Back to digging holes and changing plans

This week has felt like a bit of a blast from the past with us finding ourselves digging deep stump holes, piling up mounds of dirt and getting our engineering plans changed.

After looking at the drawings again. we noticed that parts were calling for steel beams. We felt this was unnecessary and our surveyor and engineer agreed and are changing the drawings. Also they have the decking boards running the wrong way and a few other things that we needed to get changed. So hopefully that is amended soon and hopefully at a minimum charge.

In the meantime it is still just a matter of digging.

We also plan to get the floors in the living room sanded and finished soon because the kids are getting horrible splinters in their feet.

I still need to work on the fireplace and seating and painting of the staircase.

To all those interested, Happy Halloween for tomorrow!
Cheers,
Nat

Bedside table bargain

I have been on the lookout for a second hand bedside table for my daughter for months now. I wanted something with at least one drawer and an open shelf. My inspiration were these Pottery Barn Kids tables.







But for average $350, I was not keen on buying one even though they are so cute and unlike ones at other shops in the area.

On Monday night I saw this on my local buy swap and sell Facebook site and for $12 I was over the moon.

 I saw the potential. So I bought it and painted it white. Here is the first undercoat. Then I did 3 coats of gloss white. I already had all the paint so I literally only had to spend $12.

 Here it is in Heidi's room.

 I was debating about buying some legs for it but thought it might be a bit high and the legs are about $5 each so would make my bargain, less so.

 Oh and can you see my Frozen inspired prints on the chest of drawers? Not sure where to hang them yet.

 In other renovating news.....
The floors are up and the holes for stronger stumps are being dug.

 We need to sell these old boards. Anyone know how best to sell them? Gumtree?

 We are back to having dirt through the house again. Oh and now blow flies too. 'Tis the season.

 We have to cross over this mess to get to the bathroom. Urgh! Oh well it is for a good cause.

Cheers,
Nat

Girls room reveal

Finally, after a few anxious days waiting, Heidi's first big girl bed arrived.

  Yesterday, her new doona cover arrived. It was a Marie Claire Mini design in a double size.

 It isn't styled yet, I still need to hang things on the walls and organise things properly but there is no rush for that. Here are a few photos for you!

I can't wait to tuck her in tonight. Finally she shouldn't lose her pillow and bedding because she was too big for the cot.

Sweet dream missy!
Cheers,
Nat

Goodbye baltic floorboards

After a very disappointing start to the weekend, with Heidi's bed not being delivered as arranged, it has ended up ok.

Saturday saw me doing some finishing touches to the purple bedroom, like touching up and filling the chair rail and hanging the blind. Then the carpets got dry cleaned and finally we could start moving everything out of her old bedroom ready to rip up the flooring.

Here is the empty room with old flooring which we will try to sell.

  

Dave removed the plaster from the wall which will become the extended built in wardrobe for our bedroom on the other side.

 Then, very carefully, he ripped up the boards.

 As this is still the access to the bathroom, he laid down some chip board flooring for safe access.

Tonight before bed little missy didn't want to go to bed. She was having too much fun in her new big bedroom.

 Fingers crossed that her new bed arrives tomorrow. I went out yesterday and bought her a double feather quilt, a waterproof mattress protector, pink sheets and a pillow. (you can see them hiding under the cot).

Hope you all had a good weekend.
Cheers,
Nat

Progress on our girls bedroom

 I love my days off work. Today especially I got a lot done on the house. As for the house work, I managed to do one load of washing and one load of dishes and that's about it. It is certainly difficult to do both and look after a 3 year old.

So today I focused on painting. I did two coats of gloss on the window in her room and the arch around the door. I also finished the gloss paint on the chair rails which Dave installed when he came home from work.

 

And here is how it looks tonight! So much better now that the chair rail is on. Certain seems to tone down the purple colour.

 

Still to do:

- Touch up the ceiling paint which was supposed to be done when we originally painted this room about 10 years ago. Better late than never.

- Paint white over the ceiling rose which is currently two-toned with beige and white.

- Clean the ceiling fan

- Clean the carpet

The other thing I started to tackle today was painting the kiddie table and chairs. I started by sanding off all of the varnish.

 When at Bunnings, Heidi chose this colour for the chairs. This wasn't part of my plan, but I said I would give it a try and see if it will work.

 Here is what it looked like after one coat. She loves it. I am not so sure but thought maybe I could use it next to her bed and then keep the table and other chair white and put that in a different spot in her room.

  

I just did an undercoat of primer on the table and other chair. Which actually need to be repaired first. It looks so much better white don't you think? I hated that orange coloured varnish.

 

Cheers,
Nat

Starting our first girls bedroom

I had been looking forward to this weekend very much. It has kinda snuck up on me really. It was time to start fixing up the front room to make it Heidi's new big girl bedroom. 

