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!

My Dad

23rd March 1931 - 20th September 2010

Here are some excerpts from the eulogy I read at Dad's funeral:











I've left a lot out from what you read here, about his community involvement, his love of travel around Australia, and his time spent with his grandkids, but you hopefully will get an idea of what a special person he was, and how much we all love him and miss him.

My dad

I lost my dad on Monday, so forgive the lack of posts. I'll be back during the week to rave about what a fabulous gentleman he was.

Link to a fab freebie

I love this idea for a quick and easy project that I found here.
My own laundry is quite a boring space. Servicable but dull. To add to the 'ambience' or lack thereof, my dinosaur of a machine that will not die is yellow and faded and comes complete with cracked panels. I'll add pics of it one day when I'm feeling brave.


At least there'll be something stylish in there!

Happy Fathers' Day!

Back again

I'm sorry my blog has been neglected lately. We've been interstate yet again, visiting my Dad who is currently in hospital. He has Alzheimers, and has also had pneumonia and other health issues lately, so it's not a very happy situation. This picture was taken looking out of his room, so at least he has a lovely view to look at.

Paint therapy

There's something very therapeutic about slapping some white paint on something. I finally won something on Ebay - which is remarkable for me, as I always bid so ridiculously low. My successful bid as a couple of not so lovely chairs. One of them is what they called a 'captain's chair' so I thought it was appropriate for our boating family. So a quick sand and some white paint and voila. No doubt there's someone out there horrified at me whacking on the paint, but, hey, I'm the only one bidding on it, so if not for me, most likely it was off to the tip for this cutie.

Here it was before, the photo actually makes it look not too bad, but the finish was really bad:

I've got no clue what to do with the other chair that came with it - perhaps I need to sew a linen cover and it can be my sewing chair?