Seriously though, what do you do when you are undertaking post grad studies full time, while concurrently suffering renovation withdrawal symptoms? Is the pen mightier than the power drill? Apparently not, because over the last few weeks I have been doing a few small 'on the side' projects around the house, my own little 'carrot and reward' system. Complete a unit of study, do some work on the laundry. Complete a block of study, build a wall. Finish two exams in one day, put some plants in by the pool.
Most days in the land of Sunshine and Paint Pots starts with me waking up a couple of hours earlier than everyone else, and getting some study done, or catching up on what the overseas financial markets have been doing overnight. As sun dawns on another new day I am usually making the first (of many) coffees of the day and I get to take in this beautiful view from the kitchen window, with the sun shining on the pool and our giant Bird of Paradise.
But back to that wall... you may recall that when we first moved in to the house the underneath (our pseudo basement) of the house was completely open. Since then I started work on updating the laundry which you can read about here, but during study breaks I came back to finish a dividing wall I had started earlier which would allow us to create a bit more storage on the laundry side, as well as act as a screen from the bar and kids play area on the other side.
But building one wall is not enough, man needs to build more walls, so it was off to Bunnings Hardware to collect enough supplies to build a second wall adjacent to the first wall. One side is to be fitted out as an American styled mudroom - somewhere to deposit outdoor shoes, gardening gloves, hats and bits and bobs that we don't need in the house. The other side was my cunning plan, more cunning than a fox that's just been admitted to Oxford as Professor of Cunningness (thanks Blackadder)... to make an entire chalk wall for the kids in time for the pending winter school holidays !! So somewhere between preparing for two exams, my study down time became tool time :o)
Just to refresh your memory here is what the space looked like before we started...
The wall in question was to be built in the area running left to right in the dotted lined area above, but to the pillar towards the laundry, not towards the pillar at the front of the photo. By the way, that weird thing on the left pillar is an old 1970's-ish house vacuum system which has since taken up permanent residence at the local dump...
Now as I am more a hands on tools kind of guy, and Kate is 'Chief Photographer', the photos in this project are a little sporadic and not of the same quality as Kate's usual postings. I kneel before you and beg your forgiveness. But anyway, here is the laundry side of the wall (where the mudroom will go):
And here is the other side where the chalk wall will go...
Then came the 'fun part'... painting the chalk wall without the girls seeing.
To do this I had to adopt the clandestine hero form of 'SuperDad' !! And every super hero has a symbol, 'SuperDad' being no exception...
And so it progressed by stealth under cover of darkness...
And finally a little bit of 'Mum & Dad' art to inspire the girls to have fun creating in their downstairs fun place...
As I said, Kate's photos are much, much better. But the end result was what mattered most and the kids were chuffed and have been using their gargantuan sized chalk wall ever since. Other than that, now that my exams are done I have to finish the other two projects on the other side of the wall...
C'est la vie ,
Col
PS. As I said at the start of the post I also managed to get some plants in along the side of the pool - a big thanks to our friend Lynnie for the donated plants - a wee spot of colour in the land of Sunshine and Paint Pots :o)
No comments:
Post a Comment