I have been up to my eyes in paint this past week. I'm still painting in the kitchen ....more cupboards, some little decorative shelves & a tall vintage china cabinet. It's a jolly good thing that I enjoy painting, is all that I can say. I do love to see something not so good-looking, turn into something pretty or at least something which enhances its surroundings. And my two chandeliers arrived ...but on checking them out, I discovered that one light was missing the crystal dangle thingy at the bottom, so an email has been sent off today, & hopefully the crystal dangle thingy will appear in the post soon. I can't wait to see the chandeliers hung up. I think they will be the 'icing on the cake' ....the 'piece de resistance' (said with a definite French accent). But there is still a lot more painting in the kitchen ahead of me, & my annual leave is now over, so I am back at work, & my painting efforts will be limited to my days off. Never mind. Every little bit will add up & before I know it, our kitchen will have been revamped & looking good .........

So ...... what have I been up to over the past few days? Well, nothing outdoors, due to it being winter here in New Zealand, but I have accomplished a few things in the kitchen. For a start, I ordered a pair of matching chandeliers, & they arrived via courier this morning. They would have arrived three days ago, on Friday, but the courier rang the doorbell & none of us heard it ....which was rather odd, we thought, as though my hearing can be a bit dodgy, there is nothing wrong with the hearing of our four dogs. On examining the doorbell before he left for work this morning, David returned to tell me the battery was obviously 'stuffed' ......he can be so eloquent at times. This time, the courier phoned me on her arrival. I haven't opened the two boxes yet, but it's exciting to see them sitting in the entrance hall. The chandeliers are nothing fancy, as the kitchen is nothing fancy, but they will add a pretty touch to that area, & the one over the dining part of the kitchen, which we don't use as such, will be immediately visible from the front door. We won't have them hung up until I have painted the walls in the dining part of the kitchen .....I have already painted the kitchen area in Italiano ....which looks like an antique type of white on the paint chart, but paints up like a stark white on the actual wall. I have to get another pot mixed up for the dining part, so it will be interesting to see if it comes out the same shade as has been already painted on the kitchen area walls. If it comes out looking different, it means someone made a mistake when mixing the first pot ,,,,,& it also means that I will have to paint over the stark white already painted! It sounds complicated, but it really isn't. What it actually boils down to, is more work for me. At the moment, I am painting cupboards & drawers & free-standing units in a medium taupe colour, & the insides of all of those in a pretty aqua-green. I have already painted over the ghastly fire-engine red of the old wooden surround around the old cooking range ...both are original to this 1910 villa. And the mantle-shelf has been painted aqua-green also, as well as several vintage wood pieces I have picked up very cheaply in thrift/charity shops ...called Opportunity Shops here in New Zealand, or op-shops for short. I am a huge fan of op-shopping, as you will find out as we go along. I'm not comfortable living with modern things, so I buy either antique or vintage for our home, & then 'do it up' if it is needed. So .....I hope you enjoy the pics I am posting up.

Here I am, back again. We are in winter here in New Zealand, but as with our last two winters, we are being spoilt with very mild days, blue skies above, & sunshine. Having said that ..... just over a week ago, we had so much rain that all the rivers burst their banks & their was widespread flooding, reminiscent of our last major flood in February 2004 ....in summer! The city of Wanganui, just a 30 minute drive from us, was worse hit, as it sits on a tidal river, so when the tide came in, with the river already over its banks, it just flooded the whole of the inner city, & all the suburbs along the coastline. On a brighter note .....the picket fence that my husband David has been making for me, is now virtually finished! So exciting ....I have always wanted a white picket fence, but never had one until now. All it requires is the front entrance gate, the arch, & the new letterbox. The front of the house now has new gutters, & each side of the front extension, now has new barge boards in place ...which still require painting. So here is our 1910 weatherboard villa as it stands today ......

Hello, & welcome to my first ever Blog. My name is Dwyllis & I am a New Zealander, living in the lower-central part of the North Island. I live with my husband David, our two Bengal cats Tammy & Lily, plus our four dogs, Jontay, Zoe, Loki, & Bryn. In March 2011, David & I moved into a rather delapidated five-bedroomed home. It was an Edwardian, weatherboard villa, built in 1910. My first impression, when being shown this house, was to refer to it as "the ugly house" to the real estate agent. It sat close to the road, with no fence between it & the pavement. The verandah which would have originally sat across the entire front of the house, had been removed in the 1960s in order to add two more bedrooms to the three-bedroomed house. So the once charming cottage-villa had become, in my eyes at least, 'the ugly house'. It took the real estate agent a few minutes to persuade me to view it, but once the front door was opened, & I stepped inside, I fell in love with it. A long, central hallway ran from the front door right through to the back of the house ....identical to a rented house I had lived in from five to seven years of age, before my parents had purchased a rambling, somewhat ramshackled house built in the 1870s. It was growing up in this charming, but faded colonial house, that my love of these old weatherboard homes began to develop. "The ugly house" was not the first house I had moved into which required a great deal of tender loving care, but hopefully it will be my last. So ......I now invite you to join me as I take you on a journey ....a journey of restoration, love, care, & often frustration .......as David & I work to restore Le Villa Gris (The Grey Villa) .....the name we chose to bestow upon our home when we began painting the exterior in the summer, in a beautiful shade of French Lavender Grey. It is a journey, but it is also a labour of love.