It's December 1st....

....and we sort of forgot!



our snow scene advent calendar



Last weekend we began to prepare for our Christmas (here), and one of the things that we did was to prepare the advent calendar. My mum bought this for Sibs when she was a baby and it makes an appearance each year. There's great excitement about what lies behind each little door....sometimes there's a gift, or a sweet treat, and each day there's a note. You never know if the note is a 'gain' note or a 'give' note.

A gain note is something like - "today you can choose what dessert to have after tea" , or "you can go to bed 15 minutes later" and a give note is something like "you have to help make breakfast" or "do something nice for one of your friends today".

Last night we were home late after a school concert and so we were all a wee bit tired this morning and then....we forgot to open the calendar!

look what was hiding?

It's definitely a sweet treat, a chocolate coin...but what does the note say?

x

Bathroom renovations

So here is bathroom number 2...

 

After.



Before.
...a rather sad looking toilet

Before.
...small bath with shower over and a very
dodgy hot water tap!

 

 

 

 

 









 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After.
...no bath, but I LOVE the shower



Isn't is funny how exciting one gets over a new bathroom? It feels a little self-indulgent to be writing a post about it...but I suppose it is part of everyday life here, and that is what this blog is about.

So now that I've justified that to myself I'll continue!

Upstairs bathroom was just as blue as the guest room one, except it didn't have the cage like tiles or the leaf tiles on the floor. If you want to be reminded you can read and see here. We deliberated quite a while about removing the bath from this bathroom, but in the three years that we have lived in this house I haven't used the bath once....seriously!!
(OK, explanation needed - subtropical Queensland weather lends itself to showers....lots of cool showers).

So out came the bath, and then we had the room for a dream walk in wet area shower. I'm so glad that our water restrictions have been lifted, because I'm afraid that I am using up my water rations daily! Oh, what luxury now that I don't have to battle with the 'little bit more cold water' then the 'little bit more hot - that's too much!' scenario every time.
The banging on the floor screaming "turn the kitchen taps off please!" is an almost distant memory  already. (kitchen taps used to make the shower water ice cold).

The 'clever' part of this bathroom is the laundry shoot. The whole bathroom was designed around it. Basically, there is a hole in the floor that connects to the laundry room underneath. For the benefit of UK friends - a laundry is like a utility room where the washing machine, etc is stored. It's very rare to find a washing machine in a kitchen here, and almost every home has a laundry. I'll show you my laundry room soon...


bye bye dirty clothes, see you downstairs in the laundry!

 The decision about which vanity to buy was made around the fact that it had to have a right hand side cupboard for the laundry shoot...little things eh?

So now it's all over...weeks of pouring over magazines of amazing bathrooms (I actually typed 'purring' over magazines, and with some of the show bathrooms that was also quite true!!), weeks of decision making - how many different taps are there? Weeks of dust and mess....and finally....we're there.

Now I just have to pretty up bathroom number 2 a little bit. It's a small room, and the large matt white tiles can look a little clinical at times? Maybe if I find a little left in the bathroom budget (big 'pfff" from husband!) I'll get some new towels. Any other ideas greatly appreciated. x