A little garden miracle

Not long after we moved in I threw three plants in basic plastic pots onto the area near our front door.  I pretty much ignored them, threw a little water on them once in a while and didn't give them too much thought.

Then, the other day, I noticed this ...

For anyone who knows how hopelessly bad I am at gardening, this is definitely a little miracle.  These little flowers are tiny, delicate and totally beautiful.  Of course, I needed to do them justice with a nice pot.

I know, repotting them while in flower isn't idea.  But, this little miracle was so pot bound that the roots had worked their way out the holes in the bottom of the pot.  I figured they had bloomed on neglect so what the heck, I was game enough to give it a go.

I looked around to see if I had anything I could use as a pot and came up with nothing.  And then I remembered that when we had bought our Ikea kitchen, we purchased some Foto lights.

We bought three of the middle size ones and one of the small ones.  The plan was to use the three over the bench and the smaller one in the drop zone.  We didn't end up using the shades, but we did use the parts.  So, that left us with some great shaped shades to find a use for.

So, I got out my trusty can of spray paint and did this ...

Then, I flipped it over and popped my little miracle right in there with some potting mix.  I really don't know how this plant has survived. When I pulled it out of the pot there was more roots than I thought possible surrounding a few pieces of bark and mulch with a little ball of dirt in the centre.  With a little encouragement, I ended up with this ...

It's a little top heavy, but I love it.  That colour will pop so great once we get rid of our mission brown deck and build the new one ... that's our next big project now that the kitchen is almost complete.

And I got a great photo bomb from my little Miss too...

Teacup Gardening

I've been collecting tea cup trios (cup, saucer and plate) for years.  I've got quite a collection going but not much space to display them.  I'm on a de-cluttering bent at the moment so a couple of weeks ago I went through my collection and decided to let some of them go.  For those I'm keeping, there are a few special and favourites on display in my art deco sideboard.

What to do with the rest?  Well, I've recently discovered miniature gardens as an extension of my fascination with (and plan to create one for my little girl) fairy gardens.  So, what better way to get started than by using my tea cups.  For now, I've planted some lovely little succulents and will see if I can keep those hardiest of hardy plants alive while I work on my fairy and miniature garden ideas.

 

These were super easy to create. 

• Dump a little potting mix in the cup. 
• Pop in a succulent. 
• Spread some bonsai stones over the exposed dirt.
• Enjoy!

Things I probably should have done but didn't ... use a potting mix meant specifically for succulents and drill a drainage hole in the bottom of the cups.

Using the bonsai stones really made the plants stand out.  You can see the difference below.

I've got a lead on where I can get a load of succulents for free so if this happens, I'll invest in the right potting mix and drill drainage holes when I plant the rest of my little tea cup succulents.  For now, I'm enjoying them sitting on top of my art deco sideboard.

It was a super cheap project as well.  The cups I already had, the potting mix I already had.  The succulents were $5 or $6 each and the bonsai stones for $6 for a bag that will give me enough for about 10 cups.  The outcome is that I get to display more of my collection.

I would like to add some more plants to my home.  What do you suggest that is easy to look after and doesn't need lots of direct sunlight?

My First Reupholstery Attempt

I've had three reupholstery projects on my to do this for ... oh ... about 5 years now.   Yep, I've been procrastinating big time.  Well I've finally finished the first of them.  Ironically, it's the most recently purchased item.

More than a year ago now I bought this sweet little chair with the intention of recovering it to go in Little Miss's room.  It would give me somewhere besides the floor to sit for bedtime stories and middle of the night calls.

Excuse the iPhone pics but they are all I took in it's original state.  I loved that it was little and low enough to the ground for both of us to easily use.  But it was dirty, torn, well past it's prime, and while I love vintage, this was old fashioned.

A bargain at around $20, I can't believe it has taken me more than a year to get around to finishing it.

Bye bye old fashioned and hello gorgeous!

I love how this little project turned out.  The fabric was an eBay purchase and I love it.  The graphic, colour and scale just make me smile every time I see it.

Is it perfect?  Nope.  Do I love it anyway.  Oh yes.  And bonus, Little Miss loves it as well.

I got about half way through attaching the new fabric when it became abundantly clear that my little craft staple gun just wasn't going to cut in.  In fact, it just stopped working at all.  I left that little chair sitting in my dining room unfinished for about two weeks while I agonised about what to do.  Eventually I just had to get it done and that meant parting with $40 for an Ozito Staple Nail Gun.  Best $40 bucks spent EVER!

