Happy 2nd Anniversary House

Okay, so I'm a bit late with this. It was actually the 8th of August but not to worry. We have been here for 2 years now. I was looking around on the local real estate website and found they now show the photos from past sales. Sometimes progress seems so slow so it's nice to go back and see where you started. Here's just one sample of what we saw when we first inspected the place...

Blogger has made this purple less intense than it was! And you can't see the splotches on the carpet. It was a good day, the day we painted this room and replaced the carpet!

Moving on. Last year I posted a wishlist of sorts so I thought I'd check our progress...

• New fence - Lots of talking, no action!
• Painted lounge room + kitchen - Done
• Floating sideboard on lounge entrance wall - Meh, not so enamoured by this idea anymore
• Paint the rest of the doors - Ha! Maybe one day! I'll let you know on the 3rd anniversary!
• Floorboards sand and polish - Chose to carpet rooms but main living/dining/hall still need attention.
• Finish the spa area - in progress again. The spa is in and usable, just not pretty.
• Bathroom/laundry reno - too big to comprehend at this point but I have collected lots of lovely inspiration pictures on Pinterest !
• Deck out the front - Changed to paving and is in progress
• Vegie garden - Done
• Chook shed - Done

I'm only going to add two things to this list for the next year.

• Re-hang pictures that have been down since painting (in January)
• Get old wardrobe doors back on or buy and hang new ones (they have been off since February)

Updates on the 'in progress' projects are on the way!

Axel may not realise but it is most definately spring-ish in Canberra at the moment. I love this time of year, when everything starts to come back to life. I also love it because it's not a busy time yet in terms of doing work on the weekends and people are not yet properly out of winter hibernation (yes, in Canberra this happens. Social events slow down significantly over winter). So, a fairly quiet social scene mixed with 2 weekends in a row of stunning weather means we get things done around the house. More on that soon though. For now, here are some photos from a beautiful sunny weekend.

The last of the Broccoli - this one was as big as my head!

Lucky - all grown up and exploring the spa cover.

Beautiful blossoms in our front yard - ahh

Hope you have also had a lovely weekend!

Dining Chair - Before and After

I've completed 2 and a half chairs! Enough to show a before and after. After considering a range of fabrics from spoonflower I found a simple, neutral coloured linen in a local shop and went with that. It's slow going but I'm happy with the way they are turning out and at an estimate they'll end up around $50 a chair. 

So, without further ado...

Before

After

Best intentions

Yikes. I had the best intentions of doing the 31 photos in 31 days but I totally fell off the blogging/photographing wagon these last two weeks. Work has been insane and weekends have been dedicated to playing catch up/recovering before diving back into another week of full days plus afternoon/evening work commitments. Ugh. Maybe next time.

In addition, we've created a list of things we really want to get done so spare time has been dedicated to doing little bits and pieces with that. We've even given ourselves deadlines. My chair deadline is, uh, this Sunday. I'm happy to report though that I have now sanded and painted all the legs. They are a simple matte black and they look as good as new. The difficult bit is still to come, remembering how to staple the fabric on!

Given I got the chairs in March I'm determined to make the deadline so we can go out and get ourselves a new dining table! Here is the process so far in photos.

Wish me luck with the rest of the project. I feel that I'm going to need it!

31 Photos in 31 Days: 5-7

Day 5 - Dessert

Day 6 - Axel

Day 7 -  Garden

31 Photos in 31 Days: 4

Day 4: Lucky

This is Lucky. She's had a fairly interesting life so far for a 3 month old chicken! She's survived a pretty full on cat attack but you wouldn't even know it now.  I may be a little strange perhaps but watching the chickens scratch around brings me a lot of joy, far more than I'd expected. I love days like today when I can afford to get home from work while it's still light and go and watch them for a bit.

31 Photos in 31 Days: 1-3

I've decided to join in the challenge of taking 31 photos in 31 days. I'm in need of something fun, a little distraction. I know I probably wont get to posting the photos everyday so they'll come in bursts. Here are the first 3.

Day 1 - Our homegrown broccoli 

Day 2 - Souvenir-ed water bottle from NZ

Day 3 - Book club book, not going so well, it puts me to sleep!

Why not join in?

Holiday adventures - heliboarding

Slightly scared but ready for the first run of the season.

This is where we sat for lunch. Not too bad, huh?

The view from 2400 metres. We could see Mt Cook in the distance.
Incredible.

The real purpose behind our NZ holiday was to do some heliboarding. A had been wanting to do it for ages and we figured we ought to do it before we have kids. I will no doubt feel less inclined to head off into avalanche territory once we do. So off we went. After a week of bad weather and wind we were finally good to go. Our first two days were with Methven Heliski who were fantastic. They were organised, friendly, dealt well with differing skill levels in the groups and made an absolutely delicious picnic lunch.  

For the uninitiated (sorry if I'm stating the obvious), heliboarding, as we did it, means climbing into a helicopter with a guide, being flown to the top of a mountain and then boarding down to a point where helicopter can pick you up. Repeat. The guide checks the safety of the slope and goes down first taking the biggest part of the risk and also picking the best lines to follow to get the best snow.

I was a bit intimidated by the whole idea and I'll admit that at the top of the first run I had a few frozen-with-fear-sh*t-that's-steep-I-can't-do-this moments. I was the only girl and all the guys had been talking up the places they'd been and the powder they'd skied in (as they do). Then the guy before me fell over. I felt so much better. That sounds cruel, but the snow was so soft it might as well have been cotton wool - I saw that he was fine and figured I would be to. So, with the fear gone, I was off. It was incredible. The snow was so deep and soft and quiet - none of that on-piste, icey, scraping sound. You felt like you were floating and gliding rather than slipping and sliding. At one point, our guide stuck a probe into the snow to see how deep it was. The probe was 2 metres and it went all the way in. Wow.

We boarded past the remains of a glacier, into wide bowls, down valleys with steep walls of rock and snow. The boys were in it for the adrenaline, to go fast and to try and hit that jump. I just enjoyed cruising along and checking out the scenery.  It was definitely the highlight of the holiday. And for the non-skiers, if you are in NZ get on one of the helicopter scenic flights as the views really are amazing. 

Before we went some one told us that it we liked Tasmania we'd enjoy NZ as it is similar but on a grander scale. They also said that if we liked NZ, we should go to Canada and it's similar to NZ but on a grander scale again. I think we'll have to start saving for a Canada trip sometime in the future!