Now I have never decorated a girls room before as each baby was a surprise so the rooms had always been neutral colours.

Exhibit A - Andrew's nursery:

Exhibit B - Samuel's nursery

 

Exhibit C - Heidi's nursery

  So this was going to be a challenge for me but hopefully a fun one. My biggest fear was having to do a pink or purple room. Nope it wasn't going to happen. But far out, 3 year old can be soooo naggy. She was desperate for a purple Frozen bedroom. Arghhhhhh......

Now here I am in the middle of my worst designing nightmare. I did find one picture that I did love and it had purple in it. The combination of the turquoise and mauve I just loved. So that is my inspiration.

Based on this I chose this purple colour from Sherwin-Williams called Hazey Purple. The other colours there are a grey in the Sherwin-Williams range that was very similar to the Valspar Montpelier and the aqua is called Coastal Aqua. I got a free sample pot and at Master they had a buy one get one free paint special so all this only cost my $64. Not bad.

 Here is a before picture after the new skirting boards had gone in. The old ones had turned yellow. I spent Friday after work and Saturday morning painting them up ready to be installed.

 

Here is the cutting in of the colour. Wow I was very impressed with the Sherwin-Williams paint. It was very creamy and smooth.

 Oh and we are going to add a chair rail so we will put that on this week after we get paid.

 Also, Dave did a new architrave around the door. Actually this picture doesn't show the trim at the top which was added later.

 

So here is the purple in action. First coat of course.

 

Then I had a very happy helper to do the grey. She was so excited to see her purple room coming together, after being very frustrated watching her brothers get their rooms done first.

 So here is the first coat done.

I think that it is very different to my normal tones but I have to remember that it isn't my room and my little girl has to love it.

I am hoping to get it pretty much finished by the end of the week ready for the bed to come.
Oh did you see the bed I have ordered??? Check it out. It is lovely and I haven't decided if I will paint it or not.

 

Lots of work to do in there yet like filling and painting the window and arch and adding the chair rail, cleaning the carpets and probably more.

Here's to a good week ahead.

Cheers,

Nat

Green room update

As we are clearing out the temporary living room at the front of the house to make way for Heidi's big girl room, we had to move some furniture around. So now Sam's room has the bookcase and we filled it with some of his Star Wars toys. He loves it and so do I.

Cheers,
Nat

Sherwin-Williams at Masters

I just popped up to Masters to select some paint colours for Heidi's big girl room. I wanted to go there because I knew that they had Valspar paint which I perfer over Dulux colours. After I was standing at the Valspar section for about 10 mins I turned around and got a big surprise.

They now stock the American Sherwin-Williams paints!!!! Just in time for me to do Heidi's room.

Of course I stocked up on colour booklets an sample cards.

I am so excited. Yay for Masters.

Cheers,
Nat

Our new living room

I am writing this post from the comfort of our new living area.

We had a busy long weekend here (hooray for an AFL Grand Final new long weekend).

It started on Friday when I was up at 5:45, getting started on painting the underside of the staircase.

Before:

After 1 coat of primer:

Actually I just remembered I still want to do a third top coat on these. Oh well, one day.

Dave's focus was to get the shelves around the TV done. First he installed the cleats that I had previously painted.

 

 Then he cut all the MDF for the shelves in his makeshift tent to stop the poisonous dust flying over the neighbour's fence.

 

 We ran out of MDF so had to duck down to Bunnings (lucky it is so close) and grab some more.

 With help from our wonderful neighbour we got them inside.

 It was a big challenge to get the return shelves in. We started with the top one and then had to lift that up again to get the second in and so on.

 Once they were all in place, Dave cut some thick pine and attached them to the face to make it look more solid and to also stop them sagging.

 

 This is what they looked like after installation.

  

Then I had to start filling, sanding and painting them. After one undercoat them looked like this. Also not that in this picture the room is cleared out (minus some flooring and tools) ready for the furniture. And Hello TV!!! We moved that from the front room and little miss Heidi is sitting in that big chair watching TV in a whole new light.

 From a different angle. Obviously we still need to get all the drawers made. I am nagging Dave to ask his brother to do that.

 So is the is result for the end of the weekend. The kids love it and it actually feels bigger than I thought. Some new couches and rugs and it will look brill!

 We also worked outside. We cleared out 2 ute loads of rubbish which was required in order to move the stuff out of the back room to make way for the furniture. Also we got one coat of yellow paint on the outside east wall. Still one more to so there. Dave put some plinth boards on that wall too. I did the first coat of aqua-enamel on the white part of the fireplace. I need to sand it and do one more.

So now we are exhausted. I need to do two top coats of aqua-enamel on the shelves and fireplace but that can be done during the week.

Hope you had a productive weekend too.
Cheers,
Nat