Spring or Christmas cleaning?

Now considering it is November, it is still considered Spring in Australia, but I really think the sorting or cleaning I did yesterday could more be called Christmas cleaning.

I started sorting through the kids toys, trying to decide what could be put in the shed and what to give to the Salvos. With Christmas being six and a half weeks away and my daughters 6th birthday being six weeks off, I have started to think about all the new toys that will suddenly descend on the house. This is not helped my my kids being the only two grandchildren on either side.

So yesterday I found myself busy sorting and thinking hard about storage, do I need another visit to IKEA? I think I might!

So what do you think, belated Spring cleaning or honest Christmas sorting and do you do this?

The hub of the home

In many houses the kitchen is the hub of the home and now with our extension and the new living space next to the kitchen we are no exception, though probably more exact for us it is the coffee table between the kitchen and family room.

This old table was put here quite by accident, just to get it out of the way but as soon as we did the kids gravitated to it. They do all their drawing and craft on it, play games and eat lunch and snacks. It is the perfect height for them and right in the middle of all the action.

The blue stools you can see in the picture above are great too as they are soft and the tops lift off with storage underneath. It helps that I got them for $10 each from Woolworths.

So we spent the weekend enjoying this space and Saturday watching our builder digging to prepare for installing the deck this week. So excited!

Happy Halloween and last day of Blogtoberfest

A good day to end Blogtoberfest on. We are just starting to get into Halloween here and the kids love it.

We decorated the house and have had a few trickle treaters here, lots of fun!

Kids bedroom elements

With our extension we added to our two bedroom house with two more bedrooms, thinking how excited the kids would be to get their own bedrooms. Well my five year old daughter and three year old son have decided they want to both stay in their old bedroom and keep sharing, so the new rooms have become a playroom / guest room and a study (where I am now writing this blog post).

So I thought I would share with you some elements of the playroom, a bit of a sneak peak as I haven't implemented all my ideas to make this room a little magical for the kids, a plan for the next two months.

As you will see I am going for a red, blue and white colour theme. Love these ball cushions from Target......

This red checkered lamp from a kids bedroom store and of course some of my daughters art work from when she was three....


Can't go past IKEA for children's bedroom furniture, both the bed and chest of drawers are from there......

And these red carpet spots, the kids love moving them around........

Some red feet and hand artwork, done for Father's Day last year....

And the kids enjoying the room, love the soft grey carpet. The carpet is a new environmentally friendly one made from corn.....

The room also has built-ins which I will show at a later date once I have decorated a little more.

Hope you all had a great weekend, it was a little miserable here in Melbourne but good for staying inside and doing house things.

A trip on water - good for stress release

Yesterday we decided to enjoy a Sunny 29 degree day and catch a ferry from Melbourne's South Bank to the Bay town of Williamstown.

For those that don't know Melbourne, the ferry travels along the Yarra River that runs through the City of Melbourne, out the mouth of the Yarra into Port Phillip Bay and across the Bay to Williamstown.

I find being near water and on boats a great stress release and was so relaxed by the time we got back home.
Then this morning when a plumber arrived at 7.30am to fix up a few issues from the reno it reminded me how frustrating it was to have trades rock up at this time when we are getting ready for work and school. Thankfully builders being around all the time is behind us which I am now very glad of.

Sunshine yellow

Melbourne decided to turn on a bit of sun and finally heat earlier this week. I am definitely a Summer person and signs that Summer is coming always lifts my spirits.

Unfortunately today is miserable but I decided to bring inside some beautiful yellow daisies for a bit of that sunshine feeling. Goes well with my favourite Van Gogh print.

As for Blogtoberfest, I am meant to be posting daily but this week things got away from me a little. I have been busy at work and at home and looking forward to a weekend with some special visitors from Adelaide.

Hope you have a good weekend.

Does a renovation ever end?

Today I was asked by a friend I hadn't seen for a while whether my renovation was over and I had to really think how to answer this. I mean technically the 'reno' he was referring to is over in that the extension has been built and fitted out, the contract with our builders is finished (well except the defects list) and we are living in and enjoying the new areas of our house, so I suppose the technical answer is Yes!

On the other hand we still have so much to do and when I started putting a list together I realised just how long it was. It is all those finishing off things, including, painting, painting, painting oh and putting in fittings such as towel rails and toilet roll holders and then there is all the external work, the big one being the alfresco deck being built (which we are using a different builder for), weatherboards being replaced, more painting and lots, lots more.

So really does the renovation ever really end? It some ways probably not as I have friends who years after doing their extensions are still putting on finishing touches and that's with the house. There is also often so much work to do in the garden but in some ways that is all part of the fun of it, the journey - as they say life is about the journey!

