Tuesday 22 March 2016

Off to Melbourne I go ........

Hi Vintage Lovers, 

I had a quick trip to Melbourne over the weekend to go to the Melbourne Garden show ....... a bit of a whirlwind trip but I loved every minute of it. 

It was perfect weather for wondering around the gardens and I have come home with so many new ideas  and plans to incorporate into our old lady's garden. There were so many inpressive and gorgeous show gardens, here is just a few pics from the weekend ........













My one problem is that I now have to wait until April to start planting and putting my ideas into place !!!!!!!!
Hope you are having a great week, Friends. 

Mel xx

Sunday 13 March 2016

A Exciting Suprise …

Hi Vintages Lovers,


We have a bit of a discovery  ....... A few weeks ago we had a bit of spare time ( a real rarity for us) one weekend and we decided to have a look and dig around in the store house. We have always wondered if the store house at one time had a cellar, as the cement that the previous owners had laid had cracked and caved in. 




So we broke up the cerment and crowbar sunk in about half way without even trying. That's when we started thinking it may defentaly be a cellar and started digging. 




We have dug about three foot down and the stone wall looks like it goes further, we are now thinking maybe to six foot !!!!!!!!



We also think this is a little window for ventaaliatin in the cellar as we are thinking the floor level may be at the old woodern beam nailed on to the door frame in the next photo.



We are very excited about the find and are looking forward to doing more investigating. 

Have a fantastic week. 

Mel xx


Sunday 6 March 2016

A Front Room Update ...........

I realised that it has been quite a while since I have updated you on the front room so this post will be a big one .... make your self a cuppa and get comfy ...... you will be here awhile. 

Ok ....... to start, it took quite a while to demolish the fireplace in the front room, a good five to six months !!!
Which sounds like a long time but it was a huge job ....... a good 4 tonne of stone came out one by one.  The stone fireplace had been attached to the wall by taking out the orginal stone from the wall and slotting in the new stone they brought in to do the fireplace. So that all needed to be painstakingly removed.









We did have three quaters of the wall collapse at one stage, that we worked out was due to the wood heater flue only going a metre up the fireplace. The smoke seeped between the two stone wall cavities and made all the stones loose. That meant that our plasterers had to come and brick the wall back up and then allow it to dry for a couple of months before they could continue with the plastering.








The plasterers were here for a month all up, most of the plaster had to be removed. It is the biggest room our old lady has and also is the room that needs the most work. Then the pine floorboards were removed, new joists were put in where the old fireplace was (all the other floor joists were fine) and then we have had the old baltic floor boards put back in, so that it the baltic floorboards flow from the kitchen to the front room (you would have no idea that the floorboards were different in the front room now).







We then had our brickie in to brick a section from the ceiling ( the bricks are resting on the re-plastered wall ) to the roof so that he can re-do the chimney, that has collapsed. He will be back at some stage soon to re-build that chimney and re-point the other three.




Then we have had the carpenter in to fix up the ceiling and also build two imitation fireplaces  ( one for each end of the room ).  The original fireplaces were removed at some stage with just the chimneys remaining from the ceiling up. Our idea was to put the fireplaces back to make the room look like it was originally. So, we had the chippie make them out of gyprock. 

The painting and re-wiring is next on the list, follwed by architraves and skirtings over Easter. 
Then it is moving in time ...... Four weeks to go !!!! 
Not long now !!!!!!

Mel xx