Month: August 2020

WE’RE MOVING!

| Jessica

Finally I am delighted to announce that: yes, we’re moving! Our house sold well (considering the impact of COVID-19 on house prices in our area) and we’re moving to a new part of town for us, one that I suspect I may never leave!

Here’s our new home:

Cute, huh! BTW, this is a screen shot of the house that I took from the real estate web site we found it on. I cannot wait to change those colours to something a little less drab. The paint job is in very good condition though so it might stay for a couple of years.

Here’s the floorplan. On the left is the downstairs (in QLD houses are often built under, so living quarters and the kitchen are on the top floor), and the right is the main living area and bedrooms:

I know there are four bedrooms when there are only 2 of us. But I use my study every day, and hubby needs a study too. So we’re making the first 2 upstairs bedrooms our studies, and the fourth bedroom downstairs is definitely our dumping room for the time being as we sort through our outdoor stuff. In our old house we had a great breezeway under the house, all 140sqm of it, in which we stored all the gardening equipment and spare items. In this house we don’t have that so we are making plans for a garden shed and workshop, to sit at the bottom of the driveway. It’s currently a turn-out for the under-house parking but, you guessed it, we’re not parking under the house! (except perhaps during hailstorms…)

We’d like to renovate this house (well der!) and the section under the deck and master bedroom is perfect for a new rumpus room (hubby calls it the pool room but I think he means the room with the grand piano ;)). We’ll take apart the old deck eventually and put in a new kitchen and deck that extends to the end of the master bedroom, and underneath we’ll lay some new concrete and enclose the space. We’re on 810sqm of land which is great for this part of town, and I don’t want to impact on the generous yard with more house, so we’re keeping our ideas modest (and in truth we won’t be able to afford much more than what we’re planning). We’ll upgrade the bathrooms and give the master bedroom an ensuite and walk-in-robe, by moving the kitchen to the new construction, and making it a galley kitchen, as seen below:

Soz about my terrible drawing – I did it on my computer that doubles as a tablet and my drawing is super shaky. We’ll add a small family bathroom upstairs where the kitchen currently sits.

So I’m a little concerned about the generally poor placement of the laundry – at the moment the downstairs bathroom is connected to the bedroom and I don’t love this – if we want to add a family room area I don’t want to add yet another bathroom. I think what I’ll do over time is to reduce the size of the bathroom to make it a family bathroom (not an ensuite), and then put a door in the ensuing corridor to the outside. At the moment the laundry door faces the hall to the rumpus and I don’t love the position, and I think if we rethink the laundry layout then we might get better flow. I’m loving playing with these ideas – it will be two years before we can pay for most of the new stuff so we will live with what we have in the meantime, and just do small things. I think the current rumpus will make a great 5th bedroom if we decide to add a downstairs family room at the rear, which will add great resale value to the home.

Do you have some great ideas to make this house even more amazing? I’d love to hear.

In the meantime, here are some interior shots of before. That is: before we moved in! 🙂

Vaguebooking and green lounge room ideas

| Jessica

So I can’t really say anything about selling our house at the moment, nor can I say anything about any other purchases we may have made, because it’s not over until it’s unconditional, but I’ve been having a lovely time curating my “Green Room” lounge room, for the future. I’ve posted ideas previously to my Insta site @brisvegashome about this, and thought I’d share a larger post.

So we own this beautiful, delicate etching by renowned Australian artist Charles Blackman:

I love the colours in the work. This was not hugely expensive: there are 89 more just like it! Look at the gorgeous greens – I can see three or four in the work, and it’s so close to being a banana leaf/tropical style that I thought this would make a grand statement in the room and provide the basis for our new lounge room colourway.

So imagine this room, if you will, as being the raw canvas for the new green design.

It’s a lovely room with plenty of sweet character already.

Now imagine this floorplan which includes the dining room. 5 by 5.2 metres (16ft by 17ft) is a lovely size, large but not enormous, and well large enough for the two of us + friends. In this plan, featuring white walls and honey-wood floors there might be 2 large lounges – 2.5 metre oatmeal coloured casual Hamptons-inspired ones, with feather and down cushions etc sitting opposite each other such as this rather scrummy Monterey version from Plush:

There might be a large neutral rug:

Then imagine a couple of easy chairs in green such as these beauties:

I prefer a solid colour block for all my large furnishings – I don’t love chintz style or heavily floral furniture. Soft furnishings such as cushions etc are a different story though:

Match these with a beautiful throw rug and some gorgeous lamps and we’re set!

It’s then just a matter of fitting our old furniture around the new, including our glass coffee table, some mid-century side tables and some antique brown furniture that I can’t seem to get rid of (ok, ok, I like these pieces!). I don’t know about you, but I really hate a curated room with all new furniture. One challenge with a green room is to not go overboard on the one colour. It’s important to layer colour and texture, and play with different shades of green, but also keep it real with some colours across the colour wheel such as yellows, blues or peaches and pinks. I have a bunch of lovely old plates and some plants that will go in this room and the dining room, including my gorgeous majolica plates:

And of course we have a bunch of fabulous artwork that will adorn some walls in addition to the Blackman. I think I’ll keep the curtains very light and bright: just some sweet cream curtains from IKEA or something:

These are actually expensive Belgian Linen Curtains from Pottery Barn but you get my drift…

Maybe an ottoman or two:

And perhaps to keep it real maybe this side table with some of the things on it:

We have many of these tables, and there is plenty of space to put them in the mythical room you saw.

Put all these images together and you get this:

Here are some other great green inspo ideas I completely nicked from other sources that I can’t name because I did it all in a frenzy – I was so excited!

I really like the bronze and brushed gold of the above image, plus the pretty peach counterpoints – see how mixing up the colours loosens the green? And there are many different types of green here too: from lime and grass green to forest green to aqua. It all works beautifully. Also, the bottom image is the closest to what I imagine our green room to be. Just take away the gorgeous wall paper and add a beige carpet and this is a lovely casual spot to hang out in. Notice that I’ve excluded the TV from all the discussions about furniture? That’s because I don’t want it in the main lounge room. If you’re like me and you rarely watch TV for anything more than noise value, renovation shows or movies, then moving the TV to another room in the house – perhaps a games room, or rumpus – takes its inclusion down a notch.

Oh! And if anyone is wondering how I will fit all the things in the room, take a look at my totally for reals pretend placement image that I’ve totally measured and everything (NOT!):

I’ve flung some pretend furniture against the walls but in truth I can’t imagine at this point what will go where. Maybe a bookcase or two (we have 9 free standing ones that all need homes), and lots of side tables. I even have an old round side table which would work well in this space:

And with some more decor this room could look fabulous. Not too overdone, mind…!

I can’t wait to get started….