The story of the house so far.

We are building a house.
That is to say that we are not actually, personally building it - we have some rathere excellent builders doing that.

We had plans drawn up by our friend Pete ages ago and in fact they were approved by council a year ago, but in true Carrad fashion we got distracted and retired (some of us), sold up, packed up etc etc.
And the builders were busy until the end of last year so it all worked in quite well really.

Now they are moving apace as they have some jobs coming up in February and want to get us finished as soon as poss, though we don't really know when that will be.

formwork for the slab

garage slab is done

framework for the house

the roof arrives

garage roof is on

that is it - roof and ceiling in one

weathertex cladding on the garage

window on the west side of the bedroom

serving hatch window in the kitchen

To give you an idea of what it will look like this is a model of it -

An oldie but a goodie - Paddington markets

I'd never been to Paddington markets before! Hard to believe, I know, but as a westie-girl, it just seemed too hard to make the trip into the east.

This is Paddington, Sydney.

These markets have been around since 1973
Over the years many well-known designers got their start at Paddington markets.
It used to be pretty much the only market around and has always supported local artists and designers.

Now that there are soooo many other markets around, it's a testament to its integrity that this market has survived, and is still very much well-worth visiting.
There is still a fair amount of true designer items and a mix of quality non-artisan goods.

Brightest cushions by Bob Window -

Beautiful resin bangles by Kor creations -

One of my favorite photographers who I had met before at Narrabeen markets - Maria Vantsos.

Pretty dresses by Lemisee

There is yummy food and healthy smoothies.

More fabulous photographs by Tony Read -

  Amy found a stylish and practical hat from johnywho.

 Amazing cut-out pop-up cards -

Certainly enough to keep you entertained.
And there is entertainment! These lads were rather excellent.

I was also delighted to see my old friend Dawn Wilson there, of adawn designs. I failed to take a photo, but she creates gorgeous one-of-a-kind jewellery pieces from the unusual and not-so-unusual components.

The markets are a fundraising initiative of the Uniting Church and are held in the beautiful surrounds of the church.
Every saturday 10 til ?
395 Oxford street
Paddingtonmarkets.com.au

After the fire

Towards the end of our 3 month trip in October we passed by the Warrumbungles.
There was a huge, truly huge fire here at the beginning of 2013.
A friend who is an RFS volunteer and witnessed first-hand the utter devastation here, asked if I could post some photos of the area now.

Here is part of the main camping area.

About 80% of the national park was destroyed as well as thousands of hectares of farm land.

One thing I'd forgotten was that there was an equally devastating flood mere days after the fire, which washed away topsoil and the seeds from vegetation which needs fire to regenerate.
So they have no idea what will grow back where!

By the side of the road you can see the gum trees sprouting again.

They say some areas will never be the same.

The radio telescope at Mopra where G spent a lot of time.
The dish survived, but the roof of the facilities partially collapsed. Amazingly the guts were still intact.

Just down the hill is our friends' house -

This is it during the fire!

photo by Mark Barrow

How to turn a butt ugly shipping container into a butt ugly shed

A shipping container turned out to be the cheapest storage shed option.
It arrived by truck one day.

Talking of butt ugly.....here is the gorgeous container-delivery-man!

He did a great job unloading it onto the supporting tyres with rims that G scored from the reuse shop at the local tip.

This is what it looks like now -

We scoured the local area for old corrugated iron.

When we saw a decrepit old shed we tried to find out who owned it and asked if we could take the iron.

We struck gold the first time with this beauty -

Unfortunately the old farmer who gladly let us demolish his old shed, (which was in fact the original cottage on his farm) died a couple of weeks ago, but his memory lives on through this side -

and the roof corner pieces which were the ridge bits from old Snow's shed.

G made a wooden frame to attach the iron -

but we still didn't have enough sheets of iron, so off we went on another iron-hunting trip.
Eventually we found the owner of this -

and on another hot day G climbed on it and removed nails and I stood around and tried to be helpful - collected the nails and things like that.

We found a few more sheets at the wonderful local re-use shop at the tip - narrowly missing out on about 15 excellent sheets there.
Anyway these longer sheets were perfect for the roof -

With the door open you can see the wooden battens.

The door posed a greater problem as we still had to be able to operate the handles!

G solved this - No screws into the container itself. All done by wedging and screwing wood bits in various places...

....and screwing on spacer sections to avoid interference with the metal bars...
 

 ...and to hold the battens that hold the iron which is screwed on.

 These virtually new leather belts, judiciously cut up to hold the iron that covers the handles, were on special at the Red Cross op shop yesterday...$1.50 each! We'll be back there today no doubt.

Looks great I reckon!