Going dotty! Thought I'd take advantage of our bedroom colour scheme and do some dot painting since the colours are just right for it. I'm not going to get too carried away with it as the paint will wear off pretty quickly I imagine....but it sure breaks up that poo brown colour nicely.

Some pics of the leadlights...

See the middle one? If you look carefully you can see how tall the elephant grass is outside in some parts. No wonder they call it elephant grass!

Can ya tell we're dog lovers? This is Charris with the bits of bush all over her face. She's Rhian and Micks gorgeous baby, a mixture of wolf hound and mystery dog. She doesn't stand still for long enough to take pics usually but I got lucky.

Meet Red! Actually we don't know his real name but he's that to us. He came visiting the first week we arrived, snuggled up against our legs for a pat, played with Shadow for a bit and then lounged around in a sunny spot on our deck for a few hours. Guess he feels at home eh! We've had the pleasure of his company a few times now.

The drive up to our place is pretty hairy. Even though it's perfectly safe and most of it is bitumen (till our drive anyway), it's really steep and snakes around at all kinds of angles and you really don't want to be backing down the hill if you get lost...one of the reason tradesmen are nervous if you tell them it's a multiple occupancy. And so, Curt and I painted some signs for our visitors peace of mind.

Anotherway to get rid of the junk!

While I'm finally free to settle into my studio and clay, Curt's been doing the hard yakka. Here's a trailer load of junk collected from around the house on it's way to the tip.

Here I am writing this blog! More next time...too nice a day to be sitting inside. We're off to the Mullumbimby markets to buy some plants...

This is the kitchen during the day. I love the brightness of this house. And all the gorgeous leadlight made by the wife of the guy who built this home.

Kitchen shot, see those three blue and white tiles resurrected from your grandparents (or parents?) home in Holland Dad? They too have found a home.

This shot is take from the lounge looking up to the left where the stairs lead to our bedroom behind the buddha bamboo curtain. Check out the die dye man! Genuine bought-at-a-Grateful-Dead-concert way back in the day. Curt loves this tie dye and it's finally found a place where it really belongs, a real hippy home!

The guestroom is coming along...has a lovely country feel to it. There's a little room off this one that Curt set up with a telly and some comfy ikea chairs and a bookcase full of books. Turn your chair in the right direction and you can see the distant ocean.

While we were painting the bedroom, we moved our bed out the door and had a nap right there. Bliss!

The sun comes through the windows first thing in the morning. It's glorious! These old couches are wearing out (like me!...talk about feeling muscles where I didn't know I had em!) but they're too darn comfy to chuck out...and since we have a dog who is a prize couch potato, we're on a mission to buy some yards of farbic to throw over em.

Remember the 'thunderbox' hanging on the edge of the hill I talked about earlier...this is it. And look! It's has two holes so you can poo with a friend!

A rare sighting...Mel washing windows!

We decided to go for a terracotta colour for the floors since it's the same colour as the earth that will no doubt be traped in by our four legged darling and for better or worse, Aztec Glimmer Gold for the walls. Certainly it's better than the puke purple hidden behind it...but not much. We had a huge laugh about it this morning. All that work and for THAT! LOL! Oh well, maybe with the right rugs and wall hangings, it'll bring it all together. Stay tuned!

Hello folks!
We've arrived!!!! And couldn't be happier!
Feeling a bit scattered cos everywhere you look there's something you need to do! It's such a huge project this one and around a hundred different things to do at once...they left the place a mess, huge piles of crap everywhere (think in terms of around 20 trailer loads to the tip), filthy windows and shelves and carpets. They did clean the kitchen though...I was grateful for that. First thing we did the afternoon we arrived was rip the carpet out of the main bedroom and vacum 30 years of dust away...I'd much rather have clean concrete than god knows what in that carpet!!!...and ofcourse there was no water at all!!!, the previous tenants having ran the tanks dry......but at least we had Nev the water guy come yesterday so we joyfully showered three days of dirt away..ahhhhh...
It's WILD here...really...the sounds of the birds, frogs, crickets, wind in the trees....all so refreshing after the 'metropolis' of Suffolk Park...Curt trod on a snake the day we arrived...the snake kindly slithered away without biting!...and there was even howling on the night we moved in, the night of the full moon...sounded like human wolves...yes, really. And some strange two legged creature walking on the roof every night! Ahhhh...but we LOVE it here. We both feel like we're really home. Beyond the piles of crap made by humans...it's so beautiful everywhere you look, breath takingly so...sink, sink, sinking into the womb of mother nature. And so private. Curt's having a wonderful time wangling his willy in the breeze!
Curt's truly in his element! He happily fixed the water pump and the toilet yesterday...and started painting floors. Today we burn curtains, clean windows and paint more floors. Then we can unpack more boxes and move them into the studio...
Can feel this whipping into shape already!
FUN!

Misty valley. We woke up to this on our first morning here....

Before we had water and flushing loos...this is me coming back down from the "thunderbox" on the hillside the first morning. Can't wipe the smile off my face. This is all such an adventure! I feel like I've been plucked from the 'civilized' world and been plonked into primitive lands.

Nev delivers water.

The master bedroom without carpet. We've decided to paint the concrete floors for now and buy some nice scatter rugs. The upstairs guest bedroom reveals gorgeous wooden floors under that hideous carpet...bonus! Today I'm taking those curtains down and burning them!