Finally...

The bank valuer said yes!

And so the renovations have begun.

Here are some photos of our progress so far.

Tom was a wonderful help whilst stripping wallpaper on the weekend and is now somewhat of an expert.

Abbey also helped for about 3 seconds before losing interest and moving on. She has the attention span of a goldfish.

The kitchen so far, the rest of the cabinets will be removed this weekend. There was also a wallpaper freeze in the kitchen up under the cornice and removing it was disgusting. It smelt like a billion roast dinners from fifty years ago.

This will be our office. It also had a wallpaper freeze under the cornice. Thankfully removing it was not as revolting as the one in the kitchen.

Our lounge room. Once again, there was a wallpaper freeze in this room about halfway up the wall. It was a pain in the neck to remove, the wallpaper came off easily enough but left glue all over the wall which took ages to remove.

Also while I was stripping the wallpaper I noticed that the plaster above the fireplace had a nasty bulge in it so David had to cut it out to see what was going on behind it. This worked to my advantage as I had been whining about replacing the extremely ugly gas log fire and David kept saying "We are NOT spending any more money! It works, we will replace it further down the track." But since we were pulling it to bits anyway he took it out to see what sort of condition the fireplace was in. It looks so much better without the offensive gas log fire! After all that effort we have decided to plaster over the fireplace completely to make the room more usable.

We also pulled up the carpet to reveal pristine hardwood floors! Aren't they a beautiful thing? It looks like the boards are like this throughout the entire house!

We obviously haven't made it into the bathroom yet!

It is a little hard to tell from the photo but the paint is actually glittery! But I am oh-so grateful there is no flipping wallpaper in here!

Stay tuned for more riveting renovation photos!

Can't get started...

...that's how I feel today, I can't get started.

I can't concentrate and don't feel like doing anything.

I feel like something's not right.

I tried vacuuming but even that didn't help (I find a clean floor usually fixes most things. Weird. I know).

So I have given up. At the moment I am sitting on the couch with Abbey, blogging and watching 'Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure" whilst eating copious amounts of colombines and starburst chews. Even the lollies aren't helping.

I'm pretty sure it's all due to the fact that the bank valuer has still not given us a yay or nay on our home extension. I am terrible at not being able to do anything if I don't have a complete plan and at the moment both David and I and the builder don't know if we can begin work planned for this weekend.

I can't stand not knowing. Someone put me outta my misery. Please.

I don't know how much more of Tinkerbell I can take.

It's a Conspiracy.

My kids go to the local public primary school and most of the time I am more than pleased with the going ons there. Admittedly, there has been the odd incident that has left me wondering, such as the time my eight year old was bitten in class by another eight year old. What the..? I thought only toddlers bit others and even then you were a leper if you had a biting child. But an eight year old girl biting? Makes you wonder...

Anyway, today Cassidy came out of school carrying a strange looking, cylinder thingy. Tom was already in the car moaning about how you wouldn't believe what Cassidy had made at school and that the teachers had gone mad.

And then I heard it. A great, big, loud farty sound. She opened the door to the car, somehow simultaneously making the most god-awful noise on this thing imaginable and telling me how Tom had threatened to murder her at the same time.

I understood why he felt that way. He then told me that every kid in grade three had made one of these things and all he had heard all day was the horrible noise coming from them.

Cassidy asked me if I liked her instrument which they had made out or a piece of thin plastic hose, a balloon and a cardboard cylinder, all joined together, in music class. Ah, no, not really! But to be kind I said "Yes darling it is absolutely fantastic, please don't blow it in the car. Or at home unless you are in your bedroom with the door closed."

Of course Abbey thinks it is wonderful and likes to blow on it really hard. So I resorted to bribing her with biscuits to let go of the damn thing and now it is hidden up the top of Cassidy's wardrobe.

What on earth were those teachers thinking? I get the whole making a musical instrument thing but what is wrong with a few rubber bands around a tissue box? I don't understand how they ever thought making something that sounds so offensive could be a good idea, especially when they then send them home.

So I think it must be a diabolical plan, cooked up by evil teachers to drive all parents absolutely bonkers. What else could it be?

The kid's have also got their school concert coming up and need costumes. I hate this as I cannot sew and they always need things like blundstones, flannelette shirts and other items that the teachers expect every child to have but mine never do. One year I had to make a mosquito outfit!

This year, to my delight, Tom is a Greek God and only needs a plain white sheet. Hooray, finally a costume I can provide easily. In the car on the way home from school this afternoon Tom says "I need to take my costume to school as soon as possible."

I say no problem, I have a white sheet you can take.

He then says "I need some really big safety pins to hold my costume together, the teacher says just some old nappy pins would do." Like that would be easy. Like I just have some nappy pins lying about from when the kids were babies.

Nope, not only did my kids wear disposables, the people I knew that did use cloth certainly didn't use nappy pins. Can you even still get them? I haven't seen one for years!

