“It isn't so much what's on the table that matters, as what's on the chairs.”

Have I told you about my kauri pine kitchen table? Its a simple sort of thing, kauri top and turned blackwood legs, its story spread out across it's top in the form of marks and dents and grooves and stains.  It's had an interesting journey, my table. I'm not sure of its age, although it's had a meat mincer attached at some point, had its caster wheels removed and some smartie pants thought it would be a good idea to laquer the top and change the original mounts by screwing it to the frame instead. I've replaced the casters, but other than that it graces my dining room in its original form (I may sand the top back one day - kauri is the sort of timber that doesn't require protection, as it loves water and is traditionally kept raw).

Many cat bums have been sat on this table since I've owned it. Ahem. If you ever come to eat at my house, I do wipe it down. Regularly. Most of the time...

Anyway. It's about time my table had some company! Of course, you think! Some chairs! Easy. Simply walk into a shop and buy some country style chairs and, voila! You're done.

Ha. HAHA. HAHAHA! If you seriously think that, you don't know me very well. Because I've been on Pintrest. And I've been inspired by....

Mismatched chairs!!!

You can find these on my Home Inspiration board here: http://pinterest.com/jessinthedark/home-inspiration/ I know I can imbed these suckers here somehow but I'm not caring enough to learn at this point! :P

Anyway, aren't they pretty? I looooove it. So, minimal dollars in one hand, reluctant and ever suffering man gripped in the other.... off to the tip shop we went!!

Hobart has quite a variety of tip shops. A tip shop crawl (similar to a pub crawl, without the beer, but somewhat cheaper) sends you in all directions across the city, scouring amongst the bent banana lounges and unrecognisable wooden mishappen furniture, seeking out cheap and sturdy finds...

We had luck! And potentially only 3 disagreements! What can I say, it was a hot day :) my refusal to purchase anything bentwood style was met with much dramatic arm waving. But trust me, you might not know what bentwood is, but you know what I mean. There's one in that last picture, the red and yellow thing on the right. Unstable mofos that they are, all wobbly legs and top heavy. Every small child's nightmare, I reckon they would take out the award of most toppled over chair ever, if there was such an award. I haaaaaattttteee bentwood chairs. Haaaatttteee........ 

Anyway. Enough of the furniture hatred. Here are my chairs!

My favourite is at the front, and was actually bought over GumTree. It's an old oak number in need of some serious love!

Next, to pick what colours they shall be!! Of course, this is a very convenient fun project which means I get to ignore the things I really should be doing in my house.... *evil laugh*. What?! *innocent look* don't look at me like that...

Flooring, glorious flooring

If you've been wondering where I've been, and why I haven't updated my blog, that's because I've been sitting on top of a large pile of floorboards, alternating between stroking them and whispering sweet nothings and throwing my head back in triumphant laughter.  What is that evil cackling in the background? Oh, Jess' final batch of floorboards must have arrived!!!

The dining room and the kitchen came together fairly well (although I was cheeky and skipped doing the boards going into the pantry "to a later date" (hoping those damned fairies might turn up, no sign of them next).

Next was up the hallway, fairly problem free. This is the point where I gasped, with my hand to my chest in a very feminine way (yep, I definitely didn't curse like a sailor and make large wavvy hand motions), and realised, holy fuck, I need to start in my BEDROOM and meet the hallway, because these damn boards dont really lay backwards. Heh. 

So starting in a completely different room, and then coming along the small part of the hallway to meet the rest of the hallway, was an utter act of faith that the walls were square and equal and the planets were aligned and the moon was in the right phase (Taurus, probably) so that things just worked. And guess what....?

They did!!! Amazing. I must have bargained with the right god that day. (Is there a god of renovating? If not, there should be).

Having flooring in my bedroom is amazing by the way. To be able to change the bedding and actually put the cover-less doona on the floor is a beautiful thing. To hop out of bed and place my feet on silky smooth, lovely boards, is a great way to start the day.  Just think on that, next time you get out of bed, and wiggle your toes into your carpet or whatever it is that covers your floors. There are people out there, like me, who have lived on nasty, dusty concrete. Or worse.  If you are not grateful for your floor coverings, well in my opinion you damned well should be. Hmph.

