We found a place

So here it is, our very own little workers cottage, we signed the contract on Friday with settlement in 30 days. Ok, ok so technically most people wouldn't call it a "workers cottage" but, if you think about it, that is exactly what it is. It was built in the 1970's for a working family. Every decade since the 1900's the "cottage" has grown. By the 60's the four room house had become a three bedroom abode, complete with kitchen, bathroom and laundry.


So now that we have moved on from semantics, let me tell you a little bit about the place.
Well, it has three bedrooms, two very good sized and one a bit smaller, a medium sized kitchen, seperate bathroom and toilet and a laundry. It's perched on 607 sqm of land in the suburb of North Carina. The ample front yard has several established shrubs and a few georgeous roses, while the spacious backyard comes complete with a hills hoist (not being removed because of nostalgia and Mick wants to swing on it), some paw paws and a couple mature shade trees. Oh yeah, a partly enclosed tin shed on a concrete slab toped with a weight bench comes with it.

That's the boring stuff out of the way, now, you walk into the wallpapered lounge room, do a jig around the wallpapered privacy wall into the wallpapered kitchen and view the wallpapered dinning area, take a couple steps and your back in the wallpapered lounge. Did I say wallpaper? There is a bit of it, but the variety that adornes each wall in the house is really the winner. My favorite so far is the first bedroom, imagine a cloudy day looking out onto the Brighton beach with the dark sea beyond, and riding on this sea of grey is a floatailla of ships! Not just any ships either, Captain Cook rigs at full sail. I believe the wallpaper was a sign, Mick's dad is a merchant marine and my dad is one of those people who can never be without at least one water vessel to his name: the wallpaper is staying, at least in this room!

The place is perfect for us. We'll tear down the wall paper, give it a fresh coat of paint, then tear up the shag wall to wall and clean up the floorboards. Everything else can wait. We want to make sure that we know exactly what we want to do where and what materials to use. We don't want to go wasting any of our labour and money!

Except the garden! That's top of my list. Front fence, chook pen and chooks, worm farm and compost heap followed by a no dig veggie garden.

Eventually we'll raise the place or dig underneath to add another bedroom or two, we'll tear down the wall seperating the kitchen from the lounge room and put a new kitchen in. We'll also put in a new bathroom and maybe add an ensuite while making the lounge room bigger. The part i'm looking forward to is a big wrap around verandah that will go in. The verandah would help with parking as there is no garage now, and create living space in the front, the North side and back of house to watch the sun slowly decend over a horizon of trees.

As soon as I get more picture of the place I'll post them, but until then you'll just have to drool over this small selection.