Summertime is garden time...

It's been a quiet few months on the villa renovation front: too busy enjoying the New Zealand summer, and also earning the money for all the renovations I want to make!

At this time of year, it's nice to spend any spare time in the garden. Now I must admit, I'm not much of a gardener - I just don't have the required green fingers. I do appreciate a well-tended, nicely planted garden, but alas I'm just not skilled or motivated enough to do much about it. I give my plants some basic care, and after that the choice to live or die is all their own!

So imagine my surprise when last year's chillie plant not only came back to life, but is sprouting a fine crop of chillies! They're just about ready to pick, and I'll be freezing them for warming curries and casseroles in winter. Yum!

Another crop that's doing really well are my grapes: about 3 years ago I planted a vine of table grapes, and this is the first year they've really performed. In fact, I have so many grapes I'm not quite sure what to do with them all!!! Other than giving them away to friends!

They're very tasty - and have a strong, distinctive flavour. The variety is "Niagra" and I grew up eating these. In my native Switzerland we called them "Katzenseicher" which means "cat's pee" because of their strong flavour!

Though I'm a lazy gardener, I do always make sure that my two tubs outside the front door are looking smart: I just love coming home to some pretty flowers welcoming me! For summer, I've been enjoying big blue flowers with little white ones around them (I have no idea what they're called). The garden centre is a scary place when you don't know what you need, so I chose these 'cos I liked the colours. And as I was really busy with work, Mr Kiwi planted them up for me: he knows just how much I enjoy coming home to flowers. Aaaaah!

Here's Minnie keeping an eye on me while I'm taking photos!

(And a larger photo would reveal that our front steps are in need of re-building - the wood is just about rotten... the tubs are strategically placed to hide the worst of it!)

Looking for inspiration?

I just found a fabulous blog with heaps of cool photos: http://desiretoinspire.blogspot.com/

If only I knew where to buy all the nice bits and pieces!

Picture this

Cheer up your walls

Changing the artwork on your walls is a great way of updating the look of your home, and having pictures which are meaningful provides real fulfillment and enjoyment.

Being a keen photographer, I like to display some of my favourite photos on the walls.

The Warehouse currently has a great range of cost-effective frames in store, some complete with mounting boards (I always use mounts... having the photo sit directly up against the frame doesn't look so good in my view). I bought the wooden ones pictured for $7.99 each (the photos in the frame are my own!).

I use FrogPrints for printing my digital photos. It's so easy, you just upload the photos online, choose the sizes etc. and they mail it to you. I've always found their service to be extremely quick, and most importantly of all the print quality is superb.

Project cost: $

Twice as many flowers

Only got a few flower stems?

Put the vase in front of a mirror and it'll look like you've got twice as many.

Great handiwork!

Mr Kiwi did a great job fixing up the walls and skirting boards where the gas heaters used to be.

Fortunately he had some spare pieces of gib board (plaster board) to use, as well as spare pieces of skirting board.

Though in the process we discovered that there are actually about 3 or more different types of skirting board used throughout the house!

Ms Mosty-Toasty

... and goodbye to the ugly gas heaters

The new heating system has been installed for a few days now and it's just wonderful.

The whole house heats up within ten minutes of the system being switched on. Lovely!

Very impressed with Climate Control, they popped round yesterday to double check the installation and make sure that we were happy and answer any questions. Now that's good customer service!


The next tasks...

• The old, ugly gas heaters have been removed and Mr Kiwi is fixing up where they were, which means adding skirting board, door frame, plasterboard, painting, etc. It's not particularly straightforward as there are so many different designs of skirting board and door frame throughout the house: matching them up will be a mission.


• I'm trying to track down more attractive floor registers.
  

• Insulation: there's some insulation in the ceiling already, but it could do with a top-up. And putting insulation underneath the floor boards will prevent a lot of drafts and heat loss too.

The heat is on!

Heating system installation - the verdict

Just 10 minutes after it was switched on, the house was noticeably warmer and your author is now deliciously warm and toasty. What bliss!

... And that's with the thermostat set on 22 degrees C and the fan on "low". The outdoor unit is quieter than expected, and I can't hear the vents... I suspect they may make a small amount of sound, but it's not audible over the sound of the rain outside.

The time spent researching the right system seems like time very well spent: ending up with exactly what you wanted is a very good feeling!

The installation isn't quite complete: there are a few things that need to be finished off tomorrow, and I'm very surprised at how much work the guys from Climate Control got done in just one day.

Climate Control come very highly recommended. Nice work guys! They left the house in a reasonably tidy condition too.

We will do a few extras for those finishing touches so it's all perfect:

• I'd like to replace the seven plastic air ducts (also known as floor registers) with more stylish metal ones which would look more stylish and in-keeping with our villa. No NZ suppliers have been found online so far, though there are some in Australia, so I'm hoping to find a supplier who have the right size (350 x 150mm) and is willing to ship them to New Zealand.

• Mr Kiwi is keen to anodise the metal air return grilles, of which there are three (450 x 350mm). We'll wait to see what colour floor registers we end up with before we send these to be anodised.
  

The ducting underneath the house takes up quite a lot of space, just as well that there was room for this without it getting in the way. The ducting used is insulated, which will help prevent heat loss from the ducts. It measures approx. 200mm in diameter.

The photo to the right is of the "indoor" unit, which is under the floor of the house. I'll photograph the outdoor unit once it stops raining!