So the next part was heading into the bedrooms. The final phase. The last in the series. The grande finale. Unfortunatley this involved going through doorways, which are in the same direction of the boards. This means, spending a whole frigging hour on three boards, measuring, cutting, sqeezing, hammering.... arguing and having a barney about how to go about it.... me using the word "fine then" in a grumpy manner and meaning that it is not very fine at all.

It's amazing that Daniel has survived this far really. Credit to him, for sticking with the crazy flooring lady who stares red eyed at the clock and mumbles "....one....more.....board...."

I'm happy to announce that the spare room is done! This is the nasty room, the room of doom... its looking pretty darn good now. 

So just one room to go! Once the tricky strupid I-hate-you-so-much doorway bits are done, it should only be a night or three to get the rest down (or one solid weekend day. You know, those days on the weekends where you have nothing planned so you can focus on your renovation? No? Me neither). And then done! *cough*other than all the fiddly bits like cupboards, wardrobes and pantry that I've cleaverly avoided *cough*

Ah, the end of the road is so close I can almost see it. Unfortunately, it looks like a roller and involves paint... but we're not thinking about that right now.

Oh, and in other news, I have a washing machine now. Thanks mum *kiss kiss*

*sigh* the pictures doing the "to the side" thing again? Really? Get a new trick already!

Zed thinks that watching washing is pretty awesome cat entertainment. Goes to show how much of an awesome entertaining cat mum I am. I wonder if that's considered cruelty?

Did I tell you about the Great Clothesline Disaster? No?

Well it was a dark and stormy night.... no, it wasn't actually. We haven't had decent rain in months. It was a bright and washing-friendly day, and I was doing my thing, and talking to mum on the phone at the same time, when I pulled a sheet of the clothes line.  Apparently unpegging without full attention is clotheslinespeak for "kill and maim owner" because then the line, without warning decided to collapse my general direction. Much unlady like jumping and shrieking ensued. I didn't die, you'll be glad to know. The line is now significantly shorter (have you ever priced a new Hills hoist?! Oh lordy those things must be gold on the inside, or made with the skeletons of blonde haired babies. True story), and hopefully not prone to falling on my head again.

When one is without fairies...

It's been a while since I've written about the house - mostly because the rennovations have been on vacation while I've been busy doing other things. Like avoiding rennovating. Unfortunatley, the rennovation fairies have not arrived in the night to complete my house (hmph) which means progress has been slower than a Kombi hauling 18 hippies, a dog and a box of apples up Mount Wellington... 

So last week meant a spur of activity else I fall into a bottomless pit of self loathing at my own laziness and unrennovated house.

The result? Other than a grumpy boyfriend who is probably wondering for the millionth time why he ended up with someone as irritatingly nutty as me, is:

Doors!!

Glorious, glorious doors. I wuv them. They are just the old doors, refreshed a little. A lot. Each door was sticky with gunk, so I scrubbed and sanded them, bogged the holes, then undercoated with The World's Stinkiest Paint. When mum handed over this paint, she said "you'll love working with this, it goes on great and you won't need to do a second undercoat. Careful as it dries quickly though!"

Have you ever watched the episode of Pimp My Ride where they paint a car chrome? No? Well basically its about 6 guys working at top speed on the same panel slapping this shiny paint all over the place so it coats evenly before it dries. Madness. You Tube it. That's how I felt working with this paint. Except I didn't end up with a chrome supercar. Just some doors which look good (10 feet away when the light doesn't shine on them). At least they aren't sticky anymore :) 

Oh, and you know what I've learnt since rennovating? Everyone always gives you the awesome can't-live-without advice of the Century... when it's all too late. Learn from my mistakes. Read this blog before rennovating. Or better yet, marry an old rich guy and have him build you houses so you never need to rennovate. Le sigh.

