painting in my sleep

well people Katerina della Renovatione has just stuck her head up from 6 weeks of intensive cleaning and scraping and scrubbing and painting to write a post. OMG there is a world out there where people go out and have fun and relax! Who would have thought?? Not in my world of renovation they don't - they paint and paint and paint some more until they can barely move. But this weekend I am going away with my fabulous choir friends to have some fun and relax! yay!!

Well there is much to report.
Pablo the bower bird is now my adopted son - I wish I could adopt him he's so adorable. I put little blue offerings out for him which he promptly takes and add to his stash. Blue plastic pegs and bright blue biro lids, he loves them all ....but a friend and I were wondering what did bower birds do before the invention of plastic, particularly blue plastic??

I am happy to say that the slow combustion heater works brilliantly and there have been some chilly spring nights up here in the mountains.

just like the Swiss Alps! where's the mulled wine and the ski instructor?

And then there is the possum. Years ago in Adelaide there was a stripper called Big Pretzel, who was renowned for her uncanny ability to twirl the tassels on her sequinned bras in opposite directions simultaneously. Unique life skills I know, but what does this have to do with my house? Well I nicknamed the possum living in my roof Big Pretzel due to her delight in indulging in extremely loud dancing on my tin roof at 4am in the morning.  It certainly sounded as if she was wearing high heels and sequins. The dancing was bad enough but Big Pretzel had set up permanent home in my roof sleeping and of course peeing up there. Fantastic! A friend of mine has one that sleeps in the wall cavity of her studio during the day and it startles her from time to time by suddenly snoring loudly!

Well I love possums but there is a limit and peeing in the roof would be it. So Big Pretzel has recently been evicted from her penthouse apartment by the possum man of Faulconbridge. He rocked up in his beaten up old Falcon station wagon and hopped out in khaki overalls. He appeared not unlike a possum himself, with fuzzy ginger hair and a woolly jumper. He said he'd come back the next night at 9.30pm because then he could be sure the possums were out foraging for food. Sure enough he turned up the next night, and while I sat nervously inside, he was outside all ladders and lights and stomping around on the roof, eventually boarding up their entrance. So Big Pretzel no longer sleeps above me in the living room but I know she's okay. I know that because she and her clan continue to dance very loudly on my roof in what sounds like hobnail boots in the wee hours. I think they call it Possum's Revenge!

Hey if you like reading my posts why not subscribe to my blog by entering your email in the top right hand corner of the screen and clicking on submit?   
and because this blog is also sometimes about music here's  Clairy Browne and the Bangin' Rackettes from Melbourne    
Katerina x

the princess, the tape measure and Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan's very excellent work

I went up to the house yesterday and I hurt my finger. OBG (official building guru) - it's like the Obi-Wan Kenobi of handypersons - aka George was working on a Sunday - yes he's my hero - anyway he was busy ripping up old skirting and putting on new skirting and was covered in dust and grime and sweat and stuff and I was like well I just need to measure a few things George so I'll leave you to it. So there I was prancing about in my black boots trying not to get any dust and grime and stuff on them and not spill my cappuccino - I did offer to get him one - I'm not completely heartless you know - and then anyway, I was measuring up for the white wooden venetians I've been fantasising about for you know like years, with my new amazing tape measure. It's the kind that proper builders use but if you let it go too fast it like snaps back really fast and you can get tape whiplash something severe. Well I let it snap back really fast and at first I was like OMG what's that sticky stuff on my fingers is that some kind of poison and then I realised it was my own blood. I had sliced my finger with the tape measure - how is that possible I hear you ask? Well that's what can happen on a building site when you let princesses wander around randomly. It's nearly healed now thanks for asking.

the princess hurt her finger on the building site....poor princess

Katerina xx    

ode to Pablo

Forget internet dating and let me introduce Pablo. He's dark and latino looking and he's moved into my place. Yes people I know it's fast but when it's right, it's right. And he's attentive, sweet and adorable! What more could you want?  And I do have a penchant for those with artistic tendencies and he has these in spades. I met him only recently and we had an immediate rapport. He's working on his latest exhibition using found objects and I love it! Everything is so thoughtfully and artfully arranged down to the last detail. His use of the natural environment in his latest installation is inspired.

let me introduce Pablo during his blue period .........

his latest work

he's neat and does his own cooking

He's not a great conversationalist but you can't have everything - besides bowerbirds are very cool

Katerina xx

grown men run screaming from house......

sculptural electrical installation on my verandah

Sparkies are running scared from my house! They take one look and go white around the gills, or the electrical equivalent and break into a sweat. The first one quoted me a small fortune in the desperate hope that he would never get the job!  The last one was so sweet and polite and at one point looked at me very sincerely as we stood near a large pile of building debris and said, ' Have you had moments of feeling overwhelmed?' 'Well yes Glenn, I have', I said equally as sweetly and sincerely. 'It's probably one of the most challenging jobs I have quoted on,' he said his face going the colour of Polyfilla. He got into his van very swiftly and roared up the street. My house is very scary, well to electricians it would seem. I need an electrician who is not afraid. A heroic sparkie who is also affordable. Hopefully I find one very soon because  George Ace Handyman, my OBG, (Official Building Guru), is being held up by the lack of courageous sparkies and that will just not do.

