The Bell Family

Wow – isn’t time flying! Laura has just turned 4 months! She has just been for her 2nd round of immunisations and was a brave little girl despite the three needles and icky tasting medicine!

The latest stats have her as follows:
• Weight: 6.2kg
• Height: 63cm

She’s growing really quickly and is still a little above average, however she only put on 200 grams during the last month in comparison to the 740 grams the month before!!! Thankfully things are slowing down a little there, because she was starting to become quite a chubby little thing! Nothing wrong with having a bit of meat on her though I reckon, means she’s nice and healthy! She’s finishing up in ‘000’ clothes now and moving into ‘00’s, and she has so many lovely outfits from all over the place!

Laura’s latest milestones are:
• reaching for and holding onto toys;
• grabbing and holding onto her feet;
• longer tummy time (holding her head up really well and often being seen with her bum up in the air);
• lots of sounds including uhuh, ugug, oh’s and happy squeals; and
• a general interest in being involved in everything that’s going on around her.

Here is a picture of Laura and I. She is a cutie isn’t she!?!

Hope you enjoy the update.

Cheers,
Chrissy

Well, as you can imagine, one of the major things we had to complete as part of the renovations was the refurbishment of the nursery.

If you were un-aware, every bedroom and living room walls were made up of a lami-panel type timber. The unfortunately thing was that every bedroom’s timber was a different colour and shade. Below is what the nursery use to look like before we started the renovations.

The bedroom was once desigenated as my study, which housed things like books and of course computers. Though, as soon as the news that we were expecting our first child, it of course became the nursery.

Like the master bedroom, when we decided to renovate the back bedrooms, we decided to replace the lami-panel with gyprock as well. The timing for the renovation was quite crucial, as Christine was currently 3 months pregnant and we wanted everything to be completed before bubsy came along. If you are unaware, they recommend that new carpet and paint be allowed to air for three months before a new-born is allowed into the room.

It was then decided that to speed up the process, you would employ a carpenter to fix up and improve upon the storage of each of the bedrooms, as well as get plasters to gyprock and plaster the walls. The main reason for this was the speed up the process.

The nursery use to have timber shutter opening doors for the cupboard. This was one of the things the carpenter improved upon, which he installed sliding mirrors, new hanging spaced and sliding drawers.

Once the new cupboards were installed, new door hanged and the walls covered in gyprock, it was time of course to paint. Like the master bedroom, I did do a lot of the timber work myself (door jam, window sills, architraves, skirting boards and various other timber work) which saved us a lot of money.

Other additions to the room include:

• Carpet to replace the lino;
• Timber bind for the window (I also installed and trimmed the blinds to fit the window, the new drop saw which I purchase has already payed for itself many times over); and
• New fan and adjustable down lights (Which have be great for late night feeding).

The only thing that we have recently done is place a nice “Teddy bear pattern” valance over the window.

As you can see, we selected fairly netural colours, as we didn’t like the idea of painting the room blue or pink. As we felt we could decorated the room to the sex of our first child, which you all know is a girl.

Anyway, I hope you like the looks of Laura’s room and the changes we made to it. Remember to keep those comments coming.

Cheers,
Jason.

G’day all

For those who have visited our house recently, you will have noticed some changes to the look of the house inside compared to when we first bought it.

One of the first major renovations we completed inside our house was the refurbishment of the master bedroom. For those who haven’t visited our house, the walls were made out of that lami-panel timber and were accompanied by lino on the floor.

As can be seen from the above picture, the room was quite dark and felt cramped.

I started the renovation firstly, by sanding back the lami-panel to remove all of the bumps in the hope that I could paint directly over it. Unfortunately, due to the think thickness of the lami-panel, as soon as anyone lent on the walls, the paint would crack across the seams. It was then decided that I would remove all of the timber and plasterboard the room.

It was quite funny, that during the master bedroom renovation, the first installment of the TV show ‘The Block’ was on and it was ironic that I could relate to the show in some parts. Though it did give me some inspiration to complete the reno and to have it all looking great.

As with all renovations, I must admit that I learnt a lot of things about how to do things properly. With some help from my Mum and Christine’s Parents, I was able to do most of it myself, this included gyprocking, cornices, plastering and painting.

Because the old lami-panel was about 3mm think and the plasterboard was 10mm thick, I had to replace the door jam, window sills, architraves skirting boards and various other timber work. We bought Meranti timber and stained it ourselves.

Like all renovations, one thing it did enable me to do, was to buy tools I was able to purchase a drop saw which has proved invaluable, as it enabled me to cut the timber at various angles to suit each job.

The only things that we brought in outside help for were the laying of new carpet and installation of down-lights (though I did help with these).

As you can see from the above photo, the light colours, downlights and new timber give the bedroom some warmth and have really improved the look and feel of the room, not only adding value to the house, but modernising the look.

Well, as you can imagine, more renovations have been conducted and completed throughout the house and I hope to show off some more of the work we have done around the house soon.

Until then, keep visiting and let me know what you think of the changes.

Cheers,
Jason.

G’day Everyone

I trust you all had a wonderful Christmas and a great new year’s!!!!

As you all know, this was Laura’s first Christmas and I think she really enjoyed all of the attention (and especially all the fantastic gifts and new toys that will keep her busy for the next few months)! Of course she is still too young to really appreciate Christmas fully, but I think she still had fun as can be seen from the photo below.

Having Laura around sure made Christmas special for the whole family this year and we can only imagine that it will get even better in the years to come!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a great new year and will endeavor to keep you all posted with the latest information on Laura, house renovations and things in general. So keep on visiting this site and we will try to update it as much as possible.

Until then, stay safe and well,
Jason.