Soooo, apparently when you take a heap of stinky sticky doors off your house and stack them up in your garage, nasty moisture creeps up the unlacquered under parts and makes the doors swell. This leads to arguments between you and someone else that goes something like:

"Is this the right door for (blah room)?"
"Yep, sure is"
"How do you know? It's not written on the door".
 "I just know (because I've been slaving over these damned things for days now. DAYS!!!)"
"Well it doesn't fit so it can't be right"
"It is the RIGHT GODDAMNED DOOR!!!!1!!"

So yeah. Stack doors on the flat. Then you won't need to sand off all your pretty paint and redo it all again later on.

Ooo, I have cornice now too. Yet to be painted obviously, but it fixes the problem of "Cornice that went around Cupboard of Doom" in the laundry...

...and now I can have a shower without worrying about charlie fluff and spiders getting me in the nude.

Also, other exciting things that happened since forever ago, pantry shelves!

I love my pantry shelves. They hold all my foods in the one place and make me feel rich. Why? Because if you have food in your pantry, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you're richer than 75% of the world. Watch me gloat over my pasta like it's bricks of solid gold, okay?

Also, my lounge room now has flooring!

Yes, for some reason my cats prefer not to sit on comfy furniture.

And if you stand in the right spot, squinting, after a few beers, you can actually trick yourself into thinking the WHOLE HOUSE HAS FLOORING!! Not really. But it sounds good.

I love putting this stuff down. Really. It's something I can do myself, it's straightfoward, hard to bugger up, and I get to use the drop saw. Win! Plus, instant results. No painting the same thing over and over. And over again. Just roll out the underlay, clip the boards together, and voila! Can't wait to get the rest of it down. I've warned my lovely man that when the next batch arrives I'm going to turn into a woman possessed and not sleep, eat, or shower until it's all down. He's looking forward to that, fo sho.

Jar Potential

Pantry plastics are expensive. You might not realise this. Perhaps your pantry is full of various containers you've collected over the years, inherited, purchased, gifted, forced upon you at the last Tupperware party you couldn't avoid... or maybe you're the sort of person who worries little for containers, and you simply leave things in their original packets (and the lucky ones get a rubber band or peg to keep the contents in check). 

The more I begin to stock my pantry, and more I realise how I must have left my pantry containers behind... and how damn expensive they are when you need to buy a lot. And I'm not sure about you, but I just know that the dodgy ones at the cheapo shops just don't cut it!

When I started my new job, it was no surprise that everyone drinks a metric shittonne of coffee. But what surprised me was, the kitchen cupboards were full of old coffee jars! It didn't take long for me to find no-one was keeping them for a particular reason, and bowerbird-Jess didn't hesitate to whisk them home.

Never ending Jars....

Thankfully Moccona make great jars for storage - these ones fit about 2 litres of stuff, have strong, air tight seals, and being glass they are much nicer looking than plastic. Also, knowing I'm giving these guys a new life and keeping them out of landfill makes me happy :)

I know they don't look like much now, but I'm inspired by the beautiful pantries I see online, all neat and tidy with everything sweetly labelled and all matchy matchy... 

"It will be mine....." *for free!*

An update to end all updates!

So today I learnt that this blog format doesn't allow me to post-date my entries. Poohy. I find this particularly annoying because I liked the idea of creating posts in the past and making it look like I did, in fact, update regularly, and you just missed it. Alas, no such luck! How dare they make me appear as slack as I truly am?!

So here it is - take a walk down memory lane with me (over the last few months)!

(You have no idea how long I puzzled about which way to put this post. Newest first, newest last? Who really reads this crap anyway?!)

18th August - FLOORING!!!!

You have no idea how long I have been staring longingly at my boxes of flooring (in a totally creepy way), itching to start laying them down!

After a rocky start (read: Jess and her mum having no effing idea what they're doing), the first boards are laid!

Zed assesses underlay for softness and comfort!

