Sneak Peek of Will's new room

It's coming together now and nearly ready for him to move into his new 'big boy' room! Hopefully he'll have his first sleep in his new room tomorrow night then I'll share the finished photos.

But here is a little sneak peek in the meantime...

 

 

 

 

Have a lovely Friday,

Enjoying the deck

I have really been enjoying our backyard and sitting out on the deck this last week. I think because I know I better take advantage of the sun and 'not too' cold weather before winter hits.

I took some pics with my new camera quickly on sunday after a lunch we had and thought I'd share them with you today.

This is my dusk chandelier. I filled the centre vase with the same pebbles from our new back pathway and bought some faux peonies to put in the centre.

Here is the new side path that we (Glen) made and a little picket gate to keep Will from wandering round the side and under the deck.

Here is my vase of homegrown roses I had in the middle of the table. They have really opened up now and look stunning. I love using my Grandma's lace table cloth to dress up the table.

And when it gets too chilly we just put the outdoor heater on and roast ourselves :)

Are you enjoying the outdoors? Or rugging up inside?

Have a lovely day,

Where is your TV?... a corner of my home.

I know it's a funny question, but where is your TV?
Do you even have a TV? Is it mounted on the wall? Is it in or on an entertainment unit? Do you have some sneaky way of camouflaging it?

Here is where we have our TV...

On top of our 1960's sideboard, which was handed down from my Grandma and stores all of our platters, glassware, silver, table linen etc. We really didn't have room for another piece of furniture so we've had to adapt to make the sideboard serve two purposes.

I love the old next to the new and the fact that I can make little vignette's of my current favourite objects to display.

Although it's not ideal as you have to try and hide all the cables that would usually be hidden in an entertainment unit.

Which is why I have little displays like this framed picture to hide the nasty cords.
BTW that is hand painted silk from India which Glen's cousin brought back for us as a Wedding present. The Elephant, Camel and Horse represent good luck, love and power.

And when we got the TV I tried to think of a way to sort of distract the eye from the big black square so I painted that long rectangular canvas to hang above it and it ties in the light blue colours of our lounge, it's no Mona Lisa but it does the trick.

Oh and before you assume that it was my husband who chose a big flat screen TV, think again.... it was me :) I love watching telly and there is nothing better than the crisp clear vision you get from a Full HD TV - hey I am a visual person :)

So where do you house your TV? Have you come up with some creative camouflage solutions?

I'd love to know!

Have a great day everyone,

A corner of my home: adding some pink

Here is a little look at my lounge room. I've added some pink to the room recently, what do you think?

My little model in his PJ's with 'Woofie' on his back. (Sorry the photos aren't great, just taken on my iphone and the light is a bit weird this morning).


Jenny from The Five Year Project blogged about a new cushion she got at Target in their cushion sale so I went to take a look and got two of the pink/purple/green flowery cushions at $14 each! They go quite nicely along side my blue and white Kas cushions I think - thanks for the heads up Jenny!

See the little green chair in the first pic? We were given two of them from our neighbours across the road. I plan to paint them white sometime. I had the coffee table custom made slightly higher than normal so that Will could use it as his dining/working/drawing table too. (Please ignore the sticky little finger marks on the coffee table).


I am using my Spotlight white metal tray to keep mags tidy on the coffee table and it also makes it easier to move them when Will eats at the table. And in the vase you will see the pink camellias from our Camellia tree out the front.


I also got these beautiful new placemats for the dining table from Louise at Illume Designs for my birthday! Aren't they beautiful? I was in need of new placemats so it's perfect and ties in with my new hint of pink!

Hubby hasn't made any 'too girly' comments so that's good, what do you think (honestly) it's not too girly is it?

Have a great Monday,

My Kitchen Makeover

Here is my kitchen makeover revealed. Its nothing too exciting and it's taken a while to get done but with pretty much $0 budget and doing it all by myself, I'm pretty happy with the changes.

I'll just quickly run you through what's been done:

• First up; removed the: curtains, cork board, the two little round tiles which were stuck to the splash back tiles as well as a really granny looking tile as well.
  
• Replaced the brown plastic handles with stainless steal ones
• Put in a dishwasher
• Painted over the wood panelling
• Bought two white bar stools to go under the bench
• Plastered, sanded, plastered, sanded then painted the cork boards in the left over blue paint we have which ended up matching quite nicely with the ugly lino floor tiles
• Made a new blind for the window
• Bought and sprayed white a cute little birdy hook to be a tea towel holder (there was no place to hang tea towels when we moved in)!
  
