Our House - Part 2

This is the front of the house. This is the long drive way leading to the front of the house.

And this is a little boy on his scooter, zooming up and down the driveway and getting our mail.

But there's no mail today.



But guess what? We have snails living in our letterbox. One of the many rotating inhabitants we share this house with. Snails eating our snail mails! Quite literally.

Lachlan will get the mails usually, and Lucas, those snails. Errgghh...

(Gaaaahhhh.... I hate my own voice on videos!)

Yes Ma'am!

I have a blog detective. She has been checking on my blog every SINGLE day and counting the days I have NOT blogged. Awww... we know you are our number one fan! So this post is for you.






So here are my troop, oh how they've grown. It's funny how I don't realise how big they've become (although they're constantly under my brow!) until I find last winter's coat and put them on. They've become 2 inches shorter!

My Lilypie will soon be 1, Lucas 3 and Lachlan 5! How time flies...

So yes Madam Detective, I don't blame you for missing these gorgeous faces. I know you miss their smiles, their laughter, hugs and kisses. I am saving them all until we see you again soon!

I want to apologise to all my loyal readers, who has also been checking up on me. No particular reason why I haven't blogged as much as I used to. At the end of each day (if there's such a thing!) I plopped myself down on the sofa, lazy and uninspired. Gorgeous faces they seem to be, they're little energy zapping bunnies.

On a more positive note, there's a LOT happening. Socially, there seem to be birthday parties every weekend in April and oh, did I mention we will be throwing 3 birthday parties in successive weeks? The home business is blooming wonderfully and soon I will be losing my wonderful SAHB work-from-home husband to a little shop nearby. AND the house! We're enjoying it.

XOX

An Unexpected Visitor

So yes, we do have a swimming pool in our backyard that we share with a multitude of other organisms!

The water has been gorgeous, blue. Icy, even at the height of summer. There's this solar thingy, but it doesn't "heat" the water up one bit. Probably just takes the edge off the iciness.

The boys LOVE it so so much! Lachlan wanted to have a pool party for his birthday. It's just that, I had to explain to him, his birthday would be late autumn. I didn't think anyone would come in their bathers, let alone jump into the pool with him.

Anyways, just a couple of days ago when the boys jumped in. Something else had already jumped in....FIRST. A little green frog that reminded me of first year uni lab practice! Uggggghhhhh..... Lucky I didn't jump in with them, else I would've jumped straight back out.

There was something else that I noticed that day, the pool somewhat turned green. Gaaahh, what's happened to resort style, crystal clear water overnight? Now I've got swampy ugly muck in my backyard with a frog??? I quickly googled "green pool water" and found out that there was a full-scale algae bloom in my pool. Awwww.........just bloomin' beautiful.

The rain must have brought these little buggers with it. Now here's what we have to do to reverse it. Sounds like a bloody science experiment to me, frogs and all.

Our House - Part 1

Over the next few weeks, I hope to be putting up pictures of the house. Mind you, the house is not new, it's almost 30 years old! But like a good wine, I think it has aged quite beautifully.

Now, I'm going to have to do this in a few parts. One, because I need the photos to actually look good to impress (teehee!) ie. minus the mess. Two, I can only do THAT much tidying up at the one time and taking the photos before it gets messed up again. Three, it will keep you in suspense. Four, there's no four. Don't worry, I will still be showing you the psychedelic, low hanging lamps from the 80's that we try not to bang our heads on, and everything as is, when we moved in.

We have not renovated, or done anything to the house. We simply moved in and unpacked.

Let's go from back to front! The rolling lawn, that was quick to impress. But when one has more time to ponder on how gruelling mowing the lawn can be........

So tip no.1 on buying a house, do it quickly before the hubby changes his mind!



It's always handy to have a lemon tree, especially one as established as this. Only problem is, they all ripen at the same time! So tip no.2, come and say hello to me during the lemon season, I will have a bucket load of lemons to share with you.

You can see the fenced pool area on the right, and the back facade of the house.



This is a fully covered patio, where we will be having lots of alfresco dinners in the warm summer's nights.



