Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Have you seen these tiles?

I am in love with these tiles

However I want them in a beige colour. Any ideas on where I can find them? Or inspiration on the interwebs?
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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Bathroom Opps?

Remember when I mentioned that I chose a round bath for our bathroom, and how it caused a few dramas?

Well I have another drama to add to the list

See all that water under there? It's not meant to be there. And that black stuff? It is wet timber that shouldn't be wet. Turns out that a tiny hole in the grout had got bigger, and over the last 4 years, got worse. Very much worse.

So we have some options
1. Remove the bath, tiles and shower and start again by adding a new bath, a separate shower, and having to redo all the plumbing which requires digging up half of the slab.
2. Replace the bath and tiles, leaving it as a bath/shower combo.
3. Put the weatherboards back on the house and bury our heads in the sand.

Given that we plan to live here for at least another year and a bit (depressing thought, but thems the breaks), Option 3 isn't going to be the best option for us, or for the person who buys the house when we sell it.

Option 1 would be ideal, but we hadn't counted on having to do this, finance wise, and it would basically mean re-doing the bathroom from scratch. Essentially it would mean spending another 10K on a room which has already been renovated. Something we don't really want to do.

So it is Option 2 for us! We went to the plumbing store today and got a brochure on baths. Lady Luck was on our side, as we found a rectangle bath (as opposed to our round edged bath) that would require minimal alterations to the walls, no change to the depth, and is longer than our current bath! Best of all, the plumbing is right where it is required to be!!!

Thank you Lady Luck! Now I just need to find tiles we both like, and a new tap that controls the bath and shower in one.
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Monday, September 27, 2010

Sydney - A recap


On Friday, I left work on time, and made good time to Avalon (it is just over 2 hours from my work to the airport), in fact I was reasonable early, as the baggage check in was only just opening. The lovely man who checked in my baggage inform me that my flight was delayed by an hour. No biggie, I ordered some dinner and rang Britt to let her know.

Halfway through my dinner I noticed some commoation around me, however I was engrossed in my magazine and paid no attention to it. After 5 minutes or so it had got noiser in the cafe and people were moving around a lot. I looked up to see my worst nightmare (for that day at least) - my flight had been cancelled.

Ummm, what does that mean? Don't they realise I am meant to be meeting Britt at the airport in 2 hours? Don't they realise I have been looking forward to this for 6 months??? Best I ring Britt and let her know the bad news.

I must say, the staff at Jetstar were very helpful about the situation, given the circumstances. They were very quick in organising us to be put onto flights in the morning from the Melbourne airport, and booking us into a hotel for the night. All 150 of us! I wish I could say the same for the staff at the hotel down the road from Tullamarine. They were rude and unhelpful at basic tasks, which was disappointing as I have stayed with this particular hotel chain in the past and they have had lovely staff. Thank goodness I hadn't paid for this room, otherwise I would have been rope-able!!!

At 10 minutes to noon on Saturday, I arrived in Sydney, collected my baggage, and found Britt. From there on in, it was non-stop chatting. And shopping. And eatting.

Stay tuned for the rest of the highlights of our trip...

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Friday, September 24, 2010

Blog This Challenge 56 - The Sky


Time for another Blog This challenge.

Our sky doesn't look like this every day, just on the days where there are bushfires in our area. From memory, these fires were in the bush reserve over the road from our place and burning towards us. Thankfully, the weather changed and it rained.

What does the sky look like at your place?
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Thursday, September 23, 2010

More Kitchen Love

Following on from my declaration of love for our kitchen bin, I bring you something else I love in our kitchen.

Our drawers. I always wanted a kitchen full of drawers, and I wish I had chosen to have more installed, however these particular drawers are ever so handy.

In the bottom drawers we have baking bowls and roasting dishes, in the middle we have more baking goods and saucepans on the other side. And at the top we have plates and bowls, and cups and glasses.
Everything is within reach when cooking, and the cups are just below the kettle, which makes it husband proof! Not to mention that we manage to stash more in our drawers than I could in a cupboard, given their is a whole extra 'shelf' happening in there.

Definitely keeping the drawer system in the next house!
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The White Shed

I recently discovered The White Shed online whilst looking for some photo frames for my sister in-law, and may or not have got a little distracted.


So in the spirit of Christmas (not long to go now!) I went on an (imaginary given I am on a major budget after buying this beauty) shopping trip. Luckily for me, all of these presents were for myself, as selfish is how I roll.

Bookends for standing up my magazines
 I thought these mini apples were the cutest things ever. Hmmm, I do need something for our counter in the kitchen.

A silver mirror for the hallway table.

A wire pair for somewhere yet to be decided.

Remind me when I am off my budget to go shopping at The White Shed again!

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Friday, September 17, 2010

Love



Truer words have never been spoken. My beauty therapist has a block of canvas' on her wall with this saying on it, and it always makes me smile.