This little thing rocks.  It packs a big punch in the staple gun arena but is so super simple to load and use.  About a dozen staples later and voila!  Our little chair that had languished in no man's land for a year was suddenly ready for use.  It saves my knees and back at bed time that's for sure and I think it adds a cute little touch to the room.

Next on my hit list for Little Miss's room - the bedside table that's a functional hand me down, but could use a little fancying up.

Pinterest Inspired: Light Shade

I don't even want to think about the hours of my life that have disappeared since I discovered Pinterest.  All of those hours have been very happily spent yes, but have they really achieved anything?  Every now and then.

 

I honestly can't recall where I first can across the idea of using old book pages to create a light shade. But when I searched Pinterest I found this and an idea was born.  My gratitude to Allison Patrick of Zipper 8 Lightning who creates such wonderful items using old book pages and provided the "Pinspiration" for this project.

 

 

So, not too long ago, I decided to get on with it and create this lamp shade.  I love how it turned out.  It was super easy to make ... though it did take some time.  Just a rice paper shade (I used the Ikea Regolit which cost $6.99), an old book (I'd just donated all my unwanted ones so purchased one for $2 at my local thrift store), and some school glue ($2.95 from the local news agent).

 

To cut out all those circles I borrowed a cutter from the wonderful Karen.  A stellar Stampin Up representative (and my wonderful Aunt).  Then I just started gluing them on at the bottom and worked my way up.  I glued only the top edge and overlapped them because that's the way I wanted them to look.  I did line all my text up (mostly) straight so that you can read little snippets on each circle.  I also used some of the chapter titles, page numbers and a blank circle here and there to add interest.

 

 

 

I knew exactly what lamp stand it was going on before I event started.  I've been carting around this floor lamp that was my grandmothers for years. Can't tell you how many homes I've had it in.  It used to have a 50's inspired shade, but that went when I moved more towards art deco furniture and décor.  Since then, this lovely lamp has been languishing in various sheds, garages and junk rooms until now.

 

 

For a few dollars and about 5 hours of gluing while I was watching TV at night I love how it's turned out.  Now I jut have to figure out what to do with the stand itself.  The base and little accent on the end of the curve is woods that's been painted brown at some stage.  The curved arm moves so you can position the light at various heights.  It's metal and I thought it was black, but when I pulled it out and looked closely the black is coming off and it's gold underneath that.  The gold is also scratched showing bare metal so I think that was it's original colour.  I've put this project off for so long because I just can't decide what to do with the base - black, turquoise, copper, dark grey.  I just can't decide. Any suggestions?

 

Inch by Inch

It's been a little quiet on the house front in the last month or so.  We had a little camping break at Easter, we've all be sick ... probably twice ... I've been looking for work.  So, generally, life got in the way and we've had to be careful with money as well.

But slowly, inch by inch we are getting closer to a totally finished kitchen.  Over the weekend Handsome Handy Hubby installed our range hood.

 

We are so happy with how this side of the kitchen has turned out.  Yes, the cook top and range hood are off centre on purpose.  We wanted as large a piece of bench as possible on the right hand side.  The alternative was two small but pretty useless pieces of bench if we centred the cook top.  So, we chose to have it set to the left.  I was hoping to put an open shelf to hold a cook book just on top of the glass splash back, but there's not quite enough room.  So I've got some ideas for artwork that will sit on the right up above the range hood.

 

On the pantry side, we' started our 'art gallery' for out little Miss.  This big bland wall seemed a perfect place for some kid art.  The two framed pieces I've been saving for ages as I love them both.  The pin board is for all the stuff she brings home from day care.  And below that we'll be installing a rail with clips that she can reach to hang her own selections.  Just need to find the right clips.

 

 

 

The top photo on the left is a flower made from a hand print, and the one on the right is Little Miss' favourite pink & purple rainbow.

 

I also deep cleaned the window and sliding door today ... boring but oh so satisfying.  I don't think they've been cleaned for at least 5 years (shudder).  But it's done and while not perfect it's a million time better.

 

Some times it feels like we'll never get this kitchen finished, but inch by inch we are getting there.

 

Kitchen: So close!

Progress hasn't sped up at all on the kitchen, but we have been making some.  Our unofficial deadline is to have it functional by the end of this week.  Deep breaths!

Handsome Handy Hubby has put in another huge week both at work and at home to get us closer to the end.  He's exhausted which doesn't make it easy to do stuff.  I have so much admiration for this man who just digs in and gets on with the job.  Last week, his day job was a bit of a nightmare and he worked late every day.  Bad enough that he starts at 5am but pulling 12 hour shifts day after day isn't fun.  Then they called him in to work on Saturday ... he could have said no, but the money will come in handy so in he went.  Sunday I thought he'd want to have a bit of a break, and we did have pancakes with friends for breakfast.  But then, as soon as we got home he was into it.  Just one more reason to love that man.