• Painted my wooden branch in a light brown to match the blind

I think that's it... I still want to find a new clock for the wall to replace the one we've got and there are a few little things like that which I will do later but it's taken me quite a while to get it as far as it is with other projects on the go.

So here are my before and after pics (before photos taken at house inspection) after pics taken this morning (you'll see the high chair, formula tin and other bits and bobs as I wanted you to see it as we live, not over styled just to look good for the photos).

before
When I took that cork board off the wall it left a big square on the wall where it had been - not a great look.

after
Replaced by my funny chalkboard which says 'Both of us can't look good at the same time, it's me or the house'
I want to replace that little shelf that the phone sits on and put about 4 matching little shelves above it to display things on. I just have to figure out how to build and attach it.

before
I put our microwave into the cupboard above the fridge as the spot where the previous owners had it took up too much bench space.

after

before

after

after
Our dishwasher.
I lived for nearly a year without a dishwasher (the hardest year of my life :) just joking. But we didn't think there was any space to put one in, especially since our bench tops are narrower than normal. But we had our builder make a little 'box' for it to sit in under the breakfast bar which isn't ideal but better than handwashing.

before
Ugly curtains for the 70s and drying rack hanging from the wall!!?!?!

after
My new blind I posted about a few weeks ago. And you can see the little birdies on the branch hook which was a cast iron colour when I bought it for $5 at Recollections.

before
There are the weird tiles above the stove and next to the toaster.

after
The new kitchen knobs made a world of difference.

before

after
The 'M' on the door which I painted the same blue stands for 'Minky' our cat as the laundry is his 'bedroom' :)
And that's the clock I want to replace (Glen wont want to hear that because he loves that clock).

before

after

So there you have it my kitchen makeover.
I hope you enjoyed this little look into my home, and on some exciting news... my bro and sister in law just exchanged contracts on a house a few suburbs up from us. So I'll be helping my sister in law with her big plans for the place!!!! YAY!

Have a great day,

My DIY blind

Do you remember this post where I got this material for sooooo cheap and planned to make a Roman Blind for the kitchen window, and you all convinced me that Roman Blinds were easy?

Well the thought of making the Roman Blind has been freaking me out a bit (I know, I know it's easy right?) So anyway when I saw the very lovely Tina's post the other day with the roll up blind she make for the little window on her front door, I got inspired!

So on Saturday I got to it and made a roll up blind for the kitchen. Take a look...

Sorry, not fantastic photos, the light has been bad the last two days.

I attached two sets of ribbons to tie the blind up with and I lined the material with a white calico I already had. I think I may get a slightly thicker stick for the bottom of the blind just to make it feel a bit sturdier. I made a pretend pelmet thingy like Tina did...

I painted my wooden branch in a light brown colour to match the brown going through the fabric. So all up I think it probably cost me around $25!!! Pretty good hey!

And just to give you a bit of contrast, here is a photo taken back before we bought the house, when we were just doing an inspection so that you can see the original cafe style curtains and the wood panelling and see, there was no deck...?


I am pretty close to finishing my kitchen makeover so when it's done I'll do a big post with all the before and after pics.

Anyway, what are you up to today???
The cold has taken hold unfortunately so lots of Vitamin Cs for me today :)

Have a lovely day,

Cherry Blossoms and Silver Trays

Do you remember this post where I showed you our hall table and said that I would like to get a little tray to put our mail and papers on to keep it tidy?

Well the SUPER duper lovely Lisa from Ledamae who I've also posted about before here, offered me one of her silver trays from her collection. I KNOW!!!! How sweet is she?!?!

And when Lisa emailed me pics of the tray and of other trays, she showed me how she had sprayed some of them white before. So I couldn't help myself I left the tray silver for about 2weeks then I just had to spray it white too and here it is....

Isn't the change amazing? I like both the silver and the white but I think the white suits my house better and really brings out the details in the edge of the tray. All you have to do is spray it with a spray paint which is anti rust, metal spray which has a self primer in it.

I bought a pretty paper weight on the weekend from Bed Bath n Table to go on it.


The little bubba hand in motions in the pic below gives you some idea of it's lovely proportions, not too big, not too small.


And the beautiful Cherry Blossoms in the vase in the photo above, I picked them from the edge of the bush near our house where there is a tree growing wild (not a very indigenous species to be growing in a National Park) but I'm enjoying them in our house!

See the pic below for where I have them sitting at the moment. The pink really pops against the blue wall.


So thank you once again to Lisa for her generous, generous gift I am in love with my new silver/white tray. And pop over and say Hi to Lisa if you haven't already at her blog here, especially since she's having a giveaway at the moment!

Have a lovely Monday everyone,