Where the Wild Things Are.

ha!

It's just our living area.  Just our living area?  Holy Heck!  I want to live here.

When I downloaded these photos I took the other day ( like, only after 6months since
we moved back! ), I kept running down from my office to say to the husband:
"OMG, you should see these pics, I want to live in this house!!!" ..
I felt like Cindy Crawford when she said "I Wish I Looked Like Cindy Crawford."

Because, sure this is my house, and yes, I sure do live here and yes, I love love love it ..
but hell, I cleaned all afternoon on the day I finished work for the year ( the day before
Christmas peeps .. I haz been busy ) and the kids had to either be in their room or OUTside.

Normally, the benches have plates and dirty cups on them and the coffee table is covered in Lego.
The dining table has mounds of newspapers and paperwork.  Yeah, it's quite the picture.

So finally, here I am again.  Amazed when I realised the last time I felt so free and happy
was this time last year .. FREE TIME!  Pictures for ME!  Excellent, excellent, excellent..




^ Coming down the hall into the combined living/cooking/dining area





^ You might remember I won a prize courtesy of Carpet Court which basically furnished
this whole room.  Divine, and so very very thankful x 




Shaggy rug from Carpet Court, lighting from Beacon.
Couch from Domayne, Cushions from Kaz, original print, stools and coffee table from
Boyd Blue, and original art canvas on the far wall is a Christmas Present to myself from
my artist friend Clair.







The green egg chair is from Replica Furniture in Qld.




It is divine, and I just love that I have finally photographed it.
Life got pretty busy since we moved in and basically, these holidays are our first chance
to enjoy it all.



Behind the kitchen is the open entryway to the pantry/laundry. 
I love the shallow open shelves and how it opens up to my kitchen garden :)


I am so happy with how it all turned out :)

Xx
Lea

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• And now .. with Furniture ...
• Home Art

Double-Denim?

I mocked this up in Photoshop last night, using an i-phone pic of the stacked tiles,
a jpg of the cement pendants, and a rather careless blob of grey in place of the stainless
steel under-bench kicker.

Probably could have tried a bit harder there.

Also threw in the exact oven/stovetop ( it's a freestanding all-in-one job ) and a tap
that looks like the tap I bought.





The problem?

Wellllll .. it's hard to tell here .. but is there enough lift?

Friends on facebook suggested black pendants, but I am sooo in love with these. 
I also think the stacked tile suits the great expanse of splashback there.

( 10 minutes later - blogging in real time, folks )




Ok, so added some "stuff" .. perhaps I can break up the splashback by adding a couple of shelves.
Pretty impractical for herbs, but I like the green.

But I do NOT like the brushed steel.  It's very .. disco ... hmm ...  I think  it would be darker
than this??





Finally, above, I *LIKE* this .. BUT .. I think the splashback is DARKER, hence, do I need
the pendants to be darker??  Secondly, these pendants do NOT come in a darker shade,
which means a shop return and buying something else in black.  Which I don't want to do
( because these are soooo beautiful ).

I like the darker kicker....


You'd think i'd actually think about stuff BEFORE building a kitchen, huh?

Suggestions, and stockist advice most appreciated!!


xx
Lea

Utility Room of My Dreams..

I need a name for this room .. it has so much goin' ohn





It's a laundry, it's a pantry, it's my linen closet, where the cats will eat, a mudroom ( kinda ), a place to dock and recharge your mobile devices, a wrapping station, a bar for parties ( because like, we totally party all the time )

It's missing a matching laminex top on the other "laundry" side of the room atm.  It's sitting in the kitchen and i've noticed a minor chip, so i'm suspecting that is the reason.

I've photoshopped in the lights and the mirror on the pic to the right .. just playing around.. thinking..

And although you probably can't see it, I came to realise recently that in part, I was inspired by one of the most amazing Wine Bars/venues/cafes/anything I have ever had the pleasure of visiting.

