bedroom update

It's been a long time between posts. Partly because there hasn't been much to post about, but

mostly because my beautiful Mum has been out here from Germany. She is

the most frequent reader of this blog, and since I had her here in person I didn't need to post.

We had such a lovely time: for the first time she didn't have to sleep on

the floor in the boy of the house's bedroom. What luxury to have a spare bedroom!

I loved showing her the house and we had fun fossicking for little treasures for the house.

Miss you Mum x x x

Last week the long awaited bedhead and valance from Heatherly Design arrived.

We chose the Richmond design in Catalina Storm fabric. It is fabulous, and all I can say is

that my iPhone photos of course don't do it justice. It makes the bedroom look very grown up!

New bedhead, cushions still a work in progress.

I have had the bedside tables for years - they have

some sentimental value and apparently used to be

bedside tables for patients at the old

Brisbane Private Hospital.

They are a little tall for the bed but I'll wait and see

how the room feels.

The two vertical beams behind the bed are very noticeable

in the photo but are not as obvious in real life -

that's where the door into our bedroom used to be -

I think they are structural supports and used to be the actual

doorway.

more bedhead detail

these are some photos on the wall to the right

of the bed - photos from 40 years ago (eek) of

me with my little brother. How I love those

photos, and they satisfy my need to recreate that

family feeling even though my family are far way.

on the other wall I have a family tree that

my Oma (german grandmother)

embroidered for my Mum - it has now

been handed on to me. I would love to embroider

one of these for my own little

family one day.

and this is what happens when you forget about curtains

and blinds, and then get too busy to do anything about it...

almost 3 months after moving in and we still

have this tasteful arrangement of sheet + painters

masking tape.

I can't believe I am still unpacking boxes..... we are getting through all the little jobs, but it is taking a lot of time, and life and work most inconveniently get in the way! We have almost finished the office downstairs which is good as the man of the house will be working from home, but the rumpus room still looks like a bomb hit it. We still can only park one car in the garage as there is "stuff" in there blocking the second car spot. Sigh.

Watch this space.

six weeks on ..... the good and the not so good

On the one hand I can't believe where the past six weeks have gone - probably something to do with the denial that comes from having to go back to work tomorrow - and on the other hand it feels as if we have been back in the old girl forever and this is just the way she always was. We are making a list of little things that we need our builder to come and finish off now that we have lived in the house for a few weeks and know a bit more how we are going to use the house. Compiling the list made me reflect on what things have worked well and what I would do differently - being such a novice to this whole thing.

We love the height of our kitchen bench tops. The standard is 900 mm and we had to convince our builder that we wanted ours at 950 mm. We are both tall and wanted to build a kitchen for us rather than for someone who might buy the house. It's the only thing we (politely) disagreed with our builder on - but I am glad we did.

I have had these antique scales for ages and love

having them on the bench

We have a rumpus area downstairs - I wanted polished concrete rather than tiles, and while it ended up being more expensive (doesn't everything end up being more expensive than planned) I love it: easy to clean, cool in summer, and looks great.

We have lots of storage space which is fantastic - especially for a Queenslander as they are notorious for not having convenient places to store all the day to day "stuff". It's much easier to keep everything looking neat when surfaces are clear.

The laundry chute still makes me smile every time I gleefully throw something down it (though boy of the house likes to throw "surprises" down there for me - the favourite this week was the toothpaste tube. Luckily it didn't make it into the washing machine....)

We maximised air flow and cross ventilation, and our longest stretch of verandah is along the whole north eastern aspect of the house. I never used to pay much attention to this sort of thing, and remember mercilessly teasing a friend of mine who used to turn up at open houses with his compass to check the orientation of the house. He has had the last laugh now though..... we enjoy lovely breezes and are relatively protected from the western sun.

this shot was taken just before we moved in. We leave the

little windows above the bi-fold doors open most of

the time to catch the breezes.

The timber features in the house are what I think makes it beautiful - I have previously posted about this - I am glad we included all of these features but wish we had more of them.

Some of the things I would do differently......

I think if there was ever a next time, I would pay a lot more attention to detail. We had a few issues along the way and if I had looked more closely at measurements they could have been avoided before we reached the building stage. Our main bathroom has ended up lovely, but it's a bit more cosy than I envisaged, and we almost couldn't fit a normal sized bath in there.

the bath is almost touching the shower screen

Our gas stovetop has been fitted to be very close to the splash back - it means that it is hard to fit a larger pan or Le Creuset on the back burners without it coming into contact with the tiles:

the space is about 2 cm. We didn't notice this until a few days

after moving in when we started to cook. It works but is

irritating when you are using a larger pot.