LOVE how they look. So happy. Now I just want all of them down in an instant. Nice wish.

4th August - My Cats are Finally Home

You can buy this on stuff from here.

 Today couldn't have come quick enough, despite knowing I was going to spend 3 hours in the car with two cats. Yowling. And crapping and peeing - probably. And although they have been living in the same "temporary" accommodation for over a year, I should have had more faith in them, as they both travelled amazingly well in the car for the trip! I didn't even have to clean up half a car of cat spew!

Have you met my fur-kids before?

I present you with Zed. Zeddy, Zeddy-mister, Get-off-the-bench-you-shit-head. Male, tabby, on special from the pet shop. They told me he was the last of the kitten season, and if he didn't sell soon they'd have to take him to the RSPCA. Don't get my started on what I think of pet shops and the places they get their pets.

Zed came home to me in June 2008. His birthday is 1st April! He is an outgoing cat that's not scared of the vacuum, loves sleeping under the covers, and has the solid belief that everyone loves him. He launches himself at me and hangs over my shoulder like a big scarf, completely oblivious to the fact he weighs 7kg.  He's my little buddy, my source of solace and great irritation.

And this is Luna. Looly, Loony-Loo, Princess Pants, Fuzzy Guts.  Female, Turkish Van, rescued from one of the worst things I've ever seen in my life.  Having been to third world countries, and K-Mart on a Thursday, this is saying something. You can read about her, and her sister's story, here. I consider her birthday to be 21st February, as that's the day her new life started with me.

Luna is my aloof princess. Her tail constantly sways from side to side, and I'm convinced all that is in her head is rainbows and butterflies.  Her affection is reserved for a select few. Luna plays with toys like she's only 6 months old. She has one gold eye, one blue eye, and she has me totally wrapped around her delicate lady-paws.


Words cannot describe how happy I am to finally have my fur kids home.  Who cares if you don't have floor coverings, or curtains, or can't remember which box the Tupperware is in, when every day you're greeted by purrs, your every move is followed by three golden eyes and one blue, and you can't eat a single thing without also consuming cat hair. Bliss.

22nd July - Cat Pen Home Stretch

We held our breaths as we walked the freakin heavy cat pen walls, put them in place, and checked to see if things were going to line up or if it was going to be one big disaster....

Oh look, he's smiling - gotta be a good sign, right?

... and thankfully, it all came together with much awesome!

So in two weekend's time, while I'm driving down with two yowling, excreeting cats, my lovely man will pop the roof and door on, and we'll be ready to go. So. Excited.

Oh, and eventually my little fur faces will have platforms, hammocks, and either painted floor or tiles out in here, as well as bed boxes, viewing decks, and a tunnel into the back yard! One thing at a time though :)


9th July - Hello Hobart

Borrowed from Pintrest: http://pinterest.com/pin/51791464434917141/

Why have I stolen a picture of Hobart, despite living here for over a month now? Because I haven't had time to scratch my own butt take my own half reasonable photos of the damn place yet! Yes I will get there. Don't hold me to that.

Anyway, I am finally here. My thoughts of the place? Here's a note I jotted on my iPhone on my second week of being an official Hobartian:

On my trial run to work, it was surprisingly smooth, and the traffic flowed as I carefully followed my given instructions to the Domain - rewarded with an easy park.  I enjoyed the walk through the city more than I expected. Despite the hisses of peak hour, there's a kind of peace in the Hobart CBD, a steady thrum of energy, the feeling that the place hasn't quite woken up to start the working week.  There's a balance of new and old buildings here, colour and concrete, and I find it quite appealling really. Joining the commuters makes me feel like a "real" city dweller, walking to work, the smell of traffic and winter all mixed together. The sky is grey but the light of shop window displays, street lamps and headlights dispels any sense of dullness, and as I round the corner with work in clear sight, in perfect time, I can already feel in my bones that this place is home.

S0 there you have it. As I kinda always knew I would, I like it here.

