This post is long overdue. The last year has been quite a year. We've had a home, sold 2 homes, became homeless, found a home, lived with no electricity, no tiolet, all in one room, lived with renovations for much longer than we had planned, flooded our temporary accomodation, became homeless yet again, had to split the family up (it's alot to ask someone to take on 6 of us with a moments notice), moved back into our home, lived with more renovations.....and finally are done. For now. Dont get me wrong, there is still sooooo much to be done. But for us... we need a break. So for now , we are done, and broke, and done. We are still constantly doing DIY's around the house ourselves, but we have to save again for stage 2 of the next lot of renovations. Dont ask what stage 2 is, we dont know yet. This house needs alot of work.
Anyway, I've finally gotten around to posting some pics of our house on the day we found it. As soon as we saw it i was pretty sure it was the one! The Mr....not so sure. You can see the look of doubt on his face in the photos....
This is the front door which walks directly into the lounge room. Well, now it's a loungeroom. Not sure what kind of room the prevoius owner considered it...a study mabey, guessing by the 2 desks, the bookshelf and the lack of any other furniture bar an old white couch.
(the above view is from the kitchen)
I probably should tell you that our house is made entirely from wood. I mean ENTIRELY. there are at least 3 kinds of wood in this house. Cedar, jarrah, pine, vj....
It's not much unlike the little piggy who's house was made of sticks. I am sure if you blew hard enough it could just possibly blow down. Heres the view from the hallway looking into the lounge room. The kitchen is to your far left, the bathroom to my near left and theres a bedroom on your right and just behind me.
These are the two bedrooms downstairs. the stuff is all from the prevoius owner, not our stuff. Being entirely made of wood, the house is constantly dark, even in the middle of the day. You have to turn on almost every light in the house. Constantly.
This is the kitchen. The photo makes it look wider than it actually is.
The pantry is a walk in pantry, and that door to the left leads to the worst set out laundry i've ever seen!
If you walk through the kitchen it leads you to this sitting room facing the backyard. in this pic you can see into the kitchen on your left. The stairs lead up to 2 more bedrooms upsatirs. And theres a bar on the right.
Behind me are some fantastic glass doors leading to the backyard. Heres our pool. It's a 15 meter lap pool, but it's been VERY neglected. And YES, it's actually that green.
The upstairs bedroom, the main bedroom has a walk-in-wardrobe with really bad shelving in it. But it does have a great balcony overlooking the pool. You can walk through the ensuit bathroom into the other room.
But my fave is the downsrtairs bathroom we spoke of before. O.M.G.
It is bad.
The door opens onto the sink. It hits the sink everytime. The shower is a monstrosity. And the tiolet is a wood box. A WOOD BOX!
(just look at the disbelief on the Mr's face )
So, it may be at this point that your wondering what kind of crazy i must be to have fallen in love with this house straight away. Lets just say that i am very good at seeing the potential in most things. Call me crazy, but i knew i could make it into something beautiful.
We have ALOT of work to do on this place. We renovated the kitchen, the bathroom, the stairs and TJ's room, and painted everything, but after months of renovating we ran out of money. So now we are back to saving again and doing lots of projects ourselves. AS you can imagine, with 4 kids, things get hectic, and we can only get so much done. I will continue to post updates on our house and share with you the changes we've made, our DIY projects and our mistakes and lessons we've learned. This was my first time doing all this, so it's been quite a learning experience for me. I would love to hear any advive, tips or tricks anyone has on renovating, saving, DIY ideas.....whatever!
cheers
Zina, if anyone can turn this "frog" into a "Prince" its you...one flick of your magic wand (and a whole lotta work, so okay maybe a few flicks!) and you will have yourself an artistic masterpiece perfect for your family! Always remember "Home is where the heart is" - you will be all over it, can't wait to share your journey along the way, Lee x
Posted by: Lee Mills | September 27, 2011 at 07:11 AM
Thanks Lee! Weve done soooo much already and it rally does look like a totally different place. Im gonna try and start posting some before and afters on a more regular basis. Would love any suggestions along the way! Xx. Z
Zina Zraikat
Posted by: zina | September 27, 2011 at 07:47 AM
People are going to be amazed by the 'afters' you've already achieved...incredible!
x
Posted by: Roz James | September 27, 2011 at 08:20 PM