Yeah Baby!!

Have you ever had an experience where your head is just sort of "fuzzy" and your mind keeps wandering?

Welcome to my psychedelic world.

Now that the mind blowingly smelly gloss stuff has dried on the bedroom floor and I've been able to get in there and open some windows, the smell has started to dissipate and my head is, finally, clearing.

Phew...I thought I was way back in the 60's there for a moment

Far out!

Friday progress.....

The final coat of gloss is going on the bedroom floor as I type... but I thought I'd show you how it's looking so far.

This is after the second coat and MONT and I are really happy with the way the floor's turned out, especially seeing I had to go through all that hassle to find floorboards to match so they could be "slotted" in with the old ones. You can see the difference in colour up in the corner. But once the bed and bedside tables go in, you won't even know.

Yep...really happy.

...and here's a little Friday flower...inspiration from Sarah at Molly's Maison..

MONT picked it from our garden last night. It's the first gardenia to bloom on our bush out back....the perfume is amazing!

Have a great weekend....by Monday I should be able to show you some more progress...fingers crossed

Look at this....

Isn't this room gorgeous? Leigh posted it on her beautiful blog, Brabourne Farm and when I saw it I thought "YES"!!!

This could be our bedroom, or at least, our version of this .

I'm not that keen on having a bath in my boudoir and MONT would not, under any circumstances, allow a chandelier in there either. But the white, the timber floor, the airiness, the curtains and light....they all add up to LOVELY!

Thanks for posting this Leigh....it's given me more inspiration and hope of getting our bedroom "right"

The first sanding and coat of clear gloss went on the floors yesterday, the second is coming this morning...and I have to say it's all looking rather clean and shiny.

Decision Made

Call me a coward, call me boring, call me indecisive. Yep, guilty as charged

But you can also add practical, because I've discarded the idea of painting the bedroom grey and have gone with what I know... Antique White USA...albeit half strength.

Here's the new cornice after the first undercoat

...and here's the end of the room that looked so darn bad last week. It has just a light undercoat on it as well. I swear the plasterer did such a good job!!! You cannot see any sign of where the old part of the ceiling meets with the new. It's marvellous!

Now, there are a couple of reasons for this colour decision... while hunting out all the painting gear I found a 10 litre can of paint in Antique White USA. There was about 6 litres in it and I also had a can of plain white low sheen, so the two were carefully and thoroughly mixed together and that's what I decided to go with. I thought it would be a little bit wasteful if I just let it sit there and go and spend a couple of hundred dollars on a new colour that I had no way of ensuring I would love.

The second reason was I couldn't be confident I could find a shade of grey that I absolutely loved and could live with, without first seeing it on someones' walls

So there you have it.  If I eventually come across a grey that takes my eye, the paint brush and roller will be brought out again and I'll re-do the room, but until that happens....it's off white for us.

The first top coat was applied yesterday...I'm just about to head in there to put the final coat on now... YIPPEE!!

Party Time ! !

I would have to be one of the luckiest (and richest) people in the entire world ! !

In the past week alone, I've received emails telling me I've won millions of dollars in various postcode, suburb, email and Microsoft lotteries....Not to mention the people, mostly bank executives from Nigeria and various parts of Africa, imploring me to contact them so they can pass on gazillions of dollars they have left over from their institutions.

Then there's the cancer stricken Nanna from the UK who wants to leave me all of her money as well...I mean, is that the most amazing and luckiest thing you've ever heard of?

Yep, I'll be soaking in it soon...

Let's party people!

What a difference a day makes

Can you believe the difference a few days really make?

Here's our newly plastered bedroom....

This is what it looked like a few days ago.

Plaster, or as our North American friends call it, "drywall" is one of those marvellous, versatile, relatively cheap products that, if hung and finished well, can really make a house.

I'm so, so pleased the cornice worked out so well. It covers a multitude of sins and looks sensational.

I have to say I really love plaster. I love the way it looks just before you paint it when it's all smooth with all the gaps filled in and sanded...now to the painting!!

Footnote:

I won't bore you with any more pics of the bedroom until it's finished now. I don't want to bore you with unlimited updates of mess and painting etc... I've got a bit carried away I guess because I'm kicking myself  I didn't take any photos when I first bought the house and only a few during the building of the extension and I didn't want to miss this stage of the renovation.

