A Smokin' Sunset

This was the view out the back of our house yesterday evening. I hope its nothing too serious and just a control burn. But the girls thought it looked great, like the sun was on fire!

Swing set makeover!

Happy Mothers' Days to all the mums. I had a nice day with brunch out, a brand new handbag and of course, some goodies from the school stall. I still marvel at how they source such lovely things for such small change!

Earlier in the week, I tackled a quick projuect. We were given an old swing set years ago, but I'll be honest, the daggy green and yellow colour scheme always irritated me. So I finally got around to spray painting it. Now it's much more in keeping with the rest of the house.

Before: After:

Much better!

Gardening weekend

Yes, the insects are attacking my garden, but at least the pretty gardenia still offers a few last flowers for the summer.

I've been doing lots of work on the garden this weekend. I've been removing the orangey pebbles from around our front garden, and replacing some of the plants, cutting back the yukkas quite dramatically, and putting down sugarcane mulch. It's the most neglected part of our garden, just in front of our garage, so I only really drive past it, and it's not until I had visitors that I realised how bad it's looking.

Pebbles are, quite frankly, a stupid idea in the subtropical garden as they always end up full of weeds, and it's been such a frustrating time trying to keep them at bay with all the rain we've been having.

I know some might think it's ridiculous to put sugarcane mulch out on show in the front of the garden, but I'm crazy like that. I've found it so fantastic in other areas of the garden. It keeps the weeds at bay really well. I'm essentially a lazy gardener. So I like to 'set and forget', with just an annual bit of maintenance. Thankfully the sugarcane mulch fades in colour to a more natual grey and it's almost unnoticeable.

Here's the first section complete, another section to go.

Here's some pics from the backyyard where I'm persisting with pebbles around the pool area, with long term plans to extend our deck, so we don't want to do anything too drastic or costly. The weeds are still an issue, especially the dreaded nutgrass, but at least in one small area, it's not so bad.

Our not-so-new new bed!

Here's a shot of our recently improved bed. It's not my dream bed, but for now I think I've changed the look enough for me to be quite pleased whenever I enter the room.

You can see from the picture below that it was a little bit on the twee side of country and had that orangey stain that grates on me. So I decided to saw off the top of the bedposts and stain the wood with Black Japan. I like it a lot more now, and combined with some new bedside tables and new bedlinen, I feel quite happy with the room.

Before (in our old house) :
The new bedsides are from Freedom, but of course, I didn't pay full price. One was 'damaged stock' (just a mark on the inside of the draw) and the other on sale anyway. Oh, and the faux leather trunk is from SuperAMart of all places - I'm almost embarassed to admit that as I hate their furniture and their store and their general business philosophy - but hey, the price was right!

Back in action

A big thank you to everyone who sent their thoughts (here and through messages on EB and emails) after the passing of my beautiful father. It's so lovely to know that there is a bunch of people you've never met in real life who care about you. Really touching.

I've been using one of my favourites forms of therapy: thinking about and working on making my home my castle. Lots of questions to ponder there.

• Will I ever finish sanding and staining my deck? And what's the ideal ground cover plant to replace the awful grassy things that look like weeds in around the pool area? One with pretty flowers?

• Is Tapestry Beige (Dulux) a good colour for a feature wall in our master bedroom? Is it the right kind of beigey grey I'm after? If not, what is?

• How am I going to finish sanding and painting our hoop pine entertainment unit, without unplugging all those very complicated cables? And if I do unplug them all, how am I going to put it all back together?

• Will the home design police come knocking if I put up a print I bought at Target in my main living area?

• Where can I buy mini lamp shades to replace revolting glass bulbs on lights in the dining and formal lounge?

• Where will I ever find a huge, stylish yet affordable light fitting to replace the gigantic very unattractive one in our foyer?

• Should I sand back the dining table top to natural or leave it the slightly orangey stain when I paint the legs white? The obvious answer (Sand it back, of course), leads to the next question, how will I find the time?

• When am I ever going to get to Ikea? So many items on the 'if I ever get a window of more than a few hours to myself, I'm going to drive all the way down to Ikea and buy' list (rugs, storage units, picture frames,etc)

If you know the answer to any of these questions, please let me know!

