Painting under the deck again

Our home improvement endeavours are not particularly exciting at the moment. The past couple of weekends have been spent under the deck painting the joists. It really is a dull task.

Jason spent most of yesterday getting as much done as physically possible ( I took the kids out for a swim in the afternoon so he was undisturbed because we're a noisy lot). Luckily he did because it looks like it may rain today.

With the weather looking glum, today will be spent filling the gaps with "No More Gaps". Fun, fun. Next weekend, if the weather is on our side, we will do the second coat of white. That dark heritage green is hard to cover.

Such a big area to cover but by the end of the day the first coat was close to being finished
And a glimpse of the shirtless one for those having withdrawal symptoms

It will need another coat as it is still quite patchy

And in more exciting news, we've hired someone to build our new front fence. Work will commence shortly. Hooray!

Zoila's book

From out of the blue I received the most intriguing email. And no, it wasn't from the Nigerian Lottery Board, nor was it from Oksana the lonely Russian lass who wanted to be my extra special friend...(dodgy spam filter!)

It was from a lady named Sherri in the United States who had a copy of Zoila Stables' book Tare Harvest. She did a Google search of the title and stumbled upon some old blog posts of mine which talked about how the book was connected to our house.

For those of you who are new to the blog, Zoila was one of the original owners of the house and I've been compiling a house history file which has information about the family who built the Sow's Ear. I discovered that Zoila was an author who had published a book in 1936 under her pseudonym Eleanor Peters. If you want to know more, you can read all the house history stuff here.

Sherri emailed me to see if I would be interested in acquiring the book. You can guess what the answer was...After a couple of email exchanges, the book will hopefully be mine.

As you can imagine, I'm thrilled to be getting a copy as I'd like to read it, and maybe gain an understanding of who Zoila was. I also think this book should stay with the Sow's Ear. Call me sentimental.

Tare Harvest book cover

Tare Harvest inside flap cover

Nice finishing touch...

...except that we haven't really started renovating the bathroom. So maybe this is a nice starting touch instead. We'll eventually get to the bathroom, but in the meantime small token cosmetic changes will have to do. 

Like new shower curtain rings. It is possibly life changing this move from plastic to iron. We've had the new antique finished shower curtain rings for a few weeks and they are doing the trick. And they look just dandy with our 'opulent luxe' shower curtain.

Very luxe until you spot the mouldy spots on the ceiling. I must scrub that ceiling again after all this wet humid weather we've been having. Boo!

antique finish shower curtain rings

They are a nice touch with our nice shower curtain which is faring quite well. 

* I purchased the shower curtain rings online from Gallop Lifestyle here

Spring Hill

We were out and about in Spring Hill today.

I haven't been there for a long time and I had forgotten how quaint some of the old colonial Queenslander homes are...especially when juxtaposed with the backdrop of the CBD highrises.

When I think of Spring Hill I think of Jason's poor old Nana who died last year (she lived in Torrington Street for 60 years), the old rickety boarding houses that our old Italian friends owned and Cecilia McNally's Spring Hill Fair. It's a suburb rich in character and history.

Here are some photos of a few old house near Water Street.

Colonial style workers cottage with pyramid roof.  No front stairs to be seen.

Timber and tin cottage

Pyramid roof workers cottage with modern extension on the back

These interwar Queenslander homes were in the next block to the colonial homes.
Twins separated at birth. The house on the left is completely neglected and run down, while its twin has been raised and renovated to within an inch of its life.

What's been happening?

Not a lot of renovating has been happening at the Sow's Ear. Jason's taking a break, which is a very good thing...but not so good when the blog is based on renovating! But he's starting to get restless, so I imagine he will get back into it this weekend.

New garage door handle

In big news our garage door has a new handle. Try to contain yourselves...it's all I've got reno-wise this week.

Arabia jam pots and Figgjo salt and pepper shakers

I've been satisfying some of my thrifty and not so thrifty Scandinavian ceramic urges. A new Arabia apple jam pot has been added to my collection and I also scored a set of Figgjo Market salt and pepper shakers. I use the jam pots to store spices and tea bags. Such simple things bring great joy.

German wine roemer goblets. They've got a great retro shape

I also picked up two German wine goblets at my local op shop. A friend of mine is collecting them so they will go directly to her.

Don't you love what other people collect?