Appliance garage etcEntire kitchenFalcon stovePantryPantry door spice rackSink and tapwarePot filler tapCheap and cheerfulPantry, storage, fridgeSmall shelf details
As promised, folks, here are some images of my new kitchen – the most expensive kitchen I’ve ever had installed; in fact, the ONLY kitchen I’ve ever had installed! As our place is a cottage, I’ve totally followed all the current transitional trends here: beige painted cupboards over white oak veneer (it’s paintable for future colour choices), cream stove, fluted glass on the glassware cupboards, floating oak shelves, brass door hardware, integrated appliances, artfully placed decorative items, a Falcon stove (gas but don’t hurt me as there’s an electric cooktop too on the side and the ovens are electric), a Zip tap, a pot filler tap and a shower-head sink tap. Um, what else? We installed a skylight above the sink and Zellige tiles in white up one whole wall and in the stove alcove. We installed cupboards right up to the ceiling to take advantage of the height for party supplies, as we regularly entertain. Our stone bench tops are a marble look-alike Quartzite called Domus in a satin finish (very chic!). The great thing about quartzite is that it doesn’t etch like marble, and is as durable as granite. We asked for an appliance garage to hide all the bench top stuff, which is really well designed, with cupboard doors that inset into the wall while using the appliances. We have a 2-part bin for recyclables and regular household waste, and we also had another bin installed for compost scraps. There are a billion electrical outlets that I had to insist on, including one at the end of the bench for small appliances, and another on the opposite wall. There’s also an outlet in the pantry that we don’t use, and several in the appliance garage. In truth, more than we need, but we’re not the end users, and others might want to put their appliances in different places to us. There were some minor hiccups with the floor finish – hence hidden under the cheap poly rug for now, and we had to insist on a better quality finish for the painting and small stuff, as there were some poor finishings that we did not love. Our kitchen cabinet installers, who incidentally have their worksite just 5 minutes from us, have kindly fixed some minor things as they have arisen and guarantee their workmanship for seven years, but they used top grade materials for their products so we are satisfied that we will enjoy many years in this kitchen!
Things I never expected to love so much: the pot filler tap; the Zip tap (filtered cold water, hot water, and sparkling water), the pantry, and the appliance garage. Things I expected to love: the stove, the great French door fridge, the amazing bench space. Things that bother me: not much! We had to argue for better storage options in the dead corners, and as mentioned the floor sanding was botched (we refused to pay for it in the end). It’s a small kitchen with limited storage at Jess height, and we could have used another cutlery/appliance drawer – we were given 3 but there was an option of adding a fourth, as one of the cupboards is quite deep. There were issues with the under sink option and I realise we could have just had cupboards here rather than the awkward drawer unit. We also had to buy a bunch of portable shelves from KMart as the installed cupboards flanking the stove chimney needed more shelves. Missing from the final install: a light over the sink (we lost the space for one when we installed the skylight). That’s about it. It’s a dream to cook in and perfect for the size of the house. It’s not VERY modern, and lacks the curves that are so in right now, but this kitchen is old fashioned in a way that suits the house, and should be good for 20 years.
There have been many changes at Chez Jess this year since last I wrote. For a start, all of our chickens died unexpectedly and suddenly overnight and we never found out the reason why. I had one of the chickens autopsied but there was nothing outwardly or inwardly wrong with them. I suspect poison but there was no evidence. A tragedy and I’m not sure I will ever really recover from the loss as I cannot help but feel it was all my fault. If we get chickens in the future there will be some changes here to ensure they are safe and sound, including re-siting them to the backyard. I miss my girls and the trauma of their death still shakes me to this day.
