The Side Garden

It feels like work on the house has slowed down over the past couple of months with the approach of Christmas. We have been doing odd jobs like having fly screens installed on our stacker doors, gardening and decorating the house for Christmas.

We love our home and are looking forward to doing some more jobs in the new year - especially tiling in the alfresco, the backyard and furnishing some more rooms. I have also been a little surprised at the maintenance jobs already needed such as re-staining our wooden facade posts as the stain is cracking and chipping with the exposure to hot afternoon sun. Such is the nature of wood!

In the last fortnight my wonderful dad has come up to do some work on the edging for our side garden. This turned out to be a larger job than expected due to the slope of the block and the troubles putting stakes into clay that had dried like a rock due to the lack of rain. We contemplated many options for the edging but ended up deciding on tough, rough cut treated pine which will endure the elements over several years. Dad stained the pine in British Paints oil based 'jarrah' stain and it came up beautifully.

This is the before shot:

Our side garden gets morning sun and shade from noon so we decided to try some bright coloured, tropical looking plants that are mostly hardy and difficult for me to kill (this seems to be a frequent occurrence when I am involved in plant care). We have used guzmania and red claw bromeliads, broad leafed crotons, blue fescue grass and one peruvian lily (on trial to see if I can keep it alive!).

This is after (much better!):

Some of the plants look a little sick because I transplanted them front the front garden, where they were getting too much sun. We also intend to fill these garden beds with the same marulan white pebbles as the front garden.

The garden at the top end of the house is a really strange, narrow shape so it will be mostly rocks. I do have some snake plant (which is a broad leafed, tall growing grass) which I am thinking about putting into this top section for some greenery.

Very pleased with this neat and tidy look overall.

The Guest Room: Copper and Pastels

A few months ago I set out to furnish our main guest bedroom which has been a bit of a slow process. We live several hours away from my family so I wanted to special place for guests to relax and enjoy when they come to visit. We still have several empty bedrooms as it is only the two of us in the house. The design for this room began with a geometric pastel coloured print I picked up from The Minimalist. I love pastels, and pink especially but I didn't want our guest room to be too girly. To remedy this I decided to use pastel pink as a main colour in combination with grey, black and metallic features to give a more industrial look.

After many hours of internet surfing in search of the 'perfect' lamp, I came across a fantastic concrete and copper lamp by the guys at Rustic By Design (check their pages out on instagram or Facebook!). They very kindly mailed it interstate so that it could become the wonderful feature that it is in my guest room. After the lamp came the linen which is from the Aura range by Tracie Ellis and the side table from Adairs. I found some great art pieces by the amazingly talented Jai Vasicek from the Ahoy Trader store in Byron Bay and have clustered them together on the empty space between the windows. The print behind the bed is by Blacklist and it struck me as the sentiment is really lovely. 

The last piece of the puzzle was the stunning Eden bed which I had to have from the moment I set eyes on it! It took many emails and some detective work to track one down, as these beds have been sold out and on back order for months. It is probably a bit extravagant for the guest room but I just loved it. I've also popped a chair into the corner which was looking a bit empty and will be handy for bags or sitting to put shoes on. 

I hope you enjoy the photos of this room, I have certainly enjoyed designing it!

Sir Walter Arrives

After 3 long months of dirt and dust we finally got around to laying our grass. Well, technically we paid for the grass and my very generous parents provided the manual labour while we were at work yesterday!  I'm hoping the wait for spring will help our grass grow well and not go brown and dry. 

I'm really happy with our facade which is nearly finished now. Once the garden grows it will be much more lush and colourful, plus we will be adding some slatted colourbond gates on each side in white.

Next outdoor jobs are finishing the side gardens/landscaping and eventually tiling the portico/alfresco. 

Slowly but surely we are getting there! 

The Front Yard

My posting has been a bit limited over the past few weeks as we have done lots of odd jobs around the house but nothing has been entirely completed yet. We had McDonald Jones come back to attend our maintenance last week and the majority of issues we raised have been fixed now. I'm not sure how long some of the fixes will last, especially on outdoor items like the wood on our front poles but I suppose the reality is that things do deteriorate over time.

After lots of indecision we finally had our front garden bed edged using Kwik Kerb. It ended up being the simplest option as our block is too flat to require taller brick or masonry style edging. Our poor plants have had a rough time as we planted them and then had a week of torrential rain and flooding! We will give them a chance to grow and then fill in the gaps as needed. Our driveway is still looking patchy in spots (it has been super wet though) but the concreter assures us it will even out eventually. The colour isn't quite what I had in mind, but it's growing on me. I'm fairly happy with our front garden seeing as we have never landscaped or gardened. We are all booked to have the grass laid next week (finally) too! The backyard is being ignored for the time being... Let's face it, I am far more interested with the inside at the moment :) 

Here are a few photos of the front garden, which still needs another top up of pebbles. They aren't the best quality shots as it was getting dark when I took them.

