I love the partly completed upstairs vanity and the laundry cabinets, despite the lack of CaesarStone "Osprey" bench tops. (Delays delays delays etc.)

I'm really happy with the dark wooden veneer we used in the bathroom. Such a pleasant departure from shiny white gloss.

With a bit of luck the electricians will be back in the next few weeks, and once the lighting is done we can paint. I'm not holding out hope for the return of the plumbers or the CaesarStone man. If they appear as promised on 17 January I will be impressed!

not my bathroom

An idea for my next house? Gorgeous article on Apartment Therapy on colourful bathrooms.

divine

This petal pusher wallpaper is gorgeous. You can find it here.

yes please

Bubble chandelier from Jean Pelle. Just beautiful.

tiles upstairs

{proposed future} birthday gift to myself?

I am quite desperate to own an Eames Rocker. Matt Blatt have replicas for $125 but (let's face it) you get what you pay for and I can be kind of a snob about these things.

waterproofing

The bathrooms are finally starting to take shape. In the upstairs bathroom the frame for the bath has been built and yesterday we had the waterproofer here for about 10 hours.

You can finally see things take shape because them waterproofing provides a kind of outline of where the showers will go. The downstairs bathroom, whilst not as big as the one upstairs, is looking pretty good too.
Back at the ranch (i.e. UPSTAIRS) I'm continuing to play house and make things pretty. We're both very obsessed with our new Christmas tree...

And finally, I'm learning that a pretty bunch of flowers can do a lot to soothe renovation woes.

wires, pipes and walls

Busy times. The red laser beam in the picture below is just about the coolest thing ever. How did people get level ceilings before the invention of the laser?
I love the immediate visual changes that come with the installation of walls. All of a sudden the rooms take shape and there's a sense of their size and proportions. The room below will be our downstairs bathroom and the hole in the wall is a space for a hidden mirror fronted cupboard to be installed. The gyprock guys will be here for another few days, followed by the waterproofer and then the tiler. It would seem that bathrooms are a serious job. I was optimistic that we'd have the two bathrooms and laundry done by Christmas time but it turns out that you can't measure up for things like vanities and shower screens until after the tiling has been completed. Add another delay over the Christmas period and it's looking more like a mid January completion date. Which is soon, very soon...

From the veggie garden...

So. On my 'things to achieve by 30' list is one item that sounds easier than it is - successfully grow veggies. The pictured carrot and one giant lettuce is the total yield of my vegetable patch to date. Is it enough to call the project a success? You tell me...

more daydreaming

I spend way too much time daydreaming about what my kitchen-to-be will look and feel like. So far I have decided that the walls will be painted a beautiful grey and the benches will be a grey and white marble. We'll eat our meals on beautiful Heath Ceramics tablewear.

And finally butter will be in a pretty pretty dish (go Anthropologie!)

The things I obsess over are really not normal.

graffiti

Okay, okay, obviously I was the perpetrator. Although I could almost get away with blaming it on the naughty local kids whose recent mischief has included (i) breaking into our car three times (ii) egging our neighbours' house and (iii) blowing up our garbage bin with a bunger. Looovely.

DIY graffiti turns out to be one of the unexpected boons of home ownership. Who knew? It almost makes the mortgage worth it.

Anyway, this post is really about our fabulous new window. As predicted the light it lets into the soon to be laundry and bathroom is excellent.

At the moment when you look out the window you see our garbage bins but one distant day this will be remedied and the courtyard will become a supreme garden oasis. Or at the very least maybe we can hide the bins somehow?

more brick action

It is a confusing day when you get home from work and an entire doorway has moved during the day. Suddenly temporary kitchen #1 has been transformed into the bare bones of two rooms (a small bathroom and a laundry) and a hallway flanked by an enormous window.

This current laundry, where I am standing to take this next photograph, will soon be demolished and in its place the final kitchen will be built. Look at what a great job the enormous window does of filling the hallway with light.

Okay, I exaggerated the progress a little. The window isn't actually in the wall just yet. But I promise you when it is put in you will be amazed by the light it lets into the space.

