I have picked out a cot that I love and we are going to buy it tomorrow when the bank will be open (waiting for my transfer to go through onto my husband's debit card because I don't have a debit or credit card). It's so gorgeous. It's metal which I know I said I loved but had ruled out for being too hard on little heads. However I do love metal cribs and it meets Australian standards so it can't be too bad right?!
Usually I don't buy any baby stuff until after the 20 week scan. I had a miscarriage before my eldest so I am paranoid. I am 12 weeks tomorrow though which is considered pretty safe and I have had a scan to see my baby developing right so I am just going to have to hope nothing goes wrong. I could buy the cot later but it is currently 50% off which means I save $400. Pretty big saving otherwise I'd hold off.
Anyway the cot is the Harry by Incy Interiors:
I love it!
You know how I was saying the exterior colours are the one thing I hadn't changed my mind on? Well I have changed my mind haha! I am now thinking I would prefer to go with a medium grey with white trim and a darker grey roof and accents. Plus I really want a bright red door!
Here is my inspiration:
I was thinking of maybe going with Dulux Endless Dusk:
Here's a house painted in it:
And for the red door I am thinking Dulux Redbox which is a lovely bright red that I have used before.
I have also thought that instead of covering over the porch area, we might actually move the wall out to cover the area and increase the size of our Lounge Room (though we'd still have a little undercover porch bit leading from the stairs to the front door). Our Lounge is currently long and narrow so this will widen it up and give us some much needed room. Plus it will give me an excuse to change the ugly front windows that the old owners put in. It's hard to explain exactly what I mean but I want the front to sort of look like this house (the photo is from an awesome renovation blog I have recently discovered called This Little Yellow House):
Except it will be the reverse as our bigger half will protrude past the smaller part and we will also have a small porch in the middle. I know I haven't explained that very well at all so you may need to see what I mean when we are done (if we get done lol).
I have been thinking not just about the house itself but also how I would like the gardens. I think for the front garden I really like the idea of the overgrown English garden. I come out in hives mowing grass and my husband doesn't really like mowing so this seems a great way to get out of mowing and also giving that lovely, home-y cottage feeling.
We currently have a few trees and bushes around the edges. Plus a dwarf apple tree in the middle and a gorgeous apricot rose bush by the stairs. I'd really like to add some herbs along the side of the front path and then a mix of medium to small plants and flowers all planted densely to creeate that wild abandoned beauty of the cottage garden.
Here are a few of my inspiration pics:
Would like to add a handrail to our porch steps like this one ^
I have also thought of maybe painting the ugly concrete path, stairs and porch. I'm thinking grey with some white stenciling. Here are a couple of ideas:
I'm looking forward to getting started on the garden. Will probably add to it gradually until it's perfect :)
I thought I would post a few inspiration ideas for the nursery! I am really looking forward to doing up another nursery! Kids rooms are my favourite rooms to decorate! I have already chosen the pram and cot I would like too so I'll post those as well! Because we thought we were done having children we are having to start all over again with the baby stuff :D
This is the pram I want to buy. It's the Silvercross Elegance and it's a bit more exxy than I would usually go for. I use the pram (and sling) a lot for my babies though as I don't drive so I figure the pram is my car ;)
I love that old fashioned English buggy look! You can also get a matching Nappy bag- why not! :P
The cot I like is much cheaper. The HENSVIK cot by Ikea:
I really like the bars all the way around look and at $149 it's a bargain! I adore metal cribs but I think they would be too hard on little heads. This seems like a nice compromise!
And here are some pictures of inspiration that I have for the actual nursery itself. If you'd like to see more then check out my pinterest board Ideas for Nursery
Just thought I'd let you know that the dating scan went well. Bub is measuring 9 weeks which puts crazy kid number 4 at an estimated due date of 13th of July. I will need a c-section though so will likely have the baby a week or two before that date :)
Here is a pic of the 4 crazy kids:
Very excited to meet our new addition. Though glad we have a bit of time up our sleeves to get this renovation going ;)
I thought I would post some pictures for the inspiration for our new roof. We need our house reroofed anyway so I have asked my husband to agree to put a different style roof on. As I mentioned previously our house currently has a skillion roof and I hate it. I much prefer gable/hip and valley etc.
Here's our current house:
Now I am thinking of trying to make it look more a Federation style. It's hard to tell from the photo but at the top of the steps there is quite a decent sized porch which I'd like covered over to make a verandah. Here are the inspiration photos I have found:
There are quite a few of these Federation houses in my home town, so it wouldn't be out of place. I think I like the curved verandah roof best and I should be able to erect some window awnings myself without too much issue.
For something a bit different though I also love gothic style houses:
Just gorgeous aren't they :) I do think though that if I went gothic I would want to have all my windows changed to colonial ones and shutters and then when you add all the wonderful fret work and mouldings my house would cost me a mint haha.
