Tag Archives: house

Prepping for painting and other plans…

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I’ve had a lovely few days here at home. DH took a few days off as well which has been nice. We’ve enjoyed our morning walks where we’ve been planning out what we want to do now that I’ve changed my retirement date. DH is really keen for us to stay in this house as long as we can. Previously our plan was to sell up and move into our unit once we retired but he’s reluctant to move. So that also impacts on our decisions about the way we set up the house and gardens if we are staying instead of selling. Its been great to have the time together to just talk through all these things.

Our main focus this week has been on decluttering and preparing to paint. I’m going to revamp our formal dining room area into an office space for me to work out of and DS’s old room is going to become the gym. So we’ve taken a few loads to the op shop, moved all the furniture into the centre of the formal lounge/dining room and tomorrow we’ll wash down the walls with a goal of painting on the weekend.

I’m excited to create a nice new office space just for me. At the moment my work ‘stuff’ is just spread out all over the dining room table and stacked up in the bookcase and in various bags around the sewing room ( which was my office years ago!). My new office space will give me a quiet space so I can work online with clients and not be disturbed. Once we’ve painted we’ll re-carpet. I already have most of the furniture I need and some new curtains I bought on sale.

DH has also been researching solar power and we have someone coming to give us quote this Friday. I’m considering going all electric too so we only pay one daily service charge instead of two ( gas & electricity).

Well I’m off to my second job now, which is always enjoyable. Then back into painting prep in the morning.

Heatwave!

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We are in the middle of a heatwave downunder at the moment. I hate to think what our electricity bill is going to be! Yesterdays temperature was predicted to be 41C (106F) but it ‘only’ went up to 39C. However today and tomorrow its expected to be 42C (107) here.

Our poor air conditioner is really getting a workout. We usually don’t put it on until the temperature reaches 27C inside (80F). Well I slept on the lounge last night as its just too hot in the bedroom and when I woke up at 3.30am the temperature inside was already at 28 and outside its 25C and rapidly rising. I’ve got the windows open and there’s a slight breeze which is helping.

Fortunately for me my workplace has good air conditioning so its comfortable to work in during the day. And we don’t even live in the hottest areas on the map, we are just off the purple colour on the map in the link above where temperatures are getting up to 49.5C (121F). We are going to look into getting ceiling fans in the rooms before next winter and we’ve started looking at solar power suppliers. Energy costs in Australia are amongst the most expensive in the world and heating and cooling are one of our biggest expenses so at least solar would reduce those costs over the long term.

The other thing we need to be aware of in the summer heat is snakes. My workplace has brown snakes in several areas and each summer we have a signpost of a cartoon snake the goes up to remind us to be careful. One of the areas snakes have been seen is the area just outside the entrance to my office block. A big brown was caught there last year, about 1.3meters. We also had a big brown snake in the next door neighbours garden last year. I am very careful when walking out to the car each day as our garden is a real mess, would be plenty of good hiding places there and we need to clean it up. But working in the garden at this time of year would be pretty silly so we’ll have to wait till the temperature goes down a bit. Snakes are very fast in the heat.

Oh well, its about 4.30 here now, inside temp is now down to 26C and the outside temp is 25.5C. I’m so tired from not sleeping and apologies for rambling lol!

On the finance side I’m waiting for a big payment from my second job which will go straight off the mortgage.

Refreshed and refocused!

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We’ve been home for a few days now. After being so busy for the last month its been nice to take it easy at home and just get unpacked, catch up on sleep and re-acclimatise to different weather. 

The holiday was great!  It was so nice to just have time to sit around and talk to each other about our plans and how we’re going to go about setting ourselves up for retirement.

I also re-read Down to Earth & The Simple Home by  Rhonda Hetzel and it was a lovely reminder of what I’m aiming for – simple living and time to enjoy my home and family. I really am ready to just stop working. I feel like time away from work has let me get things back in perspective.

So we have decided our next step is to get our vegetable gardens done so we can get back to growing our own vegetables. We will have raised, square foot gardening beds – probably about six across the back of the yard. I’m also going to start a potted herb garden out the front where there is full sun.

Now that DH is working less he’ll have time to do the work around the yard. The garden beds need to be cleaned out and replanted, paving, fences & paths need completing. Theres plenty of work to keep him busy.

We’re also going to look into solar power – electricity prices here are just so high – and increasing the insulation in the house.  Overall we’re trying to make the house retirement ready and reduce our running costs.

We passed another milestone with our mortgage by reaching the end of Year 14 balance. Our current mortgage balance is now $136,990. 

So today I am cooking. I have made chicken bone broth, vegetable soup and am about to make biscuits and muffins. I’ve got the freezer almost defrosted and  I am trying to work out a better system for storing food in a chest freezer so that food can be rotated and not lost in the bottom – if anyone has any ideas I’d love to hear them.