CHURCH FARM BILLINUDGEL

We are Back!! Wow that was a big break from blogging. We have been pretty busy doing stuff... but now we are back and have exterior colour schemes on our mind! we are loving this matte black with glossy white window vibe... is that hectic to paint a church the colour black? Google shows at least one other church painted black, how's about we just start with the shed? oh i dont know. I think the shed chat will be saved for its own post, it has been a real proud moment for us building the shed as we salvaged almost 100% of the materials! Recycling at its best. With only one trip to bunnings to get some metal stuff for the roofing which we needed, the rest was all trash converted to treasure! Disclaimer: oh these other fancy pics of black sheds are from pinterest! ours is the shabby one in the top right corner 

Our Builder Mate named Shabs This guy came round and showed us his new 3D building plan skills,  totally knocked our socks off and now we are really excited for reno time.  bring on the deck ! 

How high is the water mama? Six feet high and risin' Billinudgel floods, no doubt about it.  When we were purchasing the church the first thing people would say if we told them was, 'you know it floods there right?' We are embracing the water, as we have water views every now and then. Ha, well lets just say we are working with the waters...  The neighbours don't seem to mind the flood factor, bit of excitement in this ol' town.  Here's some pics of our 'first flood' Ohhh..nostalgia.  and a couple of pics from a previous flood, with the waters coming up deep against the pub. 

Our favourite part was choosing the tiles, which we sourced from a lady out at Federal, she has an amazing collection of antique and reproduction tiles http://www.jatanainteriors.com.au, Seriously awesome, we could spend all day just perusing her tile shed, if the Japanese restaurant around the corner wasn’t so tasty (DOMA cafe, Federal- eat there).  We ordered a trailer full of sustainable hardwood from some nice fella down in Lismore, and then we were as snug as rug bugs. 

The Kitchen Garden We never met a green we didn't like.  It's always so good to have a smorgasbord of herbs and fresh green salad plants in the garden, it was one of the first things we did when we moved in.  Andrew picked up some hardwood sleepers to make the beds, made some 'Andrew's special tiramisu soil mix' and ever since we have been enjoying fresh greens.  Banjo's first 'solid' food experience was when he munched on a spinach leaf from the garden, proud mama and papa 

Milly wolf seems to like it out there. 

Church Pews to Kitchen Benches The church came with 4 church pews, so we decided to turn two of the seats into our kitchen island bench.  imagine all of the butts that have been on our bench...

Kitchen from Scratch Amanda's sister and her husband recently moved into a house, which they are renovating. We have been very fortunate as they have a whole heap of awesome stuff that they don't want, for example all of this hardwood and veejay timber! Thanks sis.  Andrew put in some hours of labour ripping out the century old veejay walls, and handyman'd them into our kitchen benches and islands.  The metal frames we used were old work benches from Amanda's parents business that were no longer being used.  The kitchen is a real work in progress but here is the beginning... 

With the floors, walls and ceiling done we couldn't resist camping out in our spruced up church.  After a bit of space clearing sage burnin', we had our first meal of take away burgers and chips on the stairs, as the sun went down and mozzies came out.  We tried our best to stay the night that first night, but we had to go back to the rental as the mosquitos were too fierce.  After emergency calling a local mosquito net lady, Amanda arranged a meet up on a Sunday in the park to purchase some very essential nets. We chose a couple of the 100% cotton natural fibre nets from http://www.1001nets.net, a local business in Mullumbimby  

Timber Floorboards The hardwood tallow timber floors were in very good condition, considering they are almost 90 years old.  We found a local sandman *cue Mr Sandman song....*  who was familiar with using non-toxic finishes. We went for the Rubio Monocoat http://www.rubiomonocoat.com/en/ which is a great natural product and has zero VOCs. 

Ceiling & Walls We needed to freshen up the ceiling, we were thinking crisp white instead of the existing pale yellow.  We phoned around the local painters and found a non-toxic paint supply shop in the Byron industrial estate called Ecolour.  http://www.ecolour.com.au With a new baby and generally not wanting to breathe in toxic paint fumes, which would be the case with standard paint, we chose a non-toxic ZERO VOC white on white.  The walls were dusty and thirsty, so we called down the old cheeses for a bit of elbow grease fun. The walls were coated in Murothane which is a great low VOC product for wood finishes. We sourced this from Painted Earth, another great non-toxic supply shop in the Byron Industrial Estate http://www.house-paint.com.au

In the same week our son Banjo was born, we signed our life away.  Kid, Mortgage. Same week.  This is us with Aunty Elke strolling in our new hood. 

Dry my clothes oh Lord Amanda wanted an old school clothes line, one that suits our country church.  Andrew undertook one of his first forays into carpentry and had a crack at making us a clothes line.  It's not perfect but it looks the part and does the job.  Note the crucifix style, pun intended. 

Flashback..  to when we were just a little bit excited about possibly living here The catholic church peeps getting stuff done, no real estates involved. Just the ol trading post. 

There was some wild storms around here early 2013, which left some pandanus trees homeless on the beach as their roots were ripped from the sand dunes as they collapsed with the giant tides (how dramatic..) Anyway, Andrew rescued a couple and they are planted in our back yard. They seem to have taken to their new home and are growing quite well with new shoots appearing.

The old Post & Rail Fence Built about a century ago, restored by one of our neighbours a decade or so ago, this fence borders the 1/2 acre block that the church is planted on.  With a few missing rails, this fence needed some lovin.  Our neighbour and dear friend 'Uncle Ian' the farmer who lives up the road, just so happened to have an old post and rail fence he was getting rid of. So another farmers trash is our treasure, as Andrew restored the perimeter of the fence and extended it across the front of the property Oh and since we finally have an address instead of a lot number, thanks council, we bought some celebratory big brass street numbers. 

Here's a snap of the church before its paint job.  Thankfully, the catholic church keep their buildings in good shape, and only a few years ago the whole place had a new external paint job, and a new roof installed.  Hallelujah! less work for us.