A Little Update!

 I haven't updated this for a few days, but we managed to get a lot more done with our floors!  After a lot of paint stripping we hired a floor sander and the edge sander from Bunnings Warehouse for the day to sand Jack and Summers bedrooms plus the loungeroom. It was surprisingly cheap to hire them at only $100 for both for 24 hours, then just the cost of the sandpaper as well. We didn't get them all finished because one room was still a bit wet on the floor but they are coming up so much nicer then we ever imagined! Thank you so much to our brother in law Ian for coming for a long day to help Scott and I do the sanding, between the three of us we got so much done and we would have had no idea what to do without his help. Was a massive, hard day but we got so much done! We plan to have the rest of the floors ready to hire it again this coming weekend to finish all the floor sanding!

We pulled up the lino floor in the dining and kitchen, which then had thick masonite board under it which was really hard to get off, and was stapled down with the biggest staples I have ever seen in my life. The little office tool of mine that removes staples from books wasn't quite going to cut it with these ones. So off to the hardware store for some great Pincers and they do the trick, but not without leaving you with sore arms and hands! Once we got to our very last bit of floor to pull off and being surprised at the good timber floor underneath I said to Scott 'What's the bet there's a big hole in this last bit of floor.' I spoke too soon and about 3 of the floor boards in that last bit in the kitchen needed replacing, so Scott knocked them out and we are left with a rather large hole in our floor. After much searching and no luck in the shops for Hoop Pine floor at 135mm wide, we put a post up on trusty old Facebook and a man straight away commented to say he had a huge pile of the exact wood from a 100 year old house he demolished, so off we went on a family road trip to just over 1 hour away and we got 5 lengths of the board to have some spares. The man was lovely and it was great chatting to him about his own home which he built ground up by himself and is now solely run on wind power and solar panels, on a huge block of land with the most amazing views. He has piles of wooden boards we can go back to get when we need to, and best of all it's so much cheaper then the shops! What could have been a pretty negative experience (the hole in our kitchen floor), turned out to be a really fun adventure and I think we realised we are made for this renovating stuff, our family is pretty awesome and we all had fun with it. Even though the renovations have turned out to be a fair bit bigger then we expected, we really love doing it, it's so satisfying doing it ourselves. Will be fixing the hole this Friday!

In the meantime we have been pulling thousands upon thousands of these gigantic staples out of the kitchen and dining room floors, for what seems like forever! Tonight we finished the kitchen ones and tomorrow the dining should be done too! We were hoping to find old newspaper under the lino to shed some history on the house, but sadly there was none, however there is some really awesome imprinting onto the wood floors in some spots of old newspapers, and you can make out words, pictures of a lady wearing a corset dress and a man in a suit etc, plus things on sale for 20c and some stuff about the government, such a bummer it will sand off, it would be so good to keep it on the floors!

Scott went back to work today and is staying at the new house. He slept in the shed in his swag lastnight, but first thing this morning I had a text on my phone asking to bring our spare mattress out today because he had a pretty horrid sleep, I guess sleeping outside on concrete floor isn't quite as good as a comfy bed inside?! So tonight we set him up in the front sun room in the house away from all the dust and stuff (well, a little bit away) so hopefully he sleeps a bit better! He's back to 12 hour work days, then going to the second home at night to keep renovating, and the kids and I are staying at our old place and going to the new one through the day to do jobs and have dinner and spend some time with him. Tonight was our first home cooked meal in the new kitchen, quite a different experience! Surely I can win me a kitchen or something?!

The kids are still doing such a super job keeping themselves occupied while we are so busy, I'm sure it must be good for their relationship, but we do feel a bit bad sometimes, so trips to McDonalds, Bunnings playground and the skatepark for Jack to give his new scooter a whirl have been a hit! We really are so lucky to have such amazing children! Jack got his first pair of work boots today so he could actually walk inside without being impaled by staples and he seems to love them...and Summer just lives in her Crocs hahaha!

Oh, we bought a ride on mower too, as much as I absolutely love mowing with the push mower the backyard is just way too big to do all the time, so we got a great bargain and the kids get an awesome fun new toy to ride on with us! We are also lucky enough to have had Scott's mum and stepdad give us a bar fridge and wheelbarrow which help so much! Plus the use of Scott's dads trailer to help with dump trips, we are doing well and loving the help!

That's about it from us, will make sure to update with more photos once the floors are all sanded this week!

Amanda
x

Dinner at our makeshift dining area

Sanding Jacks room

Jacks room almost finished sanding

Loungeroom before and during

The new toy

The little hole in our kitchen floor

First time cooking in our kitchen

Fun at the skatepark

Dining room floor which one day was a verandah

Kitchen floor which left us with so many piles of masonite

My little worker in his new boots