This is where we live

I have had a request to see photos of our property - we live on 2 1/2 acres - so I thought the best way was to make a collage. From top left our house from the gate,looking down the driveway to the large shed, to the right of the shed is our pool and just outside of this photo is Royce's granny flat.Middle left - front garden, looking down the side of the house, looking back up the yard from where the last photo finished.Bottom left - Looking across the backyard to Royces Granny flat shed, this gate marks where the three paddocks start, looking from the gate back to the house. There are small gardens as well but I can't find the photos of those. Keep an eye out for the vegie patch progress posts coming up soon.

Kitchen reno's complete

You may remember 2 posts ago I told you about my new stove and the small amount of work that needed to be done in the kitchen. Well that work is done and here is my new stove area.

Where these large doors are is where the wall oven was, how great do the doors look. One of the doors form the old cupboard were taken to a cabinet maker and he matched it exactly, mine are not a shiny of course but once I give them a light sand and a lick of teak oil and they will look just as good.

The tiny area by the stove was cut from one of the old doors & the old bench top. We were going to leave them as just space fillers but we decided to turn them into narrow slide out drawers for sauce bottle and spices.

Royce made these himself and I am very impressed with how well he did. Again he made them from the old cupboards. The only thing we needed to buy was the rolling mechanism.

the front of these was made by cutting one door in half and reversing it.

And a side view.

Had to get a nice close up view. When Peter (an old school Friend who builds and renovates kitchen) turned up to put in the big cupboard he was quite impressed with how Royce worked out how to build these.

I am hoping to do a complete kitchen renovation in a few years time so this was just a stop gap measure to get us through. I am really happy with how it turned out and it didn't cost as much as I thought it would to have done.

New Stove and new ME

This is our new baby. A Glem Bio Energy Free standing oven. We are going from having a cook top and wall oven to a whole new idea in cooking.

As our kitchen looked like this before we have to do some small modifications to fit the new stove in. The area that the cook top was in has been removed as have the wall oven.

So right now this is how our cooking area looks. We will be building the stove in with part of the old cupboards and are having a cupboard built to fit into the hole where the oven came from. That's another week away but we can use our new oven b4 then.

Now the new me ..............................

well a new hair cut. I was inspired by a FB friends post asking us to help her choose a new easy to look after haircut. The one I really like was quite impish and that's what I wanted. My hairdresser has fluffed it up quite a bit but it will sit flatter and have the impish look I am after.

Making your home a haven

This weeks challenge at Tammy's recipes is to This week's Making Your Home a Haven challenge is to "clean out or organize a drawer or closet! Most of us probably have at least a few over-stuffed or messy drawers in our homes... so choose one that will have a positive effect in your home and tackle it!! :) "

http://www.tammysrecipes.com/node/3425

I have plenty of those drawers around the home. I will tackle the lounge room one first then on to the bathroom drawers.

As to the last weeks challenge I am still working on the magazines, just can't seem to find time or motivation to get it finished. BUT I will set a goal to have the pile under the computer desk that I have chosen the projects in to be finished by the end of this month, that gives me 8 days to enter the details from 19 magazines into the files on my computer. And then I will work on the other 20 that I haven't looked at yet.

Making your home a haven update

I am happy to report that I have made some headway into those jobs I really did not want to do. The caring hearts are sorted into colours and I have made up 20 bags ready to send.

I have also made a start on going through the magazines and have listed the projects that I would like to do into several computer files. If I spend an hour everyday on these I should have the job finished by the end of the week, but more realistically it will be 1/2 an hour every few day so might take me the rest of the month.

John was a bit surprised when I offered to help him with the wood but was happy for me to fill up the stick box. Boy does that job do your back in.

Making your home a haven

I haven't posted since the first week of making your home a haven and we are now into our fourth week. http://www.tammysrecipes.com/node/3314

The first week Tammy challenged us to write a morning routine. I did that (check out my post a few down) and am happy to report that I have kept this up most days but have found that I don't always need to do the 10 minute tidy up, all thanks to the 30 second rule. The 30 second rule is, if it will take 30 seconds or less don't put it off do it now. Believe me IT WORKS, I have never been a put it away type of person but this has changed my life. So a HUGE thank you to Sarah on SOF for that FABULOUS idea.

Tammy has suggested we review it and change it if it is not working I am happy with mine so its going to stay.

The second weeks challenge was to set a bedtime, that's OK I have always been a 9.30-10.30 bed person so that hasn't changed except its more 9.30 most days due to not getting unbroken sleep for several weeks now.

The Third week - I didn't like this one and don't think I did very well at all - was to "to choose love and joy during those moments when we're tempted to be grumpy and unpleasant". Better try a bit harder this week.

Now for this weeks challenge.

"This week's challenge is to implement an Evening Routine!
Your evening routine can consist of five (or fewer) things that you can do each evening to help give you (and your home!) a better start the following day. Sometimes the extra 5 minutes spent planning ahead for the next day is all it takes to make your home more of a haven. :)"

Now I have to be honest - I am a total veg out person at night, I don't like to do anything home related. I might sew or even watch TV but do not like to do housework , but I can plan my next day.

So lets see what I believe is achievable in the evenings to make my days easier.

1) Write a to do list - I can manage that one.

2) Wipe out bath tub - this will mean it will be much easier to clean on its cleaning day.

3) Put away the clothes that my wonderful DH has washed & folded, they usually sit there for a few days b4 I get to them. prepare work uniform if working next day (may include ironing a shirt).

4) Rinse & stack dishes ready for DH to load into dishwasher in the morning (this is one area we are very slack in, the dishes get done in the morning in our home). prepare bircher museli for breaky.

5) Read a Psalm b4 my bedtime reading.

Now again I will have to say that this is going to be a challenge for me. But lets see how I go.