The Bathroom .. Now with a Touch of Green ..

We renovated the bathroom in 2009. 

Previously, it was used as a workroom by the previous owner who ran a therapy business
from home.  It had bright blue walls and grey lino that smelled like old rubbing oils. 

There was a lantern style light that you could pull down, I guess either to use as heat
therapy (?) or get a closer look at a client's body?  Unsure. 

There was also a mini sink and a working handdrier by the door
( stripped from the pic below .. made a nice little $ on eBay with that thing ).






We originally used it as a junk room. 

And a kiddy art room.
And the place where I did my makeup and plugged in the hairdrier ( the old 1950's bathroom
had no power outlets ).  It was also the room I took all my maternity selfies :)

Eventually, the older style bathroom began to clunk out on us.  I can't remember now
what the issue was - I think it was the shower falling apart?  Maybe the fact it lacked
electrical outlets.  Or storage?  Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea if we renovated
the junk room into the long luxurious ( and central ) family bathroom we wanted, while still
having use of the tiny grotty old bathroom before it died completely.  So that is what we did.

Original bathroom ( now our post-reno WIR ):






I found a copy of the Herald Sun HOME magazine in the garage,
where the new bathroom was featured soon after finishing. 

Recently, when trying to decide on a tone for new towels,
I realised how "brown" my supposedly "neutral" bathroom was.. but after a quick flick through
this mag, it seems everything in 2009 was brown/natural/tan/coffee-toned. 

It's jam-packed with 'very warm toned' new houses to buy.. every room a new depressing
shade of bleah, so it seems I was just on-trend ( but still, bleah! )

Interestingly though, the layout artist has tinged  my article with a lovely shade
of green .. it seems someone was thinking forward and tired of the browns anyway...





And this is the bathroom today. 





Just  a spruce up, but the green is such a lift and it matches in with the colours of the new reno.










I think it's very pretty :)

Related articles

• Today, I Be Cleaning..
• New Year :: New You
• Home Art
• How to Organize Your Bathroom - and Actually Keep It Clean

Today, I Be Cleaning..

As I mentioned earlier, 2013 was a whirlwind. 
We moved into a tiny flat during a heatwave and I think I fried off several thousand
braincells.  We renovated, we moved back.

The plan was to take the year off work, and I did for the 6 months we were out of the house,
but there were splashbacks to investigate and lighting to buy, and return, and buy more of. 
Paint samples to obsess over. 

On top of this the regular kiddy-party-playdates / kindy-drop-off-pick-up routine that
just about did my head in ( long daycare had spoiled me I think ) and everything else,
we kinda moved back in and got busy working again to pay for what we had spent.

Thus it is only now, in these Summer holidays, that I feel I am finally home,
and discovered I had a "junk drawer" already. 

The builders started it. 

We got new doorhandles, so they popped the old ones in the 2nd drawer down. 
Excess screws and warranties, 2nd drawer down. 
A caulking gun, and some weird bits of metal with stickers on them warning me
not to throw them out.  Err, ok, weird excess bit of metal.  You can stay for now. 

In the 2nd drawer down.

So today I be cleaning, and tomorrow we be getting a skip to sort out the garage
( where all the bigger post-reno junk went ).  We love a good clean out.

So when Dettol's people called my people ( err, that would be me, I dont have people )
and asked if i'd like to trial some new cleaning stuff, I was all 'um hello, yes please'.





 Also, Dettol is really into a green theme atm, and so am I.  Call me vain ( i'm ok with that )
but I like the pretty, even with my cleaning products.  Dettol matches my house. 
I only buy the Dettol handwash in my bathroom because it's a pretty Lime colour/scent
( I used to decant into refillable fancy containers, but have never found one of those suckers
that ever worked properly, so have given up )






Also, I have two boys.  One was born nice and clean and tidy.  I could take him anywhere
and people used to remark how I ever got around without a nappy bag, or really, any bag at all. 
He just never made a mess.  Other babies were always gooby and ikky, but not mine.

But then I birthed the other baby and this one was the Anti-Clean. 

Seriously, even now at 5 1/2 yrs old, he's still perpetually grotty.  He will eat one tiny little
thing and manage to smear it all over his face.  No-one wants to sit at his place at the
kitchen counter as there is food EVERYWHERE .. spills, splatters, crumbs. 
The floor beneath his seat is usually repulsive and as I type I find my nostrils flared and
my mouth pursed in disgust.