So there you have it...the next pics you'll see will be of the completed bedroom

Am I lucky or what?

I found another little gem on a footpath near us the other day. It was lying next to a pile of stuff and I nearly got whiplash when I saw it, but I was driving and couldn't stop.... so I called MONT from work and told him to skedaddle over there and pick it up for me...and guess what?

HE DID!

By the look of it, it's been left in a shed or out in the open for a long time as it's all weathered and split in a couple of places on the turned legs.

But that's fine by me...it'll look great once it's sanded back, gets a couple of coats of paint and I work out what sort of top would look best.

Natural timber or a painted finish...maybe a white-wash? We'll see. I'm thinking it might be nice to have it on the back deck, so we can place our drinks and nibbles on it of a Summer evening. Sounds like a plan to me

Ahhhh Dior

The little Dioressence rose has opened up and I have to say is absolutely gorgeous!

The colour has toned down a little and it's bloomed into a luscious mauve....much more like the photograph on the information tag

It really is lovely and will look great in the garden next year...I just have to choose a spot where it will be seen and appreciated.

Oh, and the perfume's pretty wonderful too!

Bedroom Update

OK, back to the wonderful room that is consuming my every waking moment...

As you can see, there are rather large gaps along the top of the walls. MONT pulled the cornice down and was surprised that it came away relatively easily and with minimal damage. The ceiling looks like it's floating in mid-air

He's also wired in a couple of down lights, so we can read in bed, and put in a two way switch (concealed just behind the bed) so we don't have to get out of bed to turn off the main light.

Plaster goes up today and the cornice goes up on Monday. Hopefully, it'll be ready for painting by Wednesday, which gives me enough time to finish it before the floor man turns up to perform his magic.

Which Grey ?

Finding the "right" colour for your home can be problematic, because making a decision based on a small colour card can be a long, difficult process.

Right now, the interior of Number 10 is painted in Dulux: Antique White USA. The ceilings are plain white and all the trim: the doors, window frames, architraves and skirting boards are white as well. I opted for AW-USA because a friend had painted her lounge in that colour and I could see how it looked on a large scale at different times of the day and in different lights. Perfect. Basic. Clean. Simple.

But it's going to be a different story for our bedroom....or at least that's my plan at this moment.

After seeing the photos here of the Queensland house that's up for sale, I started thinking about painting the bedroom grey...but which one?

I went to my local Bristol store today to get some colour samples and I bought a small pot of a colour called QUARRY, but I fear it may be a little dark. Half strength may be better. I also checked out Harbour Mist as well as some other greys (dawn frost, imperial mist, mountain peak) from other brands...but WHICH ONE ? ?  Do I go for a cool or warm grey? What will look best with white? ...and which one am I least likely to tire of in a couple of weeks?

Anyone have a favourite grey I could try? I'm open to suggestions.

A little colour in the garden

Let's get out of the chaos that is our bedroom renovation for a day, at least, and head into the garden.

I'm not sure why, but lately, I seem to be leaning away from my usual white on white on cream...towards a bit of blue, a smidge of lilac and a hint of mauve.


Dioressence

I bought some roses a few weeks ago and am really happy (so far) with the way they're going. This one was on sale and looking a bit sad, so it came home with me. I hope that dark pink colour fades a bit!


This is how it should look.

I also bought some bare rooted roses on-line and they were delivered in just a couple of weeks!

I've bought roses on-line before, but this time round I decided to try  Magic Garden Roses and I was not disappointed!  I placed my order and they called me a couple of days later just to let me know they still had the ones I wanted in stock and they would take a couple of weeks to get out to me as it was right at the end of the season. No Worries!

I got 2 Blue Moons and a Blue Bijou...unfortunately their little buds haven't broken through yet but they will soon be greeting the sun and will look lovely.

Hope the rest of your Wednesday is splendiferous!

Number 10 Bedroom Update

Yes, I am absorbed (read: obsessed) with our bedroom at the moment, but when you're sleeping in the lounge room, both spare rooms are chocka bloc full of stuff, there are plaster fragments and dust and bits of timber all over the place and pre-Christmas dinner with the family is just 5 short weeks away, then that's really all I CAN think of !!

