Category Archives: Rennovating Decorating
new kitchen shelves
I’m nothing if not inventive. And stubborn. I got the shelves up.
I had planned to put 2 of these units up (I bought two, making it 4 shelves) but I changed my mind. I decided one set was enough. Not so ‘cluttered’ feeling…. The space above the shelves gives you room to breathe.
For another thing there was no way I could get the other shelf up there by myself, so the decision was easy.
I had always planned to have my mugs and glasses on shelves, on display and easy to access. I love the look and I’ve been the right ones to suit the kitchen. I did have some pale blue mugs but they’re going. I found mint green ones at Kmart that are the perfect colour!
The green glasses are from Freedom. I’ve had those in my wardrobe since we finished the kitchen.
small things big impact – a bench in the mudroom
Do you remember when I made this little cabinet for my shoes? I always intended it to live in the mud room as a bench as well as storage. But up till recently we’ve always had a dog bed in that spot, somewhere for the dogs to get out of the weather.
Well, winter is coming, and I decided it was time to move the dog beds off the porch and out of the mud room and into the grooming room. Two birds: warmer dogs and we reclaim our porch and mudroom.
moving forward on the house painting
We have a week off work for Easter. Naturally my list of projects to do is huge.
Massive.
Long even.
One thing I planned to do, providing it didn’t rain, was finish painting the outside of the house. Its not too much to want a single colour on all the walls…
Around here painting the house is more an ongoing project than a ‘do it once and don’t do it again for 10 years’ kind of thing.
I think I started painting the house about 4 years ago.
I’m a speedy worker.
Its still not finished by the way… the back porch needs the high areas done and, realistically, it needs another coat already due to the exposure on that side.
So, when we built the front porch I had painted all that front area (except the beams up above). Then we put in a new window in the kitchen and needed to patch walls. And we decided to enclose that area of the porch so there was a lot of raw wood to paint.
This past summer I gave all those spots an undercoat and thought that, really, how hard could it be to finish the job with a couple of topcoats?
One thing I’d been planning on from the start, was a window shelf for plants under the kitchen window. I had this little grey one from the living room so put it on the outside of the enclosed porch. The brackets need adjusting so its come off now, but I was dying to see what it looked like.
I had bigger plans for the kitchen window. This old shelf was in the white timber shed which is being used just for storage. I got Wayne to remove it yesterday and with his help (its a heavy sucker) I screwed it onto the wall under the window.
All I did was give it a good scrub and a light sand to get rid of loose paint. I love the chippy look and the various colours showing through it.
One thing I’m doubting now is its position. I think I need to put it lower. The kitchen window isn’t deep and having the plants overlap the window so much makes the window look narrower, and from inside I feel like I’ve cut out some of the view.
What do you think? I’m thinking of lowering it by about 5-6in.
Another thing I plan to do is cut a frame for that window. All our other windows have aluminium frames which were blue and I’m (still) in the process of painting white. A frame around the window will tie it in with the other windows better.
So, after doing about 2 hours of work on the second coat this morning I had to stop. I felt exhausted, weak, had chills and a bit nauseous. I hope I’m not coming down with something. Not on my holiday!
I think I’ve done enough for today.
z
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what happened to the drawers?
So what happened to the drawers when I decided to make over the tallboy into a linen cupboard?
They became hat and coat racks of course!
Yeah, for those who’re observant, there are only four drawer fronts there. There is another one but I didn’t need it for the project I was working on. It’ll appear somewhere else later on no doubt.
I used different hooks – these hooks were sent to me by a good friend in the USA (we can’t get them here) and they’re perfect for hats.
I put the hat racks up high and the coat racks underneath. I had to stagger them in order to fit them on the mud room wall. You can see where I had to put the electrical cable over the top one. Ugh. Not pretty, but here in real life, as opposed to decorating blog-land, things like that happen.
I also found a home for my crystal dripping tap wall art. Its been in the casita since I made it cause it needs somewhere out of the wind. I added another hat hook to it and voila, another handy spot for a hat!
This one’s on the wall I have to paint (plus you can see the terrible paint job someone did on the toilet door!) so it’ll stand out more. But that also means it’ll have to come off one day. I hope I never have to take the other ones off. Ever.
…Am I the only one who manages to twist the top off screws?
z
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polished concrete
Have you noticed how suddenly its all about polished concrete? Like its the big new thing, better than sliced bread, bigger than Ben-Hur, the new in thing, the must have…
I’m confused.
I grew up in Greece (well from aged 10-24 anyway) and to us there polished concrete – with exposed aggregate – was everywhere.
It wasn’t trendy.
It was boring, old fashioned and we couldn’t wait to get rid of it. When Dad built our new house in the seventies, he went for carpet and tiles. All new homes in Greece that I know have floorboards, tiles or carpet.
Yet here in Australia, everyone seems to be going bezerk over polished concrete.
I’m confused.
Mind you, I get the polished concrete where the aggregate isn’t exposed. Its just shiny grey and somehow more interesting to me… cause to me, the exposed aggregate type of polished concrete is not special.
Its the floor in my aunt’s kitchen. Its the floor in our first house till we put carpet over it. Its the floor outside the monastery on Paros, and in the church, and just about every single old floor I ever stepped on.
How did it become the new up market thing?
Someone better tell all those greeks they’re on the cutting edge of interior design!
z
a new chalkboard for the new kitchen
One of my friends said this corner of the kitchen looked wierd, with the little shelf and the mixers. Well, this corner is still the same as its always been since we bought the house. Only difference is its now a different colour.
And this narrow strip of wall always held a calendar.
Not even a really nice calendar most of the time.
When planning the new kitchen in my mind, I always thought a new chalkboard would look nice there… for our shopping list.
We already have a long narrow shopping list chalkboard near the fridge, but I have something else planned for that spot. Plus, I wanted a much more elaborate frame for the kitchen and this one fit the bill.
It had been painted a bright red before I got it and I thought that would make a nice contrast to the greeny/aqua colour I painted it. I used milk paint for the first coat and acrylic for the second. No idea why. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. It gave it a roughed up look which is fine by me. I added a little ‘age’ (or grime) with some burnt umber artist acrylic to make the details stand out a bit more.
Compared to our long shopping list chalkboard, this is pretty small. Maybe we’ll save money with smaller shopping lists… More likely we’ll just write smaller.
I used a drawer pull as a chalk holder. Old trick, yeah. But I had 10 of these pulls. I bought them for the kitchen drawers and when they arrived they were too small. Alright for my delicate girlie fingers, but not for Wayne’s manly ones.
In other words, I had spare drawer pulls, I may as well use them, right?
This is the only creative, house-related thing I managed to do all this weekend.
Though I did bake again! I made a pasta flora. Its a greek jam tart.
I also made another spanakopita cause I’m addicted. Sorry, no photos of that, but here’s a photo of the baclava I made last weekend.
Yum.
z
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DIY – rennovating the living room
So, you may remember this is how it looks right on my real estate listing as I wait for someone to decide its their dream home:
And this what what it looked like when I saw the original listing. Gotta give it to the owner and agent for staging huh?
And here it is after I moved in.
The room looked warmer and more inviting straight away. The white trims were so much nicer than the egg yolk yellow!
I dislike laminate flooring. I’ve seen it not wear well in others’ homes. I couldn’t afford to replace the floor with timber, so I settled on vinyl. I bought a good quality, non-slip, industrial strength vinyl by Gerfloor. Its taupe in colour and small flecks/flowers scattered through it.
Note:
This post has been added to a link party at The Thrifty Decor Chic. Why not visit and see other living room makeovers.