Because although mine is a sanitised, clean, sparkly bright version, it still reminds me of France:





The Café de la Promenade to be exact.

And apologies to almost everyone ( the vegans, the animal liberationalists ), but have you ever had a hamburger made with seared fresh foie gras?  Because I have never tasted anything more amazing in all my life.

It is the house burger (le hambourgueil maison) and it literally blew me into the next room.
Which was their dark musty cellar.  Sensory overload.





Despite visiting many fine places in France and seeing many interesting things, this Christmas past I made an entire photobook for my husband just.of.this.cafe.  It's that worthy.  You can see it here, but the little pics don't do justice like the big printed coffee table book, where I can almost taste the wine.. and the cheese..

It also made it easier than selecting from 50million photos from all over the place to make the print deadline, but hey... let's not draw straws, ok?

I'm even thinking I might use some of these images.. perhaps instead of a mirror I might do some photographic wallpaper in B&W ... hmm .. maybe .. but it may be too light for that .. we'll see..

xx
Lea

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Kitchen Tones

So since we last talked about the kitchen, I have:

- bought kitchen lights
- returned kitchen lights
- ordered new kitchen lights
- which I will probably exchange on pickup for different kitchen lights
- ordered a fridge
- cancelled a fridge
- picked a new fridge, but haven't ordered it
- gone from oiling my floorboards, to not oiling my floorboards
- changed the colour of my caesarstone



Hey, and that's only the kitchen.

Ok, so this is what's happening as of today:

Kitchen with Caesarstone NOUGAT countertops
White vinyl wrap cupboards with silver drawerpulls.  Same as my bathroom.
Platinum Micro Laminex peeking through from the laundry-slash-pantry
Beige Royal on the walls - totes boring I suppose, but we like it, and it's the colour I did in my other, finished rooms.

Appliances you can see are stainless steel.
Splashbacks are as-yet undetermined.
My overhead/overbench pendants are black, which I am considering changing to silver.  A bit of an unknown until they arrive/some cabinetry goes in and I make the sparky dangle them from the ceiling for my amusement. 

Now the underside of the island where you sit on your stools kicking the bench.  I want a contrast colour there .. which I will pickup in the splashback.  I'm thinking stainless steel ?  The sample above is something called DUROPAL, which sounds a bit like a laxative, but is more like a laminate.

But the thing is, I don't think I want a s/steel splashback.  I could tint glass I suppose, but I actually think I prefer the texture of tile over a flat smooth surface.  I went to the tile place the other day, but I hadn't looked at the below-island laminates them, so it was an aimless browse at best.  I'm pretty sure they had some tinted glass tiles that would work

As always, opinions and anecdotes appreciated! ...

Gallery Space

These pics are a little bit crunchy, but I just wanted to pump out this little mini-reveal into a space I am quite excited about.

 
 ^
the Space as it is now .. and an artist's impression ( ha! ) of future space ...


 Ok .. so this is a little alcove after you come in the front door.  it used to be the kitchen, and one day, about 5years from now, it will be an open stairwell.

I like it.  A lot. 




The amount of  perfect going into the house bothers me somewhat - sure I love clean lines and surfaces, but i'm also drawn to the quirk - textural interest .. imperfections, flaws..

Which, if homes are a reflection of their owners, then I think i'm pretty true to myself.

And I dreamed of this wall.
I trust my dreams implicitly.


Yesterday I found these metal letters.
Today I bought them.


I can't tell you how happy they make me.

Week 6 Update:

^
Looking into the butler's pantry-slash-laundry from the living area ( there will be a kitchen to buffer this look ;)

Yeah, I focused on the wiring cord as it said "Made in Australia"  *shrug*





^
The Wormy Chestnut arrived.

The builders think I have incredible taste and were all asking about it.
The last job they did was one of those 'my floorboards are so perfectly sheened and matching I might as well have bought lino".

I could stand around inhaling the scent of it all day.






^
and we have some framework! ta-dah!

