Hang on to your butts..................

...this is going to be a long post! Grab a tea or coffee, maybe even one of those energy drinks; a small snack wouldn't go amiss here either. I should have done this post over a week ago but I knew it would take a while and I kept putting it off, as you do.

So if you have food supplies, a comfy chair and sitting comfortably I shall begin.

The weekend beginning the 6th June (note I put "th" on the end of 6, this is how it is supposed to be written, I do mourn the loss of "-st", "-nd","-rd" and "th". Everyone seems to talk in abbreviations these days, soon we will be talking only in grunts, we will have devolved back to Neanderthals and go back to living in caves) I digress... the weekend the beginning of the 6th of June; was a public holiday, a long weekend, for the Queens birthday. 'Appy birfday Queenie. Joe had decided to clean the outside of the house, weather permitting. It permitted.

The new deck made for much better access in reaching those high bits.

Whilst he was busy with that I decided to alphabeticalise (is there such a word? If not, there is now) all of my books. It was one of those jobs that once started, made you think, "What WAS I thinking?"

I've started, so I'll finish. Of course it wasn't just a case of pulling off the books and reorganising them, oh no sirree Jimbob, it got a bit complicated didn't it, it had to, it was us remember!

I had some dust gatherers, AKA ornaments, on a couple of shelves, they'll have to go somewhere else I decided. Some time ago I got a glass fronted display cabinet from Sue, I had it downstairs.

Not any more, I found somewhere to put the glasses from the top shelf, emptied it out and got Joe to lug it upstairs for me,
"Where's it going?" he said
"Where the CD cabinet is" said I.
"Oka-ay" said Joe

"So where's the CD cabinet going?" said a worried looking Joe, he knew things were afoot.
"Where the DVD bookcase is by the side of your chair in the TV room"
"Oka-ay" said a pained looking Joe "Where are the DVDs going?"
After rearranging the TV sideboard to house the DVDs, it was moved...

"So where's the bookcase going? asked a tearful Joe

"Under the stairs where the ottoman is"
"The ottoman that has all the photo albums ?"
"Yup"
*sob*
Albums emptied out, ottoman made way for the bookcase

"So where's the ottoman going?" Joe hardly dared ask
"Why, in the spare bedroom at the foot of the bed"

After the rearranging of the whole house, Joe was released from duty and made a swift exit outside, not to be seen again for some hours. Not sure what his problem was, men can be so dramatic can't they?
Now I could begin, it was soon to become apparent that outside was beginning to seem a better option.

Yes that photo again ;-D

It took the Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning before it looked like this

Novels 

A perfect fit

 History, gardening, biography's, memoirs, reference etc

 Children and young adult, in the spare bedroom keeping the ottoman company.

Hopefully now I won't end up buying duplicates next time I'm out book hunting. I have chosen to ignore what happens when I get more books! I will cross that bookcase when I come to it.

I bet you thought I might end it there, I could have but then if I don't carry on now, who knows when I'll be inspired enough to carry on. So go get another cuppa, bikkie, wine!! I'll wait.......
....... you back? Good.

My rearranging must have sparked something in Joe, for on Sunday morning at some unearthly hour, and as I was drinking my second cup of tea in bed, I heard sawing. Now before I elaborate I must take you back a few days into the previous week. Michael and Tash had called in, he was still off with his broken thumb (it's mended now and he went back to work last Monday 13th) and it was Tash's day off. We had asked Michael to call in and measure up for some changes we want to make in the family room/kitchen area. Long story short, Michael punched a hole in a half height wall (one we were intending to take out) to see what was behind the plasterboard. Not a lot as it happens, but now we had a hole.
Fast forward to Sunday morning and Joe is sawing through the few nails holding this small divider wall in position. He didn't want to mend the hole apparently, knocking everything out was a lot easier obvs.

Before: The half wall is the one Michael vandalised. 

(Old photo, pre-vandalism)

 Looking from the kitchen. 

The two half walls that divided the room for a dining area restricted our options for usage.

The space from the door on the left to the window on the right and all along that back wall, was pretty much wasted space. When we had a large group for dinner the dining area wasn't big enough to seat us all and we would set up long tables in the area where the sofa and chairs are. 

So not ideal.

Long wall coming out, this is going on the other side of the post

Not the best picture but you can see where the long half wall will sit

Taking out the smaller wall, remember this was all before breakfast.

Time for breakfast, and so much more space. The dresser was moved to the wall to the right, it fits like a glove. The TV point and suite were moved to the other corner. 

I'll show you those photos in a minute.

Okay so we stopped there that weekend and things went back to normal, well as normal as they can be here. I've often said that you don't have to be mad to live here but if you are, it helps.

On the 8th of June Michael had a birthday, he turned 24 years old. I'm not entirely sure quite where those years went, pretty sure it was only 5 minutes ago he was born.

I baked a cake, a bloody yummy Devils food cake

 Michael thoroughly enjoying being sung to!

 He had a handy bottle of Waikato Draught to help him cope with the trauma of his mothers singing.

 Another week passed and it was the weekend again and Joe was full on demolition man 

Next to come out was this wall at the foot of the stairs, now don't worry it wasn't a load bearing wall. Our local and very handy builder (Michael) checked it out first.

After cleaning up this mess, I said I didn't really like that door there.

So out it came

Just a bit of mess!!

WAKE UP!!!!!

Stay strong, you're nearly there, you're doing  great baby.

So now the space looks like this 

Standing by the log burner looking back to the kitchen

(ignore the kitchen, that's another job for another day)

The reverse view

New sitting area

 

The sideboard is a temporary feature, we've taken it from our bedroom to give an idea of the space we now have. The half wall will be behind the sideboard, this space is now the walkway to the stairs and going behind the post at the foot of the stairs (left) to the bedrooms and bathroom.

This space, which was originally the walkway from the door and into the kitchen, will now be the walk-in pantry/scullery. If you look carefully I have put masking tape on the floor to mark where the walls will go in. We are trying our best not to walk through the walls!

And so by removing two half walls and the wall at the bottom of the stairs we have totally re-configured the lay out and got a much more useable space.

All we have to do now is put it back together.

*sob*

And who knows when that will happen.

We still have the deck to finish and underneath to concrete but that's on hold for the winter.

Does anyone have a small fortune they want to give us, cos we're poor!

If you've reached the end. give yourself a pat on the back.

Well done you. You can see why I was reluctant to start eh?