One of the things about this place is the well established garden, there is so much green. But it takes no genius to figure out, a big garden means a lot of hard work maintaining and time. Thank goodness, we have our parents to help out every once in a while. And it helps having a hubby that doesn't mind sweating it out with the lawn mower.



More pictures to come, so stay tuned!

Hello Blog!

OK, so I think I am back. I have taken a rather extended hiatus from blogging. There has been quite a lot happening over the last couple of months. Buying a house, selling a house, moving house and now, renovating a house! But I could safely say that we have ironed things out, and on the right track back to our normal routine. It has been a smooth sailing adventure, but hey, packing and unpacking boxes is not too much fun when you're up to Box No. One Hundred and Twenty-Two!

Moving house takes up SO MUCH of your time, it zaps up your every last bit of energy, it's like a never-ending marathon. Whatever bit of time I have left, I thought it was only fair that I spend it on my children. I must admit though, inspirations have been hard to come by and I am struggling a wee bit (I think) to think about what to blog about. Maybe there are just SO MANY things I don't even know where and how to start!

How about this: We are so madly in LOVE with this place! The kids are crazy about their own little rooms (OK, except Lily), the space to run wild, the big gum trees! Oh it is so so green here, I absolutely love it! We stretch out our arms and legs, and there is SO MUCH room to streeeeettcchhh (and also SO MUCH HOUSE WORK!!) Oh yes, I absolutely love it! Haaaa......

And have I told you, we share this house with a gazillion of other living beings? We find 2, 4, 6 and 8 legged creatures of all shapes and colours and sizes, I feel like we're in a freaking museum of entomology!

Here to greet me on my kitchen window sill early in the morning...


Hello Mr. Mantis :)


Ugghhh... I'm not a big fan of 8 legged creatures! This orangey number is apparently a baby huntsman and she's already the size of Lily's palm. Gaaaaahhhhh!!

Often there will be a row of cockatoos sitting on the fence outside the window when the kids ate their breakfast. And one night, we heard hoot hoot, hoot hoot and we thought it was one of the kids snoring. But there he was, Mr. Owl perched on one of the gum trees.

Maybe I should start charging rent.

Passed In

The gruelling weeks of sleeplessness, renovations and cleaning for open for inspections did not pay off. The auction that took place last Saturday was inconclusive, our property passed in at a price lower than anticipated. Oh how I have been looking forward to sticking the "SOLD" sticker on the board outside the house, how I thought never again would I be cleaning windows for the rest of the year, how exciting it would be that I could now look forward to the "new" place.

But.

We have not sold. We're back on the drawing board. We have more open for inspections to come, offers to be considered, decisions to be made, a household to run and a LOT to be done. The game is still on.

I am exhausted, a little bit deflated but not defeated. We shall see what the week ahead bring us.

5 Top Tips for Home Inspections

from a non-real estate expert!

It's all about playing with the senses. You want to be invited into a home, and be tantalised not only by what you see, but what you can smell, hear, touch and possibly taste.

1. Openness create a sense of space. So removing a piece of furniture here and there, or hiding all traces of mess and clutter takes away a lot of distraction from the room. Neatness and cleanliness is paramount. You want to show that the house has been looked after.
2. I like a house with rooms bathed in natural light. A house that is bright and airy is a happy, cheery one. We're lucky that this house has windows lined from the front door to the back, and that was one of the main reasons why we bought the place. (This makes cleaning windows a pain in the backside, but hey, they didn't need to know that - make sure all windows are squeaky clean though, no icky finger prints or slobber marks)
   
3. A little birdie told me that houses that smell like freshly baked bread makes you warm and gooey in the inside, and will sell better. I concur! So I whip up a batch of cookie dough or bread the night before and leave it in the fridge, then stick it into the oven an hour or so before inspection time. I do serve up the cookies during inspection times too, and the real estate agent promised me a couple of grand more for that reason. And they better stick to their promise!
   