Day One: Done & Dusty

So I wouldn't normally post two days in a row ( hold your horses, don't get too excited! ), but it seems the first day back from tradie holidays goes off with a bit of gusto...






Also, while I was there, I found the plans floating around in a wheelbarrow, so snapped a shot for people to get an idea where we are going with things.

Think of them as a guideline only though - there were compromises I had to make due to where the upstairs may one day go ( words like "load bearing" ), and things like that. Also, I hate the pantry/cabinets and laundry set-up, but figured i'd fix them later on, rather than do this back-n-forth dance with the draftsman, a dude who's probably not even aware that we are no longer communicating.




So it's pretty basic I guess, but will make a big difference.
I'm taking out the double doors that lead from the living to my office ( listed on the plans as "dining" ), and placing them out in the hall, which will have a nice continuity about it I think.

Massive WIR - yay! ( will be for 4 people though, until we go up )

Door to the boy's room will be moved to "under the stairs" as the old entrance will now be part of my WIR.

And a kitchen.

And that's it really!!


What do you think?  Now's the time to speak if you've got a suggestion!!


xx
Lea

The Tradies Arrive today

In fact, they got there an hour or so ago.

I am staying away, but i'll go have a peek this afternoon.


AB and I have been working on the old house for about a month now - mainly him, every night, after work, chipping, clearing, removing, rumbling.  It should save us a bit of money.  Yesterday was our last heave-ho, and I have to say, i'm happy to be at home today ( at the flat ) in my jammies.  Resting.

Here's some pics:


Firstly, to give you some bearings, the R/E brochure from when we bought the house, in 2006:





And the floorplan:





They couldn't sell this house, you know?
The pics look ok, but there was crap everywhere and people just walked around sneering and grimacing.  The owners also tried to save money by selling at Christmas when no-one was about.

Right after we bought it, the property market here went BOOM! and a condemned lot across the street sold for $250k more than what we had bought this only 6months prior.

Lucky.





Above: the old bathroom ( will be a WIR )

Below: the boy's bedroom.





Below:
Master Bedroom, main living area, and some kitchen rubble up the driveway.





Below:  the old kitchen, which will now be a hallway.





Below:  the old laundry, which will now be a butler's pantry/laundry off the new kitchen
( the middle pic is where I used to take my selfies .. hee hee :)





Below:  the Playroom, or according to the map above, a 3rd bedroom
This will now be my kitchen, and that doorway will lead into my butler's pantry/laundry.





So that's it for now.
Basically what happens next is the floors and ceilings come down.  That stupid playroom is the main reason for the reno - the way it cut into our usable space for no good reason.  However, it does keep the house up, so a steel beam is going in the roof to replace it.  We are also putting in the foundations for a 2nd story in the roof, which we can't afford right now, but since they have to take off the ceilings anyway, it makes sense to do that now.

This means, in 4yrs time, we can just pop in some stairs and a pre-fab 2nd story, and boom:  separate rooms for the boys before high school.  Neato.

Because, yes, even after this reno, we will still be a 2bedroom house, which is probably crazy by other people's standards.  I'm ok with that.


What do you think?
Feel free to offer me any advice, or discounts from your Uncle Dave.


xx
Lea

We're a Little Bit Posh

Invite for my Mother's Group. All boys.

Anyone with Bad Aim will be on latrine duty ..

New Bathroom

For those few who haven't seen it on flickr already.
And yes, there is no bath. We hate frikken baths here.

Of course, this meant the birthday baby received not one, but TWO sets of bath toys as birthday gifts. And no chance of hiding them away and repackaging for another lucky baby ( who does that ? me ? ) because when a 4yr old 'helps' unwrap, things are well and truly unwrapped.

Behold:

Yes, it IS awesome, and yes, we are WELL pleased. It is delicious.
Oh - and there is now a frameless glass partition/screen down the back for the shower spray - I suppose I should take an updated photo.

More photies here