the guest nest is back! :: linda and paul’s nest

 

The Guest Nest is back! I’m very excited. I have some lovely nests to show you over the year and quite a few of them will be local-to-my-area ones. That means LOTS of real life sticky beaking around for me. What a bonus!

My very first Guest Nest for this fresh new year is very close to my own heart. Actually you couldn’t get much closer. Next door in fact. These are the same lovely neighbours who have brought me bunches of flowers, shared their seeds and seedlings with me and who pump our water. They are the all round wonderful neighbours and now I get to share them with you via their gorgeous nest.

So pop the kettle on, get yourself in a comfy chair and settle in for a lovely nesty tree-change story…

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This is the lovely nest of Paul and Linda who live next door:) It’s a sweet cottage with all the mod-cons though it hasn’t always been this way.

 

 

This is also Linda and Paul’s house - before the renovations started. Paul doesn’t like to refer to the work done on this nest as renovations though, it is a full re-build, for sure. But let’s not start part way through the story. Let’s go back a little bit, before this nest was ever even thought about.

 

Before this nest Paul and Linda lived in the Blue Mountains. For 15 years Paul travelled up to 4 hours a day for work. The children had moved on and Paul and Linda started feeling the urge to move to land where they could live a more sustainable lifestyle. So, around about 4 years ago, the hunt for a new job for Paul and a new lifestyle for both of them, began.

Linda spent a lot of time looking for jobs that would suit Paul’s qualifications. She looked all over Australia. Then, one day, she found a job advertisement that sounded like it might suit Paul. A job with Bega Cheese, right in the heart of dairy country – the Bega Valley.

Linda and Paul had always loved the south coast but they had never seriously considered it as an option due to the lack of industry down here. But 6 weeks later Paul got the job and their life in the Bega Valley began.

They moved out of their Blue Mountains home, which they eventually sold, moved into a rental property on the outskirts of Bega and then began their search for something they could sink their teeth into and have the sustainable lifestyle they’d been dreaming of. Their nest hunting began with a view to buying a vacant block of acreage that they could build a straw bale house on. After spending quite a lot of time looking at acreage around the valley they couldn’t find anything that met all of their requirements, within their budget.

Their dream property had to:

· be north facing block

· be gently sloping

· have good soil

· have a good water supply

One day they came across this old girl.

Their criteria never did include an old, run down cottage but this property did meet all of their other criteria fitted the bill to a tee! So after much research and lots of planning, Linda and Paul decided that the old girl had good bones and a nice feel and so they made the decision to enter into a year of blood {hopefully not too much!}, sweat and I’m sure, not too many tears, to make this place a cosy nest that they would love.

Everything was stripped right back. The walls were pulled off, re-insulated and put back. The whole house was re-stumped and from looking at that photo, I think they made a very wise decision:) The floorboards were lifted, cleaned and put back. The bathroom, laundry and kitchen are all new along with the verandah.

Some of the walls and ceilings had original pressed metal on them which Paul and Linda re-used. They also sourced some more pressed metal from an old derelict farmhouse up the road which they painstakingly restored and used in other areas of their nest.

This was certainly a labour of love. Everything was a challenge in this rebuild because not a thing was square. Linda says gap filler became her new best friend and she feels that they kept the gap filler supplier well in business.

That was then.

 

Let’s take a look at their rejuvenated version.

 

 

 

It’s so easy to see and feel, when you first step foot into this gorgeous cottagey nest, that the heart of this home is most definitely the kitchen. Linda loves to cook. She says the kitchen was a compromise between a country farmhouse look and one that meets commercial kitchen requirements and I think that she has done a wonderful job in blending the two. Both Linda and Paul plan to sell produce from their garden and orchard at the local markets so the commercial elements were really important in this kitchen.

 

 

Linda loves working in this space. She spent many hours designing and planning and re-designing the layout to meet her kitchen needs. Linda’s ideal kitchen is one where the whole family {when they come for visits} can get in together and cook up a feast. That, for Linda, would be her ideal way of spending an evening. This kitchen definitely meets those needs and she’s wrapped with the end result.

The kitchen window is so sweet. It reminds me of my old kitchen window, sink and tap at the Purple Nest:)

 

 

 

There are lovely feathery pieces all around this nest. These canisters are gorgeous. But wait, there’s more...

 

 

 

More gorgeous canisters. And bowls. And jugs. And plates. And pretty things all about.

 

 

Next up is the dining room ...

 

 

Which is also filled with lovely feathering pieces.

 

 

 

Through the kitchen and dining area brings us to the main living space.

 

The firescreen is a William Morris design. Linda planned to have William Morris wall paper in this space but the pressed metal won. The firescreen is Linda’s hint of William Morris:)

 

 

 

 

In another life, Linda worked in an antique store. It’s not hard to tell is it?

 

 

Flowers fresh from the garden. I spy Pierre de Ronsard there.

 

Onto the bedroom now.

 

What a lovely tranquil space it is too. This once was 2 smaller bedrooms but Linda and Paul decided to make it into one big one with a walk in robe.

 

 

A pretty chandelier is a gorgeous feature in the main bedroom. That and Coby the dog:)

I needed to ask Linda a couple Feathery & Nesty style questions, of course. Here they are:

What’s your favourite spot in your nest?

She has a couple. One is sitting right by the lounge room window in her Grandma’s old rocking chair with her knitting while listening to classical music. The other spot is on the verandah with a cup of tea and some binoculars enjoying the view over the wetlands and spotting the odd bird or gazillion.

 

 

 

I also had to ask her what her favourite feathery thing is?

Linda said that she has lots of favourites but the top two would be the old railway clock which was her Dad’s and her handmade quilts.

 

 

Outside we go ...

 

 

Linda and Paul’s property is being established as we speak. They have already set up a fantastically productive vegie garden, fruit orchard, nuttery, grape vines {already there thanks to our estates old winery past}, the beginnings of an olive grove and chooks. The dream of living a sustainable life is well and truly on the way to becoming a reality for this lovely couple.

 

 

This is the chook pen that Paul built. It’s insulated and cosy and has the cutest chookie door I’ve ever seen. It even has a door knocker.

 

 

 

This nest is filled with hard work, lots of love and absolute dedication to providing a sustainable lifestyle for Linda and Paul. They have achieved so much in a very short 2 years. I can’t wait to see how it all grows and develops over the next few years. I’m thinking it’s going to be a little slice of earthly heaven.

'We love this house, it has a warm feel about it, and although not finished, we are pleased to have given it new life.

It reminds me of my grandmother, a no fuss, no frills, hardworking country woman, always there with open arms and a warm hug.

That to us is home.’ Linda and Paul

 

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Thank you so much, my lovely neighbours. It was such a treat to sticky beak around with a camera this time;)

 

 

Thank you too, Coby for all of your co operation, bed hiding and making the photos look cute:)

 

Kim x

Oh my goodness! I have had the most frustrating glitches using windows live writer this week. I don’t know if it’s my updates or what it is but it has taken me 100 times longer than normal to get a post completed. Agh!!! So, this post should have been out yesterday for January but alas it wasn’t to be. 1st of February it is so we’ll be having two Guest Nest’s in the one month.