement.

On the upside, I’m getting to catch up on computer and mobile phone stuff… On the downside I’m not crossing things off my never-ending-renovation-To-Do-List.

Speaking of smartphones, did I mention my new mobile phone? New to me anyway.

I had an el cheapo mobile phone which I bought when I lost my old mobile about 4 years ago. It cost me something like $75. It was simple. Took calls, made calls. Took photos which were impossible to see on the tiny screen, and refused to open multimedia messages.

I’d been wanting a new phone for a while. Not a long time, but I was getting there.

Then one day I ran over my old phone.

I swear, I did not do it on purpose! Many won’t believe that, but I swear its true.

In fact I have no idea how my mobile ended up on the other side of the driveway, near the gate.

Anyway, while lamenting my ~~carelessness~~ great loss on FB (as you do) cause I was going through an especially broke stage and couldn’t afford a new phone… and at a time when my grooming work should have been booming, but wasn’t, due to a lack of aforementioned roadkill phone…

… someone offered me an old phone.

Its a 2 year old Huawei Ascend and its my first ever smartphone.

A steep learning curve which I’m enjoying.

I am ever so grateful.

I am a big believer in doing good for people cause good will come to you from unexpected sources. I’m always giving things away to people who want or need them rather than sell them for personal gain. I’ve never been a “what’s in it for me” person.

Then, when I need something, someone kind will give me what I need.

Like a mobile phone. Or old carpet, or a doona cover.

So I’ve spent today working on a logo design, editing and cropping photos, cleaning up files on my computer, learning about apps and figuring out how to fix an “insufficient storage” error on the phone.

Anyway, I leave you with a couple of pretty pics of the tyre embankment which shows that one day, this will be a pretty wall of plants and not just a row of tyres.

no longer an ugly duckling

Posted on January 5, 2015 by zefiart

You’ve come a long way baby!

(Does anyone remember the Virginia Slims ad? or am I just too old?)

I am loving my home. I get so much enjoyment out of stepping out the door onto our front porch and just looking at it and the garden. Sure, the back deck (or the poop deck as its affectionately known) is still a mess, it really needs a roof and bird evictions, and there’s still a healthy farm-like amount of crap around the place… but its home and its becoming beautiful – and I love it.

We went from this:

To this:

What’s not to love?

You can read more about the before and afters here.

Here is the back deck, unpainted, exposed… I have plans for that… one day… till then I pretend I can’t see it.

The deck is welcoming and cosy now. The potato vine has gone bezerk and provides dappled shade in one small area.

Soon the pale yellow banksia roses on the trellis should also hide the water tanks on the left. And once the potato vine spreads a little more to both sides there’ll be more shade in the afternoons.

The plan is that when we roof the back deck we’ll just put more trellis on the corner and make it sort of like an arbour area where you can sit in dappled sunlight with plants growing around you. Perhaps a pink banksia rose… I’d love a purple potato vine but they’re not so hardy, and I’d love a jasmine but I’ve killed two of them so far.

Maybe I’ll stay away from them.

Ah… home. In this pic you can almost not see the bare spots on the ~~weeds~~ lawn where I sprayed Roundup. As I keep saying, if it wasn’t for weeds we’d have no green.

There is still much to do but at least I can say I’ve managed to do something over the Christmas break. I finished painting the front of the house where we had bare timber from moving the kitchen windows. I undercoated the enclosed porch area ready to paint. And I put up my corner brackets, something I’d been planning to do for the last couple of years.

Now, if I wasn’t such a clutz I’d be out there painting today. Top coating the enclosed area and all the window surrounds.

Instead I’m sitting in the ugly purple recliner trying to move as little as possible.

Why you ask?

I was climbing ladders, on uneven ground, for days painting and screwing in brackets and I was fine.

All I did was water the embankment yesterday and I think I’ve cracked a rib.

I need to rethink riding again… I don’t think I should get on anything with its own feet. I can’t be trusted on my own two feet.

Let me explain: the embankment is made up of old tyres. A bit redneck but in the spirit of recycling, which I’m into big time. Its a steep embankment, impossible to walk up at the best of times. The other day I’d walked along the top tossing down the tyres from the top line that I thought were unnecessary.

Obviously, I didn’t put them out of the way or stack them nicely. I left them where they fell.

My bad.

So, while watering last night I was walking along the bottom of the embankment, a small channel which catches rainwater and directs it away from the house, when I tripped on one tyre, stepped back to get my balance and stepped on another, bounced off it and landed like a sack of potatos.