Lucky he's also very cute and witty and fun and cheeky, but By God I hope he learns
where his mouth is soon.. or at least has the good grace to clean up after himself.  Ugh.





So the new Dettol Floor Cleaning System is perfect for me.  I find mops rather gross
to be honest .. especially those string ones.  I have a sponge-mop, but I always end up doing
most of the work on my hands and knees with an old towel anyway as they always seem
to leave streaks - or dull my floors.  I hate dull floors.

Floor Wipes are easy, hygienic and clean really well without leaving residue. 
Pop one on, and once done, pop it in the bin and admire the mess-free result.






Mmm ... fresh Lime & Mint!
Especially fresh for around the toilet  ( boys remember.. I have boys .. )








Are you cleaning the house too for the fresh New Year?

I have another pack to give away that includes:

1x Dettol Floor Cleaning System ( plus refills )
1x bottle Dettol Power & Pure Kitchen Spray
1x bottle of Dettol Power & Pure bathroom Spray
1x Dettol Power & Pure Surface Wipes.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Good Luck and Good Cleaning! x

Caesarstone and Various Ramblings

Today i'm armed with the Caesarstone book.





I'm amused that it's the same book I was given in 2008 when we did our bathroom renovation ( below ).

Wook at my baybee!
Isn't he gorgeous?
He turns 5 tomorrow ♥





Anyway, enough of the motherly schmo .. back to the reno..
( See what I did there? )


In 2008 I chose Ginger. 
This year, we're going more subtle .. which is hard because I naturally gravitate to high contrasty things.  I can *admire* your white-on-white-on-white decor at YOUR house ( or your white-on-white-on-white with a smidge of pale cream ), and I often do .. but for myself ...

Look, i've lived for years in imperfect homes and have learned to make do and improvise.  One of the BEST things i've enjoyed about imperfect homes is that you can't ruin them, and you can play with them.  It's like an old favourite shirt versus that $2k designer gown you bought.  Whereas a splash of paint on your shirt is fine and kinda blends in with the grass stains and the cake mix .. that designer gown is tres tres precious, so there's no jumping on that sofa, kids.

In old homes, you can paint your bathroom blue one day, or paint your back door emerald green.  It's a temporary lift, and colour is fun.  I loved my emerald green door, and the blue bathroom sure rocked the khaki that preceded it. 

I must find a pics somewhere ( pre-digi days, on filum peoples, filum! ). 


Last night I found a hot raspberry laminex chip and told the kids we should use it in the kitchen.



But alas, I have to be a bit more grown-up when i'm spending oodles of money. 
I have to be more classic, more enduring, more .. beige.

And that's ok too, becuase I quite like a beige/white/black palette ( which is what i'm doing ).
It allows me to pick up colour in accessories and not be shut into something i'll regret in two years time.  I can still be whack in my greenhouse and play with my colour pots out there, and bring in new stuff as I fancy. 

After all these years, I still love a red sofa, and my jeweltones are back in vogue too.


So these are the colours i'm thinking for our kitchen island.  It's a "waterfall" island which means the pretty extends and falls down the sides, like the pic below from Caesarstone in NIMBUS.





NIMBUS is one of the colours I am considering, but I haven't seen any in slab form yet.. just in little tile chips.  I'm going to take a look tomorrow.  Am unsure about the big chips vis teeny tiny little chips thing over a big area .. it's something you can't glean from a chip.

Colours i'm considering:




As you can see, there's a decision to be made re: warm vs cool as well.  I'm hoping some nice chunky slabs will sort that one out.  ATM i'm thinking either Nimbus or Nougat .. we'll see .. we'll see..

What next?
Plumbing is in and the sparkies were there yesterday. 
We need to buy an extraction fan for the stove STAT to the cabinetmaker can build his framing to fit perfectly.

Tomorrow I will be buying the rangehood and checking our lighting.  Schweet!


xx
Lea

The Tradies Arrive today

In fact, they got there an hour or so ago.

I am staying away, but i'll go have a peek this afternoon.


AB and I have been working on the old house for about a month now - mainly him, every night, after work, chipping, clearing, removing, rumbling.  It should save us a bit of money.  Yesterday was our last heave-ho, and I have to say, i'm happy to be at home today ( at the flat ) in my jammies.  Resting.

