Tuesday, November 16, 2010

A Working Holiday and a Bargain!

WARNING IT'S A LONG POST!!!

So Glen and I have found a new bargain place! The Dakabin Treasure market! It's AWESOME and why nobody told us about it when we were looking for furniture at the start of our lives in Queensland I'm not sure, but it's sure been awesome since we've moved into the big mansion we live in now!

We decided to go there over the weekend to look for a petrol can for the ride on (a 4 litre can doesn't cut it) and found that they were having a sale - not that anything there is expensive in anyway, but none the less they were having a sale so who were we to argue!

There's a giant shed that they keep all the stuff that might get ruined in the weather in, like bookcases, beds, tables, sofa and couches, piano's.... all that sort of stuff. Anyway there was a 3 piece 5 seater sofa set there that had a sign on it that it was $5.00 per seat on all couches that day.... BARGAIN. We picked up the below for a whopping $25.00... and I got a few bruises on the way... but that's pretty normal for me!


They're pretty comfy - can you tell?


A little faded in places, and i don;t like the pattern AT ALL, But i will get some throws and put them over it and DONE DONE DONE... and I get to go to my other favourite shop... SPOTLIGHT! YAY




On the way home the trailor got a flat tyre and the spare tyre was dead also... GREAT.

So we had a mad dash to find a place would sell us or replair a tyre... For anyone in the Morayfield/Caboolture area... Bob Jane are open until 4PM on Saturdays and Lindsay there is AWESOME!

So the couch ended up costing us $25.00 + $79.00 for a new tube and tyre! Still a bargain I reckon!


We moved the old Lounge into the kitchen/Meals/Family area for the moment. We've decided we don't like it facing that way and have a plan to move it around and make it face the wall, and we'll set the fish tank up there and/or a TV as well.


This is the spare room... the only spare bed we have in the moment while we wait to get our stuff shipped from Victoria. You can see we have some curtains in the house now. I need to hem them a little, but they look pretty good! We've also got all the blinds up around the house now too.


I don't know why but i'm really proud of the blind in the toilet. It was a really long blind and i managed to shorten it to the right length and I think it looks great!




I've finally hung and put away all the clothes that we own! You don;t realise how much you have until you stick it all in there and think... Man I thought that wardrobe was going to be SOOO empty...


Ensuite with the curtains. you can see their a bit long!


I've also spent a few hours in here put on grout sealer to try and protect the grout. lucky i love our shower soooo much.


And the feature tiles too!


Mum came to visit us over the weekend and we put her to work while she was here... i'm pretty sure she had fun though...

Glen picked up all the Sewerage Hoses so we could get mum mowing for us!


See the smile - she was having a great time and did really well... althought we might have forgotten to tell her how to reverse... so when she hit something... She just sat there trying to get our attention... I was a little tempted to leave her there a while longer....




... but Glen rescued her and got her going again.




Then when it was dark we got to work inside and started unpicking the curtains so we could hem them.. then I got a chuck of glass my leg from the broken window. No matter how much and how well you vaccum there always seems to be more!


Glen fixed one of mums work colleagues broken Iphones...








Then we worked some more outside to pick up the rubble and rubbish from the builders.







ahhhh.. then it was BBQ time! Glen marinated the steaks overnight and they were pretty bloody good!




the front of the house and we're starting to get grass now!

And we have a mailbox now too!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Windows and Blinds

We've got blinds... and they were a BARGAIN!


Last weekend we decided to call into spotlight to check out the prices of curtains and blinds etc for the house so we could organise some blinds and see how much they were going to cost. Little did we know that they just happened to be having a clearance on some of the blinds that are no longer being made anymore and those coloured blinds just happened to be the colours we were after! YAY for us!



The finished product.


Our bargains... you can see the bright orange clearance sticker... Well most of those were further marked down. We got 210cm x 210cm blinds for $7.50.. BARGAIN. We've decked out the whole house with blinds and they only cost us about $200.00 for all the blinds. Then i found some curtains that were on sale and picked up some of those to finish the rooms off... YAY. Spotlight has become my new favourite place to shop and Orange stickers are my absolute favourite!

This blind cost us $2.00....


and this one cost us a whooping $9.00


I got all the blinds ready to be installed. Some of them needed to be trimmed down a little to fit some of the windows and I have become exceptionally good at trimming them down with the venetian blind cutter that we bought that cost us $5.00... more than some of the blinds!
While I trimmed the ones that needed trimming Glen put them up. Turns out I can't reach the tops of the windows to install them!


In the front rooms of the house we bought some chocolate blinds to offset some of the beige brickwork etc. They were also on sale. This is the one in the computer room after it's been installed. I will take some others when it's daytime but this is all I have so far.



On Thursday October 28th Glen and I went to another spotlight to go and pick up a few more blinds after work. We got home at about 8.00PM after finding more bargains and I did drag Glen around all the store to look for orange stickers to see if we could find anything else we needed that was on special...
We we got home Glen and I were bring in the curtain rods and blinds and stuff we bought when I heard Glen say - We've got a broken window... I was sure he was joking... but i went rushing in anyway.. and sure enough... we had a broken window in the lounge. Man was I not impressed... my first thoughts were... how can we have a broken window already - we've only been in the house not quite 2 months, then I was thinking... we can't even get a glazier out here to install a doggy door. How on earth are we going to get a window fixed... and then.. who did this!



The Window


The culprit! I sent Glen next door because with all my CSI skills we were able to work out that the rock looked like it had come from the neighbours yard... So Glen trudged next door to check if they'd mowed before I went and knocked on the neighbours doors to ask if they'd seen any kids throwing rocks.


Turns out the neighbours had been mowing and a rock decided it wanted to come and play in our house. YAY! We like visitors! Once we knew what had happened it was onto checking with the insurance company to see if id signed up for a window replacement on my policy or not... I hadn't and silly me i remember thinking... nah I wont get that. What are the chances I would need a new window straight away in a new house... DOH! Anyway the insurance company were really helpful and said O'Briens would come to any location nation wide...


We tapped up the window - on the box was from the bargain kitchen stools we bought! Thanks fantastic furniture!


Shards of glass make cool patterns







The visiting rock.


The mess

So I called O'Brien and they came out the next day. The guy spent a grand total of 30 minutes installing a new window in the frame and that cost $321.00.... All my money saved on curtains went to replacing a piece of window 70 x 140...





Computer Repairs Brisbane

We're selling up!

We've decided to sell our block of land at Echuca. If anyone's interested please contact either Glen or myself for details.

Here's a few pics of the 7 acres after all the rain.. it looks so green and lush and it's the first time in a long time that the billabong is full.

Green Grass and lots and lots of it!

More Green Grass...

The road to the gate.

The billabong all full and Looking lovely

More Billabong

And more

Chewi checking out the sites on the drive.

Only 5 mins from the Murray which has now got some water in it.