Today at my Jetty.

I can’t believe it’s winter. My house is cold at night but the days have been magnificent. The weather turned on its charm last weekend for the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. I was lucky enough to have some friends visiting and we sat outside until midnight sitting around the bonfire chatting about all sorts of things while the old timber from the renovations burned away before our eyes. I ate way too many toasted marshmallows, feeding my ever increasing craving for sugar (since giving up alcohol at the end of last year) This certainly didn’t stop the present company from having a bottle or two or three!!! The following day we rode our bikes to the beach and had breakfast by the sea. Heaven. Absolute heaven.

The renovations are going well. The builder has been great and in the four days we have been working we have managed to clad the driveway side of the house, fix a timber feature wall to the main bedroom and the newly formed third bedroom (former bathroom). Both second and third bedrooms now have built in wardrobes and doorway to the dining/kitchen has been opened up making the hallway look much more spacious. The plasterer is in the process of fixing the gyprock and the work should hopefully be finished ready for painting by the end of this week.

I have so so much painting to do! once i have the painting done I will photograph the finished rooms for my blog. In the meantime take a look at the progressive photos – not so glamorous but worthy of showing (exciting for me anyway).

I have had a dream, a business idea in the back of my mind for quite some time. I am in the process of investigation to see if I can make it happen. This could be the perfect extension of my “whispers from the jetty” journey. Time will tell.

Oh and by the way I must mention my new neighbours. They moved in about a month ago and they are just lovely. One of them is so friendly and I often find him wandering around inside my house if I happen to have the back door open. He just wants to say hello. His name is Roy! I am sure that one day Muffin and Roy will be best buddies, however right now Roy has learnt that cats are different to dogs and if you’re not bigger than they are the cat will bark back!

He is so cute!

Actually, winter has arrived. Today in fact is the first day of winter and chilly it is. My feet are like ice today. Probably not the most suitable time of year to strip the entire side off the house!

A couple of weeks ago we took on the challenge of demolishing the old bathroom. It was tough. Can you believe we found a whole gate in the concrete floor under the tiles??? Its unbelievable what people did in the past. No wonder the floor was so uneven!

Once the bathroom was completely removed, floor and all, the builder and I started working on turning that room into a bedroom. We put in new flooring, widened the room by building a new wall and included a space for a small wardrobe.

In order to complete the new cladding on the outside wall (after removing the wall to get the bathroom out), I had to strip the rest of the side of the house at the same time. So as I type, the guys are outside doing just that.

Asbestos removal is costly but needs to be done by the professionals. Once they have finished I will put the insulations batts in and cover with sarking, ready for the builder to come and do the cladding tomorrow. It’s a slow process and doing things in small stages is quite frustrating, but that’s just the way it is and the only way I can afford to do it. I am trying to do as much as I can myself, however most things need professional trades to do it properly. I also have the plasterer organised to finish the inside walls of the room at the end of the week. As a finishing touch to the room, I am doing one wall in timber panelling as a feature. The panelling is being delivered today from Mr Plywood and is called Easycraft Regency primed MDF. Fingers crossed it looks great. I haven’t actually seen it anywhere, only in pictures so lets hope I have made a good choice.

I had better get outside now and start preparing the wall for the cladding. Thousands of nails need to be removed and lots of cleaning up. Unfortunately the wind has picked up a bit today and it is really cold. Im in for a cold night tonight.

The builder better turn up tomorrow!