November Notes,

I must apologise for the lack of quilting content. I have included a photo of a UFO and was appalled at it's age. I started this in 2009 and it is still waiting for some attention. The only sewing things I have achieved is sandwiching the new baby quilt and cutting out a few Xmas presents.

 

 Needless to say, these two babies have been back in action. Mind you I think they are starting to show some signs of age. The pointy one will soon need it's third base plate change. It was amazing yesterday that both were in action at once. I had a helper, albeit for all of 30 minutes as the showers prevented him from doing some outside work, and I insisted some help would be much appreciated.

 Just to show you, we attended the Queensland Axemen's Association Annual Presentation night and Bryan received three awards over the Standing, Underhand and Treefelling sections of the competitions held during the year of all events across Qld. Considering he only competes when he is not away working he has done very well.

 I would really love to be able to purchase this house for sale at Chelmer in Brisbane. This is what I am trying to get my hedges to do at Ivanhoe. The only problem I have is our house is much higher. Means pruning to the height is much harder. I am happy with mine so far though.

 Another blog I read about renovating old Queenslanders showed this picture of an old queenslander in her neighbourhood. They just need the 'right people " to come along with the patience and drive to restore them. I'm thinking I need a good injection of drive at the moment.

Here is my inspiration for the louvres I am very happy with in our office area. I would really like to knock out more of the wall and install something like this, to bring the outside in. Maybe one day, I would also get new shelves made for all the essential paper work storage.

 

Some progress though. This is the second bedroom which used to be a very dark dusky salmon pink colour. I spent a day filling holes in the walls after Belinda washed them for me. I have finished one top coat of British Paints Touch of Berry colour 1.5 strength. With undercoating and painting it has taken 6 days so far. The Joinery guys ( they are my current favourite tradesmen) came back last week and are due back this week. In their words Murphy's law always prevails for the furtherest job from the workshop. We now have 5 sets of these doors. The fly and mossie populations trapped inside have decreased. It is wonderful leaving the shutter doors ( that is my new name for the timber doors now) open all the time.

 

 The veranda progress has been slow, because of the showers yesterday we started on the wide beam at the top and the decorative parts. This is in the final corner for the railings. I have nearly finished the final front panel, ready for undercoating, then filling , then sanding , then finally undercoating and painting. The timber is that weathered that you have to fill it with something.

 The second panel undergoing its transformation. Had to insert 2 new poles. You can just see my tallest hedge plant at the front .

I went researching the roofing iron. This is the roof in the shed built during the early 1960's using Lysaght Australia iron.

 

This is the Lysaght iron on the Ivanhoe veranda roof. There are 2 different trademarks, the other is Redcliffe Trade Mark. These were imported from England as Lysaght Australia did not start production until 1920's in Australia. Lysaght England bought out the company making Redcliffe brand in the early 1900's so one can date the house from this a bit.

I have discovered that the original owner of Ivanhoe and builder of this house got married in 1916. I am trying to establish about when the house was built. I reckon around 1909- 1916 as it would have been fitting to bring his bride to a house. Some days I just sit on the veranda and marvel at the construction work done without power tools.
I will at some stage probably be heading to the state archives at Runcorn for more research.
A busy month, with even more to come. The new grandchild is due in early January so now doubt life will get even busier.