Scheming

I've been scheming about my lounge room for a while now. Scheming + child at home with gastro + EBAY = grand plan.

Imagine if you will my lounge room. (Wrong wall but you get the gist.)

Add one of these, painted glossy white.

And my new purchase, painted white.

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Wow!

Our hardworking double team of Paul the Painter and Alex the Builder have produced fantastic results over the last week. So far we have seen our kitchen move one huge step closer to completion and it's heaven to look at a fully painted wall instead of a motley arrangement of colour samples.

The cutting in begins

You might remember the debate I was having about choosing to continue our green theme or paint the kitchen white? The final decision was to go with the green and we are very happy we did, it looks wonderful.

Here the wall was beginning to take shape. Notice there is no masking tape? Paul doesn't use it because he is so skilled that he somehow manages to paint exactly to the edges. It's amazing to watch.

 Finally this corner starts to look like it matches up.

And here's the final product. It's just wow, that's the only word I have.

Now for the next important question. What should I use to cover the large sliding door?

Paul the Painter

We've been very lucky this weekend to have Paul the painter join us. He painted Big Boy's room years ago and thankfully his normal work has slowed down enough to allow him some time working for us.

He spent the day painting the window 'bits around the outside' (I have no idea what they are called.) They've come up a treat and we are very happy with the progress.

Tomorrow we are being visited by Alex the builder. If we have Paul and Alex working at the same time we might just get this house one step closer to completion.

Shot of lounge room window surround freshly painted. You can also see our new cornice in the picture.

Advice needed

This lamp is what $12 buys you at the local tip shop. I need to work out what kind of shade to put on the top  and I'm willing to buy a shade and cover it myself.

What shape do you think the shade should be? And what colour fabric should I use? (The lamp base is dark brown and it will be staying where it is so it needs to match nicely with the room.)

Wet weekend

It's been a very wet period here in Brisbane and I've noticed a lot of other bloggers have used the time to get organised. It's so rare to have this kind of weather here that most of us would normally rather make the most of the day rather than declutter or organise our homes.

I absolutely love the rain and I'm enjoying wearing comfy jumpers and staying inside. I'm not enjoying the mountains of washing that are waiting for me though.

So what have we been up to here? Well I've been organising, decluttering and rearranging. My two main projects have been my lounge area and new 'library' space. I'll share the lounge pictures today and the library tomorrow.

This cupboard was given to us by a friend who had been asked to store it for a family member. Said family member never came back and the rest is history. Total cost to us $0. It's been hiding in my laundry waiting for        space to be ready in the lounge. The nicknacks I've collected over the years and I'm so grateful to now have a designated area to display them.

Note that the cupboard colour is exactly the same as the window? Once the window frame is painted white I think it will pull together nicely.

Frustration

I've been frustrated lately. And down. So I decided to a. stick up for myself and b. rearrange the furniture. The results have been a two-fold success. I'm back blogging and life is alright again.

Green or white?

I have a rule that I never share pics of my kids on my blog. But all rules are meant to be broken right?

I'm sharing this one for two reasons:
1. Because Tiny Girl looks so lovely
2. Because we are going to be painting the kitchen this weekend and I'm having an internal debate with myself about colours. At the moment the kitchen walls are bare and the lounge room is green. I'm tossing up between painting the whole house a creamy-white (more white than cream) or just using the green and continuing that colour scheme into the kitchen.

What do you think? Do you like the green?

Boys!

I'm in need of a big dose of happiness today so I've scoured the computer looking for something to share. Here's what happens when you ask a 5 year old to clean up his toys. (Photo taken Oct 09.)

Things I love

Here's a picture of a little area of our home that I love. The shelf was purchased from our neighbour's garage sale and was originally part of a table (?). I think it looks great hanging on the wall on it's own.

The lovely print is part of the Fisher Girls series by Harrison Fisher. I found this one in an op shop for around $10. It's a pity it wasn't an original painting or I may be retired now!

The long and the short of it

As I've grown a bit older I've noticed that I have developed a real problem with size perception. I was never excellent at maths, but I certainly wasn't stupid either. However, I think that it must be a case of 'use it or lose it' when it comes to mathematical principles.

My main problem relates to estimating sizes. If you tell me an item is 3 metres long I'm probably going to 'see' an item either half or twice its size in my mind. That's why the mirror in the picture is not in our bedroom. Despite analysing the sizes listed in the ad for the mirror my mind decided that it would be perfect to fill up the space above the fireplace in our bedroom. On picking it up however I quickly realised that I was very wrong. It's almost laughable exactly how far wrong I was. But never mind, it looks good there don't you think?

The picture also displays my newly done up desk (remember it?) Instead of my plans for a quicky paint job The Gas Man had other ideas. He spent the best part of last weekend sand-blasting the legs and handles and spray painting the rest. It looks fantastic, albeit WAY too small for my idea that it would become our new desk. It has found a home as a laptop table for the time being and I love it nonetheless. 

(Please excuse non-painted walls and windows, it's a work in progress.)

Looking up

I've been busy snapping away, trying to capture those interesting parts of the house that readers may like. Of course I've now run out of batteries, so stay tuned for pictures of our recent tree removal and the gripping tale of 'Tree Guy.'


Until then I thought I'd show you my light. We have four of these in a row in our new lounge area. I love them but boy were they hard to pick out. Once again we had to make sure that we stayed in keeping with our traditional theme and I had to make sure I didn't yell out 'sold' when we were shown all the glorious chandeliers. All is not lost though- I'm hoping to get a chandelier for our kitchen area. Stay tuned for that argument negotiation.


Oh and before you ask- no we don't have any architraves yet. Of course those are another job waiting to be done and as we are trying to match the gorgeous ones that are upstairs it may be a while yet before we have enough money, order them, wait for them and finally get them installed. 

Here are the beauties in all their glory.

Pretty picture 1

Pretty Picture 1

Here's a pretty picture, please tolerate the photography I'm hoping it will get better the more pictures I take.