Wiping my feet

You might remember this project from a long while back… I have to say it hasn’t been successful in the long term.

Here is how it looks today, at the back door:

Oooh so sad! That was the yellow/gray one, which was my favourite. It does get the most use and is the main entrance for all things going on renovation-wise as both the new kitchen and new bedroom open to this wee porch.

At the front door it looks slightly better, but as you can see it’s not a permanent solution to pretty doormats:

I think the hand/spray painted doormats might be best left for seasonal projects such as “Merry Christmas!” – then at least you might get a few years out of them…

Anyway, all things are worth a try aren’t they?

As you can also see there is much else to be done at both our front and back doors – they are far from pretty. Steps to be waterblasted and probably painted, door steps to be sanded and painted, some kind of storage for old shoes and boots would also be nice.

As I write Andre is out doing is bit for the prettification cause and building some formwork for a concrete walled garden out front… I’ll be back with photos when it’s done, but don’t hold your breath!

In a holding pattern

This is one reason why there’s not been much else to post about lately… the other reasons include my current preference for afternoon sleeps and icecream treats.

The boat trailer is something of a priority for the other half of us right now, as summer is progressing quickly, and Mr’s sailing buddy is off to the Northern Hemisphere in just a few short weeks. This boat was purchased many months ago and came on a dodgy trailer that I think even Mr was surprised to make it home with, so the only water it’s tasted in a while has been from a water blaster.

Because Mr’s sailing experience is somewhat limited (but not admittedly), I’ve said I don’t want him out in it on his own at least the first time. So what with the boat currently grounded while the trailer is finished, a baby due any day (and I have put my foot down about him sailing off into the deep blue sea prior to baby’s arrival after multiple warnings that it happens much faster the second time around) and the more experienced sailing friend about to desert him, time is of the essence and sanding floors, painting walls and other such things are not even on the radar.

I will just be happy to clear some much needed floor space in our bedroom (soon to be shared nursery) by getting a couple of mirrors hung and a whole lot of Mr’s paperwork sorted and filed or binned!

He knows what will happen if I have to do it for him, but fortunately for him I’m happiest lying down right now!

My Helmer in red!

I’ve been eyeing up a drawer unit for the office for some time. It was on my Christmas list but sadly didn’t make it to “under the tree“.

So, once I spotted my Ikea Helmer drawer unit up as a $1 reserve auction on TradeMe there was no stopping me!

Actually it was Mr that went click happy bidding while I put the little one to bed (he refuses to have Daddy do it at the moment for some reason…).

At $157 it was a bit of a saving from the $219 retail from My Flat Pack as mentioned here.

After I picked it up one morning earlier this week I was determined to have it all assembled and in use before Mr got home! Because afternoon sleeps now include myself I had to do it with the little one running around and risk losing screws to his “helpful” nature. He’s been telling me this week he’s a “good helper!” Hmmm…

Anyway, we got started, down on the floor and first up was this:

A rather daunting multipage assembly instruction booklet. Not to mention the 101 pieces that had to come together into one unit!

Anyway, as a graphic designer I figure I should be as good as any at following pictorial instructions so we just got on with it… base, drawer runners and sides took all of 10 minutes (in the background you can see the sad old desk drawers that have stuck by me since I was a little girl, the handles were even once pink!):

Then the back just clicked on:

Then I ran into a bit of trouble when screws got involved… for the life of me I couldn’t get 11 out of 12 screws to move.

 So I started making up the drawers (which involved a lot of folding, clicking and bending of tabs, and thankfully the handles screwed on nicely):

I popped one into the upside-down unit to get an idea of how it would all come together, and there it stayed until Mr came home and said “oh you just need to cut the thread”… which sounds all very easy but pretty much just means drive them in with all your might (of which I didn’t have much after over an hour on the hard wooden floor…)

And here they are, minus any contents because I just haven’t got there yet…

 Because they have wheels they are so much fun to push around the lounge but I’ve been telling our little guy they are “Mummy’s special drawers – no touching!” So attached to them already and I haven’t even started using them!

I am also on the lookout for a similar set of a more vintage style as a contrast. Please let me know if you spot any! Here’s the sketch of the office originally posted here, to refresh your memory of my dream space (I’m a storage and stationery geek… what can I say!)

Sleeping like a baby

Or with a baby…

Once again our bedroom has had a tidy up, with things like fishing rods finally being removed to their rightful place in the garage!

