Our New Flat and the Dungeon.

Shellie and I and three other friends got together and decided we need to get a place to ourselves. We began the flat hunt. After a few good flat viewings, being disappointed when we missed out; and a few terrible flat viewings and counting our lucky stars that we can afford not to have to put up with that level of filth; we found a place in Wadestown on Weld St.
We spent an exhausting Saturday moving in and then over some celebratory beers we fittingly came up with a name for our house “The Forge”.

The forge is the perfect residence for us at this stage of our lives. Each of us has a large enough bedroom. There is enough parking space for our cars and the scooter. There is a space out the front of the house ideal for BBQ’s and sun bathing. The location in Wadestown is close enough to everything, plenty of fast food eateries, a dairy, a bus stop, a taxi stand, and only a five minute drive to the city. There are plenty of green spaces nearby including the Ahumairangi hill, perfect for weekend runs, and Trellisick Park, which has plenty of walking tracks and picnic spots.

The property also includes a space beneath the lounge which had been neglected and deemed a spot for rubbish storage. When I first saw this area of the house I was excited, I could make excellent use of such a space.

Halfway through sorting the junk and adding my own belongings

I spent the night of Wednesday cleaning out the space which has the flat has dubbed “the dungeon”. There were all sorts of lost treasures and junk buried in there. Old benchtops, doors, a bed base, pieces of a couch, a mirror, timber, shelves, a sink, a playstation, a creepy music box, gardening tools, a watering can, storage bins, the list goes on.

A creepy music box

A big mirror

The first thing I did was using a scrap of GIB clear away the masses of spider webs throughout the space. I stacked all of the wood in a corner, out of the way. I didn’t bother to remove the rubbish and other junk, but I did stack it neatly out of my way.

Accumulated cobwebs

Next I gave the place a good sweep. There was years of dust piled up across the floor, hidden within every nook and cranny, and throughout all of the shelves. I just swept it under the floorboards, as underneath is the ground; dust is dirt so to the dirt with the dust.

As the tidy up continued

All along the front wall of the dungeon is a huge display of shelves, these provide the perfect space to put all of my D.I.Y. bits and bobs, and things I usually put in the garage.

Storage and Workbench

The dungeon provides a space for my belongings which I don't mind getting dusty, this includes things like Outdoors equipment, ropes, tents etc.

The mountain of rubbish which previous tenants left behind.

As it is a long room it is ideal for small target practice. I have a toy BB gun and the space is ideal for shooting cans with the gun.

One of the flat mates  has a dart board which he has allowed to be setup in the dungeon. I measured up the hooks and then put a couple of nails into the wall studs. I hung it on the wall and it provides an excellent environment to practice accuracy with darts.

A beautiful piece of artwork.

A couple of things that I haven't gotten around to are fixing the air ventilation system which has been poorly attached and even more poorly duct taped. So with a friends help I'll do a better job of taping it.

Fantastic Ventilation; Yeah Right!

There are also a few wires that hang down from above my head that lead to the lights and other electrical outlets, I want these well away from my head space so that I don't pull them down, removing the light source in there or electrocuting me.

It's my space and I'll put what I want in it

Ultimately the dungeon is a space for me to play with my tools. I am always looking for projects to do with which I can use my tools, I stapled some pieces of cardboard to the wall so I could write up my upcoming projects and have them in front of me as a reminder. I have a few projects planned, so watch this space updates.

D.I.Y. Painting a Mural.

Shellie And I on holiday in the far north of NZ

In my first year at University I left home and moved in with my partner Shellie. We were soon told that a small two bedroom house could be our house while we study if we did the renovations; and so we did.

Myself painting the fine details.

Diamond the cat chilling against a pre painted house

When the uni holidays came about we set to work emptying the house of all furniture, old paintings, and other crap. We set to work sanding down all of the walls and rafters.
We painted the interior of the house a light grey; a change from the sour yellow it was.
All of the rafters were painted white. We then had a number of feature walls; in the main bedroom we put up red striped wallpaper, in the living area we painted a burnt orange and in the bathroom we painted sky blue. As well as this I decided I wanted to paint a mural.

Burnt Orange feature wall in the dining room

Red and grey striped wall paper feature
wall in the bedroom

Blue feature wall in the bathroom









I set to work measuring the front bathroom wall. This was the best spot for it as it doesn't initially stand out, yet as you sit on the loo you can contemplate the artwork. Next I designed a simple layered image of a rock concert out of various silhouettes I found online. I chose a colour scheme that stood out and I printed the image. That was the easy part.

My final design which combines several silhouettes in to a concert,
made using MS paint.

The idea was a performer and
a crowd with some crazy lights
emmiting from the guitar.

Next I set to work with a measuring tape measuring out all of the points on the image to the wall. I drew the entire image on the wall in pencil and then I put brush to wall and began to add colour.

We got creative with the paint

The blank wall



An attempted splice so you can see the whole wall

Masking tape to guide the purple lines



This corner detail shows that several layers of the yellow
was needed to be effective.

What happened over the next few weeks was an amazing transformation of lifeless wall space into a colourful static performance. Each night when I had a break from my studies I would paint a little. As more colour made its way onto the wall the mural came to life!

There are still parts of the mural which I'd like to touch up, for instance, the masking tape around the heater has been there for years now but I'm no rush to take it off; there's also a spot that doesn't line up perfectly but I'm probably the only one who notices it as I look at it each day.

Putting my feet up, it doesn't all have to be about work.

It has come to the stage where we are soon to move out of our little house on the hill, but no word has been said as to the fate of the mural. Fingers crossed it survives. I like to believe I've added value to the house rather than reduced value.

My completely imperfect Rockstar mural.