Remodelling... lives and houses
Hillmann House
I was totally blown away by all the Christmas cards and emails I got from you. Thanks so much. My Mom went to the Post Office and came back with more mail for the Hillmanns than for her household. Feels so good to be loved and to see some of the gorgeous pics of your kiddies.
On the home front, it seems as if sunny days are eluding us and we have been having huge downpours for the last few days. It is quite weird, as they are already worried about flooding in some of the townships here, and we have had only 3 big thunderstorms and some drizzle. I wonder what would happen here if we had some Seattle weather?
Rein was most upset reading the blog as he said I hardly mentioned his name and didn't update anyone on what's been happening to him!! Poor bunny. Anyway, he is doing very well. He actually needs to wear smartish clothes every day to work, which I love enormously. No more skateboarder's shorts and t-shirts. He gets extra special kissies from me every day now! :) He has bought a beautiful car, Audi TDI, for himself... which gets taken out of his car allowance for Msft, as well as petrol contributions - YAY! Work is slow at the moment. He is working on a project at MNet (South African pay broadcaster), but since he needs to be on the project from inception, he is quite frustrated by all the bureaucracy already. Oh gosh.....
Our house: I have been madly trying to get our house ready for us to move in when the furniture arrives. We decided to go with an older house, in excellent condition, with a STUNNING, established garden for our little boy AND girl to play in. That being said, we have a lot to do. There are wooden floors, covered by a carpet, which we have to rip out. We have to redo the whole kitchen and of course, we're going to paint. All before we move in. The advantage of being in South Africa is that labour is significantly cheaper than in the US. We have a painter who is going to paint our entire house for about $600 (obviously excluding paint). What a bargain!
I have just had meetings this morning with two kitchen designers and have had to decide on what kind of cabinets, countertops, stove, extractor fans etc we like. All very exciting, but nerve-racking at the same time. Rein is not available during the day at all, so most of the decisions are being left to me. Rein has definite ideas about things like recessed lighting and granite countertops....but we'll see if the budget agrees.
We had our first picnic lunch at our house on Sunday. Rein's parents came to see the house and we sat under the big tree, ate yummy things and watched James run through the sprinkler. It was also so great for me to drink my cool lemon drink under the shade and watch hubby dear mow the lawn, shirt off to catch a tan. :)
As for a car for me, I had my eye on another Toyota initially, but then fell in love with a little 2003 Renault Scenic, which is much more like a Mommy mobile, with copious amounts of space for kiddy paraphenalia. We'll probably get it tomorrow or the next day - YAY! Very excited! Will send pics of that too. I'm going to try and attach pics of the house. Forgive me if they go a bit squiff, because I'm still not too familiar with all the blogging tools of the trade.
8 Black Str. Garden
I was totally blown away by all the Christmas cards and emails I got from you. Thanks so much. My Mom went to the Post Office and came back with more mail for the Hillmanns than for her household. Feels so good to be loved and to see some of the gorgeous pics of your kiddies.
On the home front, it seems as if sunny days are eluding us and we have been having huge downpours for the last few days. It is quite weird, as they are already worried about flooding in some of the townships here, and we have had only 3 big thunderstorms and some drizzle. I wonder what would happen here if we had some Seattle weather?
Rein was most upset reading the blog as he said I hardly mentioned his name and didn't update anyone on what's been happening to him!! Poor bunny. Anyway, he is doing very well. He actually needs to wear smartish clothes every day to work, which I love enormously. No more skateboarder's shorts and t-shirts. He gets extra special kissies from me every day now! :) He has bought a beautiful car, Audi TDI, for himself... which gets taken out of his car allowance for Msft, as well as petrol contributions - YAY! Work is slow at the moment. He is working on a project at MNet (South African pay broadcaster), but since he needs to be on the project from inception, he is quite frustrated by all the bureaucracy already. Oh gosh.....
Our house: I have been madly trying to get our house ready for us to move in when the furniture arrives. We decided to go with an older house, in excellent condition, with a STUNNING, established garden for our little boy AND girl to play in. That being said, we have a lot to do. There are wooden floors, covered by a carpet, which we have to rip out. We have to redo the whole kitchen and of course, we're going to paint. All before we move in. The advantage of being in South Africa is that labour is significantly cheaper than in the US. We have a painter who is going to paint our entire house for about $600 (obviously excluding paint). What a bargain!
I have just had meetings this morning with two kitchen designers and have had to decide on what kind of cabinets, countertops, stove, extractor fans etc we like. All very exciting, but nerve-racking at the same time. Rein is not available during the day at all, so most of the decisions are being left to me. Rein has definite ideas about things like recessed lighting and granite countertops....but we'll see if the budget agrees.
We had our first picnic lunch at our house on Sunday. Rein's parents came to see the house and we sat under the big tree, ate yummy things and watched James run through the sprinkler. It was also so great for me to drink my cool lemon drink under the shade and watch hubby dear mow the lawn, shirt off to catch a tan. :)
As for a car for me, I had my eye on another Toyota initially, but then fell in love with a little 2003 Renault Scenic, which is much more like a Mommy mobile, with copious amounts of space for kiddy paraphenalia. We'll probably get it tomorrow or the next day - YAY! Very excited! Will send pics of that too. I'm going to try and attach pics of the house. Forgive me if they go a bit squiff, because I'm still not too familiar with all the blogging tools of the trade.
posted by Jules@home | 11:17 am
3 Comments:
Pics looks wonderful - what's the estimated move-in date??
K
Your house and Garden are beautiful, Juliette! I'm so happy for you.
we just had 27 days of precipitation, straight, and many of those days and nights were filled with a howling, cold wind as well. And its DARK all the time! We are all going a bit stir crazy, dying for somewhere like...oh, say...South Africa?!! :) just in case you were missing life here... xoxo
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