Lack of renovation = frustration

This last week has been a bit weird...not bad, just weird! I had a few unexpected (but positive, actually even exciting) things happen in my work world.  It really got me thinking that great things happen when you least expect them, which is something nice for me to keep in mind as I'm usually two steps ahead when it comes to expectations! On Thursday I got some sort of virus that messed with my perception (I was at work typing and my hands weren't were they were supposed to be, like they weren't my hands or something!) and that knocked me out for the rest of the week.

I've had a really quiet weekend. Paul went off to the Ballarat swap meet yesterday where he picked up a few goodies including an old Singer sewing machine that he's cleaning up for me to put in the house (he's very proud of himself for that one!) and today we paid an uneventful (disappointing) visit to the Coburg Trash and Treasure market.

The thrill of this afternoon was cleaning out the pantry after the discovery of little white worms which are apparently pantry moth larvae (ick!).  It seems that all the money I've spent on Tupperware over the years paid off as there was very little food they had actually gotten into so not a lot that we had to throw out. It did however mean taking everything out, vacuuming and cleaning the cupboard and washing all of the containers as a number of the little buggers were in the creases of the lids (but on the outside). I've put bay leaves in there which they apparently hate and fingers crossed that we got them all. For the first time ever, I was grateful for the little cupboard that is currently our pantry because the thought of having to clean out the pantry I plan to have in our renovated kitchen almost sends me over the edge. On the positive side, our pantry if beautifully organised- we'll see how long that lasts!

I came so close to posting a picture of the pantry on here (not a bad thing if my pantry was amazing, but it's not) and it made me realise that I'm in need of a real project! It seems that things on the renovation front have ground to a bit of a halt. Our recent decision to work with the footprint of our current house has had time to settle and we're really happy with the plans we have so far. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of thinking, prepping and researching going on, just not a lot of action and it's really starting to frustrate me.

Everything that we plan to do all rests on (pardon the pun) restumping the front half of the house which we won't be doing until we return from Europe in September.  I don't mean to sound ungrateful (and I know, no sympathy!), because we are so lucky to be going but it means that we have to compromise (again, not my strongest quality) and wait to get the restumping done when we come back. I know it's so important to get it done and to do it properly, but when I think about all that money going on something no one (me!) can see it makes me want to cry!

Everything we come up with that needs to be done seems to require the restumping to be done first, so I've set Paul a challenge to come up with some projects that we don't have to wait for. So far I've come up with knocking down the chimney, which needs to be done to accommodate the new floor plan. Don't worry I'm not destroying a beautiful old fireplace, it's just a chimney behind an ugly false wall which used to be covered in fake 70's brick! One night last year I got so excited and pulled off all the "bricks" and pushed a hole through the wall hoping to uncover a brick fireplace that I could restore and all I found was a boring brick chimney. The devastation!

In the meantime, the study makeover is coming along nicely (just a couple of finishing touches to go) and I'm getting my interiors fix through my home magazines, blogs, Pinterest and of course The Block!