Bits and Jobs

The buying and cleaning continues! Yet another weekend filled with the vicious cycle of clearing space to be filled by more junk from the shops, though at least this time I think each purchase has been, for the most part, purposeful.

Yay, our outdoor couch and chairs are finally here! The delivery truck arrived around lunch time on Saturday so I had the dubious honour of assembling more furniture (one day we'll be rich enough to buy goods that don't require a toolbox) while Alison went out for lunch with Elizabeth. The chairs were a little finicky to put together, as they are suspended and oscillate on a flexible bar, but I managed to finish everything in about an hour. Can't believe how awesome it is to have a couch outside to lounge on. Now we just need to find a little coffee table to place beverages and we're all set.



With a four wheel drive at our disposal (we're car-sitting for John and Sheena) picking up the filing cabinet should have been easy as pie. It would have been if we didn't have to make two trips to Office Works to take back the first cabinet which had a dent in the top. To be fair, the staff were apologetic for the inconvenience and happily replaced our dud with a working model, which allowed us to hide the heap of paperwork that's been clogging up the guest room for the last few weeks. Our little store room has turned out rather well I think.



This means that the guest room is now pretty much cleaned up and ready for visitors at the drop of a hat. No more cleaning up this room and bothering guests when I need to use the computer, nosiree. We even have two drawers empty just for long staying visitors, how hospitable!



The old junk room has been cleared out as well, though we haven't done too much with it as yet. For now it's just a space for the guitars, carpet offcuts, a computer desk (for the other laptop) and the wardrobe of course. Not really all that interesting but I'm sure we'll find a use for this room eventually.



It's certainly an improvement over what it used to look like for the better part of the last year.



All these new goods were accompanied by a mountain of cardboard packaging, so we took a trip out to the "transfer station" on Sunday (once again only possible due to John's car). I would have liked to fit the stump we uprooted a few weeks ago in the back, but the car was jam packed with packaging material. Friendly neighbours to the rescue as they let us dump the stump in their skip bin. Farewell nemesis, you were a worthy opponent.



While out we picked up a few more friends for the garden. We haven't actually come up with names for them as yet (suggestions anyone?) but we already think of them as family. The rabbit tries to oversee the vegetable patch, and is currently conducting a thorough investigation of a list of tomato eating suspects. Our gnome may seem a little laid back but who can blame him when you have a tropical paradise of gingers to relax under.

On the subject of vegetables, may we draw your attention to the awesomeness that is our eggplant. Some of those babies will be going into a stir fry in a few weeks I'd wager. No sign of courgettes as yet, but the herbs have been super.



We bought a rusted old wash basin on our trip to the Tin Dog last year with the intention of planting herbs or perhaps flowers in it. Now that our herb and vegie garden is largely complete we've been forced to come up with a new use for this, and settled on an assorted cacti/succulent arrangement.



I'm not sure how well some of those will do with the wet weather we're having but with luck they'll grow and spread out nicely. We've put together a few different colours so with luck it should end up being a pretty addition to the garden.

New Year and New Stuff

Happy Chinese New Year! Normally we'd have people over for steamboat but we didn't quite feel like doing that this year. Not that we completely gave up on tradition, Saturday was a fully packed day of pre-New Year cleaning (love a good bit of superstition to kick us into doing housework) and we braved the crowds in China Town for a set dinner on Sunday to see the festivities. The mall was redone just in time for New Year and it's looking good, if still a little gaudy. Tossed together a few clips and pics from our night out into a movie.



When we were doing the renovations we knew that an increase in storage space would coincide with a need to fill that space. Of course we promised ourselves that we'd exercise some restraint with our purchases, which lasted all of about a month it seems.

The old dining table has proven to be too big for to use now that we have a sliding door leading to the patio. This new breakfast table for four seems to fit quite nicely though, perhaps even providing enough room for the odd dinner when it's too cold to sit outside.



Our backrooms are now cleaned out and rearranged, with the computer desk coming out of the "guest room" to make way for some book shelves and a new set of drawers. I'd post some photos, but our attempt at cleaning up did not extend to putting away the mountain of filing that heaped on the spare bed. Good thing we have a filing cabinet coming in this weekend.

We also got a new carpet and a hat rack (need somewhere to put those gardening hats and daily bags). Quite a bit of use out of the power drill as you can imagine.

Even the vegetable garden has had a few improvements. We now have a chilli plant, a lemon tree and some rapidly growing rows of eggplant, zuchinni and tomatoes. Well, perhaps not the tomatoes as something seems to be eating the new leaves every night, but the eggplant and zuchinni are doing great.



Oh yes, and there's a tiny papaya tree growing in the back there. Apparently they're fast growers so we should have some fruit by next season. Sweet!

Couch for the patio is still to come. Can't wait as it's been scorching over here and we'd love to just lounge outside with the breeze. It might also spur on yet another trip to the stores in search of a coffee table though... hrmm...