I know a few people have been looking forward to this one, and I've been reluctant to post as I've just been so busy and to be honest, you might not see our vision.

First of all, we bought in one of the most expensive areas on the Surf Coast of Victoria, Australia - and we found the cheapest place we could that wasn't demolition material, and had a few things that we wanted - a shed, a big garden, and north facing. It's an old eighties brick house that's tiny by Australian standards at 81 m 2, and to be honest, the first time I saw it I just rejected it outright. But we decided to look anyway, and I immediately saw the potential, if not fell in love with it straight away. Ignore the brown brick - we'll be painting it all white or an off white over the summer which will immediately brighten it up.

Okay, front room first. Small, but will fit what we need. We may need to build a front porch as the front door opens straight into the living area. We are immediately getting rid of the shitty electric heater - in fact, it's already pulled out. Those windows face south (toward the ocean, and the Antartic, so that's the shaded side away from the sun for us). We'll replace the curtains, and by the time you read this post, some walls will be removed, left and right. More later.

Directly in front of that, facing north, is the kitchen. Yep, that's all going. We will also get rid of that window and block it off, and put a window facing north where the rangehood currently is. That'll give us a nice view and more light. Yay.

Then you walk down a hallway, where on the southside are two rooms - a small bedroom and the master bedroom. This is the small one. Bit of a mess.

To the right of that room (north facing) is a laundry. Dumb. People didn't think about views or passive heating or anything in those days. That's going. Tomorrow. We'll put in a european style laundry, and the space will then open up and get more light, with some double doors opening onto the deck. All double glazed.

Next to the laundry is the bathroom. It'll stay as is for now - it's all functional. There's a door that leads to the laundry that is going tomorrow and that'll be blocked off and plastered up. Eventually those middle walls will go and we'll do a different bathroom but not for a few years. Yes that's my wetsuit hanging over the rail. I live a five minute drive from my favourite surfing beach.

Front of house again, but the other corner, is the master bedroom. Check that shagpile baby. And the vintage lights. It's all very 70's retro. We'll keep the light fittings, because. Note the robe to the left. Sliding doors would be better.

Speaking of retro, here's the retro bathroom fittings we pulled out.

Here's the back room - we've pulled the shagpile out already. The subfloor is pine, so pretty sure we're just gonna sand right through, tan wash it to stop it going yellow, and varnish it. That window will eventually be double glazed, because it's north facing, and will be fkn hot in summer.

We're now debating about keeping the pine subfloor vs hybrid flooring which would be more waterproof and hardy, as the pine floor would take a lot of maintenance and get scratched easily. I'm not keen on the pine though I love the look. I'll probably win. I also think we may have carpet in the main bedroom.

Next job for me is painting and designing the Ikea kitchen. Costs are adding up. Send help and finances.

With Love,

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