In other, rather more exciting news we have a new bathroom! Of COURSE our quote came back at double what the original quote said. Of COURSE it did. You’ve seen the plans – up and down they were gorgeous, and I knew they would probably be a bit exxie… but at $800k it was more expensive than the property is worth. We cannot justify the cost. After I finished weeping I realised we can still do the kitchen and bathroom, even if we cannot do the top deck just yet. I think the deck will be a year off, and maybe prices will stabilise a bit, or perhaps just go up. At any rate, it’s not going to happen this year. So we have gotten started on the kitchen, bathroom and some other much needed additions to the house, including more solar panels and a fast charger for our new electric car (work vehicle), roof insulation, some skylights in the kitchen, ducted air-conditioning throughout the house, 3-phase power (boring but necessary), and if funds stretch far enough, an exterior paint job, and a wine cellar installed under the stairs. In truth, the wine cellar is already there, but the IKEA Kallax shelves have limited potential…;)
Prices for building work in Australia are breathtaking and far more expensive than other similar places such as the USA. This is because we pay our tradespeople extremely well. But oh, boy, the cost bites. So let me show you the bathroom as it was, and as it is now. First up we have the moodboard. Since we now cannot afford the schmicko ensuite and walk-in-robe, we had to make the family bathroom the one we use all the time.
We lightened the colours and made it gentler and softer so that we wouldn’t be shocked every time we walked in the room. One of the issues we discovered early on was our design team did NOT want us putting in a floor-based vanity unit – they wanted us to have a floating unit that was light and bright. Well, says I, you need to find us some extra storage then, as this is now our main bathroom and a one-drawer vanity is absolutely not enough. So they did a clever thing and added a hidden unit in the wall. I’m thrilled with the result.
We chose a special bidet toilet from Caroma but although it now works well, the people at Caroma were pretty terrible and the information in the installation and user guide was singularly unhelpful – it was missing at least 20 pages of really important information. Still, we have worked out how to both use and fix it (especially since there have been numerous black-outs where the electricity has been cut for renovation purposes). A bidet toilet is a really useful addition and we are seeing so many people put them in their houses now.
We selected an above mounted sink which, after living with other options, I prefer, as I can place my makeup against the sink and not have it tumble into the sink itself! We have a pill-shaped medicine cabinet that stores more of my stuff, and we have a repeating vertical stripe pattern throughout, which shows up in the textured glass shower panel, the front panel of the vanity, and the VJ board throughout. Some other great ideas include a shower LEDGE rather than ALCOVE – much easier to navigate, and even though we live in a hot climate, adding a heat source via the lights/ extractor fan has proven rather useful in the cooler months.
There are plenty of curves to choose from, too: the pill shaped vanity lights (nom nom), the curved glass and mirror, the curves in the tapware, and the curvy pattern in the wallpaper. I don’t have all the product names and suppliers available to me but rest assured they are all available in Australia.
Our soft furnishings and decor were purchased almost entirely from Pillow Talk as they are my favourite homewares store – well, OK! They are RIGHT next to my gym. Dangerous. We bought 3 different towel colours, which I switch out when I need a break – just 2 of each, in grey, mustard and teal, all available in 2024. The floor mat and hand towels were also from Pillow Talk. We splurged just a bit and bought a slender vase from Dinosaur Designs that perfectly complements the tones in the room, and pairs nicely with the soap dispenser. Finally, we threw in some old baskets that I had in a former life to hold spare toilet rolls and towels and stuff, and we are done!
Hubby and I went to Sydney a few weeks ago and enjoyed the most wonderful king sized bed sleeping experience. We decided then and there that we needed a new bed. My old Queen sized bed base was 30 years old and while I loved the 20s vibe it gave, we were overdue for a bedroom update. We decided to gift the bed base and mattress and accompanying bedding (I gave away my old doona, some sheet sets and doona covers) to a local couple who needed it for their son’s place in Toowoomba. I hope they get lots of use out of it! The mattress was a bad buy for us – far too soft and even though it had “pocket coils”, I don’t think there were enough of them. It was a poor experience all round.
