We were trying to become accustomed to the idea that we wouldn’t get any hay cut until after Christmas. However, as I write, the sun has graced us with its presence, the rain has abated and we have taken our chances and cut the lot. Will keep you informed how that goes.
On the home front it’s all guns blazing with the renovations. Like many farm houses, this one has been treated like a pig sty by past inhabitants, whether they be farm workers, sharemilkers or sloths.
Our villa is around 90 years old in dire need of TLC. We have finished most of the easy rooms such as the bedrooms, hall and the lounge, and have now just completed the bathroom and are onto the kitchen. It is not as simple as we thought. Once we ripped out the old kitchen, the builder had to reframe and gib to provide a square base for the new one. Every wall was off kilter and the floor had hollows.
What we thought would be an easy, straightforward job of fitting a new kitchen absolutely snowballed, as it does with old houses.
While completing this so-called straightforward renovation, the weather turned, it teemed down and hello, the roof began to leak in three places. Argh!
So the three days the builder thought it would take to fit the kitchen quickly turned into two weeks of straightening walls, fixing leaks, replacing gib on the roof and various little surprises here and there.
We are now on to the deck and have our fingers crossed that surely there can’t be any surprises there. So far the only trouble has been constantly rescuing the twin toddlers from under the house after they follow the cats and dogs into what they were hoping was their new hideout from the little monsters.
Between hay, kids, writing and renovations we might try and fit in lunch on Christmas day but I’m not making any promises! Would like to hear from anyone else who has had to renovate an old farm house.
Steph
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