itchy feet

It's no secret that we have filled this little gingerbread cottage up to capacity. It holds us well and will continue to do so until our little ones grow big- then we won't fit. We have put this house on the market twice; each time I got pregnant with the boys. But then ultimately the stress of open homes and having to keep this place like a magazine cover 24/7 meant that we always decided after a month that we are quite happy here after all. And..... I'm very emotionally attached to this place, our first home, where all our kids were born. Every sick stain on the carpet, hole in the wall, scratch marks on the native wood hold a precious memory.

But I am from a gypsy family that had moved 6 houses by my 5th birthday. I like moving, re arranging, restyling, switching things up and I'm starting to get itchy feet. My older sister moves into their new house on Friday and tonight we will hear if my brother in law's house sale goes unconditional and they will move. I'm so excited for them and I'm hoping by being able to get in there and help with packing or unpacking it will help curb my desire to box all our stuff up. This is after all our 9th year in this house. That's a record for me of been in one house this long.

These renovation shows don't help either. I am inspired and am driving Marcus a bit crazy telling him all the things I'd like to do to improve this place. The truth is, we have spent enough money on this house and any more would be dead money.

So how to tinker things around without spending any money? Just watch me.

We need a new dinning room table as our one fits 4 at a squeeze. We want to be able to have people around and not have them eating off their laps in the lounge. I went to FREEDOM and fell in love with  this table- it extends to seat 8 but then is nice and small when it's just us. I love it,  but it's $1799.00.

Solution- A trip to the Salvation Army opp shop where I scored this table for $50.00. It extends to seat 8 and after a quick sand and tidy up from Marcus it will be perfect. Pretty sure I can sell our existing table for $50.00 so this was essentially free. Whoop whoop.

Outdoor furniture. With Marcus building a pizza oven we hope to have many a pizza BBQ and people around. We don't however have any outdoor chairs. The plastic ones we brought 5 years ago have past their use by and are likely to snap if you sit on them.

I FOUND this chair up Te Mata peak. Weird huh. If this is yours and you had left it up there then holler and I'll return it with my tail between my legs but I figured it had been deserted and I would give it a good home. Just notch me pulling this out of the bushes, carrying it down the mountain and loading it  into the back of our car as one of my embarrassing moments, except it wasn't that embarrassing, I didn't trip and I had my official face on so if anyone questioned I'd be like "just cleaning up the mountain from rubbish people, just doing my bit, step aside."

I absolutely love it and have been searching trade me for some of the same style. They are those old retro ones that were all the rage in the 70's and 80's but covered in ugly fabric. Well turns out there were 4 more of these chairs just waiting for me to find them in Napier. I paid $40.00 for the 4 of them. Bargain huh. If you know where I could get my hands on some more let me know. I'd love to get a couple more.

I've also made some noticeboards up so we can be better organised. Between doctors appointments, church rosters, kid's birthday invites, school notices and Lucy's daily artworks we needed somewhere to pin.

So there this one is above the computer

by the fridge

In the kids' room

In the sleep out where Marcus has set up a study

Lastly I scored these chairs for free after Mum and Dad's church did a big clean out. The green polka dot oil cloth I've had for a while and my plan is to cover these. Bit scared to take the plunge, but how hard could it really be huh.

Then once all the cool stuff is done inside, I have a side garden begging me to weed mat it and throw some stones down to make a nice little path. Does anyone know if I'm allowed to just go to Haumoana and fill a trailer up with stones from the beach or do I have to pay for those? In the mean time, just close your eyes to that forest, nobody goes back there anyway!