New Obsession - Sarah Richardson

I, like alot of people probably, daydream about either building a home from scratch or buying an old house and doing a full on renovation.

Currently Mr Mel & I live in a gorgeous 100+ year old Federation house, at the time we bought neither of us were really ready to take on a reno, Mr Mel had just quit his job in Sydney and was starting his own business, from home, I was working 60+ a week, plus we were heading down to Sydney just about every weekend.

So finding our lovely home, fully renovated, with only a few tweaks required, was perfect for us.

HOWEVER, I still have my daydreams, well more than daydreams, I know we'll either build or renovate one day.

And until that day looms, my new obsession is

Sarah Richardson has a couple of shows on Foxtel's LifeStyle HOME - Sarah's House is the one I love, I've only seen half of the series where she has purchased a stock standard developer/builders house off the plan, and is upgrading, designing, decorating, as the house is built.

Of course the budget is way out of anything we could ever do, but the ideas and inspiration are endless.

Not the series I'm watching but typical of Sarah's style - love it!

LOVE this ensuite, the antique mirrors on the doors of the vanity are gorgeous!

In other news, we're heading off for an ultrasound now, to see if bubs has turned out of transverse, I'm not hopeful as I can still feel a head under my ribs, but we shall see!

Till next time,

Friday On My Mind - 15 - storage sorted!

On my mind this chilly Friday morning, our built-in robe in the 2nd bedroom are finished (almost) yay!!!

Following on from yesterdays post, the builder finished off the built-in robe in our 2nd bedroom yesterday, now all we need to do is paint the timber trim at the top, and have them back to re-align the 2 middle doors.  He said  because they are so large, they will drop once hung, which they have, at the bottom there is about a 6-8mm gap, at the top they are flush, so he'll hopefully be out today/Monday to get the weight/hang spot-on.

built-ins at end of Day 1

built-ins at end of day 2, just need to paint the trim at the top and get the middle rehung

end of day 1

end of day 2

love the door finish, much nicer than the built-ins in our room! hmmm

Very very happy, now I can finally unpack things and give them homes, instead of being stuffed in moving boxes for the past, say 10 or so years!!

Did I say yay?  :)

Till next time,

Thanks to Rhonda from the Down To Earth blog for her 'Friday On My Mind' idea, it's a gem, I've clicked through comments on numerous blogs on Rhonda's list, and on my own, and found some great blogs which I'm now following, and looking forward to discovering many more!

Yay more storage on the way!

When we moved into our home almost 2 years ago (17 July 2009), I bought with me several (ok well maybe 20!) boxes of 'stuff' that I had been dragging from house to house over the previous 10 or so years, during my never to be repeated (hopefully!) rental life!

Over the past 2 years I have gradually been going through the boxes, giving away what I no longer needed/want, and repacking into fewer (say 8!) boxes, and storing them in our 2nd bedroom and garage.

Our home is 3 bedrooms, but only the main has built in robe, the only other storage in the house is the linen cupboard, then the garage.

So we decided we wanted to get built-ins put in the 2nd bedroom, which (gods willing) will be our future kids room.  We had a local guy come and quote, he was great, very down to earth, great reputation, and reasonably priced, compared to getting a crew from Newcastle or Sydney.

We confirmed the work about 5 weeks ago, and yesterday the install began, woohoo!

These are a couple of dodgy pics form my phone, when I got home last night, the builder was back at 7.45am this morning, and according to Mr Mel he's currently 'working like a trojan on it'.  So hopefully when I get home tonight it will be all done! And I will take more pics tonight.

So not only do we get much needed storage, hopefully we have added some value to the house, now with 2 bedrooms with substantial built ins!

We have the built-ins going across the width of the room, up to about a foot below our 12 foot ceilings, we didn't want to ruin our lovely ceilings, so are stopping short, and there will be a decorative edging at the top of the robe, that will finish it off nicely.

Oh and ignore the hideous blue paint, the previous owners had painted it blue and cream, for their two young boys, I shall be changing that later this year!

Till next time,

New Kitchen Partway Done

We have been in our home for 2 years come July, and since day 1 we have wanted to change some aspects of the kitchen, especially the fan/light.  As you can see we weren't starting from a good place.

Lovely...........not!

The above 'lovely' light isresident in each of the 3 bedrooms (on the 'to replace' list), and in the kitchen, yes I know, why why why the kitchen!

The one in the kitchen was doing our heads in, due to both it's ugliness, and lack of light providing, so we replaced it about a year ago, we wanted to keep a fan, to help both with cooking heat, and the general heat in the house during summer, the kitchen is open plan to the lounge, and can get very warm, and with the aircon being pricey to run, a fan is a better option.

We went with a brushed aluminium finish fan with a central light, from Rovert Lighting at Rutherford.

As the timber in the kitchen is quite dark (for now, reno pending!), we wanted to add some more light, so added a row of 3 brushed aluminium directional lights over the sink, similar to these but with brushed aluminium covers, not the opaque white

Kitchen - a week before we moved in, the hutch to the right went with the previous owners

Eventually we will renovate the kitchen, well at least replace the doors, in a lighter colour.  So far we have had an island bench made (not pictured above), in a creamy colour gloss (cafe cream) with a creamy ceasarstone top, colours below.

Almond Rocca Caesastone - island bench top, eventually use on all benches

Polytec Cafe Cream Gloss - island bench doors/drawers/walls, eventually to replace current kitchen

We picked up a couple of stools for the island bench from Ikea, a Sebastian Bar Stool, a bargain at just $39 (on special), the chrome look legs, timber seat with creamy white laminate top and bottom/back mix in well with our future plans, and still look good with current kitchen.

Sebastian stools from Ikea

We like the current tiles, and they're in great condition, with the previous owners only putting them down about 2 months before we bought it!

We're still considering what to do with a splashback, if we run the caesarstone up as a splashback or go for a coloured glass one instead.

Our full kitchen renovation (including new oven yay and a dishwasher triple yay) probably won't happen until early/mid 2012, as it's functional as it is, and with alot of expenses coming up over next few months (wedding, honeymoon!), we don't have enough funds to do everything at once. So stay tuned!

Till next time,