Well we finally moved down to Melbourne. It’s 2 years since we first thought seriously about moving & after a couple of false starts we made it. First we looked in Berwick, then The Dandenongs & finally settled on the Mornington Peninsula.
We were packing up until the last minute & didn’t quite get it all done. Paul has flown back up to finish of the ‘dregs’ before the removalists arrive to pick up the final load tomorrow.
I hadn’t actually seen the house before so I was more than a little nervous as we turned into the driveway. We arrived at 10pm to find the electricity was turned off so Paul had to find the meter to flick it on. Luckily the gas was on so we could all have nice hot showers after 12 hours on the road.
Luckily I absolutely love the house!!!! It needs a bit more work then I’d expected in a 4yo house but nothing we hadn’t done before. Lot’s of cleaning & painting & fixing of minor problems. The ensuite will have to be redone as the shower is tiny & floods the room. Luckily the shower in the main bathroom is fine so we’ll use it for now. The walk-in-robe had only a single rail & needed painting so we ripped out the rods & shelf & started again. The painting is now finished, I put in some shelves & the lower rod. We can put in the top rod when we the rest of our stuff arrives & we have the stud finder. I used to be a dab hand finding studs in the disco’s in the 70’s but seem to have lost my touch, lol. I’ve been able to hang up all my Winter gear & will put the Summer stuff in when the rod finally goes up.
The house has some lovely features.
There’s even a room for Harry Potter!!
It was wonderful when the removalists arrived with the first load on Saturday. Funny how you miss things like beds & lounges, not to mention TV.
Here they are about halfway through the truck, they’d already emptied the trailor.
The kitchen was a challenge, moving from a large kitchen to a medium kitchen is a bit tricky. Of course I have too much stuff & I swear the Tupperware breeds in the dark, lol. Luckily I have a lovely old leadlight kitchen dresser we bought about 20 years ago & stripped back. I was able to store all the things that aren’t used very often. The Christmas crockery, my lovely old floral cups & saucers, & the big serving dishes.
I love the central heating, even though it’s only been 10C outside it’s toasty warm inside. The ducted vacuuming is wonderful too. The garden is lovely & I’m really keen to spend some time weeding & pruning. By the time the house is straight & I have time to work outside it will have warmed up, I hope. There are big decks on 3 sides of the house. I’m hoping to get some of the tank style raised bed planters to grow some vegies in. I’ll put them on the deck outside the kitchen as it catches all the sun.
The area is really nice too, on Sunday morning we picked Molly up from the kennels, we’d flown her down the day before we left, & it’s very rural quite close to where we are. I love rural, I prefer it to suburbia, so it was great to find the area is so pretty. I’m really looking forward to exploring properly when we have time & perhaps even going for a walk. The area is quite level & actually has footpaths, something that is pretty rare on the Central Coast.
The first weekend was great, dd Emma, the reason we moved here, came over to help. She also cooked us a fantastic roast chicken dinner. She was back on Sunday & friends arrived with home-made pumpkin soup & enough food for a feast. We’ve spent weeks eating fast simple food, spag. bog., chips, toasted sandwiches etc coz we haven’t had the time or energy to shop & cook so it was lovely having a ‘proper’ meal!!!
The local shops are great, everything we need for day to day living. We also spent a few hours at Bunnings (hardware store) stocking up on all the stuff to sort the wir. Thank goodness for the GPS or we’d be totally lost. Mind you it led us astray, as we left Bunnings it told us to turn right where there is no right turn, we found ourselves on a freeway to the city. Luckily Paul managed to get us off but we had to get across 3 lanes of traffic to escape!!!
The Bunnings haul, the timber was still in the car. We only have a minimum of tools with us, just my toolbox, so we have to make do until the real tools arrive in the last load. Not good planning. :-)
Of course Molly had to get in the photo.
SEWING ROOM
My sewing room is wonderful but I want it painted so I’m not unpacking anything in there. I’m really looking forward to having time to get it sorted & potter around. I’ll leave it ill the other stuff is done so it will be my incentive to keep going. First thing i did in here was to knock down the awful bar, it was simply a brick wall, all unfinished at the back & taking up valuable space. We’ll have to take up the tiles & make good the timber floor.
Please excuse the outfit!!!
a. most of my clothes were still packed
b. I was knocking down a wall
c. OK, so truth is I’m a bit of a dag. :-)
The ‘Before & After’ shots. Hopefully I’ll be able to post After shots where it is painted, set-up & all sorted before too long. :-)
There’s also a pile of boxes outside the door & another huge pile in the garage. Will I ever get straight?????
Rowan is a little underwhelmed with the colour of his room so repainting is on the list. He just need to decide on colours.
The other upstairs bedroom is hot pink with the same teal ceiling. It will be painted all white & decorated with red & white accessories as the guest room.
The main bathroom is lovely, the bath is cast iron & I love the luggage rack!
I’d hoped to make it to the Miniature Show at Mt Waverley on Saturday, I went to the Sydney Show a couple of times & it was wonderful but a 3 – 4 hour round trip was pretty off putting. I love miniatures & I’ve built a dollhouse & a quilt shop with separate classroom. But after an early morning call from my Mum to tell me my favourite uncle had passed away overnight I really didn’t feel like going anywhere. My aunty & uncle, Joyce & Hedley were married in 1942 & were the happiest couple I’ve ever known. They were the perfect pair, Joyce will be lost without Hedley. Luckily she has 3 dd’s & their families living quite close to her.
