Kitchen Confidential

We took a few chances with the kitchen - a stainless steel worktop, plywood cupboards and drawers and cut-away handles - not anything like what we'd seen in the showroom.

Luckily we think that those risks have paid off, having seen the carcase in place...





The only question now is what we'll cook first!

The Wild Rumpus Begins...

The rumpus room is almost unrecognisable compared to how it was just a week or so ago.

It looks so much lighter now that the gib is in place and the undercoat has been done. The perfect space for reading, working and crafting.

Finishing Touches

The house is now close to completion. Apparently.

And the moment that all the neighbours have been waiting for is fast approaching - the great unveiling. Hopefully they'll like what they see when the scaffolding and shrink wrap comes down.

We were certainly pleased with the Half Hillary paint on the weatherboards when we sneaked a peek - a great relief!

Beginner Baking 8

My latest cake creation was a Somerset Cider Cake, courtesy of River Cottage.

I skipped the hazlenut topping and replaced it with a cream cheese and cider frosting. HFW's recipe for cream cheese icing was better than the ones that I'd used previously - more icing sugar, less cream cheese, more juice (or, in this case, cider).

The best feature of the cake had to be its aroma - really rather alcoholic, thanks to soaking the fruit in cider for a few hours first. And I was delighted to find out that the cake was similar to one that my paternal grandmother used to make.

There might be a slight cake shortage for the next few weeks though as the chickens seem to have taken to laying their eggs in the bush so our supply is dwindling. I'll have to switch to baking biscuits instead.

Pottering About

When I took the truck in for repairs recently, I found the Salvation Army opshop next door to the garage. On browsing through their stock, I was delighted to find a vinegar jug - just what we need for the nights when we have fish and chips.



I didn't really need the other jugs but think they'll come in handy.

And I've definitely felt the lack of a platter.



I need to decide on a theme for our house though before I get tempted with too many other things. As you can see, I'm quite partial to earthy colours and designs. But I've picked up a few bright pieces as well. Decision time...

Wacky Wallpaper

Readers will be relieved to know that I've limited the patterns to the curtains - no crazy wallpaper like this orange design that I found in the cupboard at the bach where we stayed recently.

Soft Furnishings and Hard Decisions

So we thought that we had the colour scheme sorted for the outside of the house. It turned out that we didn't.

The original fibrolite and concrete block was painted a lovely green-brown which blended with the surrounding land. We wanted to recreate that with the weatherboards but found out rather late that the warranty on the weatherboards would be invalidated if we chose a paint with a light reflective value (LRV) below 45.

We went back to the drawing board and eventually selected Resene Half Hillary, with an LRV just over 45. Apparently it's "a genteel well mannered ochre, a green and beige blend".

It seems apt given that Sir Edmund Hillary's house looked rather like ours anyway and I think we'll get used to it being so light.


The next hard decision was the curtains. We started looking at curtains only for the bedrooms where we'll need to block out the light when we move back in. We quickly realised that we needed to look at the other rooms too in order to develop a consistent theme. So we added in the living rooms in the main house and the granny flat.

The first fabrics that I picked out were all far too expensive and all of them needed to be imported from Europe with a delay of several months. I have a taste for the finer things in life obviously.

I started again and this is what we came up with - Free Range for Lark's bedroom and the other children's room (looking ahead), Urbis in Lime and Natural for the granny flat (one granny vetoed some more eccentric fabrics!) and Gloria and Fragrance respectively for the master bedroom and living room upstairs.



The bold patterns should give a hint of 1960s design without being overbearing. I still have the windows in the rumpus room and on the stairs to play with and might look for even more of a statement there.

And we need to decide whether to put blinds or curtains or nothing at all in the bathrooms. It all depends on how well our new neighbours can see the house...