My Quest for the perfectly organised home (3)

Yesterday, we went to our good friends, Cally & Ross, as it was Ross's birthday party. As always, wonderful evening was had by all, great company, great conversation, great food (and puddings, yum) alas no champagne (I had been relegated to designated driver) so was stuck drinking some non alcoholic apple malt drink. It was quite refreshing actually (the not drinking alcohol, not the drink itself) as I didn't wake up this morning with some demented woodpecker trying to drill a hole in the top of my head.
So, last night we were standing around the kitchen counter, chatting away, like only women can do, when Michelle (a really good friend of Cally's) took a plastic shopping bag and within no time at all (whilst still chatting) produced a pretty little triangle shape shopping bag, all neatly folded. Well blow me over with a feather, I had to know how this was done, this is something not even Martha Stewart does (well there is no mention of it on her website). so I went and found two more shopping bags and asked Michelle to do a "show and tell" et voila, we had three pretty triangle shapes in front of us.
Very chuffed with this, I will give you one guess what I did this morning, yup that's right, I woke up, (minus the sore head) went and got my disdainful looking shopping bags and proceeded to fold them all neatly into pretty little triangles. What fun. I think I have found a kindred soul in Michelle (I just don't insist on only buying tins with English labels, yup no Afrikaans labels in Michelle's pantry). So I thought I would put some pics up to show those of you who just can't wait to go and make your shopping bags into pretty little triangles too. Thanks Michelle.
Till next time
xoxo


All pretty, lined up like white and green samoosa's et Voila, a pretty triangle shape

Until there is only a small rectangle left, fold this over and tuck inside opposite side

Continue to fold over into triangle shape along the length of the bag

Fold corner over to form a triangle

Fold lengthwise again

Fold lengthwise

Flatten out

Take typical look plastic packet after removing the shopping

My quest for the perfectly organised home (2)

A while back I embarked on a project to revamp my shoe storage, well suffice to say, it is eventually done, all 82 boxes worth, all shoes cleaned and placed in their see through box, stacked neatly on their shelf. Now wouldn't

Martha be proud.

Before and after.

Living in the Country is not for sissies (4)

Our Place, Beautiful Sunsets & Septic Tanks


Did we ever stop and think to ourselves, "we will never get this done" ? sure, all the time, but we had a vision, we knew what we wanted and boy we were determined to get there.


Watching this take shape, was a glorious adventure, and day by day, this monstrosity transformed, until it became "Our Place".

We loved the name, as we felt it was relaxed and welcoming, "come over to Our Place", we could hear ourselves saying, and with Grant's Dad & Wife, as well as my parents planning on moving there as well, this encompassed all of us, it truly is all "Our Place".


We never stopped to think of the change in our lifestyle other, than the idealised version of fresh air and beautiful sunsets. Well the fresh air and beautiful sunsets are there, and boy do we enjoy them, and that is putting it mildly, a sundowner on our patio, as the most magnificent, orange and pink sunset dips into purple and dark blue skies eventually turning to darkness is a sight to behold.

However being such urbanites and coming to the realisation that, horror of horrors, WE HAVE SEPTIC TANKS, was enough to make me run screaming for the trees (you know the perfectly manicured lollipop shaped ones back in the suburbs). I knew we had the dreaded tanks, due to the “incident” with the truck, but had chosen to, pull an ostrich, and firmly blanked it out of my mind, I mean seriously, when you are finished with your business, that should become someone else’s problem.
Here I found myself, having to research what kind of cleaning products I could and could not use, there goes my anti-bacterial products (which I might add were very close to my heart, germs and I don’t go well together), oh and how was I to approach this very sensitive subject with my friends, of what they could and couldn't put down the loo. I refuse point blank to put up signs in my bathrooms, it is just so “public toilet”, and do you know you actually have to activate these things with live bacteria, you know the germs I have spent many years, on a full blown battle to eradicate. I was now buying bottles germs to pour down my toilet. I started to have some very serious thoughts about this living in the country thing and so Grant said for the first (and let me add not the last) time "Living in the country is not for sissies".

Living in the country is not for sissies (3)

A perfect day

We visited almost every day, we were there every weekend. Eating picnics in our garden, as the house still didn't have a roof, (didn't have walls at some points either) inviting friends and family around, effectively to a building site, for lunch (and they graciously obliged by sitting under trees in our garden and ate alfresco, while we regaled them with building tales).

In fact one of my most treasured moments happened one very cold, July, winter, Sunday. we had gotten to the point where we now had a roof, we had floors and the kitchen stove had been installed. I had made a pot of Indian dahl lentils, Grant and I curled up on a futon (that actually belonged in Jordy's bedroom, but had been left in the bar for the meantime) in front of a log fire. We ate, drank, chatted and dreamed of what may be, when we eventually would move in. This was one of those truly perfect days.

