Where the Wild Things Are.

ha!

It's just our living area.  Just our living area?  Holy Heck!  I want to live here.

When I downloaded these photos I took the other day ( like, only after 6months since
we moved back! ), I kept running down from my office to say to the husband:
"OMG, you should see these pics, I want to live in this house!!!" ..
I felt like Cindy Crawford when she said "I Wish I Looked Like Cindy Crawford."

Because, sure this is my house, and yes, I sure do live here and yes, I love love love it ..
but hell, I cleaned all afternoon on the day I finished work for the year ( the day before
Christmas peeps .. I haz been busy ) and the kids had to either be in their room or OUTside.

Normally, the benches have plates and dirty cups on them and the coffee table is covered in Lego.
The dining table has mounds of newspapers and paperwork.  Yeah, it's quite the picture.

So finally, here I am again.  Amazed when I realised the last time I felt so free and happy
was this time last year .. FREE TIME!  Pictures for ME!  Excellent, excellent, excellent..




^ Coming down the hall into the combined living/cooking/dining area





^ You might remember I won a prize courtesy of Carpet Court which basically furnished
this whole room.  Divine, and so very very thankful x 




Shaggy rug from Carpet Court, lighting from Beacon.
Couch from Domayne, Cushions from Kaz, original print, stools and coffee table from
Boyd Blue, and original art canvas on the far wall is a Christmas Present to myself from
my artist friend Clair.







The green egg chair is from Replica Furniture in Qld.




It is divine, and I just love that I have finally photographed it.
Life got pretty busy since we moved in and basically, these holidays are our first chance
to enjoy it all.



Behind the kitchen is the open entryway to the pantry/laundry. 
I love the shallow open shelves and how it opens up to my kitchen garden :)


I am so happy with how it all turned out :)

Xx
Lea

Related articles

• How to Choose a Kitchen Table: Interview with Susan Serra
• Celebrity Real Estate: Neil Patrick Harris, Cindy Crawford, Wilford Brimley
• And now .. with Furniture ...
• Home Art

Paint/Tiles Paint/Tiles

Because i'm a fussy beast, i've found and decided what I want, but keeping my options open
with a couple of new tile places suggested to me that aren't over the other side of town.

I loooove the bluestone, but i've found something even prettier I haven't seen in store yet. 
Still natural stone, still blue, but with the added interest of autumn tones..

Autumn, my favourite season ♥

Anyway.. we'll see, the race is on...



^^
this is the kitchen/living/pantry to date ..
not much visual change besides the fireplace is in place.
The stonetops are in now too, but the template remains as a protective cover, and it's
heavy and dusty, so i'll leave that reveal for another day..



In other news, i'd decided paints and was quite smug and confident.. except the painters
uh-oh .. undercoated some internal doors I think my husband was hoping to sand back
and restore.  Because we were never sure/decided on this anyway, we've decided to let them
get on with it, and if it sucks, we strip them back and start again later on down the track.

But I don't have colours for doors.

What I do know though is that I love hi-gloss enamel on doors and trims, so keep in mind
the look will be glossy.

And maybe a blue-grey.  Kinda like the bluestone I seem so fixated on ...







The main paints are:
WALLS: Dulux White Duck Half-Strength ( more a light beige )
TRIMS: Dulux Vivid White ( as name suggests .. )

DOORS: Well, as of yesterday ( armed with a dozen grey swatches .. my favourite being
Mallard Grey - it's a Mallard!  It's a duck!  Get the connection! .. but it was too red/purple ) ..
I ended up with something called Monk Grey ( it's the middle colour above the door-handle up there )

Again, I have a thing for contrast.. but am wondering if I should just keep them in white?
They look good in the pics white, but .. in real-life?  Not.so.sure.







I have a similar blue-grey on the roller blinds, which you can see a bit of, and of course,
there will be a bluestone splashback ( 99.8% sure ) and i'll be continuing those over at the
fireplace fascia..