This is what it is looking like now that we have come to terms with the impending arrival and decided to get a little more organised:

For the first few weeks we’ll sleep the baby in the bassinet (which fits on the pram), but the cot is just a good place to keep the bassinet up off the ground and out of reach of a more than likely over-enthusiastic big brother. I’ve put the change mat (under the capsule) at the other end for a convenient height without the bother of a separate change table. My all time favourite blanket (which inspired my love of duck egg blue by the way) is draped artfully over the end of the cot – see?! We don’t know what we’re getting so I’ve tactfully put a few blue and a few pink colours amongst the neutral, but overall we’re looking at duck egg blue, brown, white and other natural colours, which works well for either a boy or girl, and also fits in marvellously with our duvet cover. I have one other project up my sleeve to “decorate” this temporary space in a more personal way but that will just have to wait for show and tell until post-baby.

Here’s a more close up view of the available storage for baby bits and pieces. I am 99% certain we will be pushing this to its limits by Day 3, but that’s just going to have to do. There IS no room for anything more!

This location is the third in as many weeks for this particular storage unit – it started off in the other little one’s bedroom, then was repurposed by Mr (see here if you need the full account) and then I took advantage of his first day back at work for the year and reshuffled things once again myself. (It’s all in the name of encouraging Mr to “get rid of his junk” – I figure if there is nowhere to hide it…?)

His side of the room (fishing rods have been removed – whoop whoop!):

And mine:

To be fair, I get cupboard doors so you can’t see what lies within! We plan to actually get rid of all these odd bits of storage and revamp our awful wardrobe to try and fit everything in there…

For now though, we’re bunking down and just making do because time is of the essence when you’re just a week away from being “full term”!

Doing the laundry

While I realise my laundry is about to take a major hit (grubby toddler plus leaky newborn) I think it’s pretty well ready for it (more than I am that’s for sure)!

In the last couple of days it has gained some much needed waterproofing by way of tiles and silicone:

These tiles are the same as we used in the kitchen (scroll to the bottom of this post for a pretty picture). We bought them from Mitre 10 at less than $8 a sheet, and we just needed 3 sheets for the laundry.

Another small but vitally important improvement are these surprise purchases by Mr just a couple of days ago:

He went to buy some door handles to match our existing ones which he’d seen at a junk shop previously, but picked these up as well. We figured it’ll take years and years to get all matching ones, so these are quite different but retro in a similar way. I love them! And the good thing is there are more available so we can change all our existing mismatched or missing wardrobe knobs.

Here’s an overall picture of the laundry and linen cupboard doors complete with their snazzy door hardware:

And a baring it all shot of the inside:

99% finished if you disregard the doors and door frame, which I’m blatantly doing and have been for some weeks. Painting at 37wks pregnant – bah! I have feet to be putting up!

Floors that talk

Last night I noticed some new markings on our floor…

At first I was a bit concerned, but then I thought “hey, that just shows that people live in this house!” Whether it was the little one brmming his cars and scratching the floor, or an extended family member dragging some bags of “heavy stuff” over it I can’t be sure, but it just adds to the mystery of what this house knows that we never will.

I’ve just been for a walk around, thinking of all the other little quirks in our floor that suggest of its past life, or even it’s recent history that we’ve been a part of…

In the corner of the new bedroom, which used to be hidden under the laundry cupboards, is this patch of concrete which may well have been there as a more solid alternative to the timber floor to support a boiler…?

It was what Mr was working on in this mysterious shot from here. Now that it’s ground smooth there is just some grouting to be done at the edges where some bright spark has used foam filler previously.

There’s also this little fire-related accident which has branded the floor for-ever-more (a burning ember making a dash for it, from a spark screen free fireplace):

And this is just one of many marks where furniture has been hauled across the floor:

More recently we have this little patch by the office nook where we cut out part of the old kitchen wall:

Some day it will be sanded and finished and will blend a little more with the surrounding floor…

Here’s some more of the same, but even worse… it’s a little hard to tell in the photo but it looks as if the hot water cylinder once sat here and leaked its contents? It was hidden under the old kitchen cupboards, but now marks the entrance to the new bedroom. Once again it will be sanded and refinished, perhaps with some floorboards replaced if necessary. This is fairly high on the priority list (along with everything else!)…

This is an example of where we have removed part of a wall and refinished the floor – it’s in the laundry (the flash has made things a little obscure but in reality there is not much to notice):

This is the new step between the lounge and dining area (see more way back when) which got taken to shortly after finishing, by the little one and his daddy’s hammer (it’ll come back to haunt him when we choose!):

And this precious concrete floor with all its heartbreak and trauma is definitely on the scuffed side these days but is progressing nicely to match with the character and story-filled timber floors throughout the rest of the house!

I’m still trying to figure out whether a more casual attitude to imperfection is something that happens by default when you go through a renovation, or something that happens by default once you have children… probably both? What do you reckon?

It’s a jungle out there!

