Outdoor decoration and table - Blogtoberfest day 7

In my post yesterday I mentioned that Daylesford has great homewares stores, especially if you love the rustic look. So following on from yesterday I thought I would share pictures of what I think are great buys from a store in the main street of Daylesford.

I had been looking for things to not only decorate our new deck with for ages but also a simple rustic inexpensive table that would go with the chairs I bought from Bed Bath and Table. I thought this table at $70 was a bargain!

 

 

I am now hoping to soon pot some herbs like Basil to go on the deck, maybe by next weeks Friday food and flower post. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Daylesford Weekend design inspiration - Blogtoberfest day 6

As those who have followed my blog for a while would know I often get inspiration for both house and garden design from what I see when out and about around Melbourne.

The other weekend I spent time in Daylesford and surrounds about an hour and a half outside Melbourne. Firstly a stunning area, spa country, rolling green hills, old stone buildings with plenty of homeware and antique stores which I just can't help visiting (and this trip bought a few outdoor pieces which I will show in my next post).

My main inspiration this time though came from a Lavendula, Swiss Italian Farm where I couldn't stop taking photos.

I love the rustic, country style and as always a big fan of Olive Trees in terracotta pots. Being at Lavendula took my mind back to Tuscany which I absolutely love. Unfortunately the Lavender wasn't in bloom but love the Rosemary.

A girls afternoon tea party - Blogtoberfest day 4

With school holidays this time round I have been trying to get a little more creative with the kids. My daughter being in grade 1 is really starting to read and write a lot more and to encourage this I try to get her to make things that she will enjoy doing. Hence these beautiful invites she made just to have a few friends over for afternoon tea. These were given out proudly by my darling girl on the last day of school. And for the whole first week of the holidays she was getting very excited with the anticipation.

This was followed on the day by making cupcakes together which each of her friends got to ice and decorate when  they arrived.

Lots of fun had by all and my daughter just loved the whole thing from invite making to the day itself. Especially as it was a special girl day with her brother elsewhere. So something really simple for me to do, but a great success!

The start of a journey - Blogtoberfest 2012

Well again I have been away from the blog for a while but now I am back and with gusto!

I have been thinking about where to head with the blog and whether to keep going and then the other day I got an e-mail from Kat at I Saw you Dancing to see if I would be interested in joining in Blogtoberfest again. So I thought about it, visited Kat's blog and read the words that got me inspired.....

Blogtoberfest is an annual blogging festival and a wonderful opportunity to:

* challenge yourself to blog every day for 31 days

* discover kindred blogging spirits

* carve out a tiny slice of time each day to write and to read

* share any creative projects you have on the go

* host a giveaway, if you feel inclined to spread the love



I particularly like the idea of putting aside time each day to be creative, this is just what I need at this point, as the title suggests I am starting on a kind of new journey. After a lot of consideration I will soon be finishing up at a job I have been doing for 10 years, a job that I started before children and saw me through two lots of maternity leave. Now I am trying to think about what next? Hopefully I will have time to re-focus on something more creative and now the stress of the decision has gone, also enjoy family life more.

All in all a good time to try and make time to post everyday throughout October.

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!

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.

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

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.