Cool discovery

One of the best bits about this old house so far has been peeling back the layers and finding out what's underneath. It helps us piece together a bit of its history - or at least some snippets from which we can imagine a history.

Like most renovations of buildings this age, we've found faded wallpaper and peeling paint, but the coolest thing we've found is this note on the plaster underneath the wall that was hiding the fireplace.

It's a note from an apprentice carpenter spruiking for future work. He writes:

"I'm an apprentice carpenter and in ten years time ring me up and I'll build your house"

It's dated April 1988 - so twenty three years ago (interestingly, almost to the date of when we signed the contract). I've done some research and - if I have the right Malcolm Monk - it seems that his enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit didn't leave him and he became quite a large property developer. Unfortunately, it seems the GFC wasn't too kind to his business and he's shut up shop.

But still - what an esoteric and charming find. I hope there are more as our journey progresses.

Exciting discovery

While we were pulling up the carpet on the weekend we uncovered this piece of stone next to the wall towards the front of the house and got a little excited. The main wall in the open plan living area is just over 8 metres long and has been 'built in' for about half of that length. Our plan was to knock that out and put bookshelves along the entire length of the wall. While we had been secretly hoping that a fireplace was hiding behind the wall, we didn't hold out much hope (picture us walking the length of the wall 'tapping' in a highly professional and authorative manner to determine lack of hidden fireplace).

So when we found this piece of stone that looked as though it might very well be part of a very old and very rustic fireplace we got out the hammers faster than you can say "fancy a trip to Bunnings?".

I've never been allowed to put holes in walls before so I was a teensy bit excited at this opportunity. Had there been no evidence of a fireplace I am pretty sure Mr Puddleduck would have insisted we leave the wall in tact until the professionals arrived, so I wasted no time in getting stuck in. I even let Mr Puddleduck go first (he maintains he is more methodical than me so would create less mess) and promised him new tools if he found me a fireplace.

It may have taken longer than it would have if I had been wielding the hammer (seriously why do we have to be neat when bashing down a wall ?), but we struck gold. Well actually, we struck really tacky brown tiles but nevertheless it's our very own fireplace.

The beginning

We've bought a house. An old house. An old, run down, slighly odd and upside down house. It may be that we took leave of our senses when we made the offer, but if that was the case, we still haven't come to our senses, In fact, we're all still a little giddy with excitement. Actually, that's not entirely true - Puddleduck is underwhelmed by it all. I suspect because the house doesn't have a TV. It does, however, have a cat that visits and she thinks that is fairly cool. I don't think the cat will be such a frequent visitor when our dogs arrive.

Join me on my journey as we transform this old office into the home of our dream!