Busy about the house...

[ Living Room in a shambles, but it's okay because we have new ceiling fans!]

[ New light fittings: No more living in the "dark ages" for us!]

[Our home was built sometime between 1892 and 1900. That makes it a late-Victorian/early-Edwardian/Federation-cusp home. There are different toggle switches available for each of these, but in the end we decided upon copper Edwardian toggles for the light switches]


[A pile of old wiring and piping]

[ The old ceramic fuse-box and the beginnings of a new back wall]

[The new, up-to-standard fuse-box and the new wall almost complete]

[SJ's dad flushing the new wall and finishing the cornice ]

It's been just over a year now since we purchased our little stone cottage in the Ranges.

We got off to a slow start with our planned improvements, but the past few months have been rather busy for us.

Between October and December 2009 we had a complete overhaul of the electrics, which had to be done before we could move onto the more enjoyable aspects of DIY renovations.

Once the electrician finished we put in a new wall of gyprock and new cornice in the back room to hide the patchy stone wall that was the original back of the house. It is ready now to be painted, which will happen when the weather cools.

We are focusing on one room at a time, in an attempt to create as little disturbance to our lives as possible. These days we are focused on the main bedroom: plastering, patching, stripping and sanding in preparation for re-painting. The weather since Christmas has been rather hot, so we have only been able to do work on the odd day here and there when we get a cool reprieve.

The living room is currently doubling-up as our bedroom, which is turning out to be an inconvenience more often than not, so we hope to have the main bedroom completed by Easter at the latest. Fingers-crossed!

[An empty main bedroom, plastered and patched...

...and waiting for someone to start stripping back the skirtings, ceiling, window and door frames.]

A Jane Austen Giveaway!

"Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way." - Emma

You may well be aware of this already, but I love Jane Austen. It probably comes as no surprise then that when I discovered Shelly over at Tea Time was hosting a giveaway for a brand-new copy of the novel Emma, I just had to tell everyone about it!

I quite enjoy spoiling friends and complete strangers with books, so I think it is wonderfully generous of Shelly to share with one lucky person this great story.

If you would like a chance to win yourself a copy of this book, all you have to do is visit Shelly's blog and leave a comment. She will announce the winner in due course, but hurry: It could be soon!
EDIT: Giveaway ends 28 February 2010, with the winner announced 1 March 2010. Good luck!
From the blurb:
Beautiful, clever, rich - and single - Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and see no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen's most flawless work.

Rain is grace...

Rain is grace; rain is the sky condescending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life. - John Updike

With all the heat we've suffered since November, I had been eagerly awaiting April, the traditional month for the first rain storms heading into Winter. As it turns out, I didnt need to wait that long, as for the second time in a week it has rained: Beautiful, glorious, refreshing rain!

There isnt anything more revitalising than a rain storm in the middle of Summer, especially in our part of the world. No one wishes for hot, dry days of 43*C, but everybody hopes for a bit of rain every now and again...

That has to be truth no matter where you live.