For us the main part is over though, so we have noticeably got back quality family time in our house and our stress levels have decreased thanks to this. On the weekend we managed to just enjoy time in the house and out in the garden with the kids, it was fantastic!

A bit of IKEA

I recently went to visit the new IKEA in Melbourne. Slightly larger then the Richmond one it was great to walk through, but due to it's popularity many of the items I was actually after had sold out.
Even so I managed to grab this $5 rug with the plan to put it just inside our new stacking doors but instead decided it made a great table runner, for a dining table that has seen better days. Lets just say with two young kids that much desired provincial dining table I would like to purchase is a little while away. So dressing the current one is the next best thing.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

Floorboards - before and after

Before

After

Deck to go in

We have been told that the building of our deck will begin in the next week. I really hope this is the case as below where the kids feet are in the picture above is dirt, which turns quickly into mud as soon as it rains. I have just noticed too that this picture shows the floorboards before they were sanded and polished, so it was taken a few weeks ago.

The image below gives you an idea of what the deck is going to be like, wrapping around the back of the house. Interestingly this image shows the old brick too but this has now all been removed to expose the weatherboard.


So we will be having a pitched roof covered pergola over the deck area outside the stacking doors (where the kids are sitting above) and around in front of the sliding doors will be an open flat roof pergola which we will be growing a vine on.

With the weather warming up and Summer fast approaching I really can't wait for the deck to be done, have BBQs and hang lanterns and fairy lights from the pergola for those warm nights.

Lesson learned - tiles

I have learnt a good lesson when it comes to tiles, picking what I loved for the ensuite floor rather then thinking at all about practicalities. I loved the idea of dark grey but have since learnt that they show every water mark, and bit of dust within hours of cleaning them.


Knowing this when it came to choosing tiles for our new family bathroom some months later, we chose a lighter grey which also has texture and slight metallic shine. Not only do they look great but in what is a very high traffic bathroom compared to the ensuite, actually manage to hide dirt very well. This is especially good with two young children who love to play with water in the sink whenever I am not watching closely.

Colour love

I am loving the cover of the latest edition of Home Beautiful, a range of blues that are so fresh and Summery and it goes with the look I am trying for in this area, right next to our stacking doors, which will eventually look out onto our deck.

Also will love these colours for our alfresco deck once we have it. Been told by our builder they will start building it in about a week, can't wait!

Back of house - brick to weatherboard extension - take 1

Before the rear extension was built we had a brick house but had discovered early on that there was weatherboard underneath, so with the new build we decided to go with weatherboard to bring the house back to original character.



The rear extension consists of extra family living space (where the deck in the picture above was) and then next to this an extension out of two bedrooms, family bathroom and new laundry (the small window to the right of the deck was our laundry, now a bedroom).

Now I say take one as there are still plenty more photos of the back in a more final state (with rubbish removed), plus we are looking at putting in the wrap around deck in the next few weeks, with an alfresco dining area in the rubble spot in the picture above.

I will also show photos soon looking from the back of the house out to the garden.

So stay tuned for take two and more photos.

Bedroom design ideas?

For Blogtoberfest I have been showing before and after pictures of various parts of my house and as mentioned in yesterdays post tonight it is the main bedrooms turn, as it follows on from the ensuite and walk in robe.

What I have discovered though is that I don't really have any old pictures of the bedroom for the before and all we really did was remove old built in robes and use some of the bedroom space for the walk in robe (the door to you can see in the picture below).

And yes this is a picture of Paris above the bed......


We have over the years changed the decor slightly but the bed is one I bought some 20 years ago! So following on from this don't really have any true after photos. I still want to do more with the bedroom, it isn't quite where I want it to be but do like the general feel.

The dressing table is an antique which I do love and sits and the wall at the end of the bed....

So any tips on how to improve along the existing French theme would be appreciated.

Walk in robe - before and after for Blogtoberfest

As mentioned in my post on Tuesday the walk in robe was created to be a walk through to the new ensuite (which was the old family bathroom).

To create the walk in robe we used some of our main bedroom space as the bedroom was quite large 4.5 m by 4m. So the photos below are the sequence for this build starting with the frame built once the old built ins had been removed and a hole knocked through the wall to the old bathroom (now I know some of you have read a post on my WIR before so have added extra photos to this one).



Obviously these last couple are before we filled it with clothes, now extremely full.

Now the logical step from here is to show the main bedroom but this still hasn't got to my final 'after'. Even so I might do bedroom photos tomorrow and get some advice from you on how to stylise more.