We decided to buy a king sized bed. We had to decide between firm and medium – this is a major issue for us as our backs are not getting any younger! I reckon we tried every single brilliant mattress in SE Qld, until we discovered Hypnos brand from Beds ‘n’ Dreams. From there it was a matter of deciding firm or medium. A wise person on our travels told us that one can make a firm bed softer, but one cannot make a soft bed firmer. Well. That decided it. Firm it was. We had four weeks to wait while they constructed the ensemble which is made in Australia. Oh dear, what a shame that I had to immediately go out and buy all new bedding for the unit.
Here is an image of the bed we selected (headboard NOT included!):
It’s freaking enormous. I have to stand on my tiptoes to get in the thing. I laugh every time I do this, btw, because it feels so ridiculous, but I’m happy to say it does not overwhelm the room. I’m utterly thrilled with the ensemble as it comes with drawers for my shoes (huzzah!!) and it’s actually streamlined the look in our bedroom. Here are some shots of the new bed with accompanying bedding from Adairs, Pillowtalk, Bed Bath ‘n’ Table and the Coastal Cushion Company:
I’m still getting used to the firmness of the bed but it’s starting to soften up just a bit, and it has some memory foam too, which I normally don’t love but it’s fine in this instance. Hubby loves the firmness. I’m miles away from hubby in the bed, too, which is quite a blessing after 15 years of marriage!!! 😉 I’m just loving our new all natural bedding – wool, feather and down, linen, cotton and bamboo. I feel like the sage green and olive green pillows were an inspired touch – they will work beautifully with our white linen doona cover. Now, of course, I’m eyeing off new lamps…
You’d think I could get my act together to start planning our new garden shed/ storage boxes, wouldn’t you? Instead, I have spent a rather enjoyable hour looking for fabrics, and I’ve found this terrific online shop called Spoonflower that prints your selected design onto a choice of fabric, including Belgian linen (my favourite linen, although I’m also partial to French). So before I drop $$$ on a fabric I might hate, I think I’ll get a few samples made in a fat quarter (typical width for a sample) and then select the one I prefer. That also gives me lots of lovely cushion textiles to have made into cushions after I’ve selected the one I prefer. I’m interested in a range of green quatrefoil and lattice style images for my curtains, but I want them to be super subtle. I love this design by mrsmberry but it’s probably best for cushions:
Here are a few more by some super talented designers including mistiina
I’m loving that I can find a design that already exists, and have it made to my specs. The above one has all the subtle feels that I want for my curtains, although I might yet go unpatterned plain ivory/natural linen, because I need to be able to change out the look if I want. At any rate, I’ve been sucked into an interior design wormhole, and I like it!
And of course, this is for my green room. Living!!
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…!
The Rona has been playing havoc with our lives, at least for everyone who isn’t me. As a work from home self-employed academic and author, it makes little to no difference to my day, and it has been quite nice not to go out at night – and I usually have to force myself to go to the shops in normal climes. So here I am, trying to think of ways to keep busy now that my teaching has finished for the semester and I’m at home with the doggoes.
2018 and 19 was pretty good for us, renovation-wise. We installed a new front porch and gorgeous yellow door with pretty side lights, we installed an automatic garage door and gate, and did some painting on the exterior – just the face to the side fences. As you can see, Harry’s home looks so cute now! With all the original gables intact it looks a lot like a modern Hamptons-style house. It’s not: it’s a classic Ashgrovian Queenslander, built about 100 years ago, with the entryway originally at the side (still there). The gable on the right we estimate was added in the 50s, and thank goodness the gable design was continued because there are lots of similar extensions we’ve seen with a flat or gently sloping roof, and they don’t provide enough head height to be legal bedrooms.
