Monday, February 28, 2011

Front Door cont...

This is what our front door looks like when I finished planting two new plants a few weeks back. It was still blue, which we had decided to paint over for a fresher look.


On a hot summers morning I decided it was time to paint the front door. So I repainted all the white and was just about to start painting the panels when the husband had a genius idea of leaving the centres of each panel white. I love how he comes up with ideas that are incredibly fiddly for everyone but him!

So I decided it was his job to strip the paint off each centre. Unfortunately for my scheming, he pulled out the belt sander and made it a 5 minute job! Drat, I thought that would have taken him hours!



 Eventually he left me with 4 lovely wood centres.

After a few hours spent cursing the world of Watyl paint that goes gluggy really quickly, I ended up with this result.


Pretty chuffed with myself. I painted each of those centres freehanded, and managed to make very few stuff-ups along the way. I am loving the new look for our front door. The husband was right, the painted centres do lift the look of the door.

The next day I bribed the husband into painting the front of the house, which my cunning way of making him paint the door frame, rather than having to do it myself. I was given the task of painting the panels on each side of the door after my stellar freehand effort. Hmph! Am still yet to do that though.

Now to have the glass replaced to lovely clear glass.


I have plans to paint the step the same grey colour as the trim, and the windows will be the same colour again.
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Friday, February 25, 2011

Pocket Watch


If only I had a spot for a giant pocket watch!

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Thursday, February 24, 2011

How my husband lit up my world

It doesn't take much these days, a few powerpoints, some lights and a fan, and I was his. Well least for the afternoon when it came to climbing up a ladder holding a tape measure.

Oh I do love the sight of a freshly installed Clipsal C2000 Series powerpoint! So white. So shiney. So electrically charged!


I should mention, for record keeping sake, the tanty I threw at one point about my previously much loved plasterer. When he arrived, all those months ago, I asked that he not cut the hole in the ceiling for the fan cables. We hadn't centred the cables, opting to do it after the plaster was up. We had previously found it easier to paint without a hole in the ceiling, and you know, hadn't decide on the location of the fan. I made it perfectly clear that we could get into the cavity of the ceiling, and would be doing so to install the air-con vent, so it wasn't a major thing.

Imagine my suprise when I came home to find a hole in my ceiling. Imagine the tanty I threw when it wasn't centre of the room, rather centre of the window - which wasn't centre of the room!

It wasn't a huge thing, but it meant that now the lights are in a rather odd location, not being square from each wall. Not impressed plasterer, not impressed.
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

25 Weeks

So, 25 weeks. Wow, it really has flown by!

I am not at the stage where I start to get uncomfortable if I sit or stand for too long (I can only imagine this is going to get worse :( ), they are especially bad if I spend too long in bed. Bye bye sleep-ins, the leg cramps make sure of that! However there is a tiny little being who makes it all worth it when they give me a good solid kicking. Those kicks melt my heart, and now they melt the husbands heart as he can feel them.

My belly has expanded, and now gets in the way when trying to do certain tasks, like hug the husband. But it has overtaken the boobs in the stakes of who sticks out the most, a race I am glad is over, as I was starting to get scared that my already ample bosom would not stop growing!

There are several things that a 25 week pregnant woman shouldn't do
  • climb ladders under door frames - seems you quickly forget that frame above your head. Slightly annoying when there is no-one around to rub my head better for me
  • indulge in paddlpops for dinner - even if they do call your name
  • try and fit into their regular clothes - it is depressing
  • mow the lawns after work. Not only because it is damn hard work, but you end up looking like this

Now, for the important things - what do you think: Girl or Boy?
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Monday, February 21, 2011

Soothing Grey Nursery

Stalking Project Nursery has really become my new favourite hobby! I love seeing the different ideas people come up with.

One of nurseries that made me go "ohhh, that is so cool, I love it" was Beebs275 with her soothing grey nursery with birch trees.


 Love how the paper crane mobile looks like the birds are actually flying in the trees, how clever!
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Friday, February 18, 2011

Cat Kennel

Remember when we started building a Cat Kennel way back in August? Well since then it has sat on our back veranda looking like this

 Seriously, for 5 months I haven't bothered to putty up those holes, or put the capping on the roof. And despite the amount of times the paint brushes have been brought out, it never got past the undercoat stage.

I was looking for an excuse to go to Bunnings a few weeks back, and remembered we were low on house paint. Bingo! Several other items later, I left with my tin of paint and some putty, ready to finish the kennel. Ahhh, nice white (Dulux Chalk USA) kennel.


Our original plan was to make it like a mini house, and with our house going under some minor transformations, we decided to paint the trim of the kennel in the colour we plan to paint the trim on the house.

And thats where the kennel ended. So far it has been the cheapest building project in our household, using mainly left over materials from other projects. Best of all, the animals seem to love it in there!

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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Nursery Fabric Update

It took me many weeks to decide on a fabric, many opinions were sought, from my lovely blog followers, to random people at work (seriously, I even asked a conveyancer what colour she preferred one day - this is someone I have never met, but speak to at least once a fortnight, so we have got to know each other over the last 16 months).

Eventually I clicked the "Buy" button on FatQuarterShop online, and ordered myself 12 yards of these fabrics
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Orange it is!!! I am so excited about my choice, it seems right. I figured that if we have a boy I can always team in dark blue, and if it is a girl I can tie in pink and make it a sunset theme. But at this stage I want to keep it as it is.