Living in the Country is not for sissies (2)

The start of the renovation

Grant was besides himself with anticipation, as absolutely nothing in that house was what we wanted, so he gleefully took a sledgehammer to it. What a way to get rid of work stress. He hired a team of builders and started project managing, what would turn out to be a year long project of renovating this old farmhouse into a beautiful home. They actually ripped out all windows, doors, ceilings, floors, bathrooms, kitchen, electrics, plumbing, cupboards, lights, and most walls. Everyone thought we were mad, "why didn't you just flatten the whole lot and start over?", we were asked on numerous occasions, but we liked certain features of the house and wanted to maintain some of the integrity. Not many could see what it was we were trying to achieve, but we carried on. Now if Mum and Dad thought we were mad before we started to demolish the house, you should have seen their faces the next time they came down to see it. At this point they seriously thought both Grant and I had lost our marbles completely, but yet again they said nothing.

The Bar

This was to become our bedroom

The start of the gym

The Kitchen

Breaking through from the study to the lounge

Breaking through from the lounge

Windows and floors out

Ceilings out

Roof off

Even the garden didn't get away scot free

Some of the rubble that was accumulated, throughout the renovation

Now, this was an unfortunate encounter between a reversing truck and a 40 year old septic tank.

After purchasing the house, I then determined that I had in actual fact paid money for 40 years of some other people's poo, this is just about as grim as it gets, and gave me many sleepless nights. So when this "unfortunate" event occurred, I was absolutely ecstatic as we were left with no other option but to get a brand new septic tank and sink it, leaving me thrilled to no end. (no more, other peoples poo)

My quest for the perfectly organised home

What possesses me sometimes, although we sit at the End of March, which is effectively the very tail end of Summer, two weeks ago I embarked on a spring clean. I might just add that my entire house was spring cleaned as little time ago as July (also not spring) last year. Where on earth does it all come from, I am almost convinced someone sneaks into my house each night, moves things around and bring unwanted items with them in order to fill up my cupboards with things I don't need. This could however have something to do with the fact that I have a teenage daughter (but I would never dare to accuse).
I tend to start in one room and work my way through the house, well this time I started in my bedroom, well my walk in closet to be exact, and started to feel very unhappy about how dusty my shoes were getting (one of the pitfalls of living in the country and not having a door to my closet). So in order to keep my shoes from getting ruined I embarked on a project, within a project, to sort them out. I started off by purchasing all forms of cleaning goods for shoes, suede stones & brushes, dry clean spray foam, and little polish sponges. each pair of shoes were then cleaned and spruced up back to their former glory. In the mean time I had found out from a colleague at work that you could purchase see through shoe boxes, so I promptly bought five packs of 10 and a two pack of boot boxes. Let me tell you, a person has to be very dedicated to want to use these boxes, as they come flat packed and are really sturdy plastic with very sharp edges. Each box requires each edge to be folded then assembled, as beautiful as they turn out, I am seriously swithering whether kirsching curtains or making shoe boxes is the most evil of the two. My wonderful husband (and I say that with no malice or sarcasm), was having none of this and refused point blank to get caught up in my madness (as he referred to it), Jordy however very kindly assembled ten of the 52, leaving me 42 of these torture boxes to assemble, if I can tell you that for the first time in my life my fingers cramped so much I couldn't move them for ages afterwards. I then placed each pair of shoes delicately into their new home and stacked them like an excell spreadsheet onto my shelves. I might add unfortunately the number of boxes I got were not sufficient so I had to place an order for an additional 30 boxes, which have now been sitting looking at me from the bottom shelf of my closet for the last week and I just can't seem to bring myself to build the remainder, I am seriously thinking of bribing Jordyn with extra pocket money to do it for me, as much as I want the closet finished, the thought of cramping fingers just doesn't enthrall me for some reason. I think Martha would be very disappointed at me right now and I hear her voice in the back of my head, whispering "you will be happy with the result when you are done, now get going !". So on my quest to once again spring clean this house, I will get going again tomorrow (this isn't procrastination, I have friends coming for dinner tonight and I have to whip up some yummy meal, thinking of lasagna, green salad and ciabatta bread). Will keep you updated on progress.
Till next time
xoxo

Living in the country is not for sissies (1)

We first decided to move out to the country side in 2007. We felt the need to move away from the hustle and bustle, of not having to worry about the noise our parties made, of not having neighbours so close that they could see everything we did, and the constant traffic noises we had to contend with. We yearned for the open space, the fresh air, being able to watch the sun set.

We dreamed of growing our own vegetables and also of having both Grant and my parents being able to live with us on the same property, however giving all of us enough space to ensure we all could have our privacy.

So off we went searching for our perfect country home, wow there was some really scary places out there, so we gave up looking for the perfect place and started looking for what we could turn into to our perfect place.

On Mother's Day 2007 we walked into a 40 year old farm house, which I might add had every kind and colour flooring that one could imagine, from slasto to tiles to carpet to wood and all in some very scary colours. It was a very strangely laid out house, in fact the estate agent described the house as being "so wrong, that it is right". Well long story short both Grant and I decided that this was something we could do something with, signed on the dotted line and held thumbs for it all to work out.

After some hiccups from the sellers side, all was approved and the house officially became ours in August 2007.

Now proud owners of a 40 year old farmhouse in some serious need of tender loving care, we took Mum & Dad out to see our new house and although they did the obligatory "this is so lovely", we found out later they were actually thinking, "what on earth possessed them to buy this". Little did we realise the adventure we were about to embark on.
1st visit with Mum & Dad

I know now what mum was thinking.