The fence we installed 8 years ago is starting to lean and we’re thinking of replacing it with a more sturdy stone and aluminium style. The stone will sit along the base of the fence (in truth it will probably be bessa brick – cinderblock – with a stone face) and the aluminium pickets and posts will look pretty much like what’s already on the fence but without the need to paint it every three years. I really like the look of this new home and fence that is near our place:
Our entryway is sweet but it has a rather ugly concrete plinth that I’d like to cover in square grey cobblestones – we have lots of garden planning to do even though I said a few years ago the front is done. It is not, but we’re waiting either for fortunes to change or to finish our long-awaited extension.
Inside we’ve done a lot of work, although it doesn’t really seem like much now that 2 years has passed. We installed an upstairs laundry – given our laundry was under the house, all dusty and horrible, this has been an absolute blessing. Hubby has taken over the washing, I think because he just enjoys doing it so much that it’s all mostly dirt free! I added a touch of colourful tile bling for fun, and I feel like this can do double duty as a drinks section. It’s an open laundry that leads to the bathroom and 4th bedroom, so I wanted it to look swanky. And yes, it always looks this clean as there are only 2 of us. 😉
We switched around the bathroom and a bedroom, and we now have a fully working 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom home. Our family bathroom – in a country Art Deco style – is the cutest thing ever (I swear I had better staged photos than these):
This bathroom is lovely and light filled (not that my phone can cope with all the light – it tends to underexpose the natural light in this room!). There are a couple of things I would have changed if the products had been available: I would have put in a different vanity, and stained the shelves a lighter colour. The vanity I bought was the only one at the time available with a wooden top, and I’m not in love with the heaviness of it. Last year, long after we had installed this piece, I found a different supplier of vanities that had a brand that would have looked much nicer, but I don’t care enough to swap it out (plus, it’s expensive to do this and those tiles are in short supply!).
The last room to be completed was the small guest bedroom (it easily fits a double bed but not much storage) and I swear I’ll hang the last painting over the bed very soon:
Unfortunately this room gets SUPER hot in summer. I’m not quite ready to install the side shades due to the wishing and hoping renovations, as I want a striped navy/white electric retractable awning series covering all windows on the western side, and this area is not yet at the Definitely Done stage to do that.
In all the other spaces we’ve just been painting or finishing off some long overdue maintenance:
My study desk is not affixed to anything, so that we can repurpose the room into a bedroom down the track for selling purposes. It’s not ideal as the desk is a little too high: it rests on the bookcases which sit just above the ideal height for a short-legged-person’s desk. And with all of those screens (yes, I use them ALL) I can’t get a standing desk just yet. Another thing that needs some work.
In the new entryway we swapped out a cute vintage 30s yellow glass shade for a bright white 20s vintage shade: it works better with all the bright white and colours, and that sweet abstract painting and the chair are now in my home office – I’ve put plants where the chair used to be. I have a thing for aqua and teal right now, and my study is a riot of blues and whites and wood. I dare not show you the “storage” area behind the photo as it’s a bit of a disaster! There are 2 bookcases and a cello and a covered keyboard and lots of books and supplies for work; they all need proper storage. I have dreams of building in a decent storage and shelving unit but we keep putting it off, due to the aforementioned wishing and hoping renovations.
The spare bedroom has of March this year become quite an important study for hubby – he, like most of the world, has had to work from home. Luckily, his industry enabled him to do that (we’re both academics). I’ve based the styling around the Gillie and Mark painting we bought a few years ago – these colours are very “in” right now, and they’re nice and masculine, perfect for hubby’s home office.
That rather scrummy leather chair from West Elm was never intended to be sat in 8 hours a day! It’s not very comfortable for long haul work weeks, but it looks good!
The master suite looks the same as it ever did: the ceiling needs a paint but other than that there’s not much to report, except I’ve gone mad for deep blues and soft greens in this room: warm dark blues in winter, and their lighter companions in summer. I’m not yet ready to abandon these colours and I’m not overly fond of the new terracottas and pinks and peaches that have flooded my instagram of late: when you live in terrible heat and humidity 80% of the year, you need some cooling vibes to bathe in at night!