4. I try to create a scene and stick to a colour scheme for every room. Like for the master bedroom, a red romantic hideaway. The guest bedroom, a blue countryside retreat. I bought new cushions to jazz up an old couch, borrowed some paintings and pictures to brighten up a wall or two, bought some new pots and plants for the garden, and freshly cut flowers for the lounge. You don't have to spend a fortune, and remember that these things can be used for your new place when you move out.
   
5. And finally, a no brainer, a soft lullaby playing in the parents' retreat, a jazzy tune or two in the lounge and the sound of trickling water in the courtyard. Some aromatherapy candles burning (but make sure they don't burn the house down or clash with the smell of biccies).

Fingers crossed, someone will fall head over heels with this house like we did 7 years ago, and bid bid BID!!! But who are we kidding? It is definitely not the seller's market at the current moment, but we're remaining positive, and we can only hope for the best.

'Tis the season...to be SUPER busy!

What can I say? It has been a whirlwind past couple of weeks. We are selling our house.

It is funny how we've lived in this place we called home for the past seven years, built our little cosy cove, breathe in so much life and in fact made three precious little lives (OK, so we won't go into much more detail here). Damn, we got married in this house, right here in our very own back yard. And we think we know every nook and cranny. It's not until we want to sell the house, that we scrutinize every little mark on the wall, the hair line cracks, the unevenness of the paint, a leaky tap etc etc. Every little scuff has a memory to it. A nail in the wall that held a precious picture. Every little stain on the carpet has a story to tell.



So it is common knowledge that selling your house is a busy and exciting time. You want to ensure that the features that make your home stands out among the rest, really does stand out, so to achieve the best possible price for your house. And that's what it comes down to. Money. Buyers look for negatives to give them bargaining powers in negotiations. So for exactly that reason, we have put in our best effort in eliminating the negatives. And it is here we begin to depersonalise this home. Erase every little scuff of memories that we won't be bringing along with us to our new home, fill up holes that held the nails for our pictures and make some space in the house so someone can come along and say hey, I could make this house mine.



A new coat of paint. Refreshing the carpets and polishing the tiles. Ensuring that every room is as neat and as clean as it possibly can be. Decluttering (a very therapeutic exercise!). Little finishing touches, it does count. And creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere, so that a potential buyer would feel that emotional tug as he or she walks into the house.

First impressions count.

So yeah, we've been busy. 3 little kids tagging along with the ride. Literally, during house inspection times. We practically LIVE in the car during those times. Throw the kids, the dirty laundry, the mess on the floor, dirty cups, saucers etc etc into the car and off we go! Haven't we noticed, kids and mess come in the same category? So that very room every house has, the room that we shove all the mess into when there's an unexpected visitor, our car has become just that. And it's a bloody good one too.



So too-do-loo, off we go for another car ride!

More on Open For Inspections.... later.

Internet Listing is Up!

I am completely happy with the professionalism and services of our real estate agent. Things are happening at lightning speed, and everything seems to fall into place nicely. Even the sun cooperated on the day of photoshoot!

Anyways, here is the internet listing:

Lifestyle With An Architectural Edge

A grand and unique home with the sweeping lines of cathedral ceilings and imposing angles makes ‘The Diplomat’ by Bellemore a truly distinctive residence.

Set on a gorgeous tree-lined street in the company of equally distinguished display homes, the 31 square (approx) family retreat offers lavish living bathed in natural light. A palladium window to the lounge and glass walkway along the dining room’s atrium set a glamorous formal scene, flowing to spacious open plan living set against lush paved gardens.

A magnificent kitchen impresses with north facing light, amazing bench space and a host of lime-washed solid timber cupboards, with the meals area and rumpus room opening to a private palm-lined patio.

Clever bedroom zoning has a parent’s retreat out front with a palatial spa ensuite, walk in robe and a sun kissed sitting room, two bedrooms upstairs for teens and another on the ground floor near the main bathroom and open study. Decked out with ducted heating, evaporative cooling, stylish furnishings, a secure dog run, double garage and a smart Merbau front fence and perfectly placed near Knox City Shopping Centre, Eastlink and The Knox School. This is the home and lifestyle a discerning family deserves.

Click here for more photos.

We Are Ready!

So, this is the place we called home for the last 7 years. It has served us well, a fairly decent sized house: 4 bedrooms, a study, 4 living areas including 2 dining, a magnificent kitchen, a double garage, a private courtyard and an ultra low maintenance garden.

The past week, busy is an understatement. We have given this house a makeover, a fresh coat of paint on the outside and window frames, a little touch up on the inside. We now have a lawn! The biggest task of all perhaps was to get rid of all the clutter, and it's amazing how much stuff we collected over the years. We are truly lucky to have enlisted the help of both sets of parents/grandparents. My dad dug and levelled the soil for the lawn. My mom looked after the kids. My father-in-law painted the awnings and ceilings. Even my mother-in-law was up on a ladder painting the window frames! My handy husband did an amazing job with the alfresco area, pulling down the old screens and shade sails and replacing it with a new ones with a modern edge. While I had the endless task of cleaning, decluttering, more cleaning and redecorating the joint.

Now, we are ready to sell.

A whole new adventure awaits us.

A New Beginning

One day not so long ago, I fell in love.

It has only been a week, and we have been taken on a whirlwind journey. From the moment we set eyes on this vintage charm, its land so vast screaming out endless opportunity. To the moment we decided we could live there, and so put in an offer for the house. The visits to the banks. The visits to the house again and again. The realisation that we needed to sell the current house and works that needed to be done to get the house in shape to sell. The phone call that told us we were new owners of this property. Whoaa... it is all happening. And it has only been one week.

And I wasn't even looking.

Love is blind. Love is fate.

It is here, we shall begin a new chapter of our lives...

Dig, Plant, Grow...

...water, harvest, chop, cook.

There's a certain satisfaction in watching your kitchen garden grow that is unexplainable. The seeds that we sow, sprout little shoots, leaves, flowers. The slugs and snails come uninvited, aphids, caterpillars and downy mildew. And it takes such a long time! Not to mention the costs, laying down a garden bed, seeds, seedlings, soil, lime, manure, fertilisers and more.

It's so much easier to buy vegetables from the shops is it not?


This is what my cauliflower looks like, after 5 months. Just yesterday, I bought a head of cauliflower, with lovely firm white florets for $1.20.


I read in the books, that beetroot should be harvested when it is roughly the size of a tennis ball. I pulled a bunch out today. I have beetroots the size of... marbles.


Aahh... silverbeet. They are so easy to grow, I have harvested yet again and again. The leaves rich, glossy green. But no one else eats them in this household...but me. And my mother-in-law told me, once upon a time ago, in their village in China, they fed it to the pigs.

Sigh...


Brussel Sprouts! Cute little buttons that has just started to appear... I can't wait to sink my teeth into them.


Well, at least my cabbage does look semi decent if I say so myself. It is now the size of a mini (junior) football.

Nevertheless, there has been some successes (no doubt more failures) and the kids are fascinated with the whole process of it all. There is so much pleasure in stepping outside into the garden, and picking just what I need for the next meal. In saying that, my herb garden in flourishing. There is SO much mint, lemon verbena, rosemary, Vietnamese mint and coriander. Please feel free to pick some if you're in the area. A kitchen garden is rewarding after all.



And on that note, my Kitchen Garden Companion (RRP $125) arrived in the mail last week. I am so excited! I waited 2 months on pre-order from www.bookdepository.co.uk and paid a little less than $40 for it with free shipping! Stephanie Alexander is such an inspiration, an Aussie icon. Her role in initiating the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation is tremendous. And this promotes a kitchen garden programme for primary schools across the country, in the belief that the earlier children learn about food through example and positive experience, the better their food choices will be through life.

Let's pray for my kitchen garden, let it be a positive experience for the sake of my children!

Winter Vegetables

When I was at the peak of my pregnancy with Lily, I had a sudden urge to get my vegetable patch ready for winter. What do they say when pregnant mothers have sudden urges like these?

So there I was at Bunnings, this HUGE momma of a belly pushing this great big trolley, with two mischievious boys hanging of it. We picked winter vegetable seedlings of cos lettuce, beetroot, rainbow beet, cauliflower, brussel sprouts and cabbage. And a packet of sweet pea seeds.



I got home, don my gardening gloves and gum boots. Heave HUGE bags of cow's manure and mushroom compost as well as my HUGE belly and started working through the soil. I planted rows of seedlings, mulched and watered them in. I hammered in a trellis for the snow peas to grow upon. ALL by my pregnant self!

One week later, I had Lily.



So now the vege patch, left to grow on their own accord, a little bit haphazard, a little bit "slug-eaten" are soon ready to be harvested*.

*We have since munched on crisp lettuce leaves.

Fenced In

I can't believe it took us two years deliberating on a fence for our front garden and "Mr. Muscles" *wolf whistle* less than 2 days to build it! It is finally done.

When we moved into this house over 6 years ago, we thought less garden means less weeds to pull, less maintenance, more time for other more important stuff. Little did we know that we'll be running out of room so quickly in such a short span of time! (That's too much time spent indoors! O.o Heh)

There's no soft squishy grass to roll around on, no room for a trampoline and JUST enough space for one tiny tricycle to go round and round in circles.

So our lovely neighbours built their fence about 2 years ago and it looked magnificent AND they DID IT ALL BY THEMSELVES! Their kids have a bit more room to roam around freely and it's peace of mind knowing that they will be "safe" from the oncoming traffic. (Although now they effortlessly just jump over the fence).

And with just a little persuasion, I got my own "Mr. Muscles" to agree to help build me my fence. That was 2 years ago. Time constraint, work (a LOT of work), kids etc got in the way and in the end, I gave up waiting and PAID for another set of muscles! He hee hee.... it's all worth it in the end.

Now, I throw the boys OUTSIDE of the house and at the same time keep them IN. It is fully enclosed, complete with a sliding gate. They play basketball out on the driveway, ride their bicycles in bigger circles, play more ball games, mini tennis, mini golf etc. And I get to have the house all to myself. I am completely happy.

Crazy Melbourne Weather

Oh what's new? Melbourne is the only city ever known to have 4 seasons in a day. Don't be fooled by the bright blue skies and warm fuzzy mornings. It could be a bright sun shiny day, and pelting down hail that very same moment. Like today. It was literally hailing down golf balls!


Oh, this was just to show you the bright blue skies reflected off my bowl of molten chocolate. Dangerous stuff, 70% cocoa Lindt chocolate and butter, melted. But don't get distracted now...


A view from my kitchen window... I apologise for the poor quality photos and reflection off the windows.


That's a lot of hail! And a collection of ice cubes in my black boy (Xanthorrhoea glauca). Oh what a name for a native Australian plant. Sounds like a human disease of some sort.


And more hail stones.


A new experience for Lucas. He was in a daze, points out of the window and said woowww....

We hear sirens from where we are, and hope that there weren't too many injuries or damages to properties.

Rebellion

Since returning from our very long holiday, I have been preoccupied with boring house-keeping stuff, getting the house back in order, the dust of the shelves, the boys back in their routine and turning into a scary mum-zilla. Why is it that the chores seem never-ever-ending? There's constantly things to be picked up, toys to be packed away, laundry to be done, mouths to be fed... and little people (boys, in particular ONE very cheeky toddler, are we mentioning any names here?) getting into misfits and making me very VERY annoyed, angry and basically turning me into that ugly monster of a mom!

Phew!

*Takes deep breath*

So anyways, this morning, as I was yelling away at Lucas to get out from behind the TV before he gets zapped, and Lachlan to not touch my furnitures with vegemite fingers, only to get mischievious grins in return or be completely ignored. Toys were strewn everywhere. Ben 10 blasting on TV. That was it! Enough already...

What's happening here? Am I getting holiday withdrawal syndrome? For 6 weeks, we had somebody cleaning up our mess, doing our laundry, cooking our meals. Bliss! But I was more than happy to come home, call me nuts but I actually like doing my own laundry. But now I feel like I'm the house maid! Gaaaaahhh....

*More deep breaths*

So I figured, stuff it! Let's be messy, dirty, lazy. Let's eat pizza's tonight, or KFC I don't care. There were warnings that mum-zilla might turn into one of those ugly, angry aliens from Ben 10 if he doesn't get off the TV. So we stirred up a batch of playdough. Stick the boys on the kitchen bench. And had my 10 minutes of calm, before the storm starts all over again.


Pushing, shoving, snatching, not sharing, biting, hitting, screaming, crying ............................



Hard to imagine such cuteness can wreck so much havoc in a home!

Home Improvement

We had a rather productive and satisfying weekend, working on a little project that has been on our to-do-list for a while now. Our front garden! Well, a tiny bit of our front garden anyways. The rest of it is still a barren, weedy, dusty, impoverished chunk of land! Sigh...

Anyways, we started work on a small triangular spot just right next to the entrance to our house. We leveled the land, emptying almost 6 wheel barrow loads of top soil onto our backyard (another small vege patch, yay!), and then realised all that's left was disgustingly hard clay soil. We wanted this garden to be as low maintenance as possible, so I've chosen a few hardy plants. I surely hope they're as hardy as promised on its label. "Thrives on neglect": I just love the sound of that! Haha!



On the back, Cordyline "Red Sensation", and a few scattered patches of Acacia Cognata "Limelight". We then laid a weed mat over the rest of the soil, scattered blocks of stepping stones and 2 logs of wood I found sitting in the garage and filled the rest of the space up with polished river stones and white crushed marble.



And we adopted this little fella. Her name is Elly the Elephant. So says Lachy.



One little step at a time, let's hope we get this project done by the end of summer.

Summer Garden

Zucchinis have got to be one of the most hardy plants, ever. Just before we left for Malaysia 6 weeks ago, I planted some zucchini seedlings in my vege patch, leaving it all to mother nature. Knowing that the temperature here in Melbourne had soared beyond 40, and if not in the high 30's, I wasn't hopeful that we would reap anything at all from the plants. In fact, I was half expecting to come home to a backyard of dried up and toasted plants and weeds!



The harvest wasn't bountiful, there were three or four odd shaped zucchinis and plenty of flowers. But enough for a meal or three (and maybe more). Skin off as they were a bit tough from lack of water.

Here, I chopped them into circles and threw them into chicken broth, to serve with noodles and shredded chicken meat.



For a little good measure, the boys and I planted a cherry tomato plant, hoping that it's not too late for the season.



And a strawberry bush. We found these at our local nursery for $2.95 each. Bargain!

Summer Garden

This year, our summer vegetable patch has been left fallow except for 3 zucchini plants that I pray will survive the summer heat. With us away, there'll only be Cailler (our chocolate Labrador) left to tend the garden and knowing how hot it gets in summer, it might not survive. The plants I mean.

Meanwhile, Cailler will still get some daily TLC from our trusty neighbour and my brother-in-law. Let's hope someone feels sorry for the zucchini plants and water them! I hope for some big, fat, juicy zucchinis when we get back.

So, with not much gardening to do, this is what I've been tending to instead: My farmville! Gaaahh... can you imagine how much time I've wasted on this? Ploughing, sowing, weeding, fertilizing, harvesting and building farmhouses, tending to animals...etc. Don't you laugh! You will get addicted too once you start.

Pictures for Papa

A little more than a month ago, my parents were here from Malaysia. It was almost the end of winter and the start of spring. My brother had just bought a property with a good sized backyard. My father got stuck in elbow grease, his carefree holiday project had turned into a mammoth task of clearing vast track of winter weeds, overgrown bushes and lopping down huge tree branches. He cleared a patch of land and planted lawn seeds, but sadly his holiday came to an end. Now Papa, this is what your labour of love looks like...


The patch of grass under the Magnolia tree has sprouted, still a little bit patchy, and still needing a little bit of work. Someone told me today they're feeding it with lawn food. :) The lone garden light with the broken pane is still there...


New grass... soft, squishy and lush.


Freshly mowed...head!


The Persimmon tree is thriving, leaves are sprouting.

The tree with the funny spiky "fruit" is now in full bloom. Does anyone know what tree this is?

Loquats aplenty!

And here's a video for your viewing pleasure.