What do you think?
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Love this space


Apparently this is from Absolutely Beautiful Things according to Google, but I couldn't find the post listed on Anna's blog. Terribly sad about that, as I would love to see the rest of the room :(
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Monday, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentines Day



We don't really do Valentines Day in our household, we make a biggish deal of our wedding anniversary instead, so I am sending all you a lovely heart virtual card this year :)

I am spreading the love in our house this year: my car is going to have its 80,000km service - and only 1,000km overdue (which is somewhat of a miracle, normally it is around 4,000 overdue).
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Friday, February 11, 2011

Little Girl Bedding

The current bane of my existance, besides my pelvis which feels like it is about to shatter, is finding bed linen for the babies room. As we won't be finding out the gender until the baby is making its noisy entry into the world, it needs to be gender neutral, with the ability to adapt to either a girl or boy when the time comes.

However, on my searches I found the most adorable little girl linen from Baby Lovin Bedding


It is made with Amy Butler's Modern Midwest collection in shades of pink and green. Pink and green together tend to make me swoon, so it is no surprise that I love this set.
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Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Great Pram Debate of 2011

This debate will go down in history as the one that caused many long and heated discussions in our household.

On the left we have the husband who votes for the Baby Jogger City Select in black.

On the right we have the baby and I rooting for the Bugaboo Cameleon. ( I am taking charge of the babies vote given it is the one kicking me constantly)

My requirements in a pram were pretty simple, it had to be a four-wheeler, easy to steer, able to fit through checkouts at the supermarket, and ideally it would have a bassinet attachment for a newborn. We like that both prams allow the baby to either face the parent, or the world and that it was easy enough to change the seating based on our requirements at any given point in time.

We own a small hatchback, a Toyota Corolla, and space is an issue. We did what everyone suggested and took ourselves to a large baby store and tried pushing them, along with many others, around and in the boot of our car.

This is what we came up with

Baby Jogger City Select

Bugaboo Cameleon

From that, the Baby Jogger looks like a clear winner, but there are some downfalls. The frame weighs a couple of kilos more, which I could notice when lifting it up into the car. It also requires the wheel to be removed before the hatch will actually close, which whilst easy enough to do, could get annoying REALLY QUICKLY!

Although it looks like the Bugaboo takes up more room, I am pretty sure I could have packed it better. According to a bit of googling, if you put the chair in first, and then the frame, like below, it would be more compact, even with the wheels left on.

Both prams have things we didn't like. I am not a fan of look of the Baby Jogger, it seems very masculine to me. I wasn't a fan of the carry basket (not shown) on the Bugaboo. If we were to design a pram it would be a complete mishmash of several prams on the market (the Bugaboo with its light frame, the Baby Jogger with it's 17 different seating combinations, the Strider Plus with it's massive basket, the ease of folding of the Peg Perego Skate and the convertible bassinet/seat of the Silver Cross Surf).

After a week of debate, the jury is still trying to come to a verdict, however I think I will win on this one, even if it is only because I will be the one placing the order ;)
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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Tragic Pages


Let me tell you an embarrassing secret. When I was 17 my bestie and I went through a phase.

A Mills & Boon phase. Tragic I know. We couldn't get enough of them though. Clearly we were bored, and living life through the saucy pages of a book.

When I saw this framed artwork on Etsy I laughed out loud, which was rather unfortunate that I had just taken a mouthful of lemonade! Original it is.

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Monday, February 7, 2011

Front Door Progress

One thing I wanted to accomplish this year was to makeover our front veranda. I have managed to talk the husband around to my way of thinking about this project, and he agrees that the posts need replacing, the tin on the roof quite possibly needs replacing, and the house needs to be repainted in new colours.

The first step of this project was to decide on a new colour scheme for the house. I compromised with the husband on this, as he didn't want to change the base colour of the house, but agreed to change the trim colour. So after a lot of too-ing and fro-ing, I decided on
as it meant that when we replaced some guttering, we wouldn't need to paint it, we could just buy it in colorbond. Smart thinking 99!

The next step was to buy some new pot plants for the front door. I wanted some slight contrast, so chose some black ceramic pots, and planted some classic box hedge plants in them. I plan to eventually trim them and keep them alive enough to become topiary trees.

Now to paint the front door and resurface the floor.
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Friday, February 4, 2011

Shopping for Baby

Last November I went shopping online during the Black Friday sales at Gymboree, and scored Gymbucks. Now for those who aren't in the know, Gymbucks are basically free money that you get to spend during a designated sale period. Awesome, I am rewarded with more goods just for buying something.

Finally, it was time to claim my Gymbucks, in the form of $25 off every $50 I spent. I had my cart well stocked for weeks before the sale, just so I wouldn't forget what I wanted. Also made for a quicker shopping experience at work one boring lunch time.

Here is what I ordered this time around for a little boy
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and for a little girl
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Clearly a lot more for a little boy this time around, but that makes up for my last lot of shopping where it was mainly girl based.


PS - I am buying both genders for our baby, as I don't know what we are having. I figure with 3 friends all due within 10 weeks after I am, one of them has to have the opposite gender to my baby! Surely... Pin It

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

I will love you today, tomorrow and forever


Today marks the day where I brought a tear to the mister's eye for all the right reasons (and not just because I spent too much on shoes AGAIN!). I love you my dear, more than you will ever know.
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Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Bold Nursery

I am fascinated by sgallacher's nursery, with it's bold orange zebra rug and dark blue walls. A colour combination I wouldn't normally think of together, but it works!






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