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The USA House 16th April 1999 14th April 1999 This is the front of the house. It's a pleasant house. From the front, it doesn't look very large. This is deceptive. On the left is a single car garage with an automatic door. It's a big garage inside, but not big enough for two cars. The front walls are brick. The sides are the usual vinyl cladding. Those small green bushes to the right of the front door are holly bushes. Prickly as hell, but they stay green all year round. Look at the window to the left of the front door. That is the computer room. The roof is very high for a reason. There's a second floor up there. It's a smaller floor plan then the ground floor, but there's still a fair bit of room up there. Note the tiny little cat head peering through the front door. 14th April 1999 Another shot of the front of the house, but from the left. Note my tiny little car. The block of land is very tiny, and the back yard is very small. You can see from this shot that the house is quite tall. There are fences around the entire block of land, but they are untreated wood, like the bits on the left. Plenty of windows, so inside is very light and airy. 14th April 1999 The front door is made of clear and frosted glass. The cats sit there and peer out all day. This is Ruffian trying to see what I am doing. 14th April 1999 Looking in through the front door, we can see the formal dining area. This is currently empty apart from the Turkish rugs. Ahead on the right is the kitchen. To the left are the stairs that go up to the second floor. Distantly in the middle can be seen the TV room. As you can see, it's pretty open-plan. 14th April 1999 Another shot of this area. Redrum is guarding the stairs. May 1999 This photo is looking from the kitchen back towards the front door. The area is empty in this photo, but since then it has been filed with a lounge suite and a dining room table. It looks much smaller with the furniture, but it looks quite cosy. Notice the vaulted ceiling, and the amount of light let in by those windows. 14th April 1999 The kitchen, looking towards the front door of the house. You can't see the front door because it's too dark. It's a light and bright kitchen, which helps with the small size. Lots of cupboard space, more than we've had before. The floor is lime-washed wood. It came with the stove and microwave and the dishwasher. We bought the fridge from the previous owners. It's a big fridge and they didn't fancy moving it. Behind me, where you can't see it, is a large bay window and the kitchen / breakfast table. It's a nice bright area for breakfast. You can see the bay window and table in the background of the previous photo. 14th April 1999 This is the TV room. It's a bit messy at present, but it's getting comfortable. Note the fireplace dead ahead. It's a dual fireplace. Currently it runs on gas, with those fake logs in it, but it is zoned so that wood can be burned in it. Notice that Anne has already covered the mantelpiece with photos and her farewell clock from school. The door on the right is the door to the backyard. If you peer through the bit of glass, you can just see how close the fence is to the door. 14th April 1999 To the left of the TV room is our bedroom. The main feature of this room, apart from the size, is the small gas fireplace. This is classed as a gas appliance, not a fireplace. This means we can't pull the gas stuff out and burn wood in it. The vertical blinds in the middle hide the glass door to the back yard. In the back yard right now is a large dolls house, a 10 foot tall violent pink home-made cubby house. The previous owner built it and then discovered he had no way to get it out of the back yard. He left it behind. I told him that if ever works out how to take it, he can come back and pick it up. I'll just mow around it. 14th April 1999 This is our new waterbed. It's fabulous. Waterbed technology has changed a lot in the last 20 years. Hidden on the left is the walk-in area with dual sinks. Behind that is a walk-in wardrobe. And a bit further inside is the ensuite bathroom. We get a toilet, a shower and jacuzzi. We might try out the jacuzzi one year. This is Anne's bathroom. May 1999 The ensuite from our bedroom starts with a small foyer containing dual handbasins. You can see the door to the walk-in wardrobe in the mirror. I don't use the handbasins. Thsi is Anne's territory. But I do use the walk-in wardrobe. Over the years, we have learnt one grand lesson - separate bathrooms. It's civilised. May 1999 The jacuzzi. Anne's bathroom has a shower, a toilet and this jacuzzi. We still haven't tried it. One day soon. May 1999 When you leave our bedroom, there is a small hallway that leads to the computer room, the garage and my bathroom. This photo shows that hallway. The doors on the left hide the laundry. Here, a laundry is a large cupboard where the washer and drier have been hidden. There are plenty of outlets for water and hot air to be removed. The hot air outputs are protected at the outside by cheap and flimsy plastic slats. The birds can destroy these within a day or two, and they get inside where it's warm and cosy and dry and they nest. Currently we have several nests buried deep inside the house. The walls beneath the exits are smeared with bird poop. Next week, we get a ladder and then we will be able to cover the openings with chicken wire and prevent the birds from returning to their nests. I hear no peepings inside, so I hope that fledglings have not appeared or have already flown the nest. At the end, you can see the computer room. 14th April 1999 This should be familiar to anyone who ever saw the computer room in Sydney. This is my