I’m a bit embarassed to show you the state of our backyard – I guess because it’s hidden from the public eye it’s literally been left to grow wild. It’s even worse than the front yard and that makes me cry every time I pull into our drive.

Anyway, in the spirit of keeping it real and looking on the positive side, here it is, with a few pleasant surprises:

The umbrella was a christmas present for me and I was more than happy to whip it out on this cloudy day while the little one splashed around in his “swimming pool”… besides that, you can see the ugly back lawn which was nicely manicured ready lawn when we moved in, but due to a depth of less than 10cm it became a mush pit during winter and died over summer and now the only thing surviving is weeds. The black netting around the deck is something that is usually put down when making new roads (Mr happened to have some to hand when we were talking about toddler proofing the deck a while back so that’s what went up and has stayed ever since)…

From the right hand corner in the above picture the view is to the garage. You can see where we’ve started digging up the back lawn under the clothesline. We plan to continue with this but need to finish another project first so we can reuse the dirt rather than just dump it. There is a funny little corner deck which is a bit bizarre but must have made sense at some point. This whole backyard is concrete, with little terraces and odd shapes everywhere which have not quite been disguised (see a slab under the deck above). The coolie chairs are the only bright spot in this back yard and will have pride of place on a new deck one day.

Here’s the full triangular piece of deck which sits over a cavernous bit of concreteness. This view is of the neighbours house, which we hope to screen with some fast growing (but happy in a raised garden bed) trees – because they are much lower than us we figure raising the fence might make them feel a little like they live in a hole, but if we plant trees just over the current fence height then “suddenly” they’ll be up at the height we want without seeming like we’ve planned it that way!

Here’s a bit more of a shot of the first corner, just to show the jungle that is our backyard, it has literally been left to grow wild – we’ve done no weeding, no trimming, no removing or planting of plants.

So it was with some surprise that I had a call to “come and look at this!” from Mr just the other day… blackberries in our backyard! Yes I know they are a weed and quite hard to get rid of, but we’re just enjoying them for now (note to self: must take photo of little one with grin and blackberry juice smeared all over his face).

And this one is not a surprise this year as this is our second summer here (wow, is it really?!) but we’re home early enough to enjoy them this time and the birds are not getting them all… plums (this is the little tree in the corner of the triangle deck)!

So, it’s not all bad is it?!

And we have plans for a much more orderly back yard with a vegie garden, room for the kids to play, and a bigger deck for outdoor dining. What do you think of this?:

One of those raised gardens might well turn out to be a paved play area as I’m not a super keen gardener and two gardens would probably be sufficient to keep me busy and as our little one grows he will want to play outside more and more. Because there is concrete under this whole backyard we’re doing away with all grass and will probably use white pebbles between the garden beds and sandbox. We also need to be a bit careful with what we do over the triangular deck in the top right corner as we don’t want to have to reinforce it – hopefully half a low-ish sandbox, and a bit of hedge in a raised bed won’t be too heavy. We’ll keep the plum tree in the corner too, which I’ve left off this plan. The deck will be about the same width as it is currently, but will extend almost to the fencline, with a “service” pathway between it and the hedge. We’ll keep it to the current height also, otherwise it will need consent, so it does mean steps down from the house but we’ll just have to live with that. The only thing completed on this plan is the clothesline, so we have much to do! If you have any ideas on the above plan feel free to contribute – we’d love to get some more takes on what we can do with our jungle!

 

On the go

This post was intended for pre-christmas but didn’t quite happen…

While there hasn’t been a whole lot to report, we have been busy as ever chipping away at lots of little things, like new roller blinds throughout (remaining curtains and tracks have now been removed):

Swapping shelves between bedrooms (which involved some sorting of junk along the way):

The smaller shelves are now in the master bedroom temporarily but will likely end up in the 3rd (kids) bedroom again later:

And the large shelves which were in the master bedroom are now in the little one’s current bedroom and will move with him into the new bedroom in a few more weeks. There are some alterations to be made to these shelves yet to allow for hanging clothes and the smaller storage baskets. I also need to purchase some more baskets to keep everything tidy.

Grinding the odd patch of concrete where an old boiler sat in the new bedroom (this photo shows the drop sheet set up intended to keep the dust to a minimum – no photos of the process itself as I wasn’t getting the camera anywhere near it!):

Priming the walls and ceiling in the new bedroom (just getting started here, but it’s finished now):

Crafting up a cushion for a present (here is the letter I marked out on the inside of the cushion cover, which I bought, to use as a guide):

And the finished cushion:

Painting the trim around the lounge to dining, and office nook:

Building a new boat trailer… no pics of this sorry but it’s just to show not everything is house related!