So I think Federation will be the way to go. I am planning to still paint my house the green/black palette that I mentioned before (so there's one thing that actually hasn't changed .... yet!).
Just a quick post today. Thought I would add a link to my Pinterest account if anyone wants a gander. It's all house ideas- different boards for different areas.
Utau's Pinterest
I was looking through old blog posts and thinking how much my ideas have changed in such a short time, though my taste is still relatively similar. Will I ever have a completed house that I am happy with?
It's been a little while (okay a long while) since my last post. So much has happened in that time though. The biggest news would be the discovery that we are adding another child to the family. Baby number 4 is on his or her way! It's still early days at the moment so fingers crossed all is well. I have my dating scan on Monday. Sadly my husband couldn't take time off work and as it's near school pick up time i am going to have to take all 3 of the kids with me. Wish me luck with that!!!
In light of this news we have decided not to build from scratch. We had actually decided to sell our house and buy a block and had gone so far as to put in an offer on a block but we pulled out at the last second when we discovered our baby news. Neither of us can bear the thought of building, having a newborn and living with my parents all at once. Instead we are going to extend our current house and change the roof (it has a skillion roof which I do not like!). The extension will just be out back and will extend our kitchen/dining area and add 3 bedrooms and an ensuite.
I am pretty happy with this decision now although it was hard letting go of my dream house at first. I am pretty sure we can make this house my dream home though and retain a small mortgage which will be good given I will be taking leave after the birth.
Pretty boring on our front right now. We have been saving our deposit. Appointment is made to go in and pay it on the 4th of Oct so lots of hard saving. In a moment of panic I looked at houses to buy and found a really great one. We went to look at it today to see if maybe we should just do that instead. It was pretty lovely but I just don't think I can let go of the dream. I have become pretty attached to the house we want to build.
I'm so paranoid about not getting planning/building permission. I really hope this goes ahead. I want to live in my lovely dream house so much.
I have finally finished the Dining Table!! This was a far bigger project than I naively thought it would be. It was quite fiddly and took 5 coats of both the stain and the paint but it was worth it in the end. It's not perfect but I am happy with how it looks anyway :D Plus it cost me less than $500 for the Dining Set and everything I bought to refurbish it. There is no way you'd get something like this for under $500 any other way but upcycling!!
I have quite literally just emailed off the house plan changes to the Kitome representative XD Very exciting!!! We have kept the extra bedroom (just moved it) which we weren't originally going to. However we have been talking about maybe having another couple of children so this way there would be room for them!
I have also found an oven that I adore. It's quite exxy though so we may have to wait and see if it's cheaper closer to the date. Otherwise I may have to go for something different. I do so love ths one though:
Sorry I have been very slack again :/ I have had a few bouts of sickness and been very busy as well. I have had a lot of contact with Kitome though, who have been wonderful with replying quickly and answering my questions. In fact they sent through the full plans of the house design we like so that I could make changes to them and show them what I wanted. As soon as my husband has finished I will post them up here.
I should also have some furniture finished soon so will make sure to post before and after pics soon too :)
I thought I'd post some pictures of inspiration for our house exterior that I have collected. I love the whole Georgian look as you can tell:
This one below is our main inspiration except instead of the veranda we'd like a Juliet balcony:
It's been a rather hectic week. Feels like one big whirlwind of working, staining, sanding, school drop offs, pick ups and kids after school activities. I am exhausted!
On the plus side I have 3 coats of the all-in-one stain on the table and chair tops, so tomorrow afternoon I can start the priming on the base. It shouldn't take as long because it's all water based paint and primers and so has a quicker drying time. I have everything crossed that my table turns out as good in real life as it did in my head when I imagined it.
I think I am ready to dive into bed with some episodes of Restoration Home. I love those kind of shows (especially love Restoration Man) and they make me so jealous. I would love to have the money to do up an old building. I'm so much more attracted to old architecture and furniture etc than I am to modern designs.
I am exhausted. Started work on my 8 Seater Dining set today. I tried to start a few days ago and realised there was no way in hell I was going to hand sand the table top and all 8 seats, so yesterday evening I popped over to Bunnings and picked up a Random Orbital Sander. I still haven't quite finished the sanding but it's almost done:
Tomorrow I will finish off the sanding (just a bit left in the hard to reach places) and then I can do the first coat of the Chocolate Walnut Stain I bought. I cannot wait to see how it turns out. Fingers crossed I don't stuff it up!
I have decided to have a go at making my own grommet curtains for the house to save on money. I'm not the most accomplished seamstress but I can do basic sewing through making my cosplays so I am hoping that will be enough. I have found a tutorial and it doesn't seem too scary. I actually understood it which gives me hope :D Here is the tutorial.