Hm… not quite. A sack of potatos keeps its shape.

I landed like a sack of potting mix. With a big splat, on my left side, on my left arm and on my ribs. My whole weight just kind of formed around and over my arm so that I had to kind of pry myself up.

After I’d caught my breath… ie about 3 minutes of moaning and groaning in pain.

It probably took me 5 minutes to stand up and pick up the hose again. I’d been lying in the ditch of course so of course I was covered in mud.

Like a trooper, I kept watering. It had to be done, right?

Then I went into the house and sooked to Wayne while I changed and washed the gravel off my arm.

The elbow is bruised but doesn’t hurt. In fact, the right elbow (which was nowhere near the squash zone) still hurts more than the left, but the bruising is impressive.

Its my ribs that hurt. And the weight of my left breast. Youch. (Wayne kindly offered his support. Pun intended.)

I can breath but deep breaths hurt and moving hurts.

Wonderful.

I’ve had broken ribs before. Many times.

You don’t want to know.

There’s nothing to be done but rest and patience. So, whether its soft tissue damage or a broken rib, I just have to wait it out.

Wonderful.

I still have a week off work and I had so much to do.

NOT happy Jan.

PS. I watch too much TV and have a head full of quotes and movie trivia.

step by step, we’re getting there

Posted on December 7, 2014 by zefiart

Our home may not be beautiful and neat, but one thing I can say for it… it has character. Like the side of the garage where some previous owner thought ‘what the hell, you can’t see this side from the gate’ and stopped painting it blue. And all the rusty bits of metal leaned up against the corner to stop the dogs from excavating all my plants in pursuit of some critter burrowed under the shed.

The foxgloves Ginny gave me are so tall I’ve had to stake them, and the lobelia and alyssum are looking great…

I hadn’t posted for a few days as I haven’t really had much to share. I’ve been busy with work and haven’t put any time into doing anything creative worth sharing. However, things are slowly moving along. I’ve had my trusty helper come out and do some of the heavy lifting for me so things are coming together in the yard.

For one thing, he’s put a brick border along the footpath to stop the blue metal (gravel) from falling onto the path and then into the ‘lawn’.

(I use the word loosely.)

I love the neat new look. Maybe it needs a brick border on the other side too?

You can see the tyre wall is coming along too.

Another view of the tyre wall from the garage to the front gate and our wonky wood shed. We figure about 3 more loads of tyres and we’re onto the next phase: soil and pinebark. I’ve already got some plants in the tyres down the front end, I need a whole lot more to fill the whole wall.

I’ve had my trusty helper put carpet down along the path between the house and driveway retaining wall. That area has always been a problem. Some of it has blue metal and the rest had weeds… almost impossible to mow with all the gravel mixed into the grass. This way no more weeds and I can buy more gravel to put on top of the carpet. You can’t really see it in the pic but there’s another brick border to hold in the gravel at the far end of the walkway.

We put carpet skirts around the trees we planted in the paddock as well. I told Wayne I was over weeds and planned to carpet the entire yard. He was not impressed.

We also put up a bit more wire for the potato vine and sweet peas to grow up. The garden is beginning to look really nice.

Well… except for the weeds where the lawn should be and the bare patches where I poisoned weeds…

I got a pleasant surprise the other day. This plant grew in one of the garden beds and I had no idea what it was. I wasn’t even sure if it was a weed or not. But since I didn’t recognise it as a weed I let it grow and voila! Its a delphinium!

I’d bought delphinium seeds a couple of years ago and not a single one grew. I think I tossed the soil from the empty pots in this area and look what grew!

I’m loving the way gardens can surprise you like that. This is a new thing for me. Mostly things I put in the garden surprise me by disappearing.

Meanwhile we had to do an emergency operation on the hardenbergia and azalea corner… another critter living behind them I guess, cause I came home to find dirty dogs and the plants almost ripped out. Its a pity cause both of them had just started to take off.

When I bought the azalea Patrice was all ‘oh, you’ll kill it’ and I was on track to prove her wrong. Hopefully no permanent damage was done.

A rickety cage made of a dog pen side, some old trellis, bits of wood and tied together with hay bale twine… add the tyre wall… a bit white trashy huh?

Oh well.

I’ll just call it the ‘Make Do’ culture. I’m recycling and using what I have on hand.

And I have a LOT of hay bale twine…

homestead news

Posted on November 21, 2014 by zefiart

Summer is on its way down under and the grass is growing at lightening speed (except for all the bald patches on our ‘lawn’ where I poisoned all the weeds). The vegetable patch is starting to produce stuff.

