The adventure of trying to make a house a home that we built for our family of six plus some craft, home décor, recipes & any family fun we might have.

Monday 15 October 2012

Our To Do List....

For the last 12 months this little family of six has been using two clothes horses to dry all of our clothing and manchester. So when it comes to drying out towels and bed sheets the available space has been limited so I’ve been forced to use doors, dining chairs and even the highchair to dry things. So Mr Opoes and I were talking a few weeks ago about buying a new clothesline which was one thing we deleted from our house contract due to the fact that it was going to cost us $205 for the clothesline and installation.  That price isn’t too bad but it wasn’t for the size we wanted so we took it out.

So on this particular night we got on the Internet to start looking for the best deal we could find and for the biggest clothesline we could get. Easy. Wrong. We found clotheslines up for sale on eBay but unfortunately they were either the wrong colour, size or they were just too far away. So we then started looking at the local stores that stocked the particular size we were after. We had agreed on a Hills clothesline as this was the same one we’d had and loved at our previous house. The best price we found was $189.00 at one of the large departments store and we knew that they never reduced their prices because they had a bigger buying power than the small guys.

Like many things on our TO DO LIST they may get talked about but there is never any resolution as to when we will do something about it, if we can really afford to do it or if it’s really a necessity now to have that particular task completed now. One thing I did know was that it was becoming a necessity to get a clothesline outside, we needed this job done yesterday.

On the way to church a few days later Mr Opoes had grabbed the local newspaper to read in the car. He came across an advertisement for the local Hills distributor who was having a closing down sale and they had reduced their prices on everything in store. Unfortunately the sale had already been going for a week when we came across the advertisement and the store was closed on Sunday’s. As you can imagine we forgot all about it after that as we were a hundred percent sure that they would have sold out of everything by that time. So imagine my surprise when two weeks later Mr Opoes reads that the store is still having their closing down sale and they still have heaps of items for sale.

I quickly tell Mr Opoes to load the kids into the car, I send them off to find us a cream coloured clothesline that has at least 21 metres of line. They are gone for nearly three hours and I get to thinking that the shop has sold out of them and Mr Opoes has taken the child's to the park. Oh well we already know that we'll have saved $16 and we'll have to install it ourselves otherwise the clothesline that Coral Homes would have provided us with would have been a cheaper alternative.

Next thing I know Caelan comes running into the house yelling to me that daddy has done a great job and he saved us a lot of money. In that moment I could see that Caelan was so proud of his father that even if he'd managed to save $20 my son thought that his father was a hero. Mr Opoes arrives soon after and once all the yelling and joyous shouting stops he tells me how he went.

Mr Opoes had managed to get the last 21 metre, cream clothesline that they had left. Apparently when he arrived thirty minutes after the store had opened they had already sold four clotheslines so we were both really happy. Now Mr Opoes had also organised for his father to come and help us install the clothesline so that we wouldn't have to wait for a tradesman to become available. So we were doing really well and Mr Opoes had done a great job.

After feeding lunch Mr Opoes told me that he'd got a really great price on the clothesline and with him and his dad installing it we had saved $105. I was so impressed, I would have been happy to have saved $40 so now we have more money to put towards the landscaping that's going to coat a small fortune.

So yesterday grandma and grandpa come around for five hours while Mr Opoes, grandpa and I (I only did a little bit to help) but it all together. One thing that Mr Opoes realised when he opened the box was that they clothesline didn't come with instructions but the Internet helped with that issue. It was good because we don't like to have grandpa and all his heavy tools arriving at the house with nothing for them to do. I don't have many pictures to share as I didn't think of taking any pictures until the last few steps.

Wall bracket connected to the wall.

Both arms and brackets in place on the wall.

Mr Opoes connecting the front arm with his father (Grandpa).

Nearly there just pushing the last bit into place.

Its now after 6pm and the light has gone, the outside lights are on
and the mosquito's are out but we are 90% finished.

We also haven't threaded the line through the holes in the metal frame so I'll leave that until Mr Opoes can come home early one day and we'll work on that together. I won't take too many photo's of that process as it'll be boring. I do a before and after which I'll share with you later in the week when it's all finished. Mr Opoes and I realised last night after dinner that getting the clothesline to this stage would not have be possible without Grandpa's help and skills. So thank you grandpa for putting in our clothesline we will get lots of use out of the clotheshorseline for years to come.

Megan

2 comments:

  1. I wish I had a bigger close line, I feel like all I ever do is washing!

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    1. I'm with you on that one Anne. I remember just after we had our first child we washed about four times a week because we used cloth nappies. When baby number two came along we only washed once a week because we stopped using cloth nappies. Now with six of us we can easily do 10 or more loads of washing a week which is just too difficult for our little clotheshorse to handle. Thanks for stopping by.

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