Bamboo flooring

The flooring is now down in the hall and study. We still need to put on the skirting boards. Our bedroom is up next.

Getting started in the hallway

Hallway done

Working on the study

All done

Winter projects

The wintery weather has encouraged indoor activities. Aaron has been busy in the garage building various wooden items for the house. I have been doing a quilt course over the last few weekends at one of the local sewing shops. I was going to just give it a go - but a friend of mine who has won many competitions with her quilts suggested that I start by going on a course as there are a lot of tips and tricks that make it a lot easier.

Here is the front and back of my first quilt. I am quite pleased that it turned out almost square and almost the right size.... I am not ready to make a simple one without help.

The front - rather bright and colourful.

The back is a little more subdued and you can see the
diagonal quilting lines - almost straight :)

One of Aaron's projects has been to make storages boxes for under the bed. He had a bunch of plywood left over from a project that didn't work out so came up with the boxes as a way to use up the wood. Our bed room is quite small so anything that provides more storage is good.

Boxes under the bed

Box with the lid closed

And with the lid open

And the side table. This started out as a $30 table with metal legs I bought off Trade Me. I removed the legs and cut the top into two pieces. The larger piece became the top of my side table and the smaller piece the shelf at the bottom. I had to buy the wood for the legs but everything else came from the original table.

Winter storm

Wellington has been hit with one of the worst storms in several decades. Overnight we had gusts of wind up to 200 km/h (125 mph). The airport is closed, the ferries aren't running (15m swells in Cook Strait), the trains aren't running into Wellington from the Hutt Valley and many buses aren't running.

Lots of houses are without power. We could look out the window this morning while it was still dark and see several suburbs without lights on.

We weathered the storm pretty well. The only damage was to a trellis that gives a bit of privacy on the south side of the house.

The trellis used to extend across the window

But this is where it is now

We heard lots of crashes and bangs in the night. Some of them would have been these trees on the Council land just next to our house. I am not too sad as they had grown a bit too tall and were blocking the sun in our back garden. They did however provide some privacy from the path.

Snapped at ground level

Our fence on the right

New floor beginnings

The time has finally come to finish the back half of the house. Heaps of work has gone into planning and preparing for the new floor. Lots of measuring, removing of carpet and trim from the rooms that are going to get the new floor and of course spending of money.

30 boxes of bamboo getting used to thier new home

The floorboards need a few days to get used to their new home so they are sitting in the spare room until they are ready to go down.

The hallway before

The trim around the doorways in the hallway has taken quite a beating of the years so it is getting a fresh coat of paint. All the rooms will get new trim around the bottom as the floor will be quite a bit higher and it will match the front half of the house.

The study nearly ready

The study needs a bit of paint in a few places as well.

Right now I think I'll start in the hallway, then do the study next. Then the bedroom, spare room, laundry and finally if I have enough leftover I'll do the hall closet. I will be making a few more small cosmetic changes that Helen probably won't notice, but they will make me happy.