Strawberries actually. Only strawberries. This is my first bowl from the garden. They’re the sweetest tastiest strawberries I’ve ever had!

Last weekend I lay straw around the strawberry plants to stop them growing on the ground and keep them slightly above slug dining level. And Matthew and I made a frame and put up bird netting. We used scrap wood which we cut up as stakes, then tied some thin old moulding (which had been left in the yard by the previous owner) to create a cage. We used hay bale twine to tie it all together.

Very pretty. In a redneck kind of way.

Then we put flat head nails down the side of the garden box so we can hook the net down tight.

A good job I think. Today’s strawberry crop was less chewed on than the odd strawberry I’d been picking lately.

This morning while I groomed, Matthew came around again to do a bit more work on the tyre wall and I got him to move the poor abused pussy willows to a better spot. Here they are at the side of the casita, to the left of the vegetable garden. Five of the seven I’d originally had.

Those poor trees have had the roughest time in their short lives. Firstly, they were just sticks I cut off the trees I had in Fentonbury before I moved here. Pussy willows will grow from sticks. I’d originally put them in the ground just below the dam.

Our dam is spring fed and it leaks. I wanted something to take up some of that water.

We put some electric fence up around them to keep the horses out and they grew for a while.

Then we had to move the electricity to another fence (you know, we play games with it, some days this fence is on, some days that one’s on… it amuses us), the horses got in and gave them a haircut.

We put the fence back on and they grew again.

Then we needed to dam shored up so we dug them out and moved them to a spot on the far side of the back paddock, near the creek. Plenty of moisture there too.

We put up posts and tied electric fence wire around it to keep the horses out. They looked like they died for a while, but then they came back. The trees, not the horses.

The horses realised the fence wasn’t on and they gave them another haircut.

We gave up. They were just sticks with roughly chewed ends for a long time. Then this spring they got new growth.

The other day I was thinking how I want more trees in the yard but we don’t actually have anywhere to put them, and it dawned on me that I could plant trees outside the vegetable garden, outside our yard… and that I could still enjoy them there.

Best of both worlds. The trees won’t stop the sun on the vegie patch, only in the late afternoon. They’ll give us a bit of a screen from the road and the house opposite us way down there. And once they’re grown enough they’ll also provide a bit of a wind break and give the horses a bit more shelter.

So today Matthew dug them up and planted them for the third time.

Third time lucky don’t they say?

We put up another fake electric fence with lots of wire and stakes and even angled posts to keep it strong.

Fingers crossed this time.

work in the garden progresses

Posted on October 30, 2014 by zefiart

Its spring, and despite the wierd weather we’ve been having lately (high winds, rain, snow) things are blooming. I love this time of year. I never thought I’d be the type of person who got pleasure out of watching things come out of the ground, but here I am. I love walking around the yard looking to see what flowered since I last looked at it.

The only foxgloves I managed to grow from the seeds I got from a friend not only grew, but thrived in a spot next to the garage. They’re almost as tall as I am now.

The sweet peas I put in last year (in a large pot) not only didn’t die off over winter, they have grown and spread. I had to add another section of wire for them to grow up on the porch rail.

Now, I don’t really like red, yellow or orange flowers… in my garden. I do like them sometimes… just… not in my garden… But seems nature is bent on adding red to my colour palette so, although I won’t actively plant red, orange or yellow flowers, I’ll accept the ones that just turn up. Like the red sweet peas.

These are the colours I usually buy. Like these nemesias. Pretty.

And these reedy things. No idea what they’re called. I bought them this afternoon from an old lady who sells plants on the street outside her home sometimes. She did tell me the name, they come in white, yellow and orange as well. I got these for the embankment.

Speaking of the embankment… did I mention that long, steep embankment we have on the side of our driveway, where the dirt is as hard as cement?

Yep. I put in some succulents and they have managed to cling on for dear life and even grow. But then, so did the weeds.

I’ve wanted to do something about that embankment since we moved in here, but its such a large area it would be way too expensive to tier or use things like retaining wall blocks etc. The only thing I could think of using which was cheap (free) was tyres.

But Wayne hates tyres. To him they signify white trash.

To me, empty beer cans or bottles in the yard signify white trash… not to mention 4000 cars, some on blocks, trucks and a couple of old boats… we all have our opinions, right?

Anyway, I’m all for recycling and free, so I won in the end. We are lining the wall with old tyres.

