life is better with door handles

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.

i call that a city view

rockstar

Rahul just finished painting the woodwork in the upstairs green bedroom. So happy.

Also pictured are our new Lovesacs. Seriously alarming name I know. Mum almost had a heart attack when I told her that Rahul's Lovesac was enormous. The green bedroom is about to become our main living space because the existing kitchen is moving into our current living room, becoming our second temporary kitchen. I know, it's confusing. The current temporary kitchen will become a plumbing paradise because it will ultimately house the pipes that will go upstairs to the new bathroom, as well as it's own pipes for it's eventual use as a second bathroom and laundry.

Our couch is being orphaned to a new home and we will be enjoying the comfort of Lovesacs for the forseeable future, which I have absolutely no complaints about because they are the most comfortable seating in the world. They are made of some kind of super duper foam so they are nothing like the traditional beanbags which I have always been less than keen on.

finishing touches

I know I've been quiet lately but that's what happens when your chief architect and project manager disappears to Paris for a few weeks.

Despite the fact there little actual construction has taken place I have been very busy researching all the finishing touches our bedroom requires. One of these is curtains, which are part of a category I keep reading about called 'window treatments'. Window treatments sound like serious stuff but the phrase just makes me laugh.

Our bedroom is freezing at the moment so curtains and blinds are a priority. I love floral but I dislike chintz and Rahul would hit the roof if our curtains were too pink or girly. This Romo print is floral but graphic and we both love it.

This colour range matches our walls and windows beautifully, and the splash of red should give our room a burst of warmth. I keep buying raspberry red flowers for my bedside table so I think that's a sign to move forward with something in that colour range.

In other news I am loving this book by Megan Morton. It's full of beautiful but vastly different spaces. And it's nice to get inspiration from somewhere other than blogs!

We've also narrowed down the choice of wardrobe door handles to these two Mother of Pearl and Sons handles. My photography does not do either of the handles justice so it's hard to tell that the white one is actually inlaid mother of pearl. We're still waiting on actual wardrobe doors to be completed and installed. In the meantime Rahul suggested that we use them as door handles on our regular doors which would look both adorable and hilarious due to the minute size of these handles.

we moved into our new bedroom

It's bliss!

step by step: bedroom 2

I like looking back to the photos from the beginning. Like this one. I don't miss stripping wallpaper though. I wish we were already at 'before' and 'after' stage but it's not far away, so for now I'll show you what's happened upstairs step by step.


Some more painting to do, the wardrobe doors need to go on, and the floors need to be polished. But really, we're so so close now...

the man cave

I was a bit intimidated by the steep stairs leading up to our attic (aka 'the man cave'.) This morning when I left for work there were no stairs, just a hole in the ceiling from the second bedroom. I get home and there's a staircase. Super cool.

If you ever come to visit and you are allowed entry to the man cave here's a tip. Don't look down.
It's so big up there. I love it. Today I finally feel like it's all coming together and that these months of living in putrid dust and grime will be worth it.


And now for a quick look at where we're up to.

Updated Bedroom 'To Do' List

Have doors installed
Electrician to finish wiring
Gyprocker to do put up walls, cornices and ceiling
Choose wooden floorboards
Have existing floors removed
Have new floorboards layed and polished (rescheduled 10 May)
Choose lights
Have lights attached to wires
Design wardrobe
Order wardrobe
Install wardrobe
Choose skirting boards and architraves
Attach skirting boards and architraves (rescheduled 6 and 7 May)
Paint walls, ceilings, skirting boards, architraves and windows (now 50% done, tbc 8 May)
Wardrobe doors and doorknobs attached (mystery time frame)

dear tradies, please don't cancel

We have a schedule:

• Electrician to finish lighting on Monday 3 May
• Wardrobe installation scheduled Monday 3 May
• Architraves and skirting boards to be attached Tuesday 4 May
• Floor sanding and polishing tentatively booked for Wednesday 5 May

I am optimistic (but not naive) about the likelihood of the schedule being successfully adhered to.

oh credenza....

I think somebody needs to stage an intervention because this week I have been daydreaming about credenzas. After years of share housing and cramming all of my possessions into small spaces it's exciting to have a whole house to play dress up with. The landing at the top of the stairs is big, really big. Big enough to be home to a credenza, a vase of flowers and a big picture or mirror on the wall.

Typically I love credenzas that (a) live in America (b) are Danish style and (c) are pricey*. Like these.

However if I lived in a red bricker that I could paint white, plant palm trees in the yard and could retro-ify I would be buying this little number. It has BUILT IN SPEAKERS AND SPACE FOR A RECORD PLAYER. Betty Draper would love it.

In more important news our Development Application was approved on Tuesday night. Sadly we missed hearing it be approved by a few minutes because we were late for the meeting. I was trying to choose an appropriate young-newlywed-renovator-in-the-inner-west outfit and Rahul just wanted to have a second bowl of lamb vindaloo and rice. Whoops. After ascertaining from a more timely applicant that our DA had been approved we had a gelato to celebrate.

Now the chaos will begin.

Thankfully we're almost ready to move upstairs. This weekend will involve a lot of painting.