I have fallen in love with the idea of using hessian (or the material you might know as Burlap or Jute) for the curtains. It's a very simple, rustic looking fabric and I think the juxtaposition (bringing out the big words :P) between the elegant wainscoting on the walls with the rough fabric will look lovely. I have noticed a lot of true French Provincial homes use a lot of natural materials and textures that are practical and yet still look elegant. I'd also like to add a panel of lace to the bottom of the curtains just to add that touch of pretty to an otherwise plain fabric. Sort of like this table runner except a longer strip of lace:
I've also noticed in many pictures that it seems pretty common to add a differing panel to curtains so I feel pretty good about the decision. How pretty does the simple, rough hessian look with the delicate, elegant lace <3
I also stumbled across a great idea for curtain tie backs that I think I will use. Spoons! I know it sounds sort of weird but I think the result is gorgeous and looks a bit like some of the ornamental French tie backs I have seen (but with a far cheaper price tag):
I realised I never posted a picture of the little blackwood coffee table I also found on Gumtree. I'm planning to do a similar thing to the dining table with it. White base and then stained walnut coloured top. I adore the little cabriole legs. Cabriole legs seem to make all furniture look more elegant. Sorry for the bad photo- it was evening when I took the picture so it's a bit dark.
Now I have all these pieces I really had better get my act together and get started on transforming them!
I've changed my mind again -.- We did a check of the size of our block and to make the house fit we would have also had to rip out 2/3 of the driveway and another concrete patio area. Plus we'd be getting dangerously close to the 50% roofed land area regulation that we have here. So it's back to the design we liked before I even started the blog. It's called The Brighton and it's still by Kitome but it's a two story design. This means our slab can be a lot smaller but we can still have the space we need and we won't have to worry about removing our other concreted areas to make it fit.
Here's the outside view of the Brighton:
And here are the house plans:
The only issue is it's a little too wide for our block given that two
story houses need to be at least 3 metres from the side boundary. So we
are changing it so that 1.8m is removed from the width. This basically
equates to removing the side verandah and space equal to that. We will
just have a smaller dining area (which is fine because it's still pretty
big) and we will have 5 bedrooms instead of 6. We'll move Bed 4 across
getting rid of Bed 3 and just increase the size of the study slightly to
account for the little extra room from removing a bedroom. We will also
get rid of the laundry/toilet addition at the back as we don't need a
laundry or third toilet. Hopefully this will also make it cheaper as
this one is more expensive than the other plan.
In other news I picked up the Dining Table today and I am so happy with it. Such a bargain given it's solid timber (and very heavy) yet cost me less than half the price of an 8 seater setting from the local discount furniture store (which is cheaply made, so nowhere near the craftsmanship and longevity this table has).Totally loving Gumtree right now!
When moving it I managed to trip over my son's bike and land on my bum with the table on me- so co-ordinated! It's finally in the shed though awaiting my makeover. I feel kind of bad about painting it now because they even oiled it for us but the top will still be wood and so will the seats (just stained a darker walnut colour). I'm also not going to paint the underneath of the chair seats because they have all been stamped as it's part of the Flinder's Collection. I'd like the stamps to remain :)I cannot wait to sit at this and eat as a family!!
Okay so I am still keen to do up some old furniture in the French Provincial style. It will save me a lot of money as I have discovered that if it's French Provincial it's expensive to buy brand new : / We have a tiny budget so the cheaper the better. Plus I find that old furniture seems to be built better and I know it will last as it already has. There's also the benefit of it being more environmentally friendly to upcycle!
So anyway I have already started collecting pieces. I'm picking up an 8-seater dining set next weekend. Solid timber and cost half as much as an 8-seater set from a discount furniture store!! This is not the orangey one I talked about in the last post which turned out to have a large, badly repaired crack underneath. Pays to closely examine the furniture you wish to buy when buying secondhand! And I have put a gorgeous bed on lay by at the local City Mission. It was very cheap and will look gorgeous done up:
My plan is to paint it in Limed White quarter strength with Limed White full strength on the little carved details and then lightly distress it. I cannot wait and also cannot believe my luck at find it so cheap! I'll post progress pics when I pick it up.
As I mentioned in my last post I have decided to keep an eye out for furniture to paint up and look nice. In Tasmania it's so hard to buy brand new pieces of French Provincial looking furniture. There's not a lot around and what is around is expensive. You can get it a lot cheaper on the mainland but by the time you freight it here the cost is the same as buying an expensive Tasmanian piece!
So yesterday I ducked down to the local City Mission shop to see what they had. Some of their stuff is brand new and expensive which is not what I was after. However i did find a few really great pieces that I am going to go back in next week and lay by.