This is the plan:

lay down weed matting on the entire wall, leaving enough space at the bottom to allow for re-digging the drainage trench. And enough room on the top for another drainage trench.
put tyres on the weed mat
put topsoil in the tyres and pine bark in the gaps and on top of the topsoil
put plants in the tyres
create an an oasis of colour and limiting weeds while stopping erosion

This is how far we’ve gotten so far.

There’s still a section of weed mat to put down, then we have to go pick up the rest of the tyres.

Meanwhile, some of the plants I put into the inhospitable ground were growing well and are now waiting for some topsoil in their tyres.

Love this little guy. When I put him in he was about 1/3 the size. And the little pink thing just came and joined him all by itself.

Meanwhile, since I’m on the subject of garden, tyres and flowers, I’ve developed an aquilegia obession. Granny’s bonnets or columbines to some people.

My purple and white ones are going crazy. I got them from seeds I took from a plant in Merrill’s place a few years ago and its where my obsession started.

These are lime white which I bought as seeds at the hardware store. Took them two years to come up.

I’m waiting for my mauve and pinks to come up. My double white are starting to bloom as well. And the old lady I got the pink plants from dug this little double purple beauty for me. Hopefully it lives.

Since I don’t do anything by halves… I’m taking my obsession quite seriously. I’ve started stalking local gardens for types and colours I don’t have. And I don’t have many types… yet…

That means a lot of stalking.

Old ladies are starting to double bolt their doors when they see me coming.

Here are some photos I took in the garden of one nervous old lady who’s door I knocked on. She promised to keep me some seeds, though she said her son had taken some that came to nothing. But I learned through my research that there are varieties you can only grow after putting the seeds in the fridge for a few weeks.

These one look similar to mine but they’re the giant variety and have long spurs plus are a lighter purple.

Have you noticed the lack of yellow and red?

Heheheh

I’m going to have a million varieties growing in my garden!

spring is in the air

Posted on September 26, 2014 by zefiart

This time of year I get a bug… the gardening bug. I just can’t help myself. Soon as the weather starts to turn nice I start buying plants. Or growing seeds. Or taking cuttings.

Things I probably should have done earlier in the year…

For the last month or so I’ve had a friend helping me to sort out the garden and even the driveway. I’ve been putting succulents in every kind of container I can find, like these old sieves, and a small watering can. They’ll look spectacular when they grow and fill out.

And how about these caddies I made out of old baking tins and stuff? I took them to a market, they didn’t sell, so I thought hey, why not use them as planters? They look much better now!

And of course there’s the collection on our front step. I got the old rooster cheap cause he was chipped, I put tiny succulents in tin cans, a Twinings tin, some bonsai pots, a coffee pot and of course, the wonderful ammo box.

I just love succulents. I tossed these little guys in a horrible, dry, rocky spot beside the garage where even weeds hestitated to grow. They’re looking wonderful with a few rusty bits around them.

I sure love my galvanised buckets.

The vegetable garden is starting to take shape. We now have one full bed of strawberries and one and a half of raspberries. The plan is to have 2 full beds of raspberries.

Other plants are taking off and flowering. I love my hardenbergia. Its going to make that little corner between two sheds look pretty and not neglected. I got a new azalea as well… hope that likes it there and I don’t just kill it like I do so many things…

If you’re wondering why the pots… well that area gets really wet in winter, so by cutting the bottom off the pot and putting the plant in above the ground I’m working on the theory that the plants won’t drown.

I got a valencia orange tree for my birthday. I’ve put it in a cheap pot for now and have planted a ton of pansies around it and another pot for some pretty colour.

And my gorgeous ornamental current is bushing up and smelling divine.

With M’s help I’ve put in some new cottage garden plants like foxgloves, my lupins are coming back and the columbines are close to blooming. We pulled out some plants which I didn’t like or didn’t like where I’d put them and relocated them. Most of them seem to be coping with the change.

We dug up some daffodils and snow drops from the bottom paddock and relocated them to the driveway. Yeah, wrong time of year for that, but the idea is to eventually have them blooming all along the driveway, not just in the bottom paddock.

I bought some gazanias and we went and dug up more from the road side where they grow wild. I figure anything that can grow wild should manage fine in my driveway.

We also got tons of african daisies to put along the embankment in the yard. That area needs some work before we can plant anything there, but that’s fine. One day I want an embankment full of pink and white daisies.

Life is looking good in the garden right now.

an outdoor firebox

Posted on September 10, 2014 by zefiart

This last weekend I did a little work in the garden.

