Restoring the Old Girl

It's only the beginning
When I arrived at the house on Thursday morning I was full of bravado, but it didn't take me long to realise I had severely underestimated the amount of work we had to do to set up house again.
In my mind I pictured myself emptying our boxes and arranging our pretty things on pristine shelves. In reality, the house was blanketed with a fine layer of dust upstairs from the floorsanding.
Downstairs was even worse. A thick layer of dust from the builders covered everything we owned.
I remember a teacher at school telling us once that you can't make dust disappear, you can only move it somewhere else.  That somewhere else ended up being our beautiful black floors.
Our floors, even now, have a dust film from my dusting and people walking across our dust bowl yard, up our dusty stairs, across the dusty verandah and into the house. At first I tried to fight it, then I let it go.
Tomorrow I intend to get the floors in order. After four days of almost literally back breaking work, we have moved in the bulk of our possessions. I now have the elegant saunter of a 95 year old with severe osteoporosis.
This is what we had to contend with downstairs.

While I thought our early days at the rejuvenated Euphemia would consist of 'styling' our interior, we've really just had to focus, rather unromantically, on hauling our crap up the stairs and getting it unpacked.

I have realised that I unkindly called Gwennie a hoarder. That, safe to say, was the pot calling the kettle black. We seem to have so much of everything that I think it is actually having a disabling effect on the smooth running of this family....well maybe not, but it's driving me crazy.

As of tomorrow I plan to sift through (again) and upload many of our odds and sods onto Ebay (will give you the heads up). I'm throwing some things away - there I said it! I'm also taking the inbetweens to the Salvos.

In the next 4-6 weeks I'm aiming to get the house functioning smoothly and looking 'smart'. Then I'm going to give the whole 'housey thing' a rest!

Although we've just tossed in our things, I can see there's some good stuff happening. Thought you might want to have a look.

On the shelves either side of our kitchen range, I've gone for pink on one side.....

...and bleau on the other....

The pantry will always be a work in progress I think, but this is it for today.

A couple of snippets from the main bathroom.

I finally put my basket chandelier shaped light shade up in the ensuite. It makes such a pretty pattern on the ceiling. I bought this shade a few years ago knowing I'd get the house for it later.

Below is a little group of glass jars and bottles I've been collecting for the bathrooms. Once I revamp my two old medicine cabinets, I'll store them in there.

We get big-time western sun. This was the living room and dining room this afternoon.

The dining room and living room need a monster amount of work, but it'll come together eventually?

This is simple and sweet in our bedroom. I've always loved this little chest of drawers, which came with the house. The butterflies are actually a hand coloured lithograph (or woodblock?) from 1804.

The day before we moved in the children and I went to Chinatown for yum cha. I bought this paper lantern for $4.50 and thought I'd find a place for it. As it turned out I had forgotten to get a lampshade for our bedroom so that's where it ended up. LOVE paper lanterns!

Once I hung up most of my clothes I realised why I never have anything to wear. I buy clothes like I'm stocking a fancy dress shop. Furs and sequins aren't all that handy for school and grocery shopping.

Amongst all the commotion Teddy has been kicking back and taking it easy.

So, as it turns out what I thought was the end is actually just the beginning. I still have a lot to do.