The lounge room has had a bit of a makeover – we bought some vintage mid century chairs in a bright orange and they just look fabulous. Our red room is now a jewel of rich colours:
We’ve changed out the gorgeous Nellie Marks painting over the couch for a commissioned Bromley: Nellie has taken pride of place in the entry, except of course now I have to rethink the rug colour: SIGH.
And our kitchen is the same as it ever was: people seem to like its slightly industrial Melbourne vibe but I’m just getting really annoyed with it now: the oven cavity traps the heat, there’s no extractor fan so all the open shelves and their contents get greasy, there’s no natural light and it’s a tiny, tiny space to try and work in. But we recently replaced the old ceiling light with these new industrial/country lamps and it all seems to work really well! You can see how much stuff we have to store on the shelves: there’s no storage in this house!
As you can see from the photos: I’m no minimalist. I wish I knew how to pare my world back just a bit, but every time I do, my eye gets distressed and I have to decorate more richly than my hubby or even I would prefer. The worst part of being a maximalist is the dusting, of course….;)
So why has it taken me two years to post? Well, I’d begun a heap of posts, but somehow I just got sidetracked with work. I’ve taken lots of photos of the renovations as they happened but once they’re finished it’s a bit of a chore to upload “in the moment” shots long after the fact. Also, I’m writing this on my computer rather than my phone, for what I hope are obvious reasons, and I’d forgotten my log in and password, and then I have to SEND my phone photos to myself and… and… and… you get the drift. Also at about the same time I discovered Instagram. And suddenly the blog seemed all a bit too hard.
But I’ve done myself a solid, found my password and username, and here I am. Because, in truth, I really want one of two things: either we sell Harry’s Money Pit and move to a house that’s already completed, one that’s a bit better organised, with 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, a workshop, a landscaped garden and pool, or we try and complete the renovations here. I’ve already talked about how I’d like a new family room and kitchen and back deck, but in order to make this house a viable selling proposition down the track, I need to think about adding a bedroom, rumpus, bathroom and workshop downstairs, to make this house a truly 5-bedroom home. And even though it’s June here right now and nice and cool, I really would love a lap pool for when it gets hot here, which is September to April. It might just be better to sell and buy fresh. We have a healthy savings balance now, and the bank would probably lend us quite a bit of money, but I can’t imagine how much all of that would cost, and I’m scared to ask!
So now that I’ve no more excuses, I’ll be posting more regularly in the blog, so that you can see my world and how we live in it, and I’ll update you on my house plans as they happen.
Don’t judge me. It’s not that I haven’t been working on the house: it’s that I hightailed it to Melbourne as soon as my teaching year was over and spent a blissful six weeks just hanging with my homies. AKA my family. We actually like to hang out together. I know. Odd. (Also took the opportunity to redecorate the beachhouse for presents for mum and dad. Which now looks AWESOME.)
Anyhoo. So remember when last year I was moaning about the house being too noisy? Well it still is, but an amazing, wonderful thing happened. My daughter moved out. Yep. She and her partner were handed a house across town and she leapt at it. So she’s been gone since Australia Day/ Invasion Day and guess what I’ve been doing? !
Painting, y’all. Painting. While I wait for the agonisingly long time it’s taking for my iphone to upload its photos to my dear old, tired MacBook (now that’s a design story for another time), let me tell you what I’ve been up to these last few weeks.
At the time I was moaning and bitching about the noise, we got a bunch of real estate agents through to look at the house. Turns out we could get a good price for it, but there is an ever so slight correction in the overheated Australian property market and I think to suggest we’d make $1,000,000 on our little home (and land) is a bit of an overreach. And now we’ve had a bit of a mind change about wanting to sell, because life, the agents keep bugging me and I’ve had to ignore their calls.
And then I went away for a long, long time. So I’m back home, daughter’s out, and now WE HAVE A SPARE ROOM. In truth it’s not really a spare room because my step-daughter needs it, but she has to share with visitors now. Sorry not sorry.
