Project Sell

Project Sell is full steam ahead. Dan is working hard getting the house painted and some final landscaping done.

Meanwhile, I've been busily packing stuff up into boxes for storage and trying to create some order from the chaos. 

We've had furniture trucks coming and going fairly regularly lately. Funny the way you only take the time to get your house looking how you really wanted when it's time to leave. 

Like almost everyone else starting out, our furniture was always hand-me-down furniture, or op shop or Ebay finds. It's only been recently that we've started actually going out to shops, picking and paying for pieces we like and hope to have forever. 

Around the time I started 30, I also decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy some art. My mum has been active in the Tasmanian art scene for decades, so she was only too happy to help me start to narrow down artists and styles I liked.

I started with this piece, by a NSW-based artist. I'm hoping to add to it soon and have my eye on a couple of Tasmanian artists. Tasmania has an interest-free art purchasing scheme run by the Government to encourage investment in the local art scene.

I think it's a fantastic idea and intend to take full advantage of it.

So here we are, finally living in a house that's starting to look 'done', while sneakily boxing up and storing away anything that doesn't fit into the new aesthetic. It's exciting times ahead.

Steps

I'm a little excited today. It's my last day of work for nearly a fortnight and I'm really looking forward to some extra quality time at home.

Weeknight vignette

We're moving full-steam ahead now to get our home on the market. It's exciting and a little overwhelming. With the exception of the 10 months we rented up at Sandgate, we've lived in this house for seven years -- since I was 23 years old.
In that time, it's transitioned from a shabby party house with rooms we rented out to friends to a comfortable, familiar family home.

We could stay here longer and be perfectly comfortable, and there's a part of me that thinks maybe we should just do that. It's always easier to maintain the status quo, after all. To just keep doing what we've been doing for years as more years run past us at an ever-quickening pace.

And yet... somehow, the time feels right to make a change of lifestyle. If we can possibly, humanly pull it off.

We've got a little storage unit rented up the road to move all our excess stuff into now. Dan is working days and nights under spotlight to get the exterior painted before he starts his new job on Monday.

 A quick tidy up, a For Sale sign and ideally, a quick offer.

A few more steps up the mountain.



Moonrise Kingdom Soundtrack

This arrived today from Amazon, and really...it's just a little bit fantastic - a gorgeous blend of classical and electronic and banjos and magic.

   

You Tube will not let me embed any video in here, but follow this link if you want a taste of something a little special.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxRnd_ACxJo

Farm Photos

I mentioned that we took yet another trip out to 'our farm' on Friday. This time, it was to show my Mother, who is up visiting from Tasmania through the place. She snapped a few sneaky photos.

Here's a not-very-flattering photo of me on the veranda of the main house.

This is a shot of some of the gardens and sneaky glimpses of the two homes (one behind the trees, one to the right) plus the run-down old slab hut in the back right.

After looking around Laidley and the property, we went and visited Forest Hill, a little town nearby. It has several cute little shops, one newly renovated hotel and this one, which was a bit more traditional but much more photogenic.

Finally, Lucinda was being her adorable self when this was taken. Kid LOVES a camera.

Hope everyone else is having a nice weekend full of their own daydreams.

Ikea No Idea

Another trip out to 'our farm', another hurdle this week. It now looks like Dan and I may have to go it alone in the venture, which would fine, except that Dan's only just about to start a new job and I work part-time.

BANK SAYS NO.

So, if we want to make this happen, we need to sell our house first. We're a few weeks off putting it on the market and Dan still has to paint the exterior.

Meanwhile, I decided to start work on staging it for sale and took off to Ikea to buy a new bed frame, paid to have it delivered, put Dan to work assembling it and then discovered that Ikea bed frames do not fit Australian standard sized mattresses. I had no idea. You'd think they might tell you that somewhere on the information sheet for their beds. Do not buy this bed if you expect to be able to use a mattress on it. Something like that.

So, we had to pull it all down again, Dan will have to drive it back and we now have no bed frame at all because I gave the old one away on Freecycle in a wave of efficiency.

One step forward, two steps back.

Anyway, it's a glorious night tonight, perfect for enjoying some time out on the deck.

I gotta admit, I will miss that view. 

Exhaustion

Well, we were going to make an offer on 'our farm' today, but other things have gotten in the way. Have I mentioned before what a massive undertaking this whole process is?

Going halves with other family members appeals to us on so many levels, but it also adds several layers to an already complex process. There is paperwork galore, plus the challenges of  Dan's parents now being away for a couple of weeks on a pre-booked holiday.

I hope no one swoops down and buys it in the interim, but there's not much that can be done if they do.

I feel a bit burned out at the moment. I am exhausted with work and my days at home with Lucinda are no less tiring. I feel completely overwhelmed by everything and inspired and motivated to do nothing. It's not a good place to be, to be honest. I used to get this way occasionally about work, but it was nothing a few days off or a big night out with friends wouldn't fix.

Lucinda looks tired too.

I feel like the problem is running a little deeper now.

I wonder if I need a holiday. Would a holiday with a baby even classify as a holiday? I'm not sure.

For now, I will console myself with clicking through photos of the property online and dreaming of a different lifestyle, one that's hopefully still just around the corner.

Our Farm?

Another trip out to what we've started calling 'our farm' over the weekend. We haven't made an offer yet on the place.

But, you know what? I think we just might. She's really quite the charmer. 

The place has two liveable houses and an original slab-hut homestead, shown in the third picture above.

The house that would be ours is a three-bedroom Queenslander with wrap-around verandas and a lot of potential, although plenty of work needs to be done. 

The second home is a brick and tile converted shed which would become the home of the in-laws, who are thinking of making the move with us. 

A country commune. It's all quite exciting. And daunting. And exciting. 

That mountain climb I mentioned last week? We're another couple of steps up it.

We're on our way.

Honing the search

Another weekend, another drive west of Brisbane.

There is a definite end goal now. Our search has honed in on one property that is within our chosen area, price range and meets all our needs.

It's an absolutely beautiful place near a lovely town and I'm very excited about what could be.

But, there are still so many boxes to tick before we can even get to the point of making an offer on it. So many things that could change and make the whole enterprise unviable. I feel like I'm standing at the bottom of a mountain, knowing I'm in for the climb of my life and feeling slightly exhausted before I take even the first step.

Don't look at the top of the mountain, it'll scare you from starting.

Just put one foot in front of the other.

In the meantime, here we are.

Location Scouting

Happy Monday! That's another weekend passed. The great thing about being a part-time worker is my weekends are four days long, every week, which is so nice.

 

We did more location scouting out west for property over the weekend. We're looking at maybe making our country life dream a reality, but it's proving very tricky to find anything that's in our price range, in the area we need to be in to access work, and also appealing.

 

Scratch that. It's actually very easy to find cheap properties around but they were, almost without exception, underwater in January last year with the floods. Just when we think we've found something interesting, one of us loads up the trusty flood maps and BANG! Our dream home was under six metres of water last year.

 

Thanks but no.

 

Anyway, we're nowhere near ready to make the move yet (if we do at all) but it's fun researching it and narrowing down areas to 'take me there now' and 'over my dead body'.

 

Dan went to the tip Saturday and found this old munitions box, which he scrubbed up and waxed. I think it's pretty cool.



 

Lucinda kept a close eye on the veggie garden...

 



 

... and we ate a few of our strawberries. Lovely!

 



 

Hope everyone else had a good weekend too.