2nd - 15th July - The Break that Really Wasnt and The Weekend I didn't want to Stab Myself in the Eye

The break between jobs, for most people, means a relaxing transition from one thing to the next - time to kick back, relax, and ponder one's life and wardrobe. But no, not me. Two weeks to move, rennovate, reorganise and establish myself in a new place, sounds like a long time. "A whole two weeks!" I said to myself. The "To Do List" in my mind grew to unnaturally large proportions. Apparently, in my mind, I'm Wonderwoman and wear my undies on the outside.

I painted. I sanded. I scrubbed. I played Plants vs Zombies (Mum, I'm joking... really...). Well come on, I really did need to discover the Yeti Zombie. Ahem.

Thankfully I had help on the weekends from my lovely man, and Mum and Steven even took time off for one last 4 day long stint. The result?

Well I'm not going to take any pictures of painted walls and ceilings - you're just going to have to use your imagination on that one. Here's some help - imagine a lonely and irritable Jess, ruggedly dressed without makeup and h- actually no. Don't imagine that. It's way to scary.

Just imagine an annoyed Jess (not so scary) going over the same walls again and again and struggling to see the difference and the point of it all andwhyareweheredammit?!?!?

*sigh*

At this point, writing this from the future, I wish I had of been able to tell my past self, in real time, that I was only going to nock and mark the crappa out of those walls in the first few weeks anyway. Hrmph.

The good parts are the parts other people helped with!

I present to you, my mum's piece of awesome - the NICHE!!!

Also, bath is looking fabo

and my flooring has arrived *squee!*

The oven and benchtop are in (have I showed you this part yet?)

and Mum tiled up the wall

while my lovely installed these awesome downlights

Voila!

In the meantime, the cat pen is coming along really well! Planning the frames went something like:

Jess: "I'm going to write down every individual length of timber we require, then I'm going to calculate what we can fit into each length, to minimise the wastage. So we need three of those and two of these... what was the measurement of Wall 1 again?"

Bird: "Which wall is Wall 1?"

Jess: "You know *hand signals* that one?"

Bird: *wince* *cringe* "Can you explain to me again what you're trying to do?"

All in our favouritest place ever, Bunnings. On the weekend. Where the pain is tripled and the people working there would rather be on the moon.

It worked out okay in the end, and we're still talking. Bonus!

For the record, despite being cheap, fence paint is a right pain in the arse to work with - its runny as and messy and needs a trillion coats!!

And then the final stint has made the house almost livable!

Mum and Steven finished off the tiling in the bathroom, and man does it look good! My crappy iPhone pics (yes, I really need to learn how to use that damn DSLR!) hardly do it justice. I am in love with my bathroom!!

My range hood is also in. Wow, that makes it sound so easy! Mum and I vacated while the boys swore over this thing. Seeing it mostly up made me so excited I took a pic before the cover was on.

Also, I was very stoked to kiss my old laundry door goodbye. Well, I didn't actually kiss it. No way hosay, it was sticky and still stunk of old man. And made my laundry dark.

Welcome, lovely new glass panel door!

And while everyone else was completing these epic tasks, I painted architraves. I justified this by telling everyone for at least 5 minutes about how nice the paint was (Dulux Aquaenamel, thankyouverymuch), and how it just finishes off all the damn painting I've been doing. See? SEE?! SEE HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS?! Eh.

The last thing we did was unpack and set up my new bed! Looks pretty flash in a room with no curtains, doors or floor coverings!!

Wow, are my photos getting shitter or what?!

Despite all this effort, I won't be living in the house straight away. The cat pen still needs to be finished, and the fittings and silocine sorted so I can have a shower. So next week I start my new job, and camp at Bird's in the meantime. Luckily he's happy to have me!

1st July - Farewell Devonport

I've taken to jotting my thoughts on my iPhone when I'm on the run. Pondering leaving my hometown, here's some reflection for ya. And yes, I know it's poor writing to start a sentence with "and":

It's been strange, living a life stretched across the State. 

