My kitchen – an update

I’ve had a few readers ask about how the kitchen is going. Sure. Here is the latest from the kitchen.

Still need to build the garden out the window, but the rest is pretty much done.

Fence me in

With the landscapers packed up, I can now focus on closing our block to the street. We have lots of lovely well wishes in our area, but I do like a tiny bit of privacy that you get with a front fence.

I love using the old and finding a second use for it. I actually cut the old fence from the old house before demolition and stored it at the rear of the block.

It was a hard job to cut the fence off at the bottom of the posts in the depths of winter. It was an 8 degree day and I remember the rain and hail. I was numb by the time we finished. I remember grumbling a lot about the enormity of the recycling task.

Fast forward a year and I’m thrilled that these fence panels made putting up the new fence easy – and cheap. I was going to use timber stirrups for the fence, but decided that the weight of the fence may be too much. Instead, I decided to get fresh posts and sink them nice and deep so the fence will last at least a few years before it starts to wobble.

The new fence has cost $220. That included five 2.5 metre treated pine posts, 10 bags of concrete, fence screws and some larger bugle screws.

Here are just a few of the old fence panels cut into 2 – 3 metre lengths.

The posts set and resting with some woodwork to keep them exactly level

More supports. You can never have too many support beams!

Then we cut n pasted the fence pieces to the posts.

A lick of coat later and we have a brand new fence.

Hard to believe it is the same fence. Very happy.

Let there be lights

This is a bit embarrassing but we’ve been the house for around 5 months and have kept finding excuses to not put up the new lights. We have been trying to get all of our lighting jobs organised so we could batch the job with our electrician friend.

We’ve been collecting our dream lights for a year as they became available or they went on sale.  We have more lights to go but we really wanted to start the journey. Then there was a four month delay with one of the lights coming across the oceans from far away.

Recent jobs:

• 3 pendants over the kitchen bench
• LEDs column lights outside
• Stairwell hangers
• Fan in lounge room
• Hanging dining room light

It makes such a difference. It really closes in the room and reduces the ‘barn’ feel. Now the spaces feel a lot more intimate.