Coffee table transformation

I posted about my poor coffee table here. It had certainly taken a beating, so I knew that one day I'd have to do something to it. Well, finally that day (or days actually!) arrived and I had a little spare time to do it. I sanded the top right back to the wood, taking off the dark stain finish, and painted the base white. I used some polyurethane on the top so hopefully it will be a little harder wearing this time around.

I think it looks great, although I possibly would have changed the drawer handles, but for the fact that my husband had glued them on super tight at some stage as they'd kept coming off. So it was just as easy to leave them on and paint them white.

The paint colour is Dulux Fair Bianca and I like the slightly creamy look. Of course, I used gloss, so that it would be nice and easy to wipe off after those inevitable spills!

Now I have a new machine...

there's no stopping me!



There's something new on my entry table - the scrap of linen there. If you look really closely, there's a lovely white scalloped stitch on the hem, courtesy of my new machine:

Ta da!




If you haven't checked out the online auctions at Grays, you really should. It's amazing the wonderful bargains you can pick up. I'm so happy with this machine and am amazed I put up with my super basic machine for so long.

My first real project was a simple cushion. I'm in love with linen at the moment, and all the French style homewares. So I combined them here. Of course, I had to use one of my machines new stitches, one that does a thicker than usual straight stitch, and because I did a simple envelope opening, I was also able to use one of the prettier stitches on the hem there too!

Off to make some more!

Beautiful Prints - finally framed

These lovely prints were published in 1971 - the year I was born! My mum kept them in their cardboard cylinder for 38 years, just enough time for me to have children, move house and then need something to pretty up their new bedrooms.

I used frameshop.com.au for the frames (the prints are an unusual size). I must say I was quite impressed with their service. I ordered on Friday, and they arrived on Wednesday! I'm not sure how that compares to other custom framing, but I was impressed. A great range of different coloured frames and mats, and different glass options, too.

Now they just need to be hung in the girls rooms; the dark haired girl for Louisa, and the fair haired for Lizzie, of course! It makes life easy to have two girls with opposite colouring.

Catching up

I've been busy lately. The start of the school year (and the kindy year) has left me with little time for sewing, or the home projects I've been planning. I have managed to get a couple of small things completed.

The beginnings of a table runner. I used a Heather Bailey Nicey Jane charm square pack and I have to say how fantastic it was to have them precut - so easy. It makes me think of the refrain from that song: 'How long has this been going on?'. Still not backed or quilted or anything, but give me time.

Some friends were moving and passed on an old timber bed of theirs, for us to use in our guest room. 'Old' as in 'bought from a bedding store less than a decade ago and a bit daggy', not as in 'much older and rather charming', unfortunately. So I sanded it back a little and took to it with some black gloss paint - and I think it looks lovely now. Much improved from the orangey stained faux country look. Here it is dressed with my very first Sheridan doona cover, circa 1990? I hadn't been working long, anyway, and I felt very grown up and impressed with myself when I bought it.
I also a painted a plain student desk they passed on to us. I used up left over paint from our walls to fit tino Louisa's room, and changed the handles to these fun ones. It looks so cute and she loves it, especially combined with the chair we picked up on clearance at Freedom recently. All set for lots of homework!

A new couch for the family living room meant that the cushions I had didn't suit. So I made some super simple cushions with some Sandi Henderson fabric, backed with denim.

That's it for now. Hopefully as the year settles down, I'll find a bit extra time for the things I want to do!

The Blue Room

I call this the "Blue Room", but really it's just a little sitting area off the main open plan living area. I wanted to make it prettier before our visitors arrived to stay over Christmas. So I replaced the old daggy futon cushion with some new foam, which I covered in this lovely coordinating fabric. I was really pleased to find it, as a lot of the fabrics I had my eye on for the job were far too expensive, and I didn't expect to find anything I liked this much at Spotlight!

The other happy find was some blue paint in the clearance pile at Bunnings. Someone's reject is another's perfect shade of blue. So I painted an old coffee table and a couple of frames and so the sitting area became 'The Blue Room' .

I also recovered the cushions on the cane setting in the adjacent outdoor area. I think my husband thinks I'm a bit obsessed with this fabric Having a bit more left, I'm looking aound thinking about what else I can cover in it!