Our house- day zero.

I took a some photos before we moved in, but since these were mostly for my father in law, they tend to focus on the worst parts of the house- so he'd know what tools to bring with him for repair jobs. So, our before photos... Aren't the best. At all.

I think the lady who sold it to us was very old, and very widowed, for a very long time. She also owned two small dogs who spent a lot of time indoors, and she wasn't in the habit of opening windows. The house smelt very strongly of stale air and small dog. Also, damp. Can't forget the damp. However, we really liked the layout, and it was cheap- which gave us more money left over at the end to sterilize, repaint, repair, upgrade and modernize the house. You win some, you loose some.

The living room.

Facing the front door.

Standing by the window (obviously) and facing the "tv" wall. One doorway is the hall, the one on the right is to the kitchen and dining room. You'll notice there's an extension cord that runs from that power point into the floor. The previous owners had drilled a hole and run it under the floorboards. It emerges in the hallway. We have three "surprise" power points like this, and it's taken me a few weeks to work out which ones end where.

This photo captures everything I want to change about this room- the cream trim, the terracotta wall, the vertical blinds, the outdated air con unit...

We've got fans. Which are awesome, I'm sure, but it's currently blowing like 100kph outside and it's winter. I suspect the one in the dining room doesn't work so great, because when we turned it on when we were painting, it didn't go very fast.

The hallway.

Front door. New door one day? In a bright, cheery colour? Mmm. I'd love to get that front door spray painted white. Or maybe aqua? Urgh, the floor looks awful here. Moving on.

This is what you see as soon as you walk in. That wall.... is REALLY dirty looking, isn't it? Yeah. The entrance on your right is the laundry. Massive thank you to M's mother, my mother in law, who scrubbed the walls and wardrobes before we moved in. You can see where the extension cord pops out of the floorboard here.

What you seen when you walk in and look up. The ceilings are actually pretty ok. We're thinking brighter down lights in the hallway (getting rid of this light) and down lights in the living room (keeping the fan light, which is very dim and general. We can't wait.) This corner is actually pretty dark, so it REALLY needs something to lighten it up a bit (a lot.) (maybe a sky light down the track?)

Around the corner of the hallway. So, laundry door is just on my right- next to that is the linen cupboard. First door on the left is the former study, now Willow's room. Door directly in front is the master bedroom. Then around the corner you have the former spare bedroom and the bathroom and loo. The hallway has only two lights and is L shaped. It really needs more lights. The one in front of our rooms is actually pretty good, but where I'm standing? Yeah. We need a light there.

The linen cupboard. Thanks again to my mother in law who scrubbed this on moving day. She found a mummified mouse in it. It's now lined with paper. It's better. Eventually we will repaint the shelves. Eventually. I have washed all the slats on the door, which was a good effort. Very fiddly.

Honestly. Covered up with our stuff and butcher's paper? Out of sight, out of mind. We also have a built in alarm system that hasn't been used for years.

Urgh. Sadly, this cupboard is too shallow to turn into coat storage. I'm actually still bummed about that, because it would have been amazing for coat storage- just so, so perfect. Now it's just crammed full of "stuff to deal with later."

The master bedroom.

You know, neither of us feel comfortable with turning on that reverse cycle. God knows what's lurking in the filters. Death and black lung, possibly.

This has been behind (ugly, heavy) furniture for 30 years, I'm guessing. M and I had no idea what to deal with first- rip out the carpet (and some of the dog smell?) Fix the skirting board? Paint over the pink walls? Replace the aircon unit? In the end we've been doing other stuff. Having boxes in front of all this helps block it out. Out of sight, out of mind...

Fix the wardrobe is something planned for the near future, after repainting. Yeah. It's three doors, with one on the left, and two doors on the right. However, you can see in the picture that where the frame for the doors are, in the middle, awkwardly cuts the rail in half. I'm a hanger, not a folder, and since I do all the laundry around here... yeah. Wardrobe is getting a make over. It's also really grungy inside. I've also broken the rail when I went to hang up our clothes, so now I have one of those portable clothing rails set up in our room for the rest of our wardrobe. I swear we don't have THAT many clothes.

I don't even know what was happening in this corner. I put a box in front of it. Out of sight, out of mind... That extension lead travels under the floorboards from Willow's room. This is one I think we need to remove for safety reasons.

The former study aka Willow's room.

The wardrobe of horrors.

Arrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaagh.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

Arrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

Yeah, there's more to this room than a filthy wardrobe. Like, there's this dirty patch on the wall that looks like a malignant spirit. My mother in law rang M in a panic less than three minutes after I sent her photos of the inside of the wardrobe, panicked that it was mould or rising damp. Mother in law' scrubbing has gotten rid of that mark, and a coat of paint has made the wardrobe look much more pleasant. There's still a dinged gray mark on Willow's walls, which we've covered with a poster. She says she doesn't want her friends to see it. Bunting, her growing collection of dream catchers and some flamingo wall decals have made her room quite homely. Her wardrobe has been repainted, and has an extra rail in it now.

The kitchen/ dining room.

It's not new. But it's not's offensive. Laundry to the right. Through the laundry you can see the hallway.

More kitchen. There was a leak we fixed, so.... it looks worse now. Or better. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We've ripped out the cabinets, so aesthetically, it's not very pleasing. However, not having the cabinets/ doors there gives me more space, which I actually use, and it kitchen doesn't stink of damp any more. I consider it progress. 

You can see the floor near the door is quite dirty, even in this bad photo. The rug is gone now, and the floor has been scrubbed, repeatedly, by me on my hands and knees. It looks quite beautiful now, although it needs a sand and a polish. 

We're also looking at installing a range hood down the track- it shouldn't be TOO expensive, since there's already a vent there, right? I'm sure the kitchen will look stunning one day... but first, we have the inside wardrobes to tackle, and red walls, and cream trim, and dirty walls...

One quirk of our house- we have our toaster next to the stove. Whenever M cooks fruit toast, it sets the smoke detector off. However, last week, I turned the stove on to boil a pot and wandered off to bathe Willow. However, see those blue stove cover things? I had turned the wrong heating element on, and badly burnt two- the one covering the heating element, and the other cover resting on top. Oopes. It was quite awful and messy and stinky with the burning paint. Fire alarm didn't go off. 

Dining area. More ugly red suede feature wall, more cream trim, more dirty floor boards. Ick. But nice floor boards, right? Even when covered with grime? It's a start. Despite all the work the house needs, we think it will look very nice when we are done. Walls can be repainted, carpet can be ripped up. And curtains can be rehung. (I hate how the curtains are hung in this house. HANG THEM HIGH AND WIDE. WHY SO MUCH LACE?)

Willow's looking forward to helping to repaint the walls. She explained she can easily do the lower sections of the wall, and then stand on a ladder to reach the rest. She really wants to help, but I feel bad. A lot of the work is messy (painting) or chemical (cleaning, painting, ripping up the carpet... ok that's not chemically, but you don't want 4 year olds to breathe in 30 years of dirt and dog dander and god knows what else.) I've tried explaining that to her, and she seems to have half accepted it. I think she's also just really keen to unpack and get settled... and I think she's sick of M and I shrieking to not touch ANY walls at the moment. (Even though some are touch dry, and some aren't painted- it just seems easier to tell her "don't touch ANY WALLS DOWN THIS END OF THE HOUSE.")

The laundry.

Nothing wrong with it. It's very big and spacious and bland. Tiles need re-grouting, they've lost a lot of grout from between them. You can't really tell from photos.

The bathroom:

Honestly, this is all you need to know about our bathroom. It has this tile all over the floor. Love it or hate it.... They are definitely a conversation starter, and that conversation generally starts with oh my god. I think they're so bad they're good. We made a change to the bathroom on day 2- the previous shower head was extremely low, and unimpressive. It's been changed for a nice modern shower head. Amazing. We've also mounted a bar heater on the wall, and I shoved a lamp in there, since when you turn the light on, the exhaust fan comes on, and the bathroom becomes extremely cold and drafty all through the shower. Really unpleasant. After we got the bar heater in, we just showered by the light of that. And now we have a lamp. It's a step up. After we repaint and necessary stuff, we might make some cosmetic changes to the bathroom... like... a more modern mirrored cabinet, more than one towel rail, a hand towel rail, etc.


So. That's our house on day zero. I don't have any photos of the spare room for some reason. I think I had run out of steam. We still do have lots of boxes, but all the big stuff has been packed away. We're just finding a home for the little things, I guess. Like, ironing board- hall cupboard or laundry room? Out of season clothes- divided up by owner and stored in bedrooms, or stored all together in the linen cupboard? Craft stuff- hall cupboard or kitchen cupboard? Sometimes I stress quite a bit about these little things- I want to have it all sorted already- but I've been reassured by the thought that it takes a year for a house to become a home. In the meantime, we are fairly organized, and we are comfortable. Except for Willow, who accidentally broke her roller shutter (we can't raise it) and now her room is in perpetual coal mine darkness.