The Super Whites The ordinary life of a Super Mum
House & Garden
Succulents
We have a big old wooden table outside on our deck which is a lovely spot to sit at when friends come round but I find it hard to lay a pretty table. I had envisioned a container of succulents and had two perfect terracotta wide open bowls in mind but I lacked the enthusiasm […]
Painting the outside of our house – part 1
Painting the new/old house inside and out was high on our to-do list before we moved in last year. As it turned out we had an extra ten days to get the house ready before we moved in thanks to our initial move-in date being cancelled due to a 1-in-100 year rain event. Although we […]
Renovations – the side of the house
Buying a rundown old house means there is always something on the to-do list and even though we have been in our home for more than 7 months now, that list hardly seems to shrink in fact the longer we are here, the more we keep adding to the list. One of the things that […]
Renovations – the deck
The deck was probably the easiest part of our whole renovation in terms of decision making and actual construction and yet it brings such a huge amount of joy to our lifestyle. If you asked me to chose between the deck and the kitchen, which one I love the most…. it would be a tough […]
Renovations – new sewer system
There are many side-effects to buying a new house. Along with the fun stuff, imagining where all your furniture will go and picking out paint colours, comes the negative. Discovering that your sewer system is borked and needs to be replaced. Sigh. We have had lots of ups with our house but also many lows, […]
Renovations – moving into the kitchen
Because we still haven’t completed the splashback or the rangehood, or even the lighting for the matter, I am loathe to photograph my kitchen properly for the “after” shot. We are getting there however, last weekend we bought our pendant lights which will eventually be installed over the kitchen bench. As I mentioned previously, our […]
Renovations – the kitchen…. continued.
So after the kitchen was installed, a week late due to some issues with where the gas and electricity was plumbed in for the stove. What? I had no idea that I would end up becoming project manager, by default. Just because I happened to be home at the time the tradesmen were installing stuff […]
Renovations – The kitchen
One of the pieces of advice I have given to some friends who are renovating their home, is not to leave too many finishing details until the end of the job. Or at least to ensure those little details are completed before the room becomes functional. In our case we left the decision about the […]
Raspberry & custard teacake.
I have been using my blog as a recipe book lately, its easier to open it on the ipad and prop it up on my cookbook stand in the kitchen. I am off to bake this now, I made the custard yesterday, will update with photos later! Raspberry and custard tea cake INGREDIENTS 250g soft […]
Sugar cookies with royal icing decorations
Sugar cookies Ingredients: 3 1/4 cups self raising flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 1/2 cups caster sugar 150 grams butter 2 eggs 2 tablespoons milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Instructions: Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well inbetween.. […]
1001
Yesterday’s proud Mum post was my 1000th on my blog! Amazing! Who would have thought I could write 1000 updates about stuff, my stuff. All about me and my stuff! Hah! This is a blog post about food. I am consumed with food at the moment, cooking it, planning the cooking of it, working out […]
Renovations – Progress on the deck
Firstly apologies for my leave of absence. Two huge things happened, actually three. Firstly I got bronchitis, secondly Ron and I flew to South Africa for a week without the girls for my sister’s wedding and thirdly, the kitchen and deck are finished! We have also finally moved all our possessions into our new house, […]
Renovations – An update…… but just a taster!
I am sorry to leave you hanging, its not been for any reason in particular, no drama, no unexpected renovation events. Just the usual delays and suddenly a week has gone by and not much has happened at all. The kitchen install was pushed back by a week because we didn’t have our gas supply […]
Renovations – The hardwood floor.
I don’t need to say much about this, the photos speak for themselves. A beautiful new hardwood floor, installed onto the joists in the space of one day, unfinished for now but soon to be sanded and sealed. Its gorgeous, every knot, every individual feature, every perfect piece of wood. We are completely and utterly […]
Renovations – Preparing for the hardwood floor.
Our builder and his tradies had pulled up most of the old slate floor and chipboard the first week of work. We made the decision to leave the section of the kitchen that had the pantry, sink and stove-top for as long as possible to make it easier for us to still cook and eat […]
Renovations – Day 6 – The new door.
We have battled with many of our renovation decisions but the one thing we were certain on right from the start was the door. The old sliding door was broken, the runners completely worn and disintegrated. There was no door handle and the stained aluminium frame was yellowed and horrible. Standing in the dining part […]
Renovations – Day 5 – The back of the house and the hole for the new door.
The thing that Ron and I are learning about house renovating, is that you can never be too sure what something will cost or how long it will take. That’s what they call a variation in the quotes. We did have a contingency fund going into this project which is lucky because we have had […]
House update – bathroom
I love the main bathroom in our new house. I love that I can even use that word “main” bathroom because now we have two. The family bathroom off the hallway is nearly as big as one of our bedrooms in our old house! There is enough room for a walk in shower and a […]
Renovations – Day 4 – Deck and outside the house.
I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. I suppose I was imagining a kitchen renovation to be a little like taking out an old lego kitchen and inserting a new one. I definitely wasn’t thinking that we might have to take off most of the back of the house, or that it would all […]
Renovation – Day 3 – Floor.
As you might remember we had been going backwards and forwards with our decision on what to do about the floor in the kitchen/dining room. Ron had always wanted a solid hardwood timber floor onto the joists but I had been afraid of the cost and the labour involved in prepping the floor. So we […]
Renovation – Day 2 – Kitchen
Day 2 and the deck is loaded up into a skip and the guys move onto the kitchen. I empty the kitchen bench and pack up as much as I can in preparation for the dirty work to start. The guys throw some plastic drop sheets over the rest of the kitchen and work begins in earnest! […]
Renovation – Day 1 – Deck.
Stupid wordpress eating my blog posts. Anyway, here it is, the long awaited first post in my renovations series. Day one, the deck goes down, I am always amazed at how quickly these type of structures come down, as Pat our lovely builder says, wish they would go up as easily!
House update – starting with the garden.
I have so many blog posts to catch up on that it’s going to take me a while to get my thoughts together. We are right in the middle of the renovations and I cannot wait to share the progress updates and photographs. So far its all going well, there have been some surprises and […]
New blinds.
One of the first things we did when we settled on the new house was to pull down the horrible curtains and blinds on all the windows, especially in the kitchen. Ugh, think pelmets and heavy curtains and roman blinds in weird shades of green and peach. Horrible. Then we had the house painted and […]
