h&b: home maintenence

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Love the Look ( Pt.2 )

So I was a bit late to this competition, but I made up for it this week .. three entries .. yes, i'm greedy, but when I want something, there's only one word for me: competitive.

I don't enter a lot of comps, mainly because these days they require me to get people to vote for me.

I've witnessed a couple of pretty nasty incidents in recent years that just made me sad for the persons in the running. I also think annoying your friends and family persistently is a good way to get yourself hated, and hey, I need all the friends I can get, because i'm probably pretty annoying in the first place :/

So I was happy when I found out about the Carpet Court competition.

Sure, they'd like you to promote the comp, thus promoting them, but you *don't have to* ..
winners are actually selected by Interior Decorators, it's interactive, they provide briefs, and clues to what they are looking for in submissions .. so it's like a scavenger hunt ( and who doesn't love those ? ) .. ooh, something cosy and warm .. something fresh and summery .. go!

The other bonus of course, is that i'm in blog-revival mode, and also house-revival mode.
We've done so much work I haven't showcased, and it's nice that i've been made to get off my butt and take some pics. I've always been incredibly home-motivated, and hopefully one day i'll find all my 35mm film and scan in other housey-endeavours from days past.

For those new to this blog, I started it about 7yrs ago when only geeks had them.
I had a new baby, a new house, a new life, and family overseas. I wasn't chained to the corporate wheel.

This is our third home as a family, and as mortgage-holders.

We started in Collingwood in our first reno .. 1 bedroom, an outside loo, I used to peel slabs of peeling paint off in the shower and wonder absentmindedly about asbestos and steam. We made it beautiful and the DINK-dream of our friends, then had a baby and arranged for a sale while I was recovering in hospital. The real-estate team came though while I was breastfeeding in bed. I'd been a mother for only a few days.

Sold it to a gay guy, moved to the 'burbs.

Realised kids needed a backyard ( it was a sub-divide with a wife-beater living in what should have been our backyard .. err .. ) Gorgeous cottage though. Shame.

And now we're here, the forever home, with the backyard.
We're doing the FULL RENO next year. The one that's been TALKED ABOUT for 7yrs. It's exciting, and terrifying. We're making an upstairs and working in with work we've already done. It's to house two teenage boys that might be living with us until they are 30 (?). Currently they share a room ... and a bed. Not so cool in a few years time, I suspect, so we're jumping now.

So yeah, if you're thinking I might find a Carpet Court room makeover handy ( and a bit of flooring to boot ), you'd be right. Totally right.

And I get to upload some of the work i've already done, so i'm happy for the boot in the bott-bott.

Love the look?
Why not submit some pics of your own?
There's still time, but this is the last week, so get to it!

xx
Lea

Monday, September 24, 2012

Intermission: The Backyard..

Yes, I know, I totes promised an updated pic of the boy's room .. but instead Spring happened, and i've been living outside in the Great Australian Sunshine. Awesome.

This is our 7th year of 'save a bit, spend a bit, fix a bit and work a lot' on the garden.
We can't afford to do things in one big bang, but that's ok.. it allows us to muse on what we want, what works, etc, and the garden grows organically. Some plants have been transplanted and moved, oh, about a dozen times? Some have travelled with us in pots from rentals past, and some we've bought anew.

I love gardening, and most people know the only gift we actually like is a Bunnings Voucher.
For my 30th birthday, all I wanted was a pretty watering can, for my 40th I asked for a tree.

Take me to a nursery and let me buy a couple of plants, and I will love you forever.

Things we have done:

- built a deck
- built a "boardwalk" .. the design which came to me in a dream and my husband made for me as his
first ever job as a builder-carpenter ( not bad, huh? )
- made the kidney-shaped lawn area using old bricks from our old front fence
- made the pebble path
- painted the fences
- greenhouse pretty-ing up etc
- installed the vege gardens
- lots of plantings ( in the backyard we have a Japanese Maple grove, a Paperback Birch grove,
roses, Viburnum, Lilacs, Weeping Lilly Pilly, Dianellas, Ornamental native grasses ( forgotten
the name atm ), Gardenias, Ornamental Pear, Hydrangeas, English Box, a Mock Orange standard,
a Ficus standard, iceberg roses, a Virgina Creeper ( love that monster ) and as of yesterday, a brand-spanking feature tree in an Autumn Blaze Maple! )

And of course, the other stuff, like removing a disgusting compost heaps made from an old
inner-spring mattress ( what? ), a broken hillshoist and all the 'paving' under it .. unearthing massive blocks of concrete from under the lawn ( we think maybe old garden borders? ) .. cutting and poisoning all the ivy that covered a back corner, the compost heap and our neighbour's trees ( he loved us for that ), and removing the few ugly weed trees ( Privet ) the property came with.

I wish i'd kept count of all the Skips we have hired, but i'm pretty sure the one we hired this year was skip #10 :/

Further up the sides of the house where you can't see, AB also built me brick garden beds for all my citrus
( lemon, mandarin, Thaitian Lime, Kaffir Lime and Cumquats ) and rosemary hedge ( again with reused bricks ),
and built us a new side gate, and paved the driveway.

And then there's the front yard.. hello, future posts..

7years.

Home straight.
( Underplantings next year .. i'm excited already! )