Here's some pics:


Firstly, to give you some bearings, the R/E brochure from when we bought the house, in 2006:





And the floorplan:





They couldn't sell this house, you know?
The pics look ok, but there was crap everywhere and people just walked around sneering and grimacing.  The owners also tried to save money by selling at Christmas when no-one was about.

Right after we bought it, the property market here went BOOM! and a condemned lot across the street sold for $250k more than what we had bought this only 6months prior.

Lucky.





Above: the old bathroom ( will be a WIR )

Below: the boy's bedroom.





Below:
Master Bedroom, main living area, and some kitchen rubble up the driveway.





Below:  the old kitchen, which will now be a hallway.





Below:  the old laundry, which will now be a butler's pantry/laundry off the new kitchen
( the middle pic is where I used to take my selfies .. hee hee :)





Below:  the Playroom, or according to the map above, a 3rd bedroom
This will now be my kitchen, and that doorway will lead into my butler's pantry/laundry.





So that's it for now.
Basically what happens next is the floors and ceilings come down.  That stupid playroom is the main reason for the reno - the way it cut into our usable space for no good reason.  However, it does keep the house up, so a steel beam is going in the roof to replace it.  We are also putting in the foundations for a 2nd story in the roof, which we can't afford right now, but since they have to take off the ceilings anyway, it makes sense to do that now.

This means, in 4yrs time, we can just pop in some stairs and a pre-fab 2nd story, and boom:  separate rooms for the boys before high school.  Neato.

Because, yes, even after this reno, we will still be a 2bedroom house, which is probably crazy by other people's standards.  I'm ok with that.


What do you think?
Feel free to offer me any advice, or discounts from your Uncle Dave.


xx
Lea

The Royal Flush

Oh, and I just had to take a picture of the old '2nd toilet' before we rip it out.

It's always amused me, with it's "Crown" motif.






This motif is on the basin, and also the toilet.

And I don't know about you, but I think someone in the art department had a good laugh when he submitted this one.

Or maybe I have a juvenile mind.

But invert that crown and you have a pooping bottom.


Just sayin'

We're a Little Bit Posh

Invite for my Mother's Group. All boys.

Anyone with Bad Aim will be on latrine duty ..

New Bathroom

For those few who haven't seen it on flickr already.
And yes, there is no bath. We hate frikken baths here.

Of course, this meant the birthday baby received not one, but TWO sets of bath toys as birthday gifts. And no chance of hiding them away and repackaging for another lucky baby ( who does that ? me ? ) because when a 4yr old 'helps' unwrap, things are well and truly unwrapped.

Behold:

Yes, it IS awesome, and yes, we are WELL pleased. It is delicious.
Oh - and there is now a frameless glass partition/screen down the back for the shower spray - I suppose I should take an updated photo.

More photies here

Dreams

I've always had pretty wacky dreams that stick with me.
I used to mull over them on the drive to work, then relay them for the interest ( ? ) of other workers in my area.

Well, it was probably better than some of the phonecalls we got.

Anyhoo, i've been offline battling being in a bad mood due to not getting much sleep, and conjunctivitis in the bigger boy, and perhaps a little in the smaller boy, and being stuck indoors because of it, and cleaning out my junk room to make way for the NEW BATHROOM ( yes, it's booked in ! ), and the onset of Spring always makes me antsy about how weedy the garden is, and how the pantry needs a scrub, and the linen press, and how i'd love to organise the garage, but we're financing the bathroom - so no.

So yesterday, I had a serious chat with the older boy about how.mummy.needs.some.sleep - and he let me sleep in until 9am this morning. So.needed.it.

And i've started ( and abandoned ) a few blogs - about the boy's first ever football (AFL) game as spectators, and then coming back from Geelong to have a quick warm shower and head off to a blog-meet in Richmond ( apol's if I seemed a bit out-of-it ) with Stomps, Fairlie, M from Sydney, Suse, and Frogdancer. Frogdancer actually works at the High School my boys might be attending one day and knows half the people in my street as she used to live across the road. Bizarre.

Other things: well, with the eye-goo level of contagiousness, and the cold weather, and me with a serious case of the BLAHS, the house soon depleted of food as I couldn't be arsed going to the shops. So I ended up getting a Coles Online delivery, and instead of ordering 4 apples for the fruitbowl, I ordered 4x 1.5kg BAGS of apples.

I wondered where that $$ discrepancy was. Oops.

