I Have Very Exciting News

What if you scored your dream job?

What if a company you had admired for many many years and dreamed of working for employed you?

What if you beat out over 700 other applicants to get it?



This my friends, has happened to  me.





You are in the cyber-company of the newest contributor to Apartment Therapy.


How excitement!!!!!!!!

Seriously, a dream come true.  It went kinda like this:


- See ad calling for applications
- Not much time to apply
- Work deadlines ahoy
- I have to do this, I have to make this happen!
- Friend contacts me about some product shots.  Ignore her to take long shower

- Ruminate on application while enjoying uninterrupted shower time.
- It needs to be someone with both an awesome home and that will support me as well as
   keeping secret squirrel and not thinking I suck if I lose....

-  * LIGHT BULB * ( use Gru's voice from Despicable Me )

- Call back friend and tell her how it's going to be.
- You have an awesome home, I say.  Let me shoot it!
- Enthuse and squee! a lot so she will feel really bad to say "No"
- She says "Yes!"

- We do it!
- I collate application in a way I truly hope will make me stand out
- Involving working in Photoshop at 2am the day before deadline ( the only way to work )
- Apply
- Wait, feeling ill
- Worry, knowing they are inundated, and I am in Australia anyway
   and there will be so many applicants
- Receive THE email from the Executive Editor
- Go freaking nuts and almost pass out from adrenaline overload.
- Tell friend.  Have an hour-long happy dance phonecall


Which brings us to today!  Yay!
All official, on the books after a midnight Skype training call from New York.

I'M IN BABY! :D


However ... you will have to wait and see the images I took of Jo's house when they debut
on Apartment Therapy.  I'm a little excited and buzzed on coffee even as I type this,
so i've thrown in some rando images of my own house. 

I know, they're old and you've seen them before .. but I cant do a house post and talk about
A.T. without images!  Sacré bleu!





Anyway, if  you are still reading, I need your help!

Do you have a cool house?  It doesn't have to be the prettiest or the most perfect ..
I want homes with stories attached, with interest and variety.  I have noted a few of my friends
& readers across Melbourne and they can be expecting me to hit them up in the coming
months and lock them in.

It's Apartment Therapy kids - of course you wanna be on it!
Maybe your friend has a cool house - nominate them too!
They don't even have to be Melbourne - have interesting abode, will travel.

I've set up a little click-box over there on the side, or you can just contact me the regular way.
I'm committed to quite a few posts per year, so don't be shy - I love other people's houses
and i'm quite enthusiastic about getting to see your stuff. 

Let's be friends!  True, call me! We'll do house.

xx
Lea

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Hallway Update

It's been a while since I did a house update - the little things take time I think.

Repenting in leisure does not suit me .. especially if I have to walk past something
"not quite right" everyday, and especially even more if that something is an art work,
which usually, being a thing of beauty, has a pretty price-tag too.




I wanted something to go above the hallway bench.

I'm not sure where I got the rest of my idea from.  Things tend to come to me in dreams,
so we'll go with that.  I know I was aware of steel words you could buy from stores,
but they weren't quite right for me - size, pricepoint, or font. 

I know I did steal some inspiration from them though.

A cheaper copy, if you will.






And I wanted to mount it somehow.

I know it's a bit trendy, but I do love the pallet look.  I have a pallet coffeetable, and have
always loved a rustic edge.  Also, I have Scottish blood, so you know .. hello pricepoint - ✓

This pallet was gifted from a friend who actually made the most awesome deck seating
system with built-in flowerpots.  From pallets.  Oh yeah.  'tis sweet.  Very sweet.





So there you have it .. a bit more of my house.

I dismantled the pallet and put it back together to the size I wanted, and then I shaped
wire to make my word.  Once happy with everything, I wrapped the wire in wool and
fixed it to my pallet. 

By the way, try finding a nice thick wool in Melbourne in a good hue. 
I seriously bought the last ball of this stuff and I looked in a fair few places.

That frame with the bunny in it?
I bought that on my honeymoon 18yrs ago.  The frame that is, the bunny print was
another gift from another friend ( I have good friends, huh? )


There's more hallway, obvs .. we've just put some prints up on the other side too ..
but I haven't finished tweaking, so .. another day.

I just wanted to share this because it's one of those projects that worked out just how
I wanted and I so love walking past it and I love it.  I think it looks great with the
yellow and red and green and orange .. I couldn't have planned it any better if I tried :D


xx
Lea

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The Death of Craft

I believe in hands-on discoveries, and worry that a neat home smacks of boxed-in expression.

When my kids were younger we did a lot of gluing and sticking and painting. 
Gathering leaves, creating montages, creating cities and empires of sticks. 

