My first reno... 10 years ago...

I was fortunate to buy my first house at 21. A great job, crazy low property prices and an addiction to home magazines from an early age made me choose to buy instead of rent. 

It was a small three bedroom cottage. The kitchen although reasonably sized had 5 doors into it, the disused fireplace you can see above and awful lino. 

I tracked down these photos today and digitally scanned them in so please excuse the low-tech quality. 

After demolishing the fireplace mostly by myself I called my Dad to ask for his expert assistance. He groaned. He had to get used to my gung-ho approach to renovations over the years haha, although he has handed over the reins to Mr HMH now. 

My Mum spotted a heap of old wooden windows at a nearby house and kindly went and asked the owners about them. She walked away with permission to take whatever she wanted. We chose two (one above), and I always wished after we had grabbed more. Oh well. 

I spent a whole month of my holidays pining over a lost love and peeling all the layers of vinyl off the floor, including having to pull/tap out hundreds of tacks that had been holding down a piece of Masonite! very therapeutic! 

My handy Dad started to make my design concept into reality with the cupboard carcasses you can see above and I had a local guy manufacture the bench tops and doors. He also installed the tiles for me. 

Dad came back and fitted a new back door and the architraves etc and the oven/cooktop was a fab Fisher & Paykell one and I chose an Oliverri sink, which I loved.

My pop was down often doing odd jobs for me over the years that I lived there. He would always arrive early and just start working outside until I finally woke up and wandered out in my flanelette pjs  to great him. He replaced all the boards on the back of the house with ones he had in his shed, concreted in a useless garden bed, made a new front gate and letter box and also made outdoor benches with timber and steel and a huge woodbox with lid which doubled as an excellent seat. He was an amazing man, nothing was ever too much trouble and I miss him dreadfully. My Nan has said since that he would have been pleased to meet Mr HMH as he is handy too and Pop always worried I would meet a corporate type who could not wield a hammer! I was working in a bank at the time so it may have been a possibility at the time, however I always had a rule that my future husband had to be able to do at least as much as me reno wise.

I wish I had a pic of the rest of the kitchen, but I kept the existing (very average but serviceable) cupboards. The centre of the room could have had a small table only, but as it was essentially a walkway I didn't ever add one. I was also 21 remember and living (mostly) alone so the couch always looked pretty great for meals after work! I had an old farmhouse table outside under the awning and that was called into duty quite often over the warmer days and nights for many a meal, and even a dinner party once with carefully mismatched vintage floral cake plates as side plates.

I can't believe it was 10 years ago! How quickly time flies by. I have had two renos since then but I will always remember this first one the most fondly.

Thanks for reading all the way if you got this far! So many memories came to me as I was writing this I just had to get them down! 

Yours in reminiscence,

Allana xxx