Our Living Room Needs

We’ve been thinking a lot about our home lately and how we can best make use of the floor plan to suit our needs.  On the weekend, Paul came up with a renovating idea, one that has left me mulling over the use of our formal dining room ever since.  His suggestion was to extend our open plan living area to create a slightly bigger space.  Such a project would create a spot where a larger table would be possible, which would take advantage of the small unused part of our patio and if done correctly, hopefully let in more light.

To be honest, I’m not a fan of our other formal dining space.  For one, it is barely used.  Also, I’d prefer such a room to have floorboards rather than be carpeted and if I had my choice now, I would have chosen a more casual, hard-wearing table as well as chairs that weren’t upholstered.  If we had space for a bigger table in our every day living area (possibly a table that could be extended), we wouldn’t even need a formal dining room and that area could be put to better use. 

I think it’s important to make a home work for your needs.  We love our house and look back over the changes we have made since we moved in here and the renovations we’ve carried out with a sense of pride.  However, there are certainly things we could still change to better suit our family. 

Of course, these ideas are all still in the ‘dreaming stage’ and the likelihood of any coming to fruition is a possibility that is still WAY off into the future.  We have a home office to re-jig first and shelving to decide on for either side of our (fake) fireplace before any more major renovations take place.  But Paul’s suggestion has given me a little boost of interior decorating enthusiasm over the past week and the freedom to look back at magazine pages I’d bookmarked and to wonder if spaces I thought were unachievable might be possible after all…

Both images courtesy of Homelife

Photography by Mark Roper / Styling by Indiana Foord

Warm & Cosy House

Finally, after what seems like months of freezing in our house and after months of expensive power bills (running our little electric heater), our new Rinnai gas heater has finally been installed. We ended up choosing the Aspiration Gas Log Flame Fire and we are happy with the way it looks in our living room (excuse the poor photo above, it was difficult taking a shot at night with the reflective glass). Now we just need to touch up underneath the unit, put the skirting back on and hang our artwork back on the wall.

For the past few days, I've been battling a nasty cold so no playgroup for Grace and I today. We're going to have a nice quiet day and hopefully get outdoors and enjoy some of the sunshine that has been forecast. At least when it gets cooler this evening, we'll be able to keep warm in front of our new heater. Hope you all have a lovely day too.

Entryway Changes

Happy Monday! Hope you’ve all had a lovely few days rest. While we were busy painting our living room wall over the weekend (well, while Paul was busy painting and I was keeping Grace out of his hair) it occurred to me that I hadn’t yet shared any photos on my blog of our front door and entryway which we re-painted a little while back for a fresh look.

Our old door was an ugly cream which looked horrible when left open inside. The wall straight ahead when you step foot into our house was a brown/purple shade which we were well and truly over. When we got our window frames resprayed last year in a charcoal grey (to rid all the horrible mission brown), we realised our front door and entryway needed some changes too. The first three photos below are the ‘before’ shots.

We painted the front door itself a crisp white, the door panels and frame outside charcoal grey (to match the windows) and the wall as you enter the house is now the same as all the other walls in our place.

Now I just need to work out a nice display arrangement for our hall table, find a cute inside mat and I’d like to make a little ‘welcome’ sign to hang on the brick wall next to our entrance. Any suggestions you would make?

Slowly Slowly

Here in our little household, work has finally started on building out our wall for our heater (which is currently waiting in its box on our patio). Mum's partner who is doing the job for us came over yesterday and started. I was so happy, I baked him his favourite dessert, apple crumble, to take home with him to enjoy.

All that is needed now are a few coats of sealer and Paul said as long as I'm willing to paint the wall on Wednesday/Thursday, I can book the heater man to come and finally install our long awaited unit anytime after Friday. Paul prefers to wait until next week but I'm desperate to have a nice glowing 'fire' next weekend and so I have volunteered to get out the paint roller. Fingers crossed all goes to plan and I'll be warm and toasty soon!!

What lovely things do you all have planned for this week?

New Carpet

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts on Wednesday – I found your comments very comforting to read throughout the day and those, together with the beautiful bunch of flowers I found on our doorstep from my lovely friend Kylie as well as phonecalls and messages from others, helped me to smile and remember all the happy memories I have of my Dad.

This week has been pretty full-on and chaotic at our place with our new carpets being laid. Over the last few days we’ve had to shift furniture around, sleep on our mattress on the floor in the lounge room and contend with our dining table sitting on its side in the middle of our kitchen. As I said, it’s been chaotic but well worth it as now our beautiful new carpets are in and together with our new white skirtings look lovely and fresh.

While all our furniture is back in place, we still have boxes of all the smaller items to put back and our piano is yet to be moved into place, so for now, here are two before shots and two quick after shots...

Homely One House Tour - The Patio

Time for some outdoor shots today. Our patio is the newest renovation we have carried out. Our biggest issue in this space was the ‘garden bed’, otherwise known as the ‘sand patch’ which ran along the windows of the house. With Asha, this sand became a real nuisance as she would lie in it and drag it all over the pavers, causing them to look dirty (not that they were attractive paving bricks in the first place). Here are some shots of the old area...




We did contemplate decking, but as our priority was for something hardwearing and also low maintenance, we stuck with the clay bricks. We repaved right up to the windows in a darker, more uniform shade which seems to flow on better from our floorboards inside to create a more seemless look. We also replaced the old, discoloured roof sheeting and a few sagging beams before Paul gave it all a fresh coat of paint.

Once again, some homely touches are needed out here. I would love a cute pot with some pretty flowers for the table and in the corner where the potplants are, I am picturing a deck chair like the ones from Ici et La where I could relax with a cuppa and a magazine. What lovely things do you have in your own outdoor areas that create that ‘homely’ feel?

Homely One House Tour - The Kitchen

Seeing as I already posted a few kitchen photos last week, I thought I’d start with this part of our house for the Homely One House Tour. Our kitchen has probably undergone the biggest transformation of all the areas in our home. When we moved in, it was functional but not at all attractive – ugly face bricks, dark brown cupboards, chunky cream benchtops, a dated oven and stove and dated wall and floor tiles (see before shots below)...

While we kept to the same layout when renovating, the addition of new timber flooring, cupboards, tiles, downlights and benchtops has made a huge difference. It is amazing how much lighter and brighter this space is now. As for the meals area, we have since replaced the old security screens with the new ‘invisible mesh’ style ones and the window frames are charcoal grey instead of mission brown.

I love our kitchen, but it really needs some homely touches added to it. The wall above the oven/stove needs something but I’m not quite sure what exactly. I’d also like to make better use of the space above the fridge for a display of some sort. Any suggestions? I’d love your feedback…

Latest Renovation Project

Re-paving our patio has finally started! Our bricks have arrived and work is underway this morning. We are re-paving right up to the windows in the photo below which will stop our dog Asha from lying in the sandy patch and traipsing dirt everywhere. The new bricks are also darker and should flow on from our living area floorboards better. The shrub in the photo is our beautiful star jasmine which is covered in hundreds of little white flowers at present. Once it’s all finished I’m planning on putting a few pot plants next to the house and having some sort of centrepiece on the outdoor table.