We went out to the markets on Sunday morning as we usually do, but this time we came back with a 6 week old puppy.

He was one of a litter of 11(!) which the owners were giving away at the markets. Henry, our third (and final!) doggy, is a “cross-breed terrier” (aka a mongrel). We went to the vet yesterday for a vaccination and microchip and he has been given a clean bill of health.

He has already learned to “sit” and he and Cloe are getting along like a house on fire. Smokey, doesn’t know how to react to the tiny pup and almost seems to be a little bit scared of him. When Cloe arrived, he sulked for a few weeks and then one day he seemed to just get over it.

Because he’s a mixture of many different breeds, we are interested to see how Henry is going to look as he gets older.  We’re expecting him to be in the middle of the other two size-wise.

We’ve had a quote from a builder to make our laundry all nice, which has come in at $7,000 (even with us doing all the hard labour such as completely removing the walls).

So we’re going to change our plan a little and try doing this room ourselves (except for the plumbing).

On the weekend we pulled up the remaining nails in the floor, removed all the skirtings and removed the laundry tub. There’s been a leak behind the laundry tub or the washing machine taps somewhere and so the floor needs a couple of months to dry out before we re-install the tub or do any tiling.

We’ll be getting a plumber in in the next month or so to put a new toilet in, reconfigure the old-fashioned tap set up and move the washing machine taps over to the right.

For the time being, the washing machine has a temporary home outside next to the clothes line. In some of the photos below you can sort of see my faint pencil markings on the wall which is what I drew to kind of help me visualise the plan for this room. Oh and the horrible shelves (that I always bang my head on) will be going.

Tim ripped out to the tiles in the laundry on the weekend.

As I was carting all the debris outside I noticed that the sub-floor sheets that was used under the tiles (and installed on top of the floor boards so that  there was a flat area to tile on) had this printed on the underside:

So we sort of paniced for a minute and sat outside while we tried to figure out what the other printing was above the word “ASBESTOS”. Tim went back in and tried to pull off larger chunks. We were then able to see that in fact it had this printed on it:

Woo hoo! So we continued.

Here’s what we’re left with at the moment. There are still nails in the floor boards that we have to pull out. Then we need to remove the masonite walls. Eventually there will be new plasterboard walls, a new window and a new toilet in this room. 

Yesterday I finally finished the paved step down to the sliding door of the shed. Before I made the step, the ground was right up against the wall of the shed. It wasn’t a great situation because when the sun beats down on those hot days the dirt that was up against the wall of the shed gets really hot and it has actually bubbled the colorbond sheeting. Also, because the dirt would get wet when it rained, a small amount of rust has started to get into where the paint bubbled – not good. I feel much better now that the dirt isn’t touching the side of the shed. It’s my first go at paving and I’m pleased with how it turned out.

Also crossed off the to do list is the little (and final – for now) round garden bed.

Before:

After:

They’re hydrangeas around the base of the bird bath (small now but they’ll get very big in a couple of years, I’ll be fighting to keep them down!). I sprinkled some grass seed in all that dirt around the outside of the garden bed. I found a good deal on lawn seed at Hollander Imports on the Brooker Highway - a 5kg bag for $22. I’m glad I discovered them because I used to get grass seed from Chickenfeed at $9.80 for a 1kg box of seed.

While I’m on the subect of the garden beds, look how well the shrubs in one of the larger round garden beds are doing just 5 months on from being planted out in September:

Before (September 2010):

After (February 2011):

And look how well the garden bed at the front of the house is doing:

Before (January 2010):

After (February 2011):

And the kangaroo paws in the native bed are going crazy amost exactly 12 months on:

Before (February 2010):

After (February 2011):

Anyway, back to the finished projects - here is an old 1960s wooden slat outdoor setting that we bought last year. It had 4 layers of paint on it.

Before:

I pressure washed it, stripped it, sanded it and painted it and took it out into the garden and set it down under a tree. It’s a nice spot to sit with a cup of tea whilst watching the dogs sniff around the garden in the morning (it’s also a nice spot to sit on a summer’s evening while sipping a little glass of wine).

After:

Finally, back in July last year I bought this old home made planter that someone made from an old truck tyre (it’s even got a patch on it where a hole had been repaired at one time). I gave it a pressure wash and then painted it.

Before:

After:

Magically, the other week I managed to come by another tyre planter.

Not exactly the same, but very similar. I wonder who was making these tyre planters? Anyway, hopefully in the next few days I can get time to wash it and paint it.