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We've been moved in for a while now and although we've still got a spare room chokkas full of crap I thought it was about time to post some 'before and after' photos of our house.

The before photos were taken when we were painting the house and so my dad was still living here. He had gotten rid of a lot of his stuff by then and had only kept the essentials. I took the after photos the other day.

This is the loungeroom. The way we've got it set up now means we've cut off the gas point and will have heaps of fun plugging in the heater come winter, but it's really the only way we could set it up to fit in all our crap.

The angles on this photo are a little different to the 'after' shot and we'd already painted the feature wall when I took the 'before' one, but this is our bedroom. Both photos are taken from the doorway. Oh and those pictures aren't staying. When I get some hooks I'll take them down and put my 'Electric Wolf' pic (that you can sort of see in the lounge pics) up in the middle of the wall. We loved the colour of the feature wall (passionate blue) so much that we decided we'd paint the doors that colour. We both hated the green and wanted something different. A lot of people don't like such a dark colour on the doors in such a small house, but they don't have to live here!

This is the bathroom. It didn't change all that much except for the doors and a little drawer unit I bought.

This was the only 'before' shot I had of the kitchen and I had taken it more because my Dad was in it than to get a shot of the kitchen itself. The walls in the kitchen and dining were just repainted white, Dad fixed the pantry door but not much else was done to it. My Mum gave me some cafe curtains that once belonged to my Nanna to put up which I love. Nanna bought them back from Germany with her and never got a chance to use them so I'm glad that one of her grand-daughters finally gets to use them.






This photo of the dining room is taken from a different angle to the 'after' shot. In this one I'm standing at the back door whereas in the 'after' photo I was taking it looking at the back door. I took this photo when we first began painting (back when we were naive and still enthusiastic), it was the first wall we did.

Right, so that concludes a rather boring post.

Sorry bout that...

Once our patio is up and I've finally gotten around to mowing the lawn (I thought that was a husband job but I've been informed otherwise) I'll post some 'before and after' shots of the garden.

Bye!

Photo adventure with Nettie

Today we went to a bbq at Whiteman Park to celebrate Mike graduating from Uni. Lots of his family and friends turned up for the festivities and I was there with my trusty camera to capture the moments.

This is a sign we passed when we entered the park. I automatically yelled 'COW!' and then paused and asked Christian why a cow would be on the sign. He informed me it was a bull and it's on there because, like roos, they can cause serious damage to your car if you come into contact with them at high speeds. Duh. Also, snakes are protected so you're not allowed to deliberately run them down with you car if they're crossing the road.

We were having our bbq in Shelter Q which was near Mussel Pool. I didn't see any mussels in the pool, only lots of ducks and duck poo, and I found the stream running into the pool more interesting. I actually think the pool may be technically a billabong as a billabong is 'a body of water formed when the U bend in a river or stream becomes cut off from itself'. I'm sure that's what's happened here. It's pretty anyway.

We found a playground for the kiddies that had PLUNGERS! I was so excited! For those of you who don't know, plungers (I'm not sure what the technical term is but that's what we call them) are like upside down seesaws. You sit on top of what looks to be a big plunger and you jump up and down.

Jo and I had a go and had heaps of fun. Then I got bored and hopped off without warning her. Needless to say Jo fell on her arse...

We also played a lot of the little merry-go-round thing majig. I took these photos of the kids while we were spinning around at what felt like a hundred miles an hour. Aren't they just the cutest!

Darcie wanted to have a go with my camera so she took a photo of Mum, Chiara and I. I think she did a pretty good job!

My brother Scott and his partner Michael came along (yay!). We don't usually see Scott very much as he works away as a botanist on the mines so it was really great to catch up with him.

Scott has always called me his doppelganger. I'm not sure if we're that much alike but I think the family resemblance is pretty obvious.

Me and Michael. I'm so glad Scott found such a wonderful person as Mike is just gorgeous. But really, how many Michaels can I know at once???

Christian hates having his photo taken. I don't have many photos without his middle finger raised in protest...

Tash managed to get the day off work to come along which was great as we don't see her very often anymore :(

Barb's friend Kim who is as much Barb's sister as I am.

Daniel, Mike's brother and also one of Christian's best friends. It's all so rednecky around here!

It was a really great day and afterwards a lot of the guys crammed into our house to play Wii and board games. On a related note I totally blew my diet. Oh well...

I succumbed

Well I guess a change is as good as a holiday...

A frolick in the park

The other day Christian and I went for a picnic in Hyde Park, a gorgeous park near the city that played host to out wedding. I took my trusty camera along for the ride and here's what we captured...

As we walked into the park, we saw this construction high on a power pole, obviously a sleeping hut for the local bats - or Batcave if you will :) We didn't see any others around so they must have to flip a coin for the right to snooze amidst it's battish comforts...

Living in the metro area I find that we sometimes forget about the drought that we're currently experiencing. Hyde Park has two lakes in it's centre, this one has completely dried up. I was very sad to see it in such a state.

The Black Swan is the emblem animal of Western Australia and is beautiful creature. We don't have native white swans here, I have grown up knowing only the black ones. Whenever I see a white swan I get very excited as it's so different to what the rest of the world knows. Despite their beauty, they're nasty little shits and can be the bane of any picnic. They have a tendency to bite and if you're not careful they can sneak up on you from behind!