Parrots, Pineapples and Palm Leaves: The Master Bedroom

Since I was a little girl I have loved parrots. At the age of 4 my best friend was a sulfur-crested cockatoo named 'Chook' and through the years a number of other feathered characters joined the mix. I was given a turqouise parrot figure for Christmas last year and that was the starting piece for the decor of our master bedroom.

If you have been reading the blog for a while I'm sure you also know that Hawaii is my happy place, so I wanted to bring these themes into our master bedroom. The brief for this room was something relaxing, contemporary and gender neutral. I have also been pleased to be able to source a lot of my decor items from some very talented Australian artists and craftsmen. 

I feel that there could be more to add to this room yet, but I am waiting until we finish the decking outside to get a final impression of the space. The blinds are closed in this picture as there is nothing but dirt, rain and a gloomy evening to see out there yet! 

The entry to our master runs from a short corridor off the dining room. This piece of art by Heisuke Kitazawa works well to transition from the yellow kitchen/dining area to the subtle greens of our bedroom. 

This is the first king sized bed I have owned and it is glorious. You can read the details on our furniture and ceiling fan here. Our pendant lights from Beacon were also a wonderful option that we accessed through our builder. 

Lately I have been going crazy for the wonderful creations of Jai Vasicek from Ahoy Trader. I was fortunate to track down one of his neon pineapple tiles before they sold out. 

This stunning limited edition print from the duo at Blacklist is another favourite. I picked it up from The Minimalist a couple of months ago.

Last up is our ensuite, which has just had some small accessories added around the bath and on the vanity. I am intending to put a glass shelf above the bath but am still a bit uncertain on how to attach it with steel frames... 

The Laundry Room

Let me start this post with a sincere thanks to everyone who visits the blog. It is now approaching 20,000 hits which is astounding! I thought you might all like a change of scenery so I have given it a little makeover.

Time is really passing quickly in the new house and we have continued on the seemingly endless journey towards furnishing and decorating. This week we have started some landscaping in the front yard and had concrete garden edging laid. We still don't have grass (much to the confusion of many in our neighbourhood) but are so glad we have waited it out for the start of warmer weather - all of the other new houses that laid their grass immediately have brown, dead looking lawns from the frost.

The room I have to share today has taken me ages to finish, despite its fairly simple appearance. I love a good bit of organising, and what better room to start with than the laundry. I've never been so pleased to do the washing! Naturally you can also see our trademark yellow brightening up this room (which runs off the living/kitchen area).

The fun in this laundry really starts when you begin opening cupboards...

I had a fabulous time with some cane baskets from Masters, scrapbooking paper and ribbon. I also picked up some stackable plastic containers from Big W for smaller items (thanks to the lovely Leanne at Lime & Mortar for the shopping idea on her blog). Everything has a place and this makes the perfectionist in me very happy!

Moving into the next overhead cabinet I have my laundry powder and peg tins (which were a bargain from Aldi) along with my favourite, all natural washing detergents and mattress protector spray from Adairs. These products are beautiful and smell so great. I'm looking forward to testing out the rest of their range. 

Hooked onto the door is a cute flip book of 'stain solutions' which I have laminated and put onto a key ring. Very handy advice for removing a range of stains from grass to red wine. You can download your own copy here.

This last item is my favourite and was only just installed this evening by Tom and myself (with much trepidation as we drilled into our cabinetry). This handy wire laundry basket from Tansel slides neatly in and out of our cupboard to hide away dirty laundry. Gone is the time of clothes on the floor and over-full washing baskets.

I really enjoyed decorating this room and there really are some great storage and organisation ideas options to be found on the internet. I hope you have enjoyed the tour!

Media Room Reveal

Oh media room how we love thee! Since moving into the house this is the room where we have spent the majority of our time. I'm excited to now 'reveal' the finished product to you. 

We had a difficult time finding a media room lounge due to the pop out that council insisted we have. I spent many hours and passed through numerous furniture stores with a tape measure, trying to find something that would fit. Then I came across a beauty at Lyall Buick which comfortably fits 3-4 people and has rolling seat backs so you can make the lounge extra deep to stretch your legs out. I managed to convince Lyall himself to order me one made in a chocolate italian leather (as they only had beige available) and it looks like it was made for the room. If it seems we need more seating I will add a couple of narrow armchairs or perhaps even bean bags if I can find trendy ones. 

I had a lot of fun decorating this room. The entire colour scheme was dictated by two very quirky pieces of art we purchased in Melbourne last year. This room is closed off from the open plan area, so we could afford to make it different to the rest of the house. It's a bit of fun and hopefully captures the imagination in the same way as the many movies that will be watched in this room. 