I had so much on my mind about the completion of the renovation and the move back in that I completely forgot about curtains/blinds/window coverings. We have been sleeping in the bedrooms with sheets or doona covers taped to the walls and window frames with blue masking tape. Not the homely look I was aiming for! The man of the house has an office downstairs - we wanted to save some money by getting ready made blinds for that room, anticipating we would get custom made ones in due course for the bedrooms. To our dismay we realised that the windows down there, along with the rest of the house, are a non - standard size. I love our windows, they are all timber and were made especially for us - but I hadn't realised or asked about standard sizes.....so we will have to get all of our blinds especially made. Another lesson learned.

our bedroom with window covering aka spare mattress

trying to block the morning sun - adds a certain "je ne sais quoi".

Large double hung windows are lovely but not

at 5:19 am with no blinds when the sun rises :(

We have frameless glass shower screens in all the bathrooms - they look fantastic but how can you keep them clean - other than cleaning them after every shower? Our builder recommended this product:

this is what they use to keep car windscreens so clean and

shiny in the car dealers. I am sure it would do the job but my little

inner greenie voice tells me that the chemicals can't

be good for you when you are exposed to them every day

in your shower. Maybe Shannon Lush has some tips?

decorating dilemma

It's funny, when you first move, you focus so much on unpacking the essentials with lots of enthusiasm. As time goes by there are a few remaining boxes and I almost can't bring myself to open them as I am over unpacking - but still have so many things I need to find. Like the iron.... I have been looking distinctly crumpled these past few weeks.

There is also an ever increasing list of little things to do - one of which is curtains/blinds (kind of urgent but $$$ so I am putting it off for a while) and the other is to get some light fittings for a small stretch of hall and the stairway. The stairway is my dilemma - it is quite a high space/void and is also quite narrow. I think a pendant would look great - but what style?

Previously in the old girl, we had quite old fashioned lights:

these were lovely back in the day.

I need to get organised and list these

on eBay. We have three of them. I'll add eBay

to my list of jobs.....

I have been keen to move away from this traditional style, but obviously don't want to go modern either. The internal stairs lead from the hall just beside the kitchen to the rumpus/family area downstairs. This area downstairs has a polished concrete floor and I am trying to give that area a functional but kind of industrial feeling.

this is the hallway at the top of the stairs -

the stairs are on the right

view up the stairs

view down the stairs to the

rumpus

void above stairs

it is quite a high space - and

quite soulless at the moment

One of the lights/pendants I have been looking at for a long time is the Iron Orb Chandelier from here - there are lots of other beautiful lights in A-M's beautiful store, but I can't find a home for them. The only problem I can see with the orb is that changing the bulbs would be very tricky given it would be hanging over a steep staircase.

Another pendant that caught my eye was this one - but it may be too modern/industrial, and also doesn't actually look that well made.

I love these - so funky.

Any suggestions are welcomed!

We have had a busy week this week. Boy of the house turned 7 - we celebrated quietly but will be having a small pool party next week - I have limited the boys to 6 in total as otherwise all the testosterone will overwhelm me and I'll have to have a lie down. We had lunch on the day at one of our favourite local haunts

Have a good week!

Happy New Year

January 1st. Inevitably a day of contemplation about the year ahead, resolutions

made and new beginnings. For me, I have vowed this year to

actually see more of my friends, rather than blaming work and home

for being "too busy" to catch up. We'll see how that goes......

In the meantime I have started some of my jobs around the house.

I posted a while ago about the Casala Casalino chairs that I found at my

beloved WAC:

I found five of these at the WAC and was

very happy last week to find another one here to bring

it up to a nice round number

I have read a lot online and in magazines about how to get these beauties looking

good again. They had already been painted so I couldn't follow the instructions

at Fun and VJs posted here. I have also read about getting them re-sprayed like

2Pak at a panel beaters - but it was going to be too expensive. I had even chosen a

lovely Resene Red for the job, but reality hit when I worked out how

much it would cost to get them professionally done.

I am not usually particularly good at this sort of thing, and confided my dilemma to the

lovely people at addVintage. They gave me some advice which involved sanding them

a little and then spraying them myself with this product:

Off to SuperCheapAuto I dutifully went

and bought about 20 cans of this. I knew I would

need a lot as my chairs are such a

dark colour to start with.

