Our Arrival

We arrive in Maitland SA on 2 May 2011, after a 3 day drive with our trailer fully laden. Maybe the blog should be called huge change! North Sydney to Maitland - so different. We put our bed together and unpack car and trailer - and have dinner and go to bed exhausted and it is all a little surreal for this city gal.

05/05/11 - HAPPY BIRTHDAY
We awake in the Rendezvous Hotel, and looking forward to the day in the big smoke - Adelaide- so we go tool shopping for my hard working hubby.  With that done and too much money spent we go back to our lovely room and get ready for dinner at MAGILL - the Penfolds restaurant  - 10 course degustation and 2 glasses of Grange!!!  Completely sated we move slowly (full of fine food and wine) to our taxi to take us home.
09/05/11 DAY 1
Daunting!  We start with the shop.  We have our first Mouse moment (currently rife in SA) - nothing a friendly bop on the head doesn't fix - now the mouse is having a little sleep. We pull out the walls, the lino and the kitchen in the front room - full trailer load of dump worthy rubbish.  We have no electricity connected yet, so as it heads into dusk it is the end of our reno for the day.  Day one completed successfully, and we take our tired bodies home.

10/5/11 DAY 2
Tired and sore we take the fully laden trailer to the farm and unload into the fire pit - and viola - rubbish up in smoke. 

It is all happening here

Since my last post we have a ceiling in the bathroom, paint on the ceiling, fans and lights up in 2 bedrooms (2 to go), our laundry is being tiled, our hall is being gyprocked and paving has been done around the shed - all in a days work.

Our bathroom shelf

Bathroom ceiling going up

Gyprock up

Gyprock being skimmed

Exhaust fan in and wired

We have light

Backing shelf in window

We return from Adelaide with a trailer full of pavers

Fans being wired

Fan ready for action

And we have light in the bedroom

The boys hard at work preparing for the pavers

Our stonemason having a break after cementing the house wall

Cornice in the toilet

Our pavers nearly all down

Cornice up in the bathroom

Tiles on the laundry wall

Our hallway

Hallway gyprocked

It's all about the Water

Darrell has been working furiously on the bathroom and toilet - we still live in hope of moving in, in December 2011 - and of course a bathroom and running water are fairly necessary if we are to meet our December goal.
The weather has been kind - Darrell installed our big rain water tank on Wednesday and on Thursday the sky opened up and rained straight into our tank - so we are very lucky. Now we need the rain to stop so our stonemason can fix our external walls!

Toilet gyprocking complete - ready for tiling

Floor tiling complete - ready for wall tiling

Wall Tiling complete - ready for grouting

Wall tiling nearly complete - and grouting on the go

Electrical and light backing boards painted - ready for wiring

Waratahs ready for walls (sanded by Kristine, painted by Darrell)

Our third bedroom floor getting some much needed attention

The sky opened up - into our new rain water tank - bless

Look what we made - a radish!

And our lovely white standard rose bush

Wet Areas and Electricity

It is already the 18th of October- where does the time go - have a look below and see what we have been doing with our time.

Grinding the floor in the bathroom - ready for tiling

Getting window ready

Casement window in

Waterproofing walls

Tiling walls

More tiling

Feature tiles and Capping tiles

Lights up in the shed

Electricity in the Shed - thanks Martin!

Clean as a whistle

Darrell gyprocks, skims, and fits our first new window - looking good - I am excited!

Shower chanel going in

Gyprock going up

Shower shelf cut out

Laundry & Toilet being gyprocked

Old toilet window space

Shower shelf in

Our gorgeous casement window  - closed

Open and still gorgeous

My hard working and very clever Darrell

A bevelled edge

Our hallway window is in - and looking good

Walls Up

Exciting - Our third bedroom has walls!