So of course, being one to grab an opportunity when I see an empty room, I PAINTED it. And now it’s beautiful. I’ve complained before about the length of time and effort it takes to paint VJs, haven’t I? Suffice to say, once again hideous. But the result is stunning. The room is south facing, which in Australia means the cold side, but which in hot QLD means the comfortable side. I painted the walls with 3 coats of Dulux Vivid White, and finished the woodwork with 2 coats of Dulux Natural White Enamel. God it looks good. Then, and this is where I give myself the biggest pat on the back, I McGyver’d the ceiling fan. It was an old rattan-inset wooden-bladed thing. Dusty, a horrible cream colour, it had a horrible amber glass light shade and was ERGLY. Parts of the blades were coming apart because old, and really it needed to go. But we can’t afford to do that right now, because then there’s a whole thing with lights and electricity we need to deal with and we can’t afford it. So.
I spray painted it with 2 cans of British Paints White Satin Spray paint. I glued and clamped the dodgy fan blades back together, and replaced the light shade with a simple round white one from Beacon Lighting. Sometimes, I amaze even myself. The darned fan looks like new.
Then, and this is where it all gets a little bit exxie, I bought a double bed for the daughter-of-step (and visitors), and now we have a beautiful guest room decorated in shades of wood, white and blue. It looks amazing. I’m about to decorate with a mirror wall, (no, NOT that sort of mirror wall), in which all our old mirrors and some new ones will be artfully placed on one of the walls to give the impression of even more space in there. I’ve bought a bunch of cheap vintage mirrors in gold plaster frames, and we already have some regular wooden ones, so one whole wall will be devoted to this decorating extremism.
Also in my painting adventures, I finally painted the woodwork in our ensuite and WIR. While it was all given undercoats etc, I hadn’t quite gotten around to finishing it all off. So I used the hottest ever recorded months of January and February to do this. Because I’m a masochist. And because I like sweating into MY EYES. But the effort was worth it (of course).
The NEXT thing I did, because my daughter moved out and we gave her all the crappy stuff under the house we no longer wanted; well there’s this thing in Australia we have called the nonburnable rubbish collection (AKA the hard rubbish collection, AKA the “we collect your shit so you don’t have to take it to the rubbish dump” collection). Yep, you guessed it. I’ve been clearing out the basement. When I say basement, what I mean is the ground floor of the house that is open to the elements and only has timber battens protecting all the stuff from the weather, thieves etc. It gets wet, and dusty, and dirty and all the things are not really protected.
We offloaded 2 broken fridges, some old broken chairs, a bunch of old electronic equipment, heaps of broken Ikea shelves and stuff, and then I cleaned nearly all the corners under our house. And swept the concrete. And now I feel lighter and cleaner. It feels SO GOOD, y’all!
I have to reconfigure my workspaces under there (I have 2 workbenches: 2!), and clean up some more bits and pieces, but OH BOY was it good to finally do this.
So in the next few weeks, I’ll be painting the ghastly 2nd bathroom a fresh white, cleaning out and painting the Oh Jesus room, and painting the rest of the house interior. Only 5 rooms to go, and the entire ceiling.
Oh yeah. Remember how I fell off that ladder last year and had a cry? Well, we offloaded that old thing and bought a brand new 2.4m ladder with paint tray, and a trestle board. Imma painting the ceiling now. Even though I don’t want to.
Y’all, my iphone and MacBook have decided that uploading 700 photos all at once is a bit difficult, so I’m going to suggest you take a look at my Instagram account, @brivegashome and you’ll see all the great photos there of my house and such. Because it appears the world will end before I get to upload any pictures from my phone!
Have a great week and I’ll be posting more frequently now.
Oh my word, has it really been 2 months between blog posts? Well, sometimes life gets in the way.