So tomorrow I am off to find nappy pins. I presume that you can still buy big safety pins so that will be what I will aim for.

I can't wait to hear what outfit Cassidy will need!

Our Owner Builder certificate came today!!!

I am so excited that this renovation will soon begin, the builder will be starting in one week providing the bank valuer comes to the party.

Hooray! We may not be living in a shed yet!

There are so many features in the new house I am crazily excited about, but the most exciting would have to be my new kitchen.

It has so many great features I can't list them all but some of my favorites are:

• stone benchtops
• inbuilt waste sorting system
• inbuilt full height cupboard with hide away doors for my laptop, pinboard, and other paperwork, like a mini office in the kitchen. This makes the organiser in me deliriously happy.
• a three metre long butler's pantry with a sink. The above photo is the inspiration for my pantry. Hopefully it will look a little like this!
• lots of drawers for storage (so much better than cupboards)

The other room that I am really pleased about is the laundry. At first I was disappointed as the laundry was a bit smaller than I had hoped due to trying not to move too many walls in the existing home to save money. But even though it is not a huge space I have still managed to get lots of storage in the laundry including two pull out laundry hampers and a large drying cupboard. There is also a large broom cupboard in the mud room off the laundry which will provide more storage.

So next week a fair portion of my spare time will be spent removing wall paper and ripping up old carpet and lino.

Feel free to come and help me!

Random Musings...

Feeling a bit deep and meaningful today. Not sure why. Might be because of my extremely low blood sugar due to trying to lose five kilos before my brother's wedding in September. Whatever the case, here are today's musings:

1. Why am I the only person in my family that is able to actually put dishes in the dishwasher? If they can take the dishes to the sink why can they not go that extra step and pop them in the dishwasher? Is it really that hard?

2. Where do all the odd socks go? Is there another dimension for odd socks? Do they spontaneously combust? There must be an answer.

3. Why do I crave sugar after each meal, even if I am full?

4. Why did Country Road send me a 30% of voucher the day after we finalised the quotes for our new house and I can no longer justify spending the money?

5. Can you believe my baby boy is going to be 11 in a month? Have I really been a mum for that long? He may be a big boy but he is still a big snuggler (but don't tell him I said so!).

6. Some days I think I might like to build a little shack at my brother's place at Jindivick, kinda like the house that Pa built on Little House on the Prarie, and raise chickens and homeschool the kids. And make preserves.

7. Getting older is weird. Today I saw a person who was a few years ahead of me at school and it really struck me how old they looked. Then I realised that I probably look that old too. And it just felt weird. Hard to explain I guess.

8. I have an unhealthy addiction to jersey caramels. I was complaining the other day to David that neither of the supermarkets in Warragul have jersey caramels at the moment. What is going on? Is there a jersey caramel shortage? He simply said "You have eaten them all".

Oh, and an update on the sleep front, I am getting some! Lots, in fact. Cassidy has stayed in her bed the whole night for the last three nights. This has not happened for at least four months. Seems all she needed were some calming drops from the kinesologist and some crystals under her pillow. Who knew it could be so easy? Let's hope it lasts.

Same old....

Not much happening here this week. More of the same. Sometimes it feels like groundhog day!!

I did take Cassidy to the Kinesiologist this week. This was a particularly interesting experience, I really had no idea what a Kinesiologist did. I had been told by a friend of a friend that they had had success with controlling their ASD child's anxiety with kinesiology and I thought that anything was worth a go.

Cass thoroughly enjoyed the visit and is happily taking her flower essence drops. She is also sleeping with a crystal under her pillow to help her control her fears.

Unfortunately so far she is still getting up all night but she doesn't seem to be as anxious anymore. Before when she got up she would often be quite visibly unsettled, often on the verge of panic. I think now it is habit and she simply cannot go to sleep in her room by herself. She is like a baby who needs to be rocked to sleep.

She is also still sleepwalking, I was hoping the drops might help to bring that under control. Early days yet I guess, maybe it will take a little while to work.

Hopefully.

The house plans are still coming along with pretty much all of the quotes in, all things going well we should meet with the bank next Friday. Our owner builder permit mustn't be too far away but we can can still begin work on the old part of the house if it hasn't come through by the time we sort out the bank side of it.

I am very glad for all the rain that we have been having as I figure the more it rains now, the less it will rain in spring. Interesting logic I know but it gives me hope that we still may have somewhere to live when our lease expires in November. I have completely given up hope that this house will be finished but I really do hope that we will at the very least have a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom completely renovated. And a new kitchen not too far away.

David has got 8 weeks work left on this contract in Newcastle and just quietly there is a possibility his next job might be in Melbourne! Fingers crossed, it has been a long time since he worked close by. We won't know ourselves having him home every morning and night.

Not much on this weekend, more house stuff and I think Tom has got a friend coming over for the weekend so it will be nerf war heaven. I am hoping for a weekend in my trackies and slippers, keeping warm and not having to leave the house.