the conditions i'm forced to work in

This afternoon I went into the casita to have another look at the office desk I'm working on for Wayne. This is what I was greeted with:

Little Chipmunk peered out around the corner at me.

I was disturbing little chubby's dinner.

Here's a preview of the desk I'm working on from one angle...

...or from another...

Chipmunk looked at me suspiciously. He wanted to be sure I wasn't going to turn on another sander like I did yesterday.

Gave him indigestion all night.

When he was assured there were no power tools lurking, he went back to burying his head in the bucket.

Whaaaa?

Can't a little horse eat in peace around here?

Well, frankly, no. Its my workshop, not your dining room. Horses are supposed to eat in the yard. Or the stable. 

Or the yard.

Outside!

Its all Wayne's fault. When he discovered that Chipmunk had discovered he could jump up the step and come in through the bottom half of the dutch door to the casita, he began letting him in while he prepared horse feeds, which lead to Chippy dining indoors.

It works great.

Most of the time.

There was that one time when the wind blew the bottom door shut and Chipmunk was stuck in there all night.

...There was poop everywhere.

Including on the legs of the desk I'm working on.

On the legs.

Seriously.

How did he even get it up there?

z

the answer to everything else is pressure cleaning

Let me start at the beginning...

Years ago I bought a lounge suite at an auction for something like $25. I gave away the love seat as I didn't like it, but kept the granny style, wing back armchairs cause they were just so comfortable.

One move, too much furniture and many years later, the armchairs had ended up in the garage as Wayne's men shed seating. As a result they were covered in grease, dirt, horse and dog hair. They were stinky and filthy.

A week ago Patrice came over and saw them and while examining them I remembered why I bought them in the first place: comfort. Even with the granny floral. So I let Patrice have one and I decided to keep the other. She planned on reupholstering hers (good luck girl, too hard for me!) while I thought if I got the pressure cleaner on mine I could clean it up enough to dye it and bring it back into the house... after I eliminated the skirt...

Well, yesterday Patrice emailed me saying that scrubbing it with dishwashing liquid was working but that she thought my idea of the pressure cleaner was worth trying. By the time I hit send on my 'come on over' email she was at the gate.

We got out the second chair, put it on the path, filled the soap container on the cleaner with sugar soap and connected the hose to the hot water tap.

...Which promptly heated up and burst off the connection and flooded the laundry.

Eh. That's ok. Our laundry is in the casita and its a horrible mess anyway.

I reconnected the hose and we gave that chair the best clean its ever had.

Its sparkling clean! I don't think it was that clean when I bought it!

Now we know: the answer to any cleaning problem is a pressure cleaner! Need a new couch cause the one you have is filthy? Pressure clean it!

Patrice took the pressure cleaner to her house to use on her half cleaned chair, and promptly flooded her laundry.

For the second time in two days.

She has the cleanest laundry floor in the world.

Day before she forgot she had all her plant cuttings sitting in water in the laundry tub, put on a wash and flooded the laundry.

When Patrice got home she didn't check her hose was secure enough, turned on the hot tap and it burst off just like mine did. Obviously she doesn't learn from others' mistakes...

The upshot is that the chairs are totally clean but they do need some drying... we had hot weather, and some wind to help dry them. Even with that though, the armchair wasn't dry by 7pm. I put it in the grooming room and put the heater on it.

My armchair has an eaten cushion. Thanks dogs. I'll need to make a new one for it, but since I plan to dye it I figure I can match, or mismatch, the cushion when I'm ready. New foam is needed as well, obviously.

The point is that its all doable now that the armchairs don't smell like a dog-loving mechanic's armpit.

This is so exciting. Patrice has been bouncing all over the place bragging that we're the smartest people in Australia since the idea worked.

I'm content to know that I'll soon have another comfy armchair for the house which isn't going to cost me $$.

Wayne isn't too impressed. He's lost his comfy seating in the man shed. He'll have to live with it for a while, but when I rearrange the living room (his biggest nightmare) he'll be getting another armchair. Not sure if he'd rather do without armchairs in order to avoid the furniture re-arrangement...

z

a place for my jewellery

You know those days when you just have to make something, and finish it, just so you can feel like you're actually achieving something?

For so long I've been working on things which need time before I can have the satisfaction of the finished job... like working in the garden, planting seeds or working in the casita. It'll be a while before I can share the fruits of those labours... they're more work in progress (or an ongoing never ending battle).

So, I decided it was time to tackle something I could finish in a few hours.

For a while now that I've known I need somewhere to keep my jewellery. I don't have tons of it, but I do have a few things I like to wear. And when I finish wearing something I tend to hang it on the nearest doorknob.

Not ideal.

I also didn't want to make it a statement piece. I like the pretty ideas on Pinterest but didn't want something that made my jewellery a feature. So I measured the width of the wardrobe and found a long frame I had which would fit on the side. The idea being that it would be there, easy to reach but not on the wall like art.

In the spirit of quick and easy (and cheap), I didn't remove the print and replace it with something I could screw cup hooks into, I just taped up the frame and sprayed the print with gloss black (cause that's all I had and hey, silver looks good on black). I then used transparent plastic sticky hooks for hangers.

Did I mention easy?

Since the wardrobe is now white (and still unfinished), the frame looks nice with the original timber and white finish. Maybe I'll paint it one day, but it will do for now.

z

the answer to everything is WHITE

I like to surround myself with clever and talented people.. (Or maybe clever and talented people are attracted to me cause I'm so clever and talented...) Either way, I have really great friends who inspire me constantly.

One of those friends is my newest BFF, Patrice, who lives just down the road from here. She moved to Tasmania from interstate not long ago and we met through this very blog. She'd just bought a house and was thinking about renovating her kitchen, did a google search and found my kitchen remodel.

Small world.

We don't see eachother that much despite the fact that you could probably throw a stone from my housed to hers cause we're both always so busy - what with work and houses to dismantle and put back together... but we love to compare notes and give eachother ideas for even more projects.

Wayne has rued the day I met Patrice.

A couple of weeks ago Patrice got into high gear with her guest room as she was expecting a visitor. I love what she's done with it. Makes my guest room look downright drab and gloomy.

I'm going to share the pics Patrice sent me of the room before and after. I think the transformation is amazing and its so simple and was done really cheaply.

Basically she just painted everything Dulux Antique White USA and made her own curtains (which she's not happy with but they're ok for now or for the next few months or forever depending on her inspiration and financial situation).

This is the room before.

What? Aren't guest rooms always storage areas?

This is the room now. All fresh and bright.

Painting the walls and bed white instantly brightened the place up. Taking inspiration from the green pillow covers she selected a fabric for the curtains which looked good in the shop but turned out a little too lime for her taste. Ain't that always the way?

She also repainted this gorgeous little dresser she's had for years. I think its on its 34th coat of paint now.

It used to be a lot smaller...

You can't tell in the pic above but she repainted an old chair the same dark green in the cat print. And notice below: no more dark brown door!

Clean and simple, right?

Love it.

I think I may have to find an excuse to go stay over one night.

Just to try it out...

z