Tales From the Box

The box in 70’s goodness

There were three reasons I wanted a house as opposed to an apartment.

to mow the lawn

to make a garden

to have a dog

So when we bought our abode in Warrimoo there was some lawn to be mowed, a garden to be tended, and definitely the yard for a dog to run wild and free. However the house on stilts didn’t offer us much protection in keeping said dog inside purchased land.

So we reveled in other people’s dogs – namely our parents. In January my parents bought this gorgeous little puppy Shaogo – who ran amock on our deck and generally caused a bucket full of mischief. The little slideshow is some pics of her looking sickeningly cute. (By the way if you hadn’t noticed – I have fallen in love with this google slideshow – damn you google and your irresistible goodies)

While we were gone some things have happened around here.

The reasons for our lengthy absence are numerous and complicated. In part they can be blamed upon our somewhat incompetent hosting company(mt), and our somewhat incompetent author (me).

The good news is that due to our thoroughly caffeinated but brilliant sysadmin (myles) we are back resuming usual transmission.

We have had rain. Lots of rain. During May and June we had a series of east coast low pressure systems that dumped nigh on 250mms of rain. That rain filled our tanks good. SO much so that one Saturday morning in June, I awoke to what sounded like a bursting pipe. It was our tank overflowing for the first time (filled from nearly empty to full in a few days). The front lawn (i.e. patch) was flooded too.

We have in the interim done lots. Dodging the rain, I have oiled our new deck about 4 times. Though it has been a thankless job, my piece of advise has been to NOT oil your deck imediately. I started and and oil just sat on top. Going contrary to the directions, the best thing was to let the decking board (our choice was merbau) weather for a few weeks then oil away. The oil then is sucked right up and gives the wood a lovely red colour.

Care of my wonderful mother and brother we completed the downstairs painting. After the primer and then three coats of paint, we were over painting white surfaces, ceiling and all. Now we have our directions pointed to the outside of the house. For the record, we have painted Dulux Whisper White on the interior (low sheen for walls and enamel for skirting/door).