Spring and the heat of renovating!

Its only been 1 month and 10 days since Spring started and I am not coping well with the heat.  Its not even Summer yet.   Summer starts on the 1 December and I am wondering if I have a thermostat issue.  Is it just me…or is everyone feeling overheated? Are my hormones going crazy or have I just forgotten how hot a true Summer can be here in Queensland.

I miss our old house in Chancellor Park.  It was a lovely 3 bedroom home, with a pool.   Looking back – it was very nice.  Not enough room for 6 people – 4 of which are growing and need space, but nontheless a lovely home with a pool.  I miss our pool.  We took it for granted, sold the house, and bought a nice 4 bedroom home that we have spent many dollars upgrading, but no pool.  Yes we are closer to the beach…4 minutes drive away to be exact, but I miss our pool.   The difficulty when you buy an older home needing some TLC and renovation is that the work never seems to end.   I love our home and I love what we have accomplished with our renovations, but we are now tired, close-ish to finishing, and very  sick of renovating.

Our home in Chancellor Park.

One of the frustrating things we have found about painting is that our children, well Jaden, does not have a healthy respect or understanding for our time, effort and energy going into the job.  Painting walls for hubby and I is not fun and not enjoyable.  The job is long and tedious.   Dion and I have watched many renovating shows in our time, watching how effortless it seems for the painters on the show to paint the walls, and not just that – they look happy!     Dion and I feel like painting is a prison sentence that looks great once its finished, but seriously not enjoyable at all when we are in the midst of it all.

So Jaden has drawn on two walls, with pencil, one of the older girls wanted to keep Jaden from being in trouble, decided she would use an eraser on the wall…..lets just say that the wall needs a fresh lick of paint.  I would get in and do it myself, but its not possible to paint while the kids are at school with a toddler at home – that’s just asking for trouble.   Jaden is a regular Denis the Menice – no, I am not kidding.   He gets into everything.   Anyway, to start with the issue of this particular wall,  I will try to clean the wall with gumption (the best wall cleaner in the world), but I have this feeling that nothing but a lick of paint is going to get this wall back to the lovely fresh that it was just a few weeks ago. 🙁

Yes we are absolutely sick of renovating, but when we are finally finished it will have been worth the torture.  Why do tv shows make renovating look so easy?    I can say that we survived the renovations…in fact, we should probably make t-shirts with the slogan.  All I know is that I can’t wait for our home to be exactly how we want it to be – “the Clean Fresh Display Home Resort Look’ on a tight budget.    I can’t wait for the renovating to end!

So far to date, we have –

1.  pulled up the floors,

2.  pulled out the kitchen,

3.  Pulled out a wall – actually a couple of walls,

4.  Squared out the doorways to get away from the old fashioned curved doorways,

5.  Put in a new kitchen,

6.  Put in a new patio/pergola area,

7.   Painted bedrooms, kitchen area, living area, lounge room, hallway (still to paint is Amy’s room/office, laundry, bathrooms, and when we are finished that – the rest of the house is probably going to need a freshen up – SIGH HERE)

What needs to be done still:

1. Painting of said areas

2. Fit new toilet roll holders into wc areas.

3. Skirting boards – how I love homes with skirting boards

4.  Landscaping front and back

5. Light fixtures

6.  blinds/curtains

7.   fix some screens, and clean some windows.

8.  work out if we are going to convert the garage into a room and what would be the best way to do that?

I am sure there needs to be a few more jobs but I can’t think of them just now.   If we could manage a pool build – i would so love that for our family, but for this time in our lives its on the list of wants – we shall see.

I will end with this  –

Dear God,
Please let us win the lottery so that we can get tradies to help us finish our renovations.    We are tired and cranky painters.

Sincerely,
the Keetley’s

xo