Category: kitchen renovation

Australia · clouds · kitchen renovation · Mount Warning · subtropical weather · summer · Tweed Valley

A cooler day than yesterday

Joanne4 Comments

Even the storm that hit yesterday afternoon didn’t succeed in cooling the temperature. I don’t know what it reached – 32 or 33 degrees C maybe – with so much humidity that even when I sat completely still, beads of sweat tickled my skin as it ran in streams down the centre of my back.

Today has been so much cooler. You would think by looking at the ominous clouds in the photo that it rained all day – it didn’t. In fact, I don’t think it has rained at all in the last 24 hours.

My apologies for not replying to comments or visiting other blog sites these past few days. I have been otherwise occupied by various different commitments, including grand-puppy sitting, grandchild sitting, and packing up my kitchen. Yes, the time has finally arrived – my old kitchen will be removed on Wednesday morning in preparation for the installation of a sparkly new kitchen. I’m so excited!

Finding places to store the contents of my kitchen cupboards has been a challenge. It’s only through rearranging cupboards in other rooms around the house that I am finding places for everything. It’s nearly 10pm now, and after adding today’s post I am going back to kitchen sorting again for half an hour before going to bed. 🙂

Australia · clouds · family · grandchildren · in my garden · kitchen renovation · Mount Warning · subtropical weather · summer · Tweed Valley

More from Saturday …

Joanne4 Comments

… but first, here is the valley today – more rain, more clouds, another photo of a partially hidden mountain.

One huge bonus is the cooler weather we are enjoying lately. 🙂

On Saturday, my son and daughter-in-law invited a few friends around for a bar-be-que. Their back yard is quite small, so we are happy to share ours with our family and their friends.

All my grandchildren were here too, and I took a couple of photos of Braxton and Aurora that I rather like.

Aurora’s balloon escaped and ended up in the pool, so Poppy took her into the pool area to help her rescue it.

Aurora met puppy Summer for the first time too, and they discovered they were just the right size for one another. ❤ Aurora wasn’t about to let go of that balloon either.

Braxton didn’t realise how patient I could be when I planned on taking his photo. Hiding behind his hand wouldn’t deter me. 😉

Gotcha! 😛

Today I had the final detailed measure of my new kitchen, which will begin installation in the second week of February. Exciting times! 🙂

Australia · kitchen renovation · Mount Warning · native Australian birds · spring · Tweed Valley

Hazy, blustery, and a beautiful sunset

Joanne8 Comments

The weather has been pretty ordinary today. Although the sun has been shining, the wind hasn’t let up for a minute, and the crystal clear valley is hazy again after being washed clean by Saturday’s storm.

I didn’t know what I would end up with today photo-wise, but tonight we had a very pretty sunset. Mind you, I didn’t stay outside long to take the photo, the wind was quite cold!

This afternoon I had a sweet little visitor again. Daddy magpie turned up with baby mags, and they both got stuck into the bird seed I had left out for the honeyeaters. They seemed to enjoy it too.

This baby is still very young, but it seems to be a confident flyer. I see it often flying around up high with its parents.

On Saturday afternoon – during the power outage we had, as it turned out – we had a kitchen designer here who made us an offer to replace the whole kitchen which we simply couldn’t refuse! They are booked up with new kitchen installations until February, but it seems from what we have been told that we will have a kitchen filled with tradesmen for a few days, and everything will be finished when they leave. That includes removing the old kitchen, replacing all the cupboards, installing the new rangehood and range cooker – everything! So I’m pretty excited about that. 🙂

Australia · birds · daughter · family · grandchildren · kitchen renovation · Mount Warning · spring · subtropical weather · Tweed Valley

An Out-and-About Day

Joanne8 Comments

For a while now, husband has been trying to convince me to go to a local kitchen installation showroom to find some inspirational ideas for our kitchen renovation. What with uni, I have constantly resisted, but now we are actually getting into the reno, I made an appointment for 11am today.

As soon as my daughters heard I planned to go out, they organised me to have morning tea with them first! So we met at a lovely little coffee shop beside the Tweed River in Tweed Heads.

Little Aurora just loves her special “coffee” – a babycino – so seeing her so excited when her cup arrived, I just had to take a few photos.

For a two-year-old, she manages a “big girl’s cup” very well. (I think she’s had a lot of practice!)

And she didn’t plan on leaving one tiny bit in her cup! Her face looked very chocolatey by the time she had finished. 🙂

I had limited time though, so had to have a quick cuddle with both Aurora and Eli before I left. Aurora wanted to play her new favourite song for me, which is from a movie I haven’t seen yet.

And I had a big cuddle with handsome little Eli before I had to leave too. 🙂

When I arrived back at my car, I could see three pelicans in the distance, so had to take a quick photo of them before I left.

It was really worth the trip to the kitchen showroom. Everything I have on my wish-list was there – the doors and door-knobs I like, tiles, taps, cupboard fittings … we were so impressed that we have a rep coming to our house tomorrow to quote on a complete new kitchen. That will save a lot of time and effort for husband who has a million-and-one other projects to work on anyway.

The down side is that they are booked up until February next year, but we can still install the new range so we can use it over Christmas. It’s a free-standing cooker, so the new kitchen can be fitted around it.

In Mount Warning news, the valley is a tad hazy this afternoon, but we haven’t had a storm today for a change. It’s awfully humid though, so there’s probably rain about.

Australia · clouds · kitchen renovation · Mount Warning · rain · spring · subtropical weather · Tweed Valley

Mountain in Hiding

Joanne4 Comments

We have had yet another storm this afternoon, constant rain, and no sign of the mountain.

This afternoon I stood on my back veranda and took a couple of very uninspiring photos, basically to mark the day as being a bit of a dud, weather wise. I know the garden is lapping up every luscious raindrop though, after being parched for the last few weeks. We are coming into our rainy season, so I suppose I will have to get used to the idea of more rain over the coming months. This time last year we were in the midst of a drought, so this year is a definite improvement. I can cope with the occasional grey photo day – rain is precious.

Today I emptied out some kitchen cupboards, and when husband arrived home we began dismantling the kitchen. It’s the original kitchen from when we built the house in 1994, so it has served us well. Now though, it’s time for a change.

Here is a before photo –

I forgot to take a photo before I emptied the cupboards, but never mind. I have plenty of photos taken in the kitchen over the years to look back on.

After husband removed a few cupboards, this is what we have now –

I can still cook meals on the cooktop, but hopefully – maybe – fingers crossed – I’ll have my new range installed by next week. I think the next job is to repair and paint the wall where the cupboards were removed. I’ll add more photos as the work progresses. 🙂