Wishing the same joy for every child, I used to gift art and craft items ..

I gave gifts of meaning.  Of mind & creativity.







I hoped they were appreciated, but I sometimes gnawed on nails and wondered, as I do,
why I can't conform?  Birthdays are fraught for me, any gift-giving occasion really. 

I think too hard and then wonder if I screwed up.  And I don't like to give a gift that isn't
loved - I find it hard to gift and forget - I like to know how that gift is going .. and perhaps,
if you hate it, can you like, give it back? 

Because I freaking loved it and I wanted you to love it too.

We all know I have ishews with gifts.





Anyway, when the youngest went to kinder last year, I happily donated all the things
we didn't do anymore but had lots of life left in them - stamp sets, all our pretty papers
( leftovers from a job in the paper industry, oh, you know, a DECADE ago?! ), and I got
GREAT joy when I saw some of those distinctive offcuts used in the children's take-home craft.

An Easter chicken hatching from a Stardream Metallic egg is not a vision easily forgotten.

That's the gift I like to give.

 ❤


So then, why was I so inwardly shitty this year when the kids got an annoying artbox for
Christmas in the family Kris-Kringle?  Isn't that the very gift I would give?






The drive home, where they nagged from the backseat to get into their new present as
SOON as they got home, PLEASE MUMMY.  And I was grumpy and said no - "tomorrow".

I'd spent like 3 days cleaning my house so it resembled my dream of Magazine Feature. 
It's never this pretty.  And my kids are freaking animals.  I knew the paint would be
acrylic ( and it was, it always is ) and I just didn't want.to.deal.with.that.crap. 

I just wanted my pretty house for one more day. 

It was my gift to me.  I didn't want to ruin it.



Cranky Mummy, boo.  Grinch.
Is that how others felt when they received my well-intentioned gifts?

(  ^  Note: this is a recent art smock/ paint set purchase I made from IKEA.  Because I am a sucker :) )

Anyway, I did let them, but outside, and I couldn't even karcher off the stains off the deck
later on.  The fancy new Christmas clothes that weren't changed out of first are now daggy
around-the-house-clothes.  Stained.

But I dont like being an ogre, so normally my house is a Lego pit, and there's stuff everywhere.
I still believe in imaginative play and my house suffers for it.

And so it was today that I made Play-doh.



But oh, not the normal kind, this was a fancy-schmancy new kind - no cook -
just cornflour and HAIR CONDITIONER.  I had to try that, didn't I?

It made my hands smell like apples :)


And much joy was had.

And to tell the truth, cleanup was better than regular playdoh .. the cornflour turns to
powder and so all the mess picured involved no chisels or swearing .. just a wipe and a brush up.



#winning


No-Cook Cornflour Playdoh:

1 cup hair conditioner ( I used a no-name variety, it cost a dollar )
Pop that in a bowl
Add a few drops of food colouring
Mix
Start adding cornflour a cup at a time.

The recipe I used said i'd only need two cups, but to add more if the mix was sticky.
I seriously used about 4 cups in the end - which was almost the entire contents of a
brand-new 500g bag.

Apparently it wont last very long, but to be honest, you want that stuff out of your house
before long anyway, right?  I am predicting it will last as long as my patience, and that's
a win for everybody :)


Enjoy! x

New Year :: New You

Well, actually, that should read, "New Year, New Me" and I really want to add disclaimers
like "hopefully", but I wont, because I know the odds are stacked against me and I can even
see my inner me sort of nibbling her fingernails with that irky face she makes just before
someone takes a right tumble.

She can sod off.


Recently I became involved with Dettol's Healthy Homes campaign. 
I joined with a view to some Spring Cleaning, and I love to tell people what I really think
( ho ho! ), but as i've made some life changes in recent weeks, I realise the term
"Healthy Homes" can be taken a step further.





The kids went back to school this week.  TWO kids at the one school, full time.

It's been a long time coming for me, and it's definitely time.  Last year was HARD. 
I felt out of the loop with friends who had been childfree for a while, and juggling work
and the sporadic session times of public kinder is tricky.  It was time.

I've put on a tonne of weight in recent years - we used to walk everywhere, but once the
younger mister dropped the pram, my world fell apart. 

He can't walk that far, he wants me to carry him, he's just going to sit on this sidewalk
stubbornly until the police come and take him away.  So we got used to driving. 

Everywhere. 
Or not going out at all.

It was simply too hard, and he's such a sweetie at home.
Not.throwing.a.tantrum. 

Life slowed, then stilled. 


Mama no longer excercised, and mama doesn't like exercises to begin with. 

Walking was always my champion.  With walking I can indulge in my favourite pursuits -
checking out the neighbourhood .. ooh, I like that house .. what a gorgeous street, what do you
think that plant is?, what a beautiful garden.. 