Before we had our dinner we went for a walk around the park. Completely randomly we ran across our friend Jason who we hadn't seen in ages. He was stuck traipsing home with a bike one of his work mates had lent him and the unicycle he had gone to work with. Knowing he was going to practise on the unicycle after work, he'd caught the bus instead of driving, not knowing his friend was bringing him the bike that day too! When I told him I was taking pictures of weird and wonderful things (and that I considered his three wheel trek home to be weird in the least) he happily obliged me a photo!

We went to find ourselves somewhere to sit for dinner and we came across this palm tree and were rather surprised. The tree hadn't been there before! How do we know? It was in the exact spot that we exchanged vows! For some reason, the council had lugged by truck and then crane a twenty foot palm tree that does not fit in at all with the surrounding gardens. Go figure.

We finally sat down for dinner and we watching the large amount of avian life slowly gravitating towards us. There were an awful amount of ducks and I asked Christian what it would be like to die by duck. He said it would most likely be slow and painful as they have bills, not beaks so we wouldn't even get pecked to death. Suddenly a couple of coots scared off the ducks and advanced towards us. Obviously there was a bounty on our heads and the coots wanted to claim it. I took a photo of them so the authorities would have photographic evidence of our murderers. Look at them - pure evil!

I really like this lamp. It reminds me very much as the one in Narnia.
And finally, as we were leaving I snapped this graffiti on the lid of a bin. It was so happy!

Moonbeams and unicorns

Today's post was going to be spectacular! It was going to involve lots of wonderful photos, witty captions, deep and meaningful philosophies, scintillating remarks on the depth of the intelligence of my fellow bloggers, plus a set of amazingly sharp steak knives from Demtel, able to cut through a tomato with ease moments after sawing through a leather boot!

But then that's too much effort.

I will throw in an amazing peice of trivia which is bound to bring converstaion at your next dinner party to a compete and utter stop.

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12345678987654321

How cool is that???

*nods*
Yup, just as I thought. You're speechless. I know, that's how I was when I first found out. I'll give you a moment to compose yourselves, please, take your time, it's important you don't stand up too quickly, or you might fall over.

Rightio then. Have I just completely wasted almost a full post on ridiculously useless stuff?
I believe I have!
WooHoo!

On a final note, I once again have managed to get sunburnt. Just on my arms though. I was wearing a hat, sunnies and a collared shirt. I must have forgotten the sunscreen...
On a happier note, I now have some lovely garden beds out the front of my house.
And yes, when everyone comes to visit next year, Matt and I will have a 'who can get sunburnt the quickest' competition...

Pyjama Party

I'm on holidays at the moment which is wonderful as it gives me the chance to get stuff done that I normally don't have time for. For instance, my older sister Jo moved down south a while ago and now she lives about an hour away. So we decided that I would come down and have a sleepover with her and my niece Darcie.

We played with Shiver, the puppy, went for a huge long walk on the beach and got up to some exploring off the beaten track, had fish and chips on the Esplanade in Rockingham and then played a game of Junior Monopoly (in which I told Darcie she had won as there was a temper tantrum in the works - she hates to lose).

I took my trusty camera with me, and so here will follow a heap of photos that you may find interesting, or they may put you to sleep. Just in case, I have my air horn close at hand.

The view of the bay from the Esplanade

These trees are cool

I tried to take a photo of a wave coming up the shore but was a bit slow on the uptake

I love that there are no human footprints. Fido must have been out for a wander...

The cliffs along the beach are made up of sandstone and make the coolest caves over time.

This is the photo I helped Darcie take. It didn't quite show the bridge in the background very clearly, but I love the tree in the foreground of the shot.

This is one of my favourite shots of the isolated rock with the sun shining just so...

I love the way this rock was just sticking up out of nowhere

Riddle me this - how does birdpoo get on the inside of a gazebo roof???

Darce and I in our jarmies.

My niece must think I'm an amusement park ride...I get climbed all over!

Hey look, it's a deer caught in some headlights!

Shiver, the puppy. She's going to be huge!

Rightio, that concludes the photo show for today girls and boys. Hope you enjoyed it.

And on a final note, seeing as I'm not a mod on here and don't have to act responsibly, I would just like to say that Stephen, aka X is a complete tosspot.

Thankyou.

Back in the 21st century

Hurrah!
We are officially back into the modern era as we now have our internet connected! It didn't take nearly as long as we expected it would and therefore we rejoice. If you consider I'm on two weeks holidays as of this weekend, you can see I'm a very happy Nettie.

Monday was our 'big' move. We hired a truck and coerced a mate into helping out (God bless beer!). It felt like we moved twice though. We had to come here and pack up all of Dad's stuff, take it up the hill to dump in my Mum's shed, then we went to our old house, packed up all of our stuff and then come and dump it here.
And dumped it has been.
There is crap everywhere. You can hardly move as we've just placed furniture wherever it will fit and we'll bother about where to put it later.

By the end of Monday we were all exhausted and figure that the rest can wait until the weekend. Once it's all sorted I'll post some before and after pics of the house so you can all see my own little 'castle'.