Here's what things looked like at about 5:30pm yesterday.

The pantry doors are on - and the inside is about 80% complete.  The fridge is in and working.

We had to take the sliding door on the right edge of this photo off to get the fridge in.

We didn't put the screen back on the sliding door and look at the sun coming in under the deck roof and hitting the hallway wall about 5 meters away.  This is definitely a problem at dinner time but the light flooding in is wonderful.

The range hood still has to go over the cook top, and the dishwasher in it's hole.  The oven and microwave have been getting a work out though.

All the drawers are finally in.  The plumbing is also connected for the sink. Love that we've used the floorboards for the kick plates as well.

Our beautiful bamboo floors have been re-laid and look just as stunning as the first time they went down 18 months ago. 

This photo certainly doesn't do the floors any justice but I just had to capture that sunshine hitting the hallway wall.  You can imagine at dinner time sitting here sweating it out and squinting against the sun.  Any solution we've tried to deal with it also cuts down the amount of light that comes in quite severely.  Don't know what we're going to do about it but we'll figure it out eventually.

I also made my 3rd trip for this kitchen to Ikea.  I returned all the bits and pieces that we didn't use, bought a few more things that we needed, and a few that will help finish things off.  I came out about $1,000 better off than when I walked in so that was a bonus.  My Dad came with me as I had a couple of heavy items to return and he and Mum decided to get an Expedit.  I think it was a bit of a shock to him how big it was and just how long it took us to get around.  We were bout 3 hours all up which I thought was pretty good considering we did returns and collected more kitchen items as well.  He did say the lunch (he's a fish eating vegetarian) was certainly better than he would have had at McDonalds on the way home.

We've managed to cross quite a few things off the To Do list:

• Finish painting the pantry
• Reinstall all the pantry shelving
• Reinstall the pantry doors
• Put the screws in the back of all those drawers and level everything up
• Connect the plumbing
• Put crown moulding up so that the pantry/fridge cabinet goes to the ceiling as well as the oven and small appliances cabinet.
• Relay the bamboo floor boards
• Bring in the fridge and dishwasher
• Find all the kitchen stuff stashed in various places around the house and in the garage and get it all where it belongs
• Find all the laundry stuff stashed in various places around the house and put it back in the laundry/temporary kitchen
• Add some styling and fancy accents
• Clean the rest of the house which has been descending into chaos while our time and energy are focused on the kitchen.

We're certainly not going to get everything done by the end of this week, but we should be able to get to the point where it's a functional kitchen.  We'll then have to work around that to finish it off.  CAN. NOT. WAIT!

Kitchen: Shaping Up

We've come a long way ... albeit slowly ... with our kitchen renovation.



It is shaping up into our dream kitchen and we've ticked off a lot of things on the list to get it this far.

 

The oven, microwave and induction cook top are all installed. All the Ikea cabinets are in ... we just need some extra hinges and drawers (naturally).  This involves an 3 hour round trip + instore time.  We know we'll have some items to return at the end, so we're waiting another week or so before making the trek.

 

Don't you love the composition of this photo with the step ladder in the foreground ... kidding of course.  I just like to keep it real.  If you look closely, you'll see my lunch heating up in the mircrowave while I snapped these photos today.

Under the bench there you can see cupboard doors.  We put narrow depth cupboards along here for extra storage as our house has almost none.

 

This shows a little more of our lovely benchtops, littered with construction debris of course.  We chose Ceasarstone in Oyster.  An option that's available direct from Ikea, but it was actually cheaper for us to get it through a local stone mason who just happens to be one of the best there is.  More about that later.  The hole under the bench in the top right corner above is for our dishwasher.  Yes, it's on the opposite side of the area to our sink.  No, we don't think that is a problem.  We're not 'rinse before it goes in the dishwasher' people - unless there's a load of sauce/gravy on the plate so we don't think there will be a lot of need to drip water across the floor.  On the odd occasion that there is, there are these wonderful things called dish towels or even paper towel which can mop those drips right up.  Amazing!

 

This beast of construction will eventually be our walk in panty.  The fridge goes in the hole on the right there with the (already in use) wine rack above it.  There will be bifold doors (leaning against the wall over there on the left of the hallway door) right across the front of the pantry which will allow the whole thing to open up and be easily accessible.  Inside there is lots of shelves and a couple of baskets - see some of them on the floor in the fridge hole and the rest of the shelves on the bench.

 

I haven't shown it in any photos but the left hand end of the pantry is a big blank wall.  It's just crying out for a chalk board for our Little Miss and some art, maybe it will become her area with a chalk board and rotating gallery of art sent home from day care, colouring in and sticker collages. 

 

My goal today is to finish painting the uprights so that Handsome Handy Hubby can finish the shelves and reinstall the doors.  We could have made the pantry a little shallower and still been able to step into it, but we're pretty happy with how it's turned out so far.

 

Still to do...

• Finish painting the pantry
• Reinstall all the pantry shelving
• Reinstall the pantry doors
• Put the screws in the back of all those drawers and level everything up
• Connect the plumbing
• Put crown moulding up so that the pantry/fridge cabinet goes to the ceiling as well as the oven and small appliances cabinet.
• Relay the bamboo floor boards
• Bring in the fridge and dishwasher
• Find all the kitchen stuff stashed in various places around the house and in the garage and get it all where it belongs
• Find all the laundry stuff stashed in various places around the house and put it back in the laundry/temporary kitchen
• Add some styling and fancy accents
• Clean the rest of the house which has been descending into chaos while our time and energy are focused on the kitchen.

We are hoping to be finished by the end of this month.  I think we can do it but boy is it going to be busy.  I've got until mid April to return anything we don't use to Ikea so that's my backup deadline but honestly, we're both over cooking out of the laundry, having the rest of the house in total chaos all the time and can't wait to have this project done.

Kitchen: Slow going

It's been a while since I posted about our kitchen progress.  That's because it's been a while since there has been any.  Between work, life and the weather it's been slow going for the last few weeks.  But that's all about to change.  We have definitely made some good progress and tomorrow, the stone bench tops are due to go in.  My hope is that once that is done, the rest of the work will happen quickly.  Dare I hope that we'll be finished in another 2 weeks?  And by finished I mean not only having everything functional, but moving all the kitchen stuff out of the laundry, all the laundry stuff out of the other places I have it stashed around the house, painted, styled, and photographed.  Hmmmm .... maybe three weeks.

Kitchen: Worse

Every renovation gets worse before it gets better right?  We're definitely at the worse stage.  There's plaster missing, half built cabinets stacked up, tools littering the floor.  But there is also lots of progress.  The wiring is where it needs to be, the frames for the cabinets have been built and most of the cabinets are together.

Come on in ... that's right, we have a door ... kind of.

The old tile backsplash wouldn't come off neatly ... so the plaster had to come out with it

The frames that the cabinets will sit on ... and a couple of cabinets in situ

Rather than use the legs that came with the Ikea cabinets we decided to build 30mm MDF bases for them to sit on.  It'll make things more stable, add some strength and help hold up the hugely heavy stone benchtop that will go on the island bench.

 

A close up of the chaos that will eventually become the oven and cooktop

This is where the fridge and walk in pantry will be.  That's the pantry walls there on the floor.  Oh, and we'll plaster over that sliding door of course.

Looking at the dining area ... yes, we're eating in the lounge room for the duration.

Order will emerge from the chaos ... eventually!

Most of our preparation work is done.  Handsome Handy Hubby has the plumbing to move as we are relocating both the sink and dishwasher.  The plasterer will be here to set the walls on Friday which should mean I can paint on Saturday and we can place all the cabinets on Friday.  The appliances arrive on Friday (hmmm, where on earth am I going to fit them!) and the stone bench top (a drama for another post) will be measured up once that's all done.

Deep breath ... carry on!

Kitchen: Progress?

I should have taken pictures this morning!  Why?  Because this morning we had an empty room that I had cleaned.  It looked huge!  Sure, it showed us how much plaster we were going to have to remove and replace, made us think about where the light switch was going to fit and no, we haven't yet taken out the plumbing from the old layout.

But now?  Well ... here's where it's at.

Handsome Handy Hubby arrived home with the sliding door and immediately started going about moving the arch 20cm to the right and installing it, the old kitchen was sold on eBay and picked up in the afternoon, just an hour before all the Ikea cabinets were delivered and piled up in the corner.

Next up ...

• cleaning up the mess from pulling out the plaster
• checking all the Ikea items to make sure they match the delivery
• unpacking all the Ikea items to check for any damage
• ongoing work with the door way
• putting all those Ikea cabinets together - thank you Handsome Handy Hubby for my baby drill that also came home from the hardware store with him and to my Dad who I've got booked in to help me out with this step