Things are moving along though....MONT and his mate Paul completed the floor on Saturday....

It looks a bit patch-worky now, but once it's sanded and polished it'll be fine.

Then, when I got home from work yesterday I noticed a bigger hole in the bedroom wall than when I left, because MONT had removed the bulkhead. Just like that.

Now you see it.....

Now you don't.

It makes a huge difference with it gone, much more than I expected. We'll hang the plaster this week and hopefully, the plasterer will be here next week to finish off. I've ordered new cornice and it'll be ready for pick-up tomorrow. Long story short: We had to replace the old cornice with a new design because the one we had is obsolete and it was cheaper to re-do the entire room than have just one, 4 metre length made.  Crazy huh?

Once all that's done,  I can paint it all and get the floor man in so it should will be finished by the end of the month. Fingers crossed!

Think I'll make it? Yeah.  I work best under pressure...and then I go stark raving bonkers.

Kristine at The Painted Hive has also renovated her bedroom, and it looks sensational!

Check it out.

Bedroom Love

As you know, MONT and I are renovating our bedroom and I thought I'd post a few photos of beautiful boudoirs that have caught my eye over the past couple of years.

Sometimes, achieving a balance can be tricky. It can't be too "girly" because we both have to feel comfy in there ...but it can't be too bland either.

I rather like this...no, I LURV this, but MONT can't stand wallpaper, so that's a no-no.

This is nice but a little stark and not really practical when you have a black and white cat and two enthusiastic dogs

This is simple and livable and looks like a bedroom that would be very comfy.

...and this is extremely "white". A little too white for us perhaps.

Then there are these two beauties. I found them on a blog called A View on Design and they're from a house in Queensland that's up for sale. I absolutely love the grey walls and polished floorboards.

...and the two toned curtains are sensational!

Decisions, decisions....What I do know about our bedroom is this: It'll have polished floorboards and white trim. But after seeing this gorgeous grey, I can't be sure which way I'm going to go colour-wise on the walls...

Image 1. This is Glamorous
Image 2. Ideal Home-UK
Image 3. Unknown
Image 4. Phoebe Howard
Image 5. New England home
Image 6 & 7. via A View On Design

If you've come across any other photographs of beautiful bedrooms that have caught your eye, I'd be interested in seeing them too.

Renovation Challenge #1

I mentioned recently that old houses always present challenges when you renovate or change them in any way...and this place is certainly no different!

Trying to get the right size floorboards for the large gap in the bedroom floor is a case in point...

I called a second hand floorboard supplier three weeks ago to get the 80mm Tassie Oak boards I need. I've bought floorboards from them before and yes, they had plenty in stock...today, they're all gone. Sold Out!

I've just spent the entire morning calling every second hand timber supplier I could find, but with no luck, then Eureka! I found one on the other side of town who will mill down their larger boards to 80mm. I've just taken a sample over there to make sure the tongue and groove matches up with what they have in stock....Lucky I did! Fortunately they can mill it to fit and will have it ready by tomorrow afternoon.

Phew!!!

Now to the problems I'm having sourcing a length of bedroom cornice that is no longer manufactured...but that's another annoying and frustrating story!

Whelan the Wrecker

It's all happening here at Number 10.

The bedroom renovation is well and truly underway. Last night we cleaned out the entire room and  moved our bed into the lounge room.

Then MONT the wrecker moved in this morning...he says it has to be done and Melbourne Cup Day was as good a day as any.

The robe doors and frame were removed and the centre drawer unit was also knocked out...unfortunately we couldn't save it for future "tweaking"...

Charming ceiling huh?

Fortunately, the whole false floor under the robes came up in one big piece, so we'll be able to use those floorboards again...

As you can see, the floor under the old built-ins doesn't reach the wall...whoever built this house back in 1951, decided to go for the easy option and put in a false floor instead of extending the floorboards to the end of the room. Crazy really, as they used leftover floorboards to make the false floor anyway.
It means we'll have to remove some of the existing boards without damaging them and then stagger some new ones in, then get the whole room sanded and polished, yet again. Might be time to call in the professionals I think.

So...it's all systems GO! We have an opportunity to get a really good plasterer here to finish off the room, but he's limited for time, so our window of opportunity is just three weeks....we'd better get cracking!