Moving back home never felt like moving back to Devonport. However, there's a certain comfort in spending time in the town you grew up in. 

At first it can be a little hard to pin point, what it is exactly about a place which changes when you're not looking, yet somehow remains the same.  I can't say that I've ever considered Devonport with much affection, yet as I cruise around the emptying streets on a cold mid week evening, I realise I'm subconciously loyal to the supermarket I always went to with my Mum, at an age when it was still fun to ride on the outside of the trolley and ask for sweets even though you knew the answer was always no. And I know instrinctually how fast I can hoon around Maccas corner, and that the light turning left is always green - only locals understand what that corner meant as part of the local initiation of getting on your P Plates. Before the rennovations. I've probably driven past a million times.  

And when I'm spending time with an "out of towner", I still have my favourite Bluff parking spot, even if the old car park with the nasty speed humps has gone. 

And even after 10 years or more, its still easy to grumble about the loss of "The Chicken Kiev Bar", and recall tales of walking the streets as an underage binge drinker with a crew of 20 and a weekend of mischief in our heads. No-one else really understands that the potato cakes really were that amazing. 

I realise that even though I don't love this place - as I take the back street short cuts home to avoid the silly new Formby Road development that seems to think right turns are the enemy - that sometimes it takes leaving to go somewhere new, to realise what it means to grow up in a place.

Because I haven't just grown up here, I've grown with it. The good and the bad, just like family.

I never really reconnected with Devonport, and I'm still not sure if I'm sad about that. A small part of me is sad to leave though, I think. Farewell Devo! No longer a resident, I will be but an occassional guest. But that's okay - I never missed you in the first place.

The Lighthouse Carpark is still one of my favourite spots in Devonport

30th June - The Big 2-9

Buy from here.

Happy Birthday to the love of my life! I promise to continue to buy you crappy things for years to come, if you keep me :)

29th June - Last day in Launceston

Stolen from the ABC (yes I purposely picked a miserable picture)

My final day at my old job was fairly uneventful, with the usual drinks and farewells.  Launceston as a place has its charms, but for months I've wandered along its dreary streets knowing this place has nothing for me now but a host of fading memories.  Farewell Launceston! There's only a few who linger there who I'll miss.

25th June - Our 1 Year Anniversary

I have to say I was more than a little excited to celebrate our first year as a couple. Partially because I still can't believe I've managed to not only score, but also keep, such a wonderful man, but also because we had planned an amazing get away which was exactly what we both needed. To not kill someone. Or run away and live in a tree.

Eagles Nest Retreat was the place we chose to spend a good few days doing very little in the company of each other.  My lovely found the spot, that just so happened to be nestled amongst the farm land, rolling hills and in the presence of the lovely Mount Rolland, in the area I grew up in. And when I say grow, I mean the first 6 years of my life.

Once we remembered how to do "nothing" again, we enjoyed good food, sleep ins, strolls in the country side and testing out all three spas that Nest I had to offer. It was a magical time away, and it's safe to say that an outdoor spa has made it into our plans for the future!


23rd June - Not the Slab we'd have preferred!

Did you know that making concrete is very similar to making cake? A little bit of this... a little bit of that... how does the mixture look? Like scones or like custard? I shovelled like I'd never shovelled before (have I ever shovelled before?).  After a while the rolling sounds of rock and grit in the mixer is almost comforting. Or perhaps that's just the insanity creeping in!

Regardless, the cat slab is down and looking awesome! Unlike us. We look like people who have been concreting all day. I will be in trouble for posting this!

The folks have been working tirelessly in the bathroom in the meantime, and it's looking flash! I absolutely love the big white tiles. They reflect the light and make the room feel  bright and lovely.

With Steven...

...and without!

10th June - Tiles UP THE FREAKIN WALL!

The heat pump is working!

Have I ever mentioned to you that I have an amazing sexy electrician? Who works for free?!

The tiles are going up the walls of the bathroom!

The footings of the cat pen are down!

This is not the vision I had for my kitchen sink!