So here is the finished result on one of the chairs in our covered outdoor

area downstairs:

I have finished two of the chairs now. It's a steep learning

curve and I think the ones I do at the

end will be much better than the first two - they have a

fewtoo many paint drips from over enthusiastic spraying.

I bought some lovely fabric from etsy to make some

cushions - the chairs are very comfortable but it's nice to

have a bit more padding, and also I think the cushions will hide some

of my mistakes! I think I prefer the green but would

be interested in what you think....

Happy New Year everyone, and may 2012 bring you many

good things

xx

our aussie christmas day

We have had a lovely day celebrating Christmas with friends at home.

Looking back on the day, my overwhelming feeling is of gratitude -

grateful that we have such a lovely roof over our heads, grateful for

the delicious food we had, grateful to have such beautiful friends

to share the day with, and grateful to my

colleagues who worked today so that those of us with

younger children could spend time at home.

Merry Christmas!

the verandah neat and tidy before the guests arrive

Place settings - upside down as I can't rotate the

photo :(

pavlova - was gone in 60 seconds - the kids

inhaled it

trampolining - so much for the "only

one kid at a time" rule ....

backyard cricket - with the ubiquitous spotty dog

wanting a piece of the action

A nice end to a lovely day. Our lovely builder gave us

this bottle of champagne at handover and we wanted to

wait for a moment that felt right to open it.

The first Christmas of hopefully many felt like

the right time :)

F x

homemade love

When I was growing up in the UK and Germany, Christmas was always a big deal. A

large part of that, especially in Germany in the lead up to Christmas, was the food.

On the 4 Sundays leading up to Christmas we would have coffee, cake and Christmas biscuits,

and light a candle for advent. My mum always had a wreath made of real fir trees especially

for this purpose - there were four deep red candles, and to this day the smell of fir trees

transports me back to that time.

I have tried to continue the tradition of Christmas baking in the lead up to the

festive season. Usually I bake for my son's class so that each child gets a little gingerbread man -

I had to let that go this year as we were getting ready to move house in the last

week of term - so supermarket bought candy canes it was. But I have been revelling

in the new kitchen and have enjoyed baking with the boy of the house for friends and colleagues.

I always think there is something a bit special about making something yourself - it's like

lovingly cooking a meal for friends. It was a nice way to spend a few hours with the boy

of the house, without it involving trampoline or pool action....

boy of the house carefully measuring ingredients

sifting

some spice biscuits just out of the oven

little gingerbread man ready to go

two of my parcels with biscuits ready to be distributed

This year I have added a new recipe to my Christmas baking - shortbread with cinnamon.

Being half Scottish I was deeply sceptical about any messing about with

shortbread - why meddle with something so perfect - but Mum assured me that

it was fabulous. She is right. Recipe follows.

Cinnamon shortbread

225 gm butter, softened

75 gm caster sugar

225 gm plain flour

50 gm cornflour

1 tsp cinnamon (I often use more than this)

Beat the butter and sugar together, though not so much that they are fluffy.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, cornflour and cinnamon, then

add them to the butter/sugar mixture.

Press the mixture into a 23 cm shallow square cake tin and smooth the

surface with the back of a wet spoon. Prick all over with a

fork then chill for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 170 (150 fan forced) and bake for 55 min or until

pale golden. Remove from oven, cut into fingers

and sprinkle with golden caster sugar ( I usually don't sprinkle).

Leave to cool for 15 min in tin then finish cooling on rack.

Enjoy !

the art of carpentry

I love all the timber that is integral to the Queenslanders. It was inspiring to see the extension of our old girl take shape, and how the quintessential features like breezeways and archways help to make the new blend with the old. Wood must be such a wonderful medium to work with - I love the smell of new timber, and I think seeing something come together as you create it would be very satisfying. I love my current job but it has no real scope for creativity, and in idle moments when I daydream of alternate careers, I often think about carpentry. I would be hopeless of course, I am fairly clumsy (understatement if you ask my Dad) and would very quickly lose a thumb or an eye. But it's nice to dream .....

breezeway in the hall - apparently they were designed

to promote air flow into rooms and to keep cool. I just think

they look beautiful

we had a fire in the old girl with a gas fire in the hearth

we had to move it as the wall was demolished but

we retained it as a feature - our lovely builders

rebuilt the mantelpiece

looking down the hall from the front door - the

archway looks as if it has always been there but

it is a new addition suggested by our builder

to make the hall look more in proportion -

it now looks great

double hung windows at the front of the house

our builders made all the verandah railings by hand - it

was amazing to watch. Though they did tell me at the end

that it was their least favourite part of the project

as it was very labour intensive