Tales From the Box

So I read stories all the time, in magazines and on blogs, about people finding these absolutely beautiful pieces of furniture “on the side of the road”. They’re usually an actual, genuine designer piece from the 1950′s or something, although occasionally the finder is unlucky enough to have only found a replica. I always read these stories with a grain of salt (sidebar: are you picturing me sitting on the couch with my laptop, holding my hand out with a grain of salt in it? No? Just me then). I mean, the stories are so common. Where is this mythical neighbourhood where all the trendy people live that no longer want their designer furniture and just put it out on the side of the road?

And then it happened. To me. Yep, truly. I had driven my car down to the mechanic for a service and was walking home with the Widg in his pram (it’s only a 20 minute walk). It was council pick-up week, so there was lots of rubbish and unwanted junk out the front of everyone’s houses, the occasional piece of tattered or broken furniture. So when I saw this sideboard, I assumed there was something wrong with it.

I bravely walked up the driveway to see if the residents were home, and there was an electrician out the front doing some repair work. We got chatting, and the homeowner came out to join in the frivolity. To cut a long story short, the sideboard was in perfect condition, I was welcome to take it, but how would I get it home? It was too big to fit in my station wagon (which was at the mechanic’s anyway) and was way too heavy for me to lift it into the car (and the Widg wouldn’t be much help). So I offered the electrician $20 to drive it home for me in his ute. By the time the Widg and I had walked home, the sideboard was sitting under our front verandah.

It’s certainly not a “genuine designer” piece or anything. But I really like it. I decided to put it upstairs in the hallway (remember this space?). It fits the space perfectly, and it currently holds all of our bed linens and towels.

I guess one man’s trash is this gal’s treasure (the husband’s opinion certainly leans towards “trash” on this one).

It occurred to me recently that we use several terms here on the blog that we may not have explained very clearly. Like the Widg, the Box. Allow me to clarify.

When we were pregnant with our little boy, before we knew he was going to be a boy, we wanted to be able to call him something. “Widget” came up pretty much straight away. It fit perfectly for a couple of reasons:

“An unnamed, unspecified, or hypothetical manufactured good or product (also a thingy or gizmo)”. In other words, the name you give to something that you don’t know the name of; and

“Any one of the components of a computer application’s graphical user interface, such as a Cancel button or text input box, that a user interacts with”. In other words, the little “buttons” on your computer screen that you click on to do stuff. With the hubby being a bit of a tech-geek, this totally fit (thanks Wiktionary).

My boys watching Top Gear.

And because we called him Widget (or the Widg) for so long, it just stuck. In fact, for the first few months after he was born, he was “the Widg” more than his actual name. Which brings me to his actual name: we’re still not sure how much of his life we are comfortable revealing here on the blog, what with ownership of online information being such a moving target, as well as him being not quite old enough yet to make his own decisions on the matter. So for now we will stick with “the Widg” for his online presence.

And while we are discussing names, I’m not entirely sure who reads our blog and thus how well you know us, so perhaps proper introductions are in order. I’m Jo (hi there) and he’s Dann. Delighted to make your acquaintance.

Now, the Box. When we first purchased our beautiful abode, it was slightly less beautiful. It was a small 2 bedroom/1 bathroom shack built up on stilts. From the street, it literally looked like someone had stuck some poles in the ground and plonked a box down on top of them. Hence, the Box.

The Box circa 2005.

Back view of the Box circa 2005.

It was originally a holiday house built fairly cheaply, and was then used as a rental property. So it had never really been owned by anyone with the motivation or means to give it a bit of love (not that we have a lot of means, but just enough to gradually upgrade over time). As we have renovated, it’s no longer a box balancing precariously on stilts; it has become a larger box resting safely on the ground (we basically filled in underneath to make it a 2 storey house).

The Box post-reno.

Back of the Box post-reno. Excuse the mess, we live here.

Anyway, I hope all this rambling goes some way to explaining our “language” here at Tales.

When the Widg was just a wee fella (ok, so he’s still wee, but slightly chubbier wee. I’ll stop talking about wee.) When the Widg was younger, he didn’t really require much stuff, in terms of entertainment. Pretty much the ceiling was incredibly entertaining for him for days on end. So his collection of toys and related objects was as you see below – an activity playmat, a rocker and a small basket of toys. Since there wasn’t much to it, it was pretty easy to keep it all neat and tidy and out of the way.

Now that he’s much more advanced (ok, so he can sit up by himself) he is able to play with a lot more stuff. Below is what his little play area looks like now: 3 baskets of toys, plus the overflow. He also has a few small boxes of toys in his bedroom, but lots of them are too old for him yet, and I try to rotate the toys every few weeks, so he isn’t playing with the same things over and over. And also so that he doesn’t have 400 toys that he plays with all at once.

I find that giving him just 3 or 4 at a time is plenty to keep him entertained and interested, without getting too overstimulated or frustrated. I find he is better able to focus for longer periods of time with a smaller amount of toys, and isn’t bouncing his attention all over the place every 5 seconds. Some of these toys are a little bit old for him yet, but he enjoys chewing on them, or banging them. He likes the different textures and sounds. He actually went for a whole week where his favourite toy was a mixing bowl.

This is his basket of books (below) that I also rotate a few books in and out of every few weeks – he has quite the library upstairs. It’s a bit difficult reading to him at the moment, as he much prefers chewing the books than sitting quietly and listening to me reading or looking at the pictures. I have even tried giving him one book to chew on while I read him another book. But no, the one I am holding always seems tastier.

I assume he’ll get better at reading as he gets older. Otherwise school could be difficult.

My aim has been to create gardens around the house (The Box) that are drought tolerant and bird attracting. When we moved here in 2003, there was three privet trees, two paperbark and one Camphor Laurel as well as six Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus Regnans) in the north east garden (pictured above). Due to their enormous size we had afew of these Eucalypts removed in September 2008. The removal of the trees opened up the yard to more sunlight – most notably afternoon sun. To sit under these huge gums, native flowering plants and grasses filled my creative vision.

I started November 2008, digging up this garden – turning the compacted sandy soils over and mixing in some organic matter to aid in water rentention (given the slope). I let the beds settle for a few weeks- regularly applying a mixure of seasol and nitrosol. In December 2008 planed out the garden with native tubestock. My aim was grevillia’s and banksia’s for the fenceline – with the hope that they will grow taller and add some privacy – and grassy/strappy plants along the garden edge and under the trees. These grasses included Swamp Foxtail Grass, Lomandra Longifolia/Tannika, Diannella, Kangaroo Paw and Gyamea Lilies. The grasses have tripled and quadrupled in size but the grevillas and banksias in particular have been a bit slower in growth rate. However with the advent of summer – they are really starting to thicken up.

Addionally I have aimed to divert water onto this garden by positioning the downpipe from a newly installed roof for our deck directed so it flows directly across the lawn and onto this part of the garden. Also I have actively placed logs and dug small zig-zagging troughs down the slope of the garden to slow down water as it passes runs over the garden.

I am trying to implement a new feature on talesfromthebox – a before and after series. Some might feature the simple before and after – while others might show a gentle progression over many years. Anyway at the moment I am madly in the garden – loving all things backyard focused given the onset of the Christmas and New Year rain and subsequent growth. The new addtions to the yard will be a tropical garden in the lower third of the garden – but more on that later. Today – simply a before and after of the backyard – the first picture taken 5 years ago in January 2005 and the second taken today. You will note the rather clearance of many trees, the oncovering of a new more, new garden beds, a moving shed and new tank and a flush, lush green lawn. It has been a busy few years!