So right now I need a good news story - below witness left the house as it was with completely rusted out gutters and no downpipes whatsoever, mildewed walls and junk lying everywhere and see it now all freshly washed and newly guttered with gorgeous charcoal grey gutters and downpipes. Who would have thought that guttering could be so exciting?!

and AFTER!!

BEFORE sad and gutterless..

OMG! another good news story

For some weeks  I have peered under the house and wondered what the old doors were like that I was sure I could see right under the middle of the house. The other day my curiosity got the better of me and I crawled under the house, which was a little scary, and to my amazement the doors I could see were a pair of beautiful old French doors! They are in great condition and must have been part of the original house in 1915. Now I just have to work out how to tell George Ace Handyman that the doorway he widened for me only a few days ago just needs to be made a few inches wider and higher to accommodate my new find.......

yours renovating by candlelight

Katerina x

why linoleum rocks

spooky happenings while ripping up carpets..... the spirits are disturbed

now where did I leave those cards?

Oh yes that's right back in 1916 I decided to leave them under layers of carpet for safe keeping you know like one of those time capsules. And there they where when we ripped up the carpets, preserved for posterity. Just joking not really 1916 more like 1986. Incredible what you find under all the layers of flooring.

When we pulled up the first lot of carpet I was so disappointed that we didn't find any old newspapers. To my amazement however when we pulled up the last lot of very old lino, lying underneath were a couple of envelopes addressed to the then owner, Miss Henderson. One was dated 1930 so had been preserved under the lino for the last 82 years.  There were also a few old newspapers dated October 1931with fabulous ads for 1930's fashion.

Sadly the newspapers are too damaged and stuck to the floor to save but it's amazing to imagine the house at that time in the 1930's.

And good old linoleum. I had no idea but it was invented way back in 1855. In the 1930's when Miss Henderson purchased her linoleum from Farmers Department Store in Sydney it was considered the epitome of fashion. It was made from ground cork and linseed oil bonded on to canvas or burlap and boy did it last. Click here for some lino patterns of the time. Linoleum really did rock back then and has preserved my floorboards beautifully.

yours loving linoleum
Katerina x

other stuff not renovating - what there's other stuff ??

6 things you may like to do that have nothing to do with renovating anything.....except maybe your heart and your music collection

1. do yourself a favour and check out Gotye's fantastic video mash up of Youtube covers of his own song

2. go and see the movie The Sapphires and listen to the incredible Jessica Mauboy singing What a Man

3. listen to one of my favourite singers  Sia    I go to sleep

4. check out Clairy Browne and the Bangin' Rackettes, great Melbourne band, singing Baby Caught the Bus

5. visit The World Needs More Love Letters  - a sweet and touching concept and maybe write your own and leave it somewhere to be found

6. and while you're writing love letters visit Bentlily because the world needs more poetry and sign up to receive a poem by Samantha Reynolds every day in your inbox just like this one

It rained on her a lot

When I am gone
someone will read all these poems
and think

it rained on her a lot

so let it be known
I love the way it sounds on the cabin roof
like hearing my old tap dance class
from down the hall

and the way the soil here is thick and heavy
like a sponge
like a happy drunk
a million hopeful saplings
digging their feet into the pulpy darkness
dreaming of sky

and all the oily slugs and worms
I like their languor
rolling slowly across the sopping grass
there is a serenity to their journey
a suggestion that we are
in this submerged moment
quite safe

so when I am gone
when someone reads all these poems
let them think

it rained on her a lot
what luck
what a wet
juicy
life. 

wishing you all wet juicy lives

Katerina x

liquid amber ain't liquid gold

dear people living in houses that don't require renovation
Yes you can sit back and read this with a air of contentedness....smugness even....it must be lovely living in a cosy house that has a kitchen that doesn't pre-date the war, and I'm talking World War 1, to have windows without SLAYER sprayed in red on them

and to have 'nice' bedrooms not alleged 'bedrooms' that would be fit for the remake of The Bride of Frankenstein.

the scene of many award winning horror movies

I am pleased to say that the Psycho Room setting of the Frankenstein nuptials is no more, and amazingly once the alleged 'curtains' were removed and summarily destroyed, sunlight streamed in and the room was in shock. 

Back in the front yard I was learning all about liquid amber trees. Hitherto I have been blissfully ignorant of liquid amber trees. It sounds like such a pretty name......liquid amber....sounds golden and gorgeous......oh you have a liquid amber in your front yard......how lovely for you.....they're beautiful in autumn........no they're not! they're evil, spreading their enormous roots under the house and through every underground pipe you have...silently wreaking havoc while you're distracted scrubbing SLAYER off the leadlight windows. My renovation guru George Ace Handyman nods knowingly when I tell him,' Ah yes liquid amber.....you'll have to get rid of that luv before it destroys the foundations.' 

Ah the things I'm learning, all about Liquidambar styraciflua  and the musical works of Slayer and Slipknot. All in a days renovation.

from under the branches of the liquid amber tree

Katerina xx