Updated Bedroom 'To Do' List

Have doors installed
Electrician to finish wiring
Gyprocker to do put up walls, cornices and ceiling
Choose wooden floorboards
Have existing floors removed
Have new floorboards layed and polished
Choose lights
Have lights attached to wires
Design wardrobe
Order wardrobe
Install wardrobe
Choose skirting boards and architraves
Attach skirting boards and architraves
Paint walls, ceilings, skirting boards, architraves and windows

*Pricey in the context of ebay, not in the context of life generally.

meet roy

He's doing lots of work upstairs. This photo is taken in what will be our attic room. Unfortunately Roy then fell down a ladder and had to go and get a giant arm gash stitched up in hospital, but he's a trooper and is back at work this morning.

My other thought for today is that ceiling insulation looks like clouds.

yellow

I was recently profiled in our work newsletter and one of the questions was 'what colour do you choose to see if given the choice?' My answer was 'yellow because it's the colour of sunshine, lemon butter, duckings and Big Bird.' (Sadly all of my answers were about as ridiculous as this one.)

I'm ignoring the fact that our bedroom-to-be is still without floors, walls or ceilings (see previous post and note that since I wrote it there have been more delays. The floor should go down tomorrow and Saturday but frankly I'll believe it when I see it.) and thinking about what colour to paint it. If yellow makes me immediately think of sunshine, lemon butter, ducklings and Big Bird then frankly it would be lovely to wake up to.

The trick will be finding the right yellow. It can't be too cold and lemony because that would be insipid. And not too green. And not too bright either. I'd like a pale golden buttery yellow.

I've found a few pictures around the blogs for my inspiration board.

I love the bright buttery-ness of the yellow in this living space. Would a half strength version of this colour look good?
This lounge room is a beautiful yellow, a bit paler and more sophisticated.


And finally, doesn't yellow look good with white skirting boards?

(Images via Apartment Therapy and Desire To Inspire)

$1044

On Monday we made money by renovating. I am amazed. When we decided to replace our floorboards upstairs we assumed we'd be up for the cost of a skip plus several days of Rahul's physical hell because ripping up floors and balancing on beams is not fun. Then Theo heard of wood recycler who not only removes and takes away wooden floorboards, he pays you for them! Our wood turned out to be Cowrie, which commands $6 per metre.

Of course when you consider the cost of the new floor the money made does not even begin to offset it, but shhhhhhh.

who knew there would be so many decisions about timber?

Architraves. After a while they all look the same, but somehow we narrowed the choice down to these three, and then even further to the middle sample.

Skirting boards are similarly varied and confusing, but we're thinking of going with the second sample from the right.


Our opinions were influenced by Bart, meticulous installer of doors and windows, and soon to be the person who attaches the architraves and skirting boards that we choose. His preference on the skirting boards was the same as ours, but motivated more by the relative easiness of attaching that size to the walls! At least he was honest.

We also like Bart because he has a sense of humour, although I'm not sure that Theo felt the same way when Bart, in his heavy European accent, proclaimed him a bludger.

Our photos of the new doors and windows don't mean much without context, so below is a photograph of the typical condition of the woodwork thoughout out house. The windows upstairs were barely able to stay in the wall.

So now you can see why these new ones make such a difference to us!

waiting for our DA

We need to have an approved Development Application, a Construction Certificate and an Owner Builder's License in order to do most of the big ticket work on the house.

The official line is that council should approve or decline an application within 42 working days of lodgement, however our council is notorious for taking much longer. The neighbours immediately behind us had plans lodged at council for two and a half years, the people accross the road for three and a half but theirs involved a little Land and Environment Court action.

We lodged our DA in December and whilst it hasn't been without hiccoughs the latest news is that it should be approved during the April council meeting. We've been lucky that there have been no objections lodged relating to our plans, the council itself (now) has no objections, so we are optimistic that it will be smooth sailing.

What we haven't needed approval to work on is the upstairs bedrooms. There are no structural changes or developments, just the replacing of what was damaged and broken.

Rahul has done much of the work upstairs himself, with Theo as a consultant. Taking down ceilings and walls has proved to be very messy, and unfortunately for me whilst I don't do the hard work upstairs I do the cleaning up downstairs. We've worked out that the cat wee smell is associated with old plaster walls, so we've had to deal with a very unpleasant odour while the skip has been sitting outside. It left last Friday and we breathed a sigh of relief.

The next tradie to visit will be a gyprocker which we're really excited about. I think new walls will suddenly make us feel like the room is progressing forwards, not getting more and more destroyed. It's amazing how you have to trash something before you can make it new again.

The doorway to our bedroom (taken from inside the bedroom)

The doorway to the second bedroom, again taken from inside the bedroom. You can see the crappy wall filling.

Evidence that ceiling removal really is dirty work (but happy work)!

Skip 2/3
These doors will be replaced this weekend. Once we have our DA approved we will be able to remove the enclosed balcony and have a pretty proper one.

Ceilingless and old roof. We have a new Colourbond roof now, it looks hilarious as it's the only new thing in the house.