There are a couple of decorative items on the ikea TV unit which I am just in love with. The woven neoprene bowl is a great home for remote controls, courtesy of The Minimalist. I am also a huge book lover and couldn't resist buying these retired classics that have been brought back to life by the guys at Growing Books. 

This one is such a quirky, fun piece chosen by Tom. 

This piece was my pick. It is incredibly detailed and unusual. It reminds me of when I was an exchange student in Japan and being captived by their culture, sense of youth and colourful stories. 

Our wall mounting equipment and built in cabling is excellent. We could probably do with a TV upgrade though. 

All we need is some popcorn :) 

Kitchen Reveal

When we think of decorating we envision relaxing bedrooms, gloriously finished lounge rooms and grand dining areas. The kitchen isn't a room that you might think needs a lot of work in the decorating department. I found adding the right appliances, bar stools and finishing touches trickier than I first imagined it would be.

We decided to go for white appliances against our yellow splashback, and this was always my plan when I put in the white saturn switches. We love our De'longhi kettle and toaster and find it to be quite functional having them on the bench rather than in the pantry. Our Nespresso machine is also white but was exiled to the pantry as there was just too much clutter on the bench. We added a double power point in the pantry and Tom quite likes the coffee maker in there - he tells me its like visiting a tiny cafe each morning.

I found a fabulous white tray at Ikea which is now home to rosemary, basil and oregano for cooking. Our bar stools were a nightmare, and after many photoshop mock-ups, one set of horrid looking Ikea stools and hours of internet browsing I found our Xavier Pauchard stools. Tolix stools are everywhere at the moment and I was avoiding them at first. The wood grain inserts changed my mind though and they are so super sturdy. Mustard yellow is a really hard colour to match and the stools are more lemon, but I'm happy with the result overall.

We do intend to install cupboards or perhaps wine racks above our fridge when finances permit. Speaking of fridges, I am obsessed with our Samsung purchase. It is the most functional fridge I have ever owned, not to mention the biggest! All our kitchen needs now is a lovely big glass dome housing a delicious looking cake. I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as we do!

What's in a name...

The time in our new home is passing by very quickly. We have been working on the inside rather than our gardens and grass because the weather has been so frosty. 

We paid a trip to Ikea last weekend and purchased some bits and pieces. It was a bit disappointing as many of the items I was after were not in stock after a 4 hour drive to Sydney. I think I will be sticking with Internet shopping from now on.  We have so many rooms to furnish and decorate that it is going to take a while! I'm nearly done on our kitchen, laundry and media room which I will share soon (still waiting on a few pieces). 

Our house plaque arrived this week, after much indecisiveness about what to write on it. We have opted for Hale Kai which means 'Home by the sea' in Hawaiian. Hawaii is our happy place, so we wanted to capture some of that spirit in our home. 

It was hard to decide where to put the plaque but after surveying all of our neighbours we picked a spot. You can also see in these photos that our driveway is finally losing its patchiness and fading slowly to a better shade. It's still much more pink/terracotta than the sample though (fade driveway, fade!).

   

   

   

Driveway and Letterbox

It's hard to believe we have now been in our new house for 12 days! Since going back to work last week, the weather has been miserable and it gets dark so early that we have been really limited with the work we can do on the house. We have been so blessed to have gained lovely neighbours on the occupied side of our block, as well the two houses beyond them. We have had meal deliveries, bottles of wine and lovely cards. Very happy indeed with our little neighbourhood. 

Our driveway was laid just over a week ago and we also had a concrete path laid down the side of the property with a step to our laundry. It has taken forever to get the sealant on with the continual rain and it is still very patchy due to not having a good chance to dry out. Overall we are really happy with the colour and shape. The streaks will fade in 2-4 weeks and the colour will come down to a few shades darker than the paperbark roof. A big thank you to Ben and the guys at Mid North Coast Concreting for being so wonderful to work with! 

We also purchased our letterbox and I spent yesterday painting it in the same colour as the moroka on our facade. I also learnt to use a drill to put the numbers on - I felt quite pleased with myself other than the number 4 being a little wonky!

Our path turned out great and next job is for us to edge the right side with treated pine and put in some white pebbles and possibly some simple plants (probably bromeliads, which seem to withstand my 'care'). We will also start on the gardens at the front, put down turf and order our side gates. Given that we are in the middle of winter we are going to wait on the backyard landscaping until the weather is finer and our creative vision is clearer.

Next weekend we are making a trip to IKEA as well as some of my favourite stores in Sydney (love the Minimalist in Surry Hills). We have nearly finished decorating our media room and laundry, which will be the next photos I will have to share :)