So, being the half-arsed kind of person I am, I started googling for recipes where I didn't have to peel, slice, dice, puree, stew, or basically stuff around with. I found this:

Grandma's Apple Cake

All my apples were Pink Ladys .. which technically aren't cooking apples. Being lazy, i didn't even peel them, and the blush red looked fabulous in the end result. Tasted fabulous too - we had it hot with cream and icecream on the first night, and it was equally as divine cold for breakfast the next day ( *ahem* )

Added bonus: there is a lot of hands-on satisfaction if you have a child like me that lives to cook. He calls me "Chef" in the kitchen, as in "what's next, Chef ?", and "Yes Chef!". He wears his little Chef uniform at all times, and I have to also call him Chef. If I say his name, I get "I not MC, I Chef !". Yes, Sparticus.



It makes cooking a bit of a pain, so I am always trying to think of recipes that involve him as much as possible.

Speaking of recipes, thanks for all the links - I am yet to click on them all, but will let you know how I go and what works best for me, as it seems there's a lot of other people wanting the same thing. It's the Spring thing again I think - time to reinvent, to rejuvinate


What else ?

ah - my dream. The one involving a Willy-Wonka -like ride with The Who and Ringo Starr ( I don't even know what the Who look like ?!?? ), in order to see Macca-Pacca in real life. At one stage, the ride stopped ( no, we weren't on the Ninky-Nonk ), and we excitedly watched a car pull in with a trailer, with an obviously Macca-Pacca shaped form squirming under a drop canvas.
It ended up being some fat guy dressed for a Mardi-Gras ( he looked a bit like David from Little Britain ), and I recall his jubblies being a little too jubblie ( hello, it's a dream, and i'm looking at the crotch of a fat guy wearing leathers .. freaking unreal )



In fact, i'll just stop here to embarrass a real life friend whose workplace doesn't allow her to comment:
I still remember your Gareth Sandwich.
That is all.

And it's ok for me to say that, as no-one else knows the story, the reader, or the guy in the sandwich.
Man, that was a top dream - he was so the last guy you'd want in your sandwich.

That is all.

Another Project

Why not ?
It's not like we've done anything with the other one ;)

Actually re: the fireplace. It's only now costing twice as much as originally quoted. Am a bit pissed off with Agnews, who loosely quoted around $200 for installation. Um, the guy YOU recommended, quoted me $600 .. PLUS the extra fees for the plumber ( gas fittings ) and the electrician ( need to install a power outlet inside the chimney ). Of course, we have already put down a downpayment, so thanks for locking us in, Eddie. Not.

Since then, the news is that my Mum is returning home from the UK, where she has lived for the past 5yrs. She's terribly homesick and is missing her girls and grandson, so she's coming home. Which is GREAT, from my perspective - it will be good to have a babysitter have her home again ;)

So anyway, we have a pokey cold bathroom with a HWS that struggles to produce 2x warm showers per 12hr period. We also have a perfectly good ( but perfectly ugly and currently useless ) old Physiotherapist's room that is just busting to be fitted out as a bathroom.
So we're hoping to kit it out before Xmas .. maybe ..

P.S. - was there a special on blue paint at the local paint store at some stage ? I swear the ugly blue room here is in the same ugly blue shades as the ugly blue room at the last house. Weird.

P.P.S. - Flipped up a bit of that sexy lino this morning, and the floorboards underneath look clean and solid. Bonus.

I Want to Move..

I am ready.

Still 4 weeks to go, and I have a head full of plans, ideas, thoughts and things I want to action.
Yet I am on 'standby'.

AB & I went to a Reece Bathroom Showroom yesterday, where we looked at $10k baths.
( I guess the High St, Armadale address should have tipped us off ). C. fell in love with one for a 'mere' $5k, and promptly tried to undress and get in .. quite funny, we thought ;)

I have decided my new colour scheme ( ie: towels, as I try to keep fixed/expensive items neutral and accessorise with cheaper expendables ) will be in a tone best described as 'smoke' .. a mid-grey tone... something like this font colour ?
They had some lovely ones accessorising their displays ( probably "Country Road" brand .. it didn't look like a hue i've ever seen at "Target"... )

I haven't bought new towels in 4years, and they are starting to get ratty. They are a deep blood colour I bought for the Collingwood renovation, a traditional heritage style bathroom. This time we will go for something more modern, which will be a nice change and a bit of fun.

Both A. & I are really looking forward to getting stuck into it and creating the home of our dreams ;)