BUT!  Will it be too dark?  And where do I stop - should I make ALL my doors dark grey,
or just those in the original end?  It seems I really am bad at decision making ;)








In fact, the more I look at these, I totes think dark grey is the way to go.
Opinions, both good & bad, always welcome..

xx
Lea

Utility Room of My Dreams..

I need a name for this room .. it has so much goin' ohn





It's a laundry, it's a pantry, it's my linen closet, where the cats will eat, a mudroom ( kinda ), a place to dock and recharge your mobile devices, a wrapping station, a bar for parties ( because like, we totally party all the time )

It's missing a matching laminex top on the other "laundry" side of the room atm.  It's sitting in the kitchen and i've noticed a minor chip, so i'm suspecting that is the reason.

I've photoshopped in the lights and the mirror on the pic to the right .. just playing around.. thinking..

And although you probably can't see it, I came to realise recently that in part, I was inspired by one of the most amazing Wine Bars/venues/cafes/anything I have ever had the pleasure of visiting.

Because although mine is a sanitised, clean, sparkly bright version, it still reminds me of France:





The Café de la Promenade to be exact.

And apologies to almost everyone ( the vegans, the animal liberationalists ), but have you ever had a hamburger made with seared fresh foie gras?  Because I have never tasted anything more amazing in all my life.

It is the house burger (le hambourgueil maison) and it literally blew me into the next room.
Which was their dark musty cellar.  Sensory overload.





Despite visiting many fine places in France and seeing many interesting things, this Christmas past I made an entire photobook for my husband just.of.this.cafe.  It's that worthy.  You can see it here, but the little pics don't do justice like the big printed coffee table book, where I can almost taste the wine.. and the cheese..

It also made it easier than selecting from 50million photos from all over the place to make the print deadline, but hey... let's not draw straws, ok?

I'm even thinking I might use some of these images.. perhaps instead of a mirror I might do some photographic wallpaper in B&W ... hmm .. maybe .. but it may be too light for that .. we'll see..

xx
Lea

Related articles

• The 7 Elements of a Perfect Mudroom
• A Week in the Country: Loire Valley, France
• The Café de la Promenade
• Les Averries :: Our Country House in France

Pre-Easter Update

Busy here at the ranch .. but i've been getting hassled for some updates.

Still  mucho mucho, but the cabinetry is supposed to go in this week, and i'm betting things will start looking a lot different then.  I was at the cabinetmakers earlier this week and everything seems so big and scary and although I know it will all be wonderful, I wonder if I made the right decisions?

I think it is normal to feel like that, espcecially when you are spending a lot of moolah.

So , without further ado, this is what has been happening:





We can haz floorboards ^





WIR plastered ^






My hallway with the stairless stairwell most awesome ^






Laundry/pantry, also plastered ^






And the living area ^



I'm currently dabbling in splashback tiles, and in my handbag at all times are paint chips, a chunk of countertop, a laminex tile, and the island contrast-kicker.  I brought home some teeny tiny tiles today that I hope are winners.  It's either teeny tiny I think, or a big slab of something pourous and impractical, as is my wont.  Will hopefully resolve over Easter.

So a little bit boring today kiddies - I do have a big rambling draft I wrote after a bottle of wine & Thai after chatting to Stacey Kouros last week, but it's seriously manic - hilaire, i'm sure, but in the interests of all concerned, could do with a wee bit of an edit, so i'll come back to that ;)

xx
Lea

Week 6 Update:

^
Looking into the butler's pantry-slash-laundry from the living area ( there will be a kitchen to buffer this look ;)

Yeah, I focused on the wiring cord as it said "Made in Australia"  *shrug*





^
The Wormy Chestnut arrived.

The builders think I have incredible taste and were all asking about it.
The last job they did was one of those 'my floorboards are so perfectly sheened and matching I might as well have bought lino".

I could stand around inhaling the scent of it all day.






^
and we have some framework! ta-dah!

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