One is a large timber table which would seat at least 8 people. It has gorgeous carved legs and they are only asking $120. I reckon it's been looked over by a lot of people due to the fact it's an ugly orange-y pine colour. However with a paint and the top stained I think I can make it look as nice as some of the tables I have been looking at that go for $1500+
The second is a dressing table with mirror. It's pretty ugly superficially but with a lick of paint and some new handles it has a lot of potential.
The third one is a lounge suite. It's already in great nick but it's an emerald green colour which I think is why it hasn't sold. Given our house will be very neutral I think the emerald green might give a nice punch of colour. I'm planning on putting some neutral coloured cushions on it too to help tone down the vibrancy a bit. It's really green! But the fabric is in mint condition and is a lovely soft velvet. The couch, two armchairs and 2 footstools are under $300 which is a bargain given similar lounge sets brand new are in the $4-5k range.
I'll take some before and after photos when I do them up and you can see what you think :) I'm actually quite excited to have some new projects to work on.
Also I have decided to go with light grey curtains and sheers on the windows instead of wooden shutters. I still love the idea of wooden shutters but they are sooooooo expensive. I figure curtains will be a cheaper option for the immediate need of privacy and then later on we can always get wooden shutters.
I know I have been very slack about writing in my blog. I got really busy doing a Cosplay project (our group won the group section at our local convention- yay) and working and kids. Excuses, excuses I know! Mostly I have only being planning our finances lately so not all that interesting. Though a couple of days ago I found another kit home I liked the look of. It was very similar to the one we had chosen except cheaper so I asked for a look at the plans. Turns out the layout was pretty bad though so we are still sticking with the original.
I have found some new paint colours I like though (of course). The new colour I like for the Master Bedroom/WIR/Ensuite is Dulux's French Limestone. I absolutely adore this colour. I am thinking full strength on bottom and full strength and quarter strength stripes above the chair rail. And for the main areas I like the colour Limed White also by Dulux with the same deal of full strength on bottom and full and quarter strength stripes above the chair rail. Very French Provincial colour being a lovely taupe/grey/beige colour.
Most excitingly for me though I have discovered a blog which has gotten me excited about doing up a lot of our furniture to give it a new lease on life and make it fit the new house. I had forgotten how much I used to love it until this lovely woman's blog inspired me. It's called Lilyfield Life and is well worth a look. Lot's of gorgeous furniture that she has painted up and plenty of great tips to do it yourself. So hopefully if I can find the time and money I will be able to do some before and after photos for you of some of our furniture :)
Sorry it's been awhile! Kids are back at school and I am flat out working so haven't had much of a chance to get on here. Anyway this is the new Kitome house I like's layout:
I do want to make a few changes though (just minimal I swear)!
1) In the laundry I'd like to make a mud room and put the bathroom sink in there (because as I have mentioned we don't need a laundry as we have ours in our shed). This way the main bathroom won't seem as cluttered and it means that you can both relax in the bath in peace without people needing to barge in after using the toilet and that if you're working in the garden outside you can come in through that door and wash your hands/remove shoes etc before going inside.
2) I'd like a wall across the Family room to make it a separate playroom/rumpus room. Otherwise it's one weird shaped room!
3) I'd like to eventually put a deck area out from where the dining alcove is down to the end of the house and fill that weird space.This will probably happen a few years down the track though.
I'll also be using the living area as the dining area as I'd like a nice big table and don't think we need a second lounge area- especially with a playroom. I'll use the alcove as a little reading nook I reckon.
So there you have it. The new (and possibly not the last lol) plan for the house XD
I have been reconsidering the painting for the house (of course I have!) I still want it very similar to how I did before with some very slight changes. The chair rails will still be there and I want grey for all the main areas but I want stripes in the main areas now too. Because I am having such a neutral palette I think this will help create visual interest. I want to use Limed White full strength for the bottom and some of the stripes and 1/4 strength for the others. So the wall is all the same colour just different shades with white chair rails.
I have also decided to do the same for the bedrooms. Just have one colour but different shades. So a full strength for below the chair rail and half the stripes and 1/4 strength for the rest of the stripes. I looked at the Dulux colour wall and have made these colour selections for now (though as you know by now these are likely to change (o・・o)/ ):
Master Mint- Mint Circle (full) and 1/4 for stripes
Sebastian Blue- Shimmer (full) and 1/4 for stripes
Ashley Purple- Lilac Fluff (full) and 1/4 for stripes
Ethan Green- Lime Parfait (full) and 1/4 for stripes
Laundry Coral- Coral Blossom (full) and 1/4 for stripes
Playroom Teal- Spartacus (full) and 1/4 for stripes
Here's some inspirations pics of same colour/different shade stripes to give you an idea of what I am thinking:
