Here is part of the (almost final) plans for our new renovations/extensions…

(Click here to see it bigger.)

This doesn’t show the granny flat, just the changes to the main house. Double-dotted lines show demolished walls. See how big the windows in the studio are! See how big the dining/family room is! See the new, big bathroom with a real bath! A bath!

We learned some interesting things about the property from the surveyors’ drawings:

• The total area of the block is 1168.6 square metres (huge!)
• The trunk of our big tree has a diameter of 1.6 metres
• Even with the extensions AND the granny flat, we will still only have less than 20% coverage of the land.

The plans should go to council in just over a week. And then more waiting.

For the past month or so Opal (aka Opie) the Siamese fighting fish had been fighting an illness which impeded his ability to feed himself. He kept missing the worms and ended up head butting them. When he managed to get one in his mouth, it seemed difficult for him to swallow it. After some TLC with constant water change and salt mix and antibiotic drops, he made a small come back and started eating a little. In the last few days, he deteriorated again and had been resting against the rock at the bottom of the tank for the past few days, not eating any of the food given to him.

Today Opal lost his fight. Hamble dug a hole near the last fighting fish “Strawberry”, and Opal was laid to rest.

Your time with us gave us lots of joy. We will miss you Opie. May you rest in peace.

The lawnmower’s starter cord snapped a couple of weeks ago. This was the perfect opportunity to buy a good ratchet set. The last one was poorly made, packaged and doesn’t reverse. This time a Stanley ratchet set was acquired to do the job, and it did the job with ease. Ah… there’s nothing quite like using well made tools.

The lawnmower’s starter cord was fixed and the lawn was subsequently mowed.

The draftsman just left, after spending an hour measuring and scribbling. The surveyor should come by early next week, and then we should have the first draft of the plans by late next week.

Then it’s our turn to hum and haw about whether the windows are wide enough, whether we’ll have enough storage, yada yada yada…

We had a draftsman over this morning to talk about our plans to extend the house and build a granny flat (or, in this case, a grandpa flat). He’ll get back to us on Monday, and then it’s all systems go.

The draftsman (Phil) thinks we might be able to get approval in 10 days once the plans are done, using some new guidelines/regulations that come into force today.

Our plans are to add another bedroom, study and dining room to the back of the house; rearrange the front of the house to give us a bigger master bedroom and family room; change Polendino’s current bedroom into a bathroom (with bath!) and build a one-bedroom cottage at the end of the yard for Wing’s Dad.

We’ll all move into the front of the house while the back bit’s done, and then move into that while the front bit’s done. Then we can fitout the new bathroom and re-do the kitchen.

Phew… I’m exhausted just writing about it.

So take this as a heads-up that the next 9 – 12 months will see lots of activity on this blog as we get stuck into this major project!

We made green and gold lamingtons today for Australia Day.

Directions:

Make a sponge cake (Stephanie Alexander’s Genovese sponge is good.)

Make icing (450 grams icing sugar,1/2 cup water, food colouring.)

Retrieve dessicated coconut.

Roll blocks of sponge in icing then coconut. Put on plate.

EEEEEEEAAAAAAAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our big gum tree has decided it’s had enough of its old clothes.  The result of this undressing is a yard covered in bark.  It’s quite beautiful.  Each piece has a shape of its own, and the crunch sounds comforting under foot.

Pepper got out again. We have no idea how long she was snacking on Loquat leaves and freshly-mown Dandelion stalks before Polendino spotted her bobtail whizzing past the back door.

It was a lot quicker to get her back into her hutch today, but then we were handicapped by darkness and rain last time.

The weekend before last, Boo spotted a huge Blue-tongue lizard on the path beyond the back deck. It was a good three inches across its back. I haven’t seen one that big in years. The two boy-cats were giving it a wide berth, making me wonder whether they’d already had an encounter with it. Having been disturbed by our stomping out to the clothesline, he slowly slithered back to his home under the deck. At Polendino’s suggestion, we named him “Butters”.

Yesterday we found that we had a smaller, younger cousin living in the front yard. This time we managed to get a photo. And this time it was the girl-cat giving the lizard a wide berth. Meet Kenny…

One of the great things about school holidays is having the time to do some of the little projects that we’ve been adding to our wishlist over the past few months.

Just today, the house was a hive of activity. We had Hamble making sunprints with some paper he bought himself at the NSW Art Gallery months ago…

Booboo was busy making spooky, blood-stained invitations for her pre-Halloween party (she also made a stained-glass suncatcher to hang in her bedroom window)…

And the boys and I made some rather spectacular marshmallows (almost more chemistry than cooking)…