welcome to brindabella

We chose the name 'Brindabella' for a few reasons...

One was that I wanted a name which represented or complimented my grandparents original farm here in Thorpdale, 'Ballina Park', so my first ports of call were 'B' words.  Another reason was that I wanted an Aboriginal word or term, and I also wanted it to flow with the other property names we have. A farm recently purchased (which has never had it's soil cultivated) and neighbours Brindabella, has been named 'Terrabella' - beautiful earth. 'Brindabella' comes from the Aboriginal term 'brindy brindy' but there are disputes as to what this actually means, some say it means 'water over rocks' and some say it has a reference to big trees or a wooded area, either interpretation is apt seeing as though at Brindabella we have beautiful stands of big gum trees and a new dam is to be built close to our house where we plan to spend many summers swimming and waterskiing. I settled on 'Brindabella Park' but then only really wanted one word, so simply Brindabella is was.

I debated whether to publish the hideous truth of our new abode, but my theory is that these 'before' photos are just going to make the 'after' photos that much better :)

The house is your typical post-war, 1950's weatherboard, tin roof farmhouse with three bedrooms, kitchen, lounge room, bathroom, hall/entrance, a sun room addition which we're using as a dining room and a sleepout/fourth bedroom off the back porch which I'm using as Little Miss Emma HQ.



The lounge room has got some *ahem* lovely plywood panelled walls in an almost black shade. Dark enough for you??! The whole house has dark wood trim, which I don't mind, ala Nicole's house, with big wide skirting boards. Bonus. The lounge room also has an art deco ornate ceiling which is quite nice, although it's not my dream federation-style, turn of the century-esque homestead, I am going to work with what I've got!

Many extensions and add-on's have been done by the family who used to live here, until my family bought the property about 10 years ago. Most of these add-on's are fairly obvious and don't seem to make much sense! Mr M and I joke that lamb prices must have been good that year, oh well let's tack on another room then! Here you can see the awkward space I have in the kitchen which I am assuming used to be a hallway? We plan to block the old wall back in, put in a sliding door and create a walk-in pantry. Like I said yesterday, grand plans!

Lucky for us a new bathroom was installed a few weeks ago. I'm disappointed I don't have a total 'before' shot, but nonetheless a new bathroom has definitely ticked a big box for me: simple, clean, white. Plus I get to have a shower curtain! This may not excite some but I have long been drooling over ones like this and this, only problem is our curtain rail is higher than standard, doh! Enter my trusty sewing machine and yards and yards of fabric I think...

The bedrooms are a good size with high ceilings and my favourite double-hung windows, a pain to restore and paint I know but so much nicer than the hideous aluminium ones we have in the kitchen and dining rooms. This room here is actually our study, the smallest of the bedrooms. As you can see some plasterwork has been done to repair a massive hole that was in the wall.

And that is our little home, Brindabella. Here is a glimpse of the garden after I attacked the thigh-high grass, this Sunday we plan to attack the garden a bit more so I will be back next week with a progress report, and perhaps something a bit prettier!