I'm also unplugged.  And I say hi to people if they are out the front. 
It's awfully good for your heart in more ways that one. 

And I miss it.  I miss the freedom of me. 

So this year has started well - I drilled it into them from Term 4 last year that this year was
going to be different, more healthy, and we WOULD be walking to school each day again,
and home when after-school commitments allowed. 

And on that first day, after drop off, I walked home, got in my car, drove ALONE to my
nearest shopping centre and used some giftcards to buy a food steamer .. and a juicer. 

Healthy.  Hopefully.

Not that I think food is the problem, I think it's age+genetics+wine+no exercise.
 
Mainly no exercise. 

But at my age, it's time to stop pretending i'm 20years younger and that the upsized
fries will not stick.

Because they do.  They most certainly do.

Ok, so after the steamer and the juicer, I got to work de-holidaying the home. 
Put a load of laundry on, started to clean.






I did the whole kitchen with the Dettol Power & Pure .. from the S/steel cooker to the
caesarstone benchtops .. it works really well and has a fresh fragrance that I would
describe as "Clean" and Dettol would describe as "Oxygen Splash" ..

Either way, gets the job done! :D


Well, this is embarrassing .. hardly the pic I want to display, but the bathroom grout
was well overdue O_o ..





GAH!  UGH!

Sprayed a little Power & Pure Bathroom and grabbed one of the many toothbrushes
the males in my family discard in the cabinet as putting them in the bin seems a bit like hard work.

Spray, Stay, Quick Scrub, Rinse.  Sweet.





I did the countertops with the Multi-Purpose Wipes. 
Although, more often I grabbed one of the floor wipes from the flat/soft-pack and used that. 

Purely personal packaging preference, they did the same job equally fine.





Floors done in a jiffy - no mop, no slop....






Leaving more time for this:

:D






Healthy Homes, Happy Homes!

2014 - Here's to greater balance & happier days.


Xx

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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 :)

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Garage Finds

Another year, another skip.

But i think this may be our last!

When we moved here 8years ago there was a lot of clearing to do .. and it's been ongoing ..
we've pulled up rocks and ivy and slabs of concrete that may have been garden borders in
the older days (?) ( http://house-n-baby.blogspot.com.au/2007/03/what-lies-beneath.html )

This time it's post-renovation leftovers .. bricks .. random bits of wood and crap the
builders left citing 'oh hold onto that, you might need it'. 

Um no, we're not hoarders, thanks, this is trash.

There's also the random boxes of things you pack up and then never look at again. 
To be truthful, I didn't think I held on to anything any more, but it seems I do.

First up, last night, an old copy of Epicure Traveller, the Spanish issue!  ( Oct 2008 )
Only last week I was perusing some Spanish cookbooks online and hover over the
"press buy' button .. so this was a fab discovery :D





Then the wedding dress.  This box has moved house 6 times and been through 2 renovations. 

The top of it got crunched in when it became a cat-bed at one stage, and to be honest,
after 8yrs in the garage, i've been too scared to pop open the lid lest a plague of
pestilence rushes me.  Quelle horreur!
( or, to keep with the Spanish theme: ¿Qué horror )

BUT!

it seemed ok?!






Maybe it's whatever they clean the damn things in, but there was no evidence of bug activity,
no poops, no chomps.  The horrid stains ( not evident after the wedding ) were caused by a
reaction of champagne with drycleaning fluids, so even the stains are well preserved. 
I was pretty impressed actually.


But now, what to do with it??






I googled the designer, she's still frocking on and I liked her new stuff too, which was nice :)





I also found some old Print Award books .. I thought I threw all those out too. 
Seems i'd used the couple i'd kept to file away old drawings and poems.

Most of the poems are very deep, and some .. not so much, and more like ditties.





I wasn't a MJ fan, btw, so i'm thinking I was being tongue-in-cheek witty here. 
Such a laugh, chortle, chortle, chortle, ho!


.. and a drawing of my feet. 





I used to draw my feet a lot ( and cats! ). 
The reason being is because i'm not very good at watching movies unless i'm doing stuff ..
so with my feet propped out in front, or a handy cat lounging nearby, I could sit still long
enough to watch a movie, and add to my 'drawing of my own feet' collection. 

Random photograph is one of AB's old rellies.  We think.  Nothing written on the back.


There's also a heap of my diaries naturally, and letter and notes.  I tried to tease AB with
a note I found from another dude with fabulous handwriting and yet bad spelling
( apparently I have increadible eyes ), but he knows my days of being a temptress are
long gone and no-one's gonna come knocking to steal me away any time soon. 

Old age is a Poo-bah to foiling my teasing.

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