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Thursday, September 16, 2010

Curtains




I found these curtains on the interwebs and thought they were incredibly cute. They let enough light in to be functional, depending if you go for the light or dark blind, and add an interest factor with the patterns.  Delia Shades has heaps of patterns, from your circles to lattice work.

With today's modern houses being built with plain glass windows in bathrooms (Seriously, why do my neighbours need to see me shower, trust me, it is not pretty! If anyone knows the answer to this (and why it isn't part of Rescode) do tell me!) they could be a good option to still let light in but block out nosey neighbours.

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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Kitchen Love

Recently we realised that it has been a year since we started the kitchen renovation. Which means we have lived with our new kitchen for almost a year and still not finished it.

It was at this point that I started to list the things I would change about our kitchen in the new house. Some elements of our kitchen would stay, others would go.

On the stay list we have our bin system.
Someone gave us the advise to think about where we would put our bins in our new kitchen. Despite being to super anal organised person I am, I must admit, prior to being given the advise, I hadn't given it little thought. So we looked at our options, having a bin in a cupboard under the sink, a freestanding bin, or a built in devise. We chose the built in kind, and I must say, it is one of my favourite features. 

As you can see, we have two bins, the front for regular waste, the back for recycles. At first I was worried about how small the bins were, given we were going from large bin liners to the bathroom sized ones (which we now re-use plastic shopping bags when we have them), but it hasn't been an issue. If anything, it has made us recycle more and produce less landfill waste. 

The other handy feature about our bin system is the drawer underneath. It is where we keep all of our cleaning items, as it is just the right height for a spray bottle to stand up. I have to say, it is nice not having to dig at the bottom of a cupboard for that rarely used bottle of carpet cleaner, instead just plucking it straight from the drawer.

So there you go, a staying feature of our kitchen was our bin. Can't say I am not unique with that one ;)

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Friday, September 10, 2010

Weekend Plans

It is finally here, the weekend I have been excited about for months. The weekend I have been waiting for for over a year.

This weekend I get to meet in person one of the closest friends I have. None other than the amazing Britt! And as luck would have it, we both have some pretty awesome online friends who live in Sydney who we plan to catch up with along the way!

I imagine our weekend will include


 Lots of yummy food

and plenty of gossiping!

What do you have planned for this weekend?
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Thursday, September 9, 2010

If I had my time again - Bathroom

We have come a long way in our renovations, and at times it feels like we have been here a lot longer than 6 years, and other times it seems like it has only been a couple of years since we first unpacked those few boxes (the husband started with very little, and the 'house move' consisted of a trailer and a ute. In one trip. That is it).

And there are things we have learnt along the way. Mistakes we have made. I don't think anyone ever has "THE PERFECT" house, the one without flaws. And I guess it is those flaws that make a house individual.

So here we have bathroom mistake number one. Oval bath should not go in rectangle hole. Ever! As punishment for doing this, one shall spend vast amounts of time cleaning extra tiles and drainage.

Our shower is over our bath - as we thought our bathroom would be small and not be able to accommodate a separate shower (WRONG!), and now we have a daily battle with the water that pools on this ledge.


We also have the unusable space at the opposite end of the bath (this space is however handy when bathing small children, as it saves having to bend down to the ground to dry and dress them). Basically this ledge is used to hold decorative items, and towels when we shower. It is such a waste of storage space :(

I guess we learn from our mistakes, and believe me, the husband and I have learn from the bath incident.

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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

I wish I could pull this off

I wish I could pull off the peaked cap look. I would so buy this cap
The husband thinks it reminds him of the hats his Pop wears. It so doesn't though, his are tartan with pompoms on top! This is Burberry!!!

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Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Dining Room Buffet


After we brought our new TV unit, the buffet in which our TV had been sitting on, was moved back to the dining room. I'm not sure what to put on it. It is quite long (1500mm) and sits under a photowall.

Suggestions?


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Monday, September 6, 2010

Point & Shoot - Saturday 4th September 2010

If you live in Victoria you will have no doubt experience a massive amount of rain. If you live elsewhere in the world, you might not know about it.

Within 6 hours, the town I live in had received its monthly average rainfall for September and October! That is how much rain we had. I wasn't aware of it until the next morning when the husband went to work and rang to tell me he would be late due to the floods.

What? Floods? Where?

When he finally got home, we went for a drive out to my parents place, as they are close to where Brian said the highway had been closed, and when he spoke to my mum earlier that morning, she mentioned that they couldn't see their bottom paddock under the water.

So we went for a drive. And found this bridge.
In the 8.5 years my parents have lived in their house, I have only ever seen a trickle going under this bridge after the heaviest of rains. This was full on white water rafting water flow! This is what was feeding it
Ummm, that should be a paddock with a tiny stream going through it, not a river!!!

No wonder it is a little muddy under foot, requiring my gumboots! My heart goes out to those who are in a much worse state than us, and hope that they are staying dry and that the water levels go down quickly.
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