Actually, I’ve been doing a little work in the garden for a couple of weeks now. The emphasis is on little… I’ve had a friend helping me and he’s been doing the heavy lifting. I’ve had him help me move some plants, put in new plants and prepare the vegetable patch for planting.

We have a cement slab in our yard which used to hold a water tank many years before we bought the place. Its just a useless concrete slab in between the house and the Hill Hoist (Australian icon, aka clothes line) which tends to collect ‘stuff’. You know the stuff I mean, the kind of stuff you think “I can’t be bothered taking that back to the right shed now, I’ll just leave it here…”

When we first moved here I asked Wayne to build a trellis there to block the view of the clothes line and water tanks. I had visions that the clematis and banksia roses I planted in front of it covering the trellis and providing a gorgeous screen.

Here are a couple of photos of the trellis from two years ago. First a view of from the clothes line towards the house.

Looking towards the corner of the casita – you can see the clothes line and one of the water tanks.

And looking back towards the house from the other side. The plants are more than double in size since then, but still nowhere near the gorgeous screen I envisaged.

Here are some pics taken on the weekend of the same area. In this one you can see the clothesline behind the trellis. You’ll also see the copper artwork I distressed to get the green patina. Its now garden art.

This spot is great for sitting and relaxing in the afternoons, once the sun heads down behind the trellis. You look over the middle paddock towards the hill, the dam and stable, back up the valley behind the house, and all the front yard. So, when Wayne decided to get rid of the big wood stove he had in the garage and asked if I wanted it as a garden ornament, I jumped at it. Its perfect for my little outdoor relaxing area.

What would an outdoor post from me be without horses and a gratuitous poodle in the shot?

The wood stove is heavy and very rusty. Just gorgeous. Wayne removed the door and side panels so you can see the rusty metal sides in all their glory. I put some potting mix in the box itself and put in some succulents. They’ll get full morning sun there but shade in the afternoon. I added some of my favourite pots: a once red bucket, a once red biscuit tin and an old jam pan. They’re filled with succulents as well. Only succulents will survive that position in pots in summer as it gets full sun almost all day long.

While I was at potting up succulents, I did a few more. Here’s another favourite of mine. The old mop bucket!

Oh boy, I used to hate those things when I was growing up.

I love spring. I love looking at the garden and seeing the flowers bloom and what new flowers pop up that I don’t remember putting in.

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then and now – the ugly house

Posted on May 16, 2014 by zefiart

I’ve been thinking about the amazing before and after photos on the blogs I follow. And the TV shows I like. They’re amazing. Even when I don’t particularly like the style, I see the amazing transformations and feel inspired and more than a little envious.

I mean the after rooms are always perfect, styled to within an inch of their lives, great colours, interesting mix of textures, fantastic furniture, creative vignettes… Magazine quality rooms.

I may occasionally be able to set up a perfect corner in my house to photograph, cropping out the mess of stuff I’ve had to move out of shot in order to create that corner of perfection. But I can never show you a complete finished and styled room.

Even if I finish a room (the only room here close to being finished is the kitchen!) I won’t have the right furniture. Or I’ll have a stack of things I have no real place for and that just don’t fit in. Or I’ll have clothes airers drying clothes in front of the wood heater (this place is like a chinese laundry all winter,)

So, in the spirit of sharing the progress of our home, from what it was when we first saw it, to how its looking right now, almost 3.5 years later, I decided to do a then and now series.

We’ve come a long way since we bought the farm… at least in some parts of the property. Its good to remember just how much has changed – for the better.

This is how the house looked when we bought it:

And this is what it looks like now:

When we bought it, there was a tiny little porch on the end near the driveway, with an outside toilet (the blue door):

We enclosed the tiny porch, making a mudroom, and bringing the toilet into the house:

Of course, the hot water cylinder (which used to be on a blank wall) was now on the porch:

So this year we moved it to the driveway side of the house:

We also enclosed the end of the porch to give us a dry zone and protect our boots from horizontal rain:

This is what the driveway side of the house looked like before:

Here it is after some painting and planting but before the hot water cylinder was moved and the retaining wall was put in.

What we’ve done:

Enclosed the tiny porch.
Added a big porch which we joined up to the small one on the back of the house.
Replaced the small kitchen window with a bigger one.
Planted flowers.
Painted the house.
Moved the hot water cylinder.
Levelled the driveway and put in a retaining wall along the side.
Replaced the trellis on the small back porch with slats to match the new porch railing.

Its been a long, meandering road.

Again, here is the house when we first bought it: