The Great DeLeo Makeover - Part One!

I've always loved a good makeover story, in fact my latest book The Bouquet List is about a girl who completely changes her looks and her life. And now I have a makeover of my own going on.

When we bought our house ten years ago it was because it had so much "potential". It had half an acre for our four little kids to run around on, five bedrooms so they could eventually have their own rooms, and electric blue walls with salmon coloured trim and frilly london blinds......

Needless to say, the wall colours and blinds have changed, but there's still so much that needs to be done and this week I signed away my life and the GDP of a small country for stage one in our "renovations". Shall I talk you through them???!!!

Below is the very attractive and completely useless half wall between the dining and lounge rooms. Oh, that's not our dining table, by the way, that's just the table that gets all the junk left on it. With joy in my heart, I'm ecstatic to say that this is all going, as is the yellow brick to the left, and an enormous cavity slider is going in. 

Also going is the very ugly fireplace below which has never worked. This will be a big wall with the cavity slider behind it and a TV on the front. This will finally mean that I can banish the boys and their Friday night football games down here while the girls and I can watch Coro in peace!

And see that greyish carpet with stains where the dog has tramped in unmentionables and kids have dropped every known food variety on it?? It's all going to be replaced!!

And finally for stage one I'm getting a new laundry area and new lighting everywhere.

I can't tell you how excited I am. I'm really hoping I can check back in a couple of months with all the work finished. What I need now is all your best tips on what worked and didn't work for you in your makeover.

Murphy's Law Of Having A Visitor

So, I'm a super excited little LoveCat because I've just had lovely Rachel Bailey to stay at Chez Archer for a night!

Rachel and me!

And Murphy's Law being what it is, a few big things that could go wrong before Rachel's arrival, did go wrong!

• Firstly, we're renovating!  The painting is finished but the carpet hasn't arrived as hoped to make the room as lovely as I wanted it to be. (Still hasn't arrived but that's another story!)  So we moved all the tools and paint cans and brushes out, put up the curtains, rolled out a carpet square and moved a bed in!

• Secondly, on the morning Rachel was to arrive, the power went out!

• One minute everything was working and then next, nothing.  And we're on tankwater so no power, no water!  Argh!  We investigated.  The neighbours still had power and we realised all our lights were working so the problem was at our house. The safety switch was tripped and wouldn't re-set. We turned off every appliance in the house - then turned them on, one by one. And finally found the culprit.  The dear old electric jug had boiled its last kettleful.

• All I can say is, YAY for safety switches and if you haven't got one, you should seriously think about having one installed.

• And thirdly, and if I might modestly say, most disastrously, I picked Rachel up at the airport.  Actually, picking Rachel up was great - it was what came after the pick up that was bad.  I got totally, utterly, and comprehensively LOST leaving the airport. It was... bad!

Even Google Maps on my phone couldn't help me!

• I had to 'phone a friend' and luckily, Mr Archer was home and able to be a remote GPS for me.

Anyway, I'm so pleased to say that I got Rachel safely back to our place for the evening and one sleep and then popped her on the bus the next morning for the next stage of her journey.

Here we are enjoying our morning cup of Earl Grey tea!

So has Murphy and his Law of maximum obstacles affected you lately?  I'd love to hear! How do you react to challenges?  Do you welcome them or do you prefer smooth sailing?  

Reflections on Post-Storm Renovations

We're having an interesting couple of months at Chez Archer and I've realised:

• Problems don't just come in groups of three.  They'll arrive in any darned number they like and probably at the least convenient time!
• and there really is a silver lining to some of them!  Not all, but some!

So a few weeks ago we had a big storm - nope, make that a BIG BIG storm!  It was centred right over our area and lightning and thunder were happening almost simultaneously. Frighteningly loud!

The gathering clouds

The temperature plummeted and we had a huge hail dump...

Almost looked like snow!

... and then the rain started.  Hail stones had clogged the gutters so the water had nowhere to go...

Overflowing gutters

So I'm running around taking photos (as you do!) when I found the water was coming into the house.  Back flowing from the gutters.

I put the camera down and started running around with buckets and towels.

The carpet was sodden.  And it's very very old so it got unpleasantly stinky as it was drying out.  We decided it needs replacing... actually it needed replacing 20 years ago when we moved here but we'd put it off and somehow time just trickled on.

It seemed silly to get new carpets without painting... and it seemed silly to paint without:

1. replacing the ghastly laminated ply on two walls.  And when that came off we saw the walls needed insulation and there were all sorts of interesting cracks that needed filling!
2. and stripping the equally ghastly wallpaper off the other walls.

The carpet's so old it has wrinkles!

This is Bob lounging about in the paddock while we worked

Now the new carpet has been ordered - it's a pale nutmeg colour called "burnt oak".  I hope we like a whole room of it as much as we liked the 1' by 1' sample square!

We're now mid renovation and I'm looking forward to seeing the end result. 

So that's our silver lining from the big storm.  

• The old carpet, which has always been pretty gross, is finally going to be replaced.
• The tired old walls are going to be gleaming under a lovely fresh coat of paint.

What "silver linings" have you found lately?  Do you enjoy renovations? And if you do enjoy them, please share your philosophy because I confess I am not a fan so any renovation "zen" would be most welcome!

Bathroom: DR - During Renovations... (sigh)... Part 1!

by Sharon Archer

As promised (or should that be, threatened! LOL), here is the next episode in Bathroom Renovations at chez Archer!  Last month, I did Bathroom: BR - Before Renovations I thought it would be interesting to take a pictorial tour...

Going...

Bath & basin still there but floor tiles & wall tiles gone - check!

Bath & basin gone - check!

Mr Archer about to demolish the plaster and "that" wallpaper!

Going...

Crowbar in hand!

 Gone!

Exposed "bones" of the bathroom!

And here's the old bathroom spread over the back lawn (very dry here so the "lawn" is not looking very lawn-like!) and piles of old plaster in the carport!

Anyone want a yellow bath, basin & shower base?                      Going very, VERY cheap!

I predict a trip to the tip in my very near future...

So a little bit of progress to report...

Nice new WHITE base in the shower...

And some new plaster to cover the wall "bones" behind the shower...

New plaster on the other walls too...

 

















The thing about renovations is that they always take longer than I think they will... for instance, we want a new window in the bathroom.  Well, getting the quote took two weeks and the order itself will take three weeks on top of that.

In the meantime... did I mention that we're also renovating the room at the end of the kitchen?  We call it the "conversation pit" because it's a couple of steps down into it.  It's a comfy area to sit and chat or relax or read or write... or it was until we started renovating!  Right now it's full of drop sheets and drills and scaffolding!  

Might blog about this next month if there isn't enough progress on Part 2 of the "During" Bathroom Renovations.

Got any projects on the go around your place?  How are you surviving the renovation chaos?

  

Bathroom: BR - Before Renovations!

By Sharon Archer

All That Glitters.... is not gold!  Nope, that glittery thing might be our bathroom!  And it’s about to be renovated!  All the glamorous, gleaming golden-ness is going to be swept away and replaced by perfect, pure plain-ness!

 

 

 

We can’t wait!  But I confess, I am soooo not looking forward to the nasty messy bits between the way it is and the way it will be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I thought I’d take you on a small ‘tour’ before it all happens...

 

 

These pictures don’t do justice to the wallpaper - I think the camera has trouble focussing because the odd flare of the foil finish.  Can’t use flash because the bounce-back is blinding! 

 

 The bath and basin are yellow porcelain, the old floor tiles are shrinking and starting to come up off the floor... I don’t think the grouting in the wall tiles was done properly so keeping the mold at bay is a full time job.  The shower is an old one so the door design has lots of grooves where the water likes to lie - and the mold likes that too!  

And it was all like this when we purchased the house sixteen years ago.  We promised ourselves we’d renovate... as soon as the budget would allow!  But then a weird thing happened - we stopped ‘seeing’ the awfulness of it!  Though whenever we take visitors in there for the first time it’s kind of fun to see them blink in the dazzle!  

So, back to the crux of the matter - renovations!  Got any tips to surviving them?

Bestselling Author, Kelly Hunter, talks about -

The makeover bug.

Not people. Places. Have you ever walked into and old country pub or cafe and fallen in love with the bones of the place, but been dismayed by how musty, dusty and faded it was? I have.

Not that I have the deep pockets or the necessary experience to actually buy one of these places and restore it to glory, mind, but by the time I’ve had my counter-lunch I’ve given it quite the imaginary makeover.

Come time to write, it’s very tempting to then use that setting that captured the imagination and dwell on it in loving detail.

In my self-pubbed Christmas novella, Wish, heroine Billie Temple heads to a small Aussie country town to run the local pub.

Billie turned to new employer. ‘You need to hire more cleaning staff.’ That was assuming he hired any cleaning staff at all.

‘What for?’ said Roly and the wonder of it all was that he was serious.

‘This verandah needs scrubbing, for starters. Not to mention the chairs, the tables, and the sidewalk.’

‘It’s cleaner inside.’

One hoped. ‘You’re not going to argue with me about cleaning this place, are you? You said you wanted more customers.’

‘Yes, but—

‘You also said you’d give me free rein to run things my way.’

‘You said that?’ Arthur’s tone was incredulous.

‘Yeah,’ said Roly glumly. ‘Don’t know what I was thinking.’
In Red-Hot Renegade (Her Singapore Fling in NA), martial arts hero Jake Bennett owns a dojo in Singapore. It gets torched eventually, but dojo ownership was fun for a while.


‘I’m quite liking dojo living,’ she (Jianne) said. ‘It’s very streamlined. What is that smell?’

‘Sweat,’ said Jake.

Speaking of Brothers Bennett, the last two stories in that series are being packaged together and re-released in the UK in January with the title

Single Girl Abroad.

I think it’s quite the makeover.

Author copies are still a few weeks away, but if you’re happy to wait, there’s a copy of Single Girl Abroad up for grabs – just leave a comment. The question: Do you have a favourite old house/haunt/building that you would love to get your hands on and re-do?
ps. No bathroom renovations allowed ;)




And thank you LoveCats for being such lovely hosts.

Kelly


Here's a link to Kelly's website -www.kellyhunter.net