computer room. It'll look a lot tidier when a few bookcases go up. That window is the window to the left of the front door. In this area, there is another bathroom. It's a small bathroom, but it's mine. There's also the door to the garage here too. May 1999 Across from the computer room is my bathroom. It's small, with just a shower/bath, a toilet and a sink. Small maybe, but it's mine. Civilised bliss to have one's own messy bathroom. May 1999 There isn't a great deal of room in the garage. I get to store my new old bike. This is what I'll be riding sometime in the future. The weather right now is perfect for riding, so I should get stuck into it and get it ridable. May 1999 At the back of the garage, there is actually a workbench. I have a few tools already and will soon apply them. The best part of it is the storage. We can store a lot of junk here, like empty boxes to transport our stuff back to Australia. May 1999 We get two garbage bins. The only place to store them is in the garage. See the size of them. The black is for normal garbage. It is full every week. You can't go shopping without a massive amount of packaging that has to be chucked. The blue one is for recyclables. It gets picked up fortnightly, and is usually full. You can't avoid massive amounts of garbage here. 14th April 1999 Back to the front of the house. This shot shows the stairs leading up, and lets you see where the second story fits in. What you see upstairs is the second floor lunge area. It's an open plan area where a second TV and lounge chairs can be placed. The second floor is the guest area. On the left, out of sight, are the two guest bedrooms. On the right is the guest bathroom, and in the middle is the guest lounge area. This is a hint. Take note. 14th April 1999 At the top of the stairs are the two guest bedrooms. To the left, where you can't see it, is a small storage room. It's a tiny cute little room. On the right, you can see a large open sort of window. This looks down on the downstairs TV room. It's possible to stand up here and throw things downstairs on either side. 14th April 1999 Turning around, we see the upstairs lounge area. On the right, we see the railings that overlook the downstairs dining area. From here, you can watch the front door. Redrum has taken to sitting up here during the day, waiting for me to come home. She gets to watch everything up here. To the left, out of sight, is the guest bathroom. Obviously, this area is still unfurnished, but by the time you start to arrive here for a visit, there will be comfortable chairs and a TV set and a few other amenities. 14th April 1999 This is one of the guest bedrooms. As you can see, there is already a very nice, brand new, comfortable, queen size bed. Each guest bedroom has a window that lets in the rising sun. This makes them bright and airy and very nice rooms. One wall slopes down, but I like this. They also come with a nice built-in wardrobe. By the time you arrive, all of you, there will be bedside tables and chests of drawers and a few other little items to make your stay comfortable. May 1999 Now we go outside. This shows the dolls house that was left behind by the previous owner. He built it himself, and when it came time to move, he found that he couldn't get it out any of the gates. So he left it for us. This will also show you just how small the back yard is. The sliding door on the left opens to our bedroom. The back fence is on the right. Is that a small back yard? May 1999 This is at the back of the house, looking to the left. The tall structure in the middle is the chimney for the main fireplace. The back door is just to the left of it, but mostly hidden from view. Notice the ever so smart vinyl cladding. May 1999 This is the left side of the house, looking from the back. It's very plain, and unbroken by windows. The object in the foreground is the air-conditioning unit. The furnace is in the roof, but the air conditioner is out here. It's very noisy, but we can't hear it. I think the neighbours are well insulated too, so they don't hear it either. I hope. May 1999 Here's another view of the back of the house, looking towards the right. Nothing special. May 1999 This is the right side of the house. The two windows at the top open on to the two guest bedrooms. The window at the bottom is above our jacuzzi. The rest is a vast expanse of boring vinyl cladding. May 1999 Such a shame. I had the house so neat and tidy and then Anne came home and dumped her luggage everywhere. Such a mess. May 1999 This photo is for Evelyn. Just before she left, she was caring for two little plants. They were tiny little buds of green that had just pushed their way through the mulch. Evelyn wanted to hear what they became. Well I nurtured them for her. That's a lie. I ignored them. It rained, lucky for them, and they grew and grew and this is what they are now. I have no idea what they will turn into, but if they get exciting, I'll keep photographing them and make a special Web page just for them. Well, that's a quick tour through the house, and outside the house. It's a nice house with plenty of room for us. We only use the ground floor, and we're keeping the second floor for guests. It's light and airy. It's got central heating and air conditioning, and now that I've experienced this at Bronwyn's and here, I'll never live in a house without it again. The fireplaces are nice. We've used the main one a few times and it's quite cosy. I don't think it generates much heat, but it's a glad sight for a pyromaniac like me. We still haven't managed to light the fireplace in the bedroom yet. The pilot light went out when they turned off the gas in the transition of ownership, and we can't find where it is.