In other news we've had the electrician and the plumber in the house over the last two days, as well as a tiler come and quote on the job. No photos of any of this because pictures of dirt and piping are not all that riveting.

life is better with door handles

leave town for 5 days and look what happens

Once a room has been gutted it's hard to tell what it used to look like so I am going to try harder to include more 'before' pictures.

We came home from Brisbane today to find a frame put up separating the bathroom-to-be and a new hallway. Originally looking in from the doorway the room looked like this:

But now the hole where the doorway to the new bedroom will be is properly cut out. To orient you a little more, this hole is to the left of the bed in the 'before' picture.

The old window was bricked up this week and the space for the new window has been cut out.

I'm not entirely sure what comes next but I would put money on it including (in no particular order) the following:

1. Plumbing
2. Electrics
3. Gyprock
4. Window installation
5. Tiling

gimme

Rococo Stool from La Maison. It would look very pretty sitting at the end of my bed. More than slightly out of my price range at a $1185 but they are opening an outlet store on October 9. One day...

to everybody who said 'oooh you have to keep the gorgeous old staircase'

Before:After two hours of applying coat after coat of paint stripper, scraping off layers and inhaling toxic fumes:
I estimate that it will take me 48 solid working hours and a lung transplant to finish the job. Keeping the gorgeous old staircase is no longer as appealing as it once was. It's mainly Slobodan's fault. Why he persisted in painting layer upon layer upon layer over everything in the house is a mystery to me.

demolition action

For some reason Rahul reminds me of a Ghost Buster in his demolition outfit. Sunday was a big work day and by evening Rahul was completely covered in black dirt and dust and kind of resembled Black Peter. He is still coughing up dirt and despite our valiant efforts we cannot seem to rid the rest of the house of all the black dust.

This hole will be a doorway through to bedroom 3 once our extension is finished. I am not quite sure why we made the hole now but I'm not complaining because it feels like progress.

This is the bathroom-to-be now without a ceiling and a few bits of wall. The floors are being pulled up tomorrow so that waterproofing and and a new floor can be put down. We also have to build a new wall to seperate the bathroom from the hallway which will lead to the hold in the wall and eventually bedroom 3. This all sounds confusing. I really should post a set of plans.

finally, some more progress

Theo moved our kitchen and we've now settled in to temporary kitchen v2. I actually like it better than temporary kitchen v1.

Our old kitchen has been emptied out and is about to become a construction zone and eventually a laundry and bathroom. In the meantime it's been serving as a space to test paint colours, as has the ailing back door of the house and the metal on the back shed.

Rahul has chopped down the frangipane tree in the backyard to make way for our extension.

We finally had the blinds installed in our bedroom and spare room.

I'm very pleased with how they look (and with the additional darkness and therefore better quality sleep that now takes place in our bedroom!)

acquisition

Minus the 1098987 excess pillows and the frilly skirt, of course. In case you hadn't gathered from the lack of blog posts we've been away to the land of Martha Stewart and Bed Bath & Beyond. Things have been happening on the house front though, good things, so expect some proper updates soon.

oops

Do you get the sense that the wardrobe is missing something? Like... um.... two doors. Apparently they disappeared somewhere between the journey to Ibi's factory to the spray painter then back to the factory and then to our house.

Love the way the guy who installed the doors made the aesthetic call to leave the cupboards right in the centre of the wardrobe bare. Let's hope the doors are found.

I'm really happy with how the wardrobes are looking overall however all of a sudden the master bedroom seems a little bit sterile and lifeless. I guess all the clothes added some kind of colour and texture to the room in the same way throw rugs and pretty pillows might. I'm hoping that the arrival of our long anticipated roman blinds will soften the space a bit but I'll be keeping my eye out for some more soft furnishings over the next few months. I have to keep reminding myself that this is one big work in progress and rooms look better when they grow a bit organically rather than being ordered straight out of a catalogue.

relaxing upstairs

The green bedroom looks so much neater with wardrobe doors and a little built in bookshelf. You would never know that behind those wardrobe doors lie secret stairs.

This weekend we've been moving our living space upstairs which has involved leaving my faded old pink velvet armchair and an old TV table out on the nature strip to be adopted, washing rugs and blankets and taking old bits and bobs to Vinnies. Bleurgh.


Still, it's worth it because it's a lovely place to relax on one's LoveSac.