It’s been 2 months since I fell off the ladder and I finally figured out why: the ladder is a bit crap, and the floor is uneven at just the spot that I fell down. When painting the second coat I discovered this and got my daughter to hold the ladder for the 2 minutes it took to paint that section. Then I got the hella off of that ladder. There are jobs I gave up attempting: I’ve given up trying to paint the ceiling. It’s nearly 11 foot high and I just can’t manage it without buying some serious scaffolding equipment. I’ll hire a professional painter. I’ve also (for the time being) given up trying to paint the windows and architraves. Not that I can’t: it’s just a messy business, what with sanding and filling and gapping and all that stuff and I just can’t bring myself to be bothered right now.
One needs a break from hard yakka.
On the fun side: I’ve been slowly upgrading our bedroom furnishings. Our bedroom is SO much more inviting now, and it still has 2 chairs, 2 bedside tables and 2 large chests-of-drawers in it, plus a queen-sized bed. I’ve added a Chinoiserie stool similar to this:
I bought that lovely dove-grey Belgium linen doona set I was coveting:
I paired it with a beautiful set of duck egg blue Sheridan sheets in 700-thread count Egyptian cotton (on sale, of course!). The picture below is actually of white sheets, but it’s appears about the right shade with a cursory glance.
The blue and grey complement each other very well. The grey could be paired with just about any colour as it is quite a neutral stone, but a blue themed bedroom (SO restful) is my preferred look.
These photos were taken before purchase of new blue sheets.
In the next few posts I’ll show you some photos of my newly painted lounge-room, and the adventures I’ve been having with French-polishing. Adios for now!
Hello folks. Sorry about the long silence between posts. We’ve been enjoying our new mini renovation and taking some time out to relax and get some chookies. (Backyard hens for free range eggs). The black Australorp Josephine is already laying well but the other 2 are just not doing anything yet. We may have to wait a few months until spring.
I’ve slowly been updating our bedroom’s soft furnishings. I may have gone overboard just a tad this afternoon:
5 new cushions. Sad, I know. I encouraged my hubby to come along for the ride. He flat out refused! Can’t think why…😉 The grey velvet on the left, the stripe on the right and the silly white faux fur cushion were bought from Freedom Furniture; good buys for AU$33 each (buy 2, get 1 free). The watercolour style cushion on the left from Adairs was AU$50, and the gorgeous slub velvet on the right from West Elm was a breathtaking $75. Worth it! My hubby said to me just now as he prepared for bed: “I’ll be in the bedroom removing the cushions. As Scott of the Antarctic said when he stepped outside: ‘I may be some time'”. 😂
While I still love our navy and white colour scheme, I’m looking forward to updating our bed linen soon with a soft dove-coloured quilt cover in Belgian linen, matched with darker grey Euro cushion covers. We’ll update our current lamps with new mid-grey linen lamp shades, and replace our very sad old white rattan ceiling fan with a new low profile white one. Now that the weather is finally cooling down I’ll get stuck once more into some house painting. The bedroom walls will be a simple Antique White (Dulux), matched with Natural White wooden trim and a Vivid White semi-gloss ceiling paint. Gloss paint is typical for these old Queenslander houses with their wooden beadboard ceilings, but it’s not too shiny. Because we live on a busy street we often have to keep our blinds closed so it’s important that the room feels light and bright. No grey walls for us!
The bedroom used to look like this:
There were 3 entry points and too much furniture:
We removed the French doors near the chair and moved the bed to that wall. The wooden chest is no longer in the bedroom. The French doors on the other side were also removed and are now awaiting repurposing for a future renovation. The opposite side opening, flanked by the chests of drawers, leads into our walk-in-robe and ensuite.
The room is already much larger and better organised and I can’t wait to add plantation shutters to the windows, which will really streamline the room. Finally, I’m hoping to find a large watercolour painting of clouds, much like the cushion I bought today:
Peaceful and lovely. With that, I’m off to bed to see how my husband has fared with his cushion battle. Good night all!
The house that Jess built. 