Plus there have been a couple of trips to the hospice shop to dump old curtains and what-not, a trip to the scrapyard with an old trailer, a bunch of present buying trips and some making of goodies for Christmas Crackers:

You can expect another post like this in a few days after we’ve achieved a few more little bits and pieces about the place!

Merry Christmas from the Duck Egg Blue family

We are having our own little party for 3 tonight so I’m feeling like it’s Christmas already!

It also helps that I’ve finished up with work and am free of a work cellphone and emails so the holidays, for me, are here already!

At least until the little one arrives to fill its booties (image inspired by this image on Pinterest):

I had grand visions of a mid-century styled Christmas tree like this one but time was of the essence, and passed me by. I have made do with decorating the fireplace with the handful of decorations found in the depths of a box behind the sofa, and a bunch of other things around the house in a general theme of red, white and black.

The behemoth on the left is a trike for the little one which my husband insisted on wrapping – it made him feel like he’d “got something” for our boy so while the red and white trike with some festive bows on the handle would have looked quite styley and in keeping with the theme, I let him wrap it up in newspaper. I guess the black and white print is still in theme! And I agreed it would be much more of a surprise than a bows on handles disguise. There is still at least one present to be wrapped and added to the stash, and as yet only one with my name on it (funnily enough it has my writing on the tag?!) so fingers crossed I don’t just have to play Santa tonight.

This Merry Christmas garland I made last year – it’s just cut out of photocopy paper and joined with red thread… and nastily sellotaped to the mantelpiece. Free but definitely not lacking impact!

I pulled out an old phone and candles, shifted a painting from off the sideboard and added some beads and ornaments to the mantelpiece to make it sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas!” (It used to sing “Groaning Under the Weight of Magazines and Dust”.)

On the other end is a little white frame into which I popped this Kikki.K card I had stored up (intended some day for a picture gallery on the dining area wall), and the painting is a student version of a Masterly painted depiction of Paris, purchased at Camden markets in London. We had grand visions of purchasing more paintings of various cities as we travelled but the only other one we got was of Shanghai on our way home. Funds… or lack thereof.

I purchased this Christina Re paper in January (on sale – how organised was I?!) and it has been useful all year due to it’s not completely Christmassy nature and is still going strong! The gift tags I printed myself and I think I  found them here, but can’t just spot them again now – if you know where they came from please comment!

I’ll be back with a few updates on things on the go around here, which have not yet made an appearance because they’re not yet finished. However, it’s time to stop dilly-dallying and just get ‘im up finished or not. Otherwise you could be waiting some time…

I’d just like to thank…

Well, talk about exciting to receive my very first blog award!

Thank you to Lindsay from Me, Ed and Pea for passing it on. I appreciate it a lot and hope it will give my l’il ol’ blog a wee boost.

Here’s how it goes:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave the award to you. Check

2. Share 7 things about yourself. Check

1. I’m currently in renovation denial and avoiding all painting, sanding and planning by handcrafting presents and sweet things for myself!

2. I contract as a Marketing Manager for a company who I will be finishing up with tomorrow. Full time mum here we come…!

3. The thing I am most excited about right now is a planned campervan trip ‘up North’ in May 2012.

4. I spent 6 months living/travelling in a campervan in Europe a couple of years back.

5. I love dark chocolate and rarely eat milk or white.

6. Baby number two feels like it might have a calmer nature than number one, but I’m scared to jinx it by writing this!

7. I don’t do exercise. Oh wait – I vacuum, paint, chase a toddler, mow the lawns (sometimes) and am currently doing weights training (carrying an extra 8-9kg 24/7).

3. Send it along to 15 other (new/newer) bloggers and let them know you have awarded them! 4 out of 15 check.

Wow, 15 is a lot… I’m thinking maybe along the way of copying and pasting that number somehow got to be a little too big for it’s boots?

Here’s my sharing of the love and Versatile Blogger Award – it might not get to 15 but these are all blogs I check into every day or so and I do so because they inspire me:

Andrea from MissBrowne – well, you’re just a super duper designer and I am already anticipating your thank you card design for baby number two!

Natalie from The Destitute Designer – because you’re doing the same thing as me… mothering, working and renovating. Keep it up!

Megan from Mousehouse - perhaps not a new blogger (you seem to be much more experienced with it than me) but I like your home style and commitment to what you set out to do.

Rachael from Made From Scratch – also more up with blogging than I am but I do like your blog for it’s cleanness, colour and style. Hope all is going well for you.

I’d like to share more but I’d be making it up… most other blogs I read are pretty well established.

Thanks again Lindsay, and now I’m off to stitch some more buttons – will do my best to show you what’s up with this before I’m outta here for a Christmas break!