Little things

I know you are waiting for photo's of our new home.  I haven't got it tidy enough yet to give you large scale pictures but I want to share with you a couple of things I really love.  They are only small details but so beautiful.

Firstly is the leadlighting around our front door.  Its just lovely to look down the hallway, which is relatively dark, and see this beautiful glass work.  We have had a good look at it and think it is all original.  There are only 3 minor cracks in the glass and all the glass matches so we don't believe there has been any replacements. (Pity there is an ugly fuse box there though but at least it is behind the door)

Secondly is when you look closer at the front door.  There is the modern chain and deadbolt but there is also a slide lock.  It is beautifully embellished in a way you don't see functional items treated a lot anymore.

If you look closer, you can see a rub mark near the slide.  There is quite a groove in the wood where the thumb of everyone who has lived here over the past 100 years has rubbed.  To add to the connection with previous occupants, we have received the original title to this property as it has been digitised.  To have this document, on vellum no less, is quite magical.  To see the names and occupations of previous custodians let the mind wander.

I hope this satifies your curiosity for a little while.

Swoon

Image from Hopewood Country House

I've just seen this picture over at Glimpse of Style of the lovely Hopewood Country House.  I can just see this as my extension.  Not sure how it would function in summer ( or winter unless its double glazed) though if it is part of the open plan.  Maybe it could be my own private little studio and workroom though?  Dreams abound.....

Reprioritising

Image via Flickr

Well we've been in our new home for all of 3 weeks and I've already had many ideas for extending and renovating.  My latest involves extending the existing extension ( what a mouthful!) and then flipping the current layout around.  This would give me lovely morning sun in a new sitting and meals area, a new kitchen, dining, a main bedroom with ensuite and move my husbands study into the extension which would make his current study into a kids lounge.

I have no idea how much all this would cost but it sounds really nice.

We are fortunate enough to have not spent our limit on buying this house so we have the financial room to borrow this money if need be.  Our position at the moment means that we could actually have the purchase price and interest on this house paid off in 7 years time with no hard yards ( fingers crossed interest rates don't skyrocket in the mean time) according to online mortgage calculators.  

When I plugged in the figures for borrowing to do this renovation and still making the same repayments we are now, it blew out to 19 years and multiplied our interest component by a factor of 6!  The interest alone would be more than we borrowed to do the extension!

This got me thinking and looking at our budget.  What if we went the other way?  If I could find an extra $100 or $150 a week out of non essentials, we could own our home outright in under 5 years!  We are a single income family and my husband is a teacher so we aren't on a huge income but we do live simply.

There are some things I do want to do to our home to make it more homely for us but I'm thinking of setting myself a challenge to do these things well and on a tight budget.  We don't actually NEED much but there are some things that will make home much more comfortable for us.

These things include:

Heating for the extension - this needs to be done urgently as its getting really cold here and I have a young son who wakes at 5:30am!

Curtains for the extension - 6m of french doors to be covered

Painting

Extending the deck - our plan is to do this for next summer

Hubby to make beds for the boys new king single mattresses

Desk for hubby

Outdoor table setting 

Cupboards for the living area - plain white to the roof ones so they are more like a wall than cupboards.  My dream ( not a good phrase when talking about budgetting) is to have this contain a kitchen office.

Now can I do all of this for around $5k?  The heating will probably be $2k in itself

Of course there are many other things on my wish list but maybe I can console myself with thinking that there will be something better than what is currently available in 5 years time and continue dreaming.  Of course that won't stop me talking about them though....  thats for another post though.

Pink Petals from Red Bubble

Pink Petals by Lyn Evans via Red Bubble

I've just come across this amazing website for Australian artists - Red Bubble. There are some amazing pieces of art on there at realistic prices, from a card to a wall print. Go and have a look and I dare you not to buy something. They really do need a wishlist...

Wish lists

Ok, I admit it - I am an eternal 'wanter'. I always have a wish list of things I would love to have. I'm sure if I did have them all I wouldn't be happy but it still doesn't stop me wishing. This is all aside from having children that sleep well mind you.

Currently on my wish list is:
DSLR camera ( while I have 2 perfectly good point and shoot cameras)
Well fitting jeans (to fit over my bum but still fit into the small of my back)
... of course I can never think of things when I want to can I?
An outdoor lounge that is a natural material - water hyacinth, cane or banana leaf for example
Photoshop software
... there must be more than that!

Then there is my wishlist of things to do to our new home.... that is for another day

Hurrah!

I've just taken a call from our bank and our loan has been approved! We didn't really have any concerns over it being approved but its still nice to now know that it is all official. 5 weeks left now until settlement.

Speaking of having our new home, I have decided on a painting concept for the 'old' part of the house. This is the current scheme, which although traditional and matches the stained glass around the front door, it isn't my style.


I know at least two of my friends will consider what I want to do very boring but, well, that is me sometimes. I like things calm and serene, especially as this is the sleeping end of the house. I plan to paint below the rail (which is painted textured wallpaper - quite effective actually) a creamy tan, the wall above the rail a quarter strength of the colour below and the architraves, corbels at the archway and ceiling, white - architraves in gloss. All of the doors have been stripped back to their original wood as you can see on the front door, so this will all tone in lovely.

A photo gallery in dark wooden frames will be hung in the hallway which will tie in with the dark fireplace.

The fan and light fitting will be changed, including the one in the entrance, as will the window treatments, but I'm not sure what with yet. Suggestion would be appreciated! This will be my husbands study at the moment but will end up becoming the kids loungeroom in future years.

Now the hunt is on to find an eco friendly paint to use. Painted Earth might be the place. Their UltraSaten looks interesting and can be colour matched to any local colour charts. I think I've got some more research to do though. I'd better get on with it as I'd like to paint this room before moving in as I don't want to move my husbands 7ft x 4ft bookcases stuffed full of hardcovers any more than I have to.

I am falling more and more in love with our new home and can't wait to move in. Hopefully the last time we move for a long time.

The Finds

Here are my finds from the Fryerstown antique Fair on Saturday.


My first find was this glass flower frog. I was particularly looking for one but as soon as I saw it, I knew it would be a great pen holder for my desk. I am always searching for pens, so now having a nice way to store them, they may return to their home. Yesterday I thought that I should have bought the other one there as they would make a great way to store the kids pencils and crayons, so I'll be keeping my eye out for more flower frogs.


I've been looking for two children's school chairs to go with a double school desk I have. I only thought to look for them half way thorugh the market so when we were deciding whether to do the last strip of stalls or leave, I just knew that if we didn't do the last stalls, I'd miss out on the perfect chairs. Although these aren't what I was originally looking for, they are perfect and at $5 for the pair, I couldn't go wrong! The desk is currently pink and a bad paint job at that. I plan to strip it back and depending on how the wood comes up, either varnish or repaint it. Once recovered and the frame sanded and repainted, these chairs will go beautifully with it. I plan to recover them in a fabric that I'll also make lounge cushions with as the desk will be in a corner of out new open plan living area.

One thing that I did see and had to restrain myself from buying was a wicker fishermans basket. I would have been great for one of the boys bedrooms but I already have more baskets than I know what to do with...but they aren't boyish and this was. Oh well, something else to keep an eye out for.

Finds

I'll be back tomorrow with pics of my finds from the Fryerstown Antique and Collectors Fair that we went to yesterday. Hot and dusty but worth it, even if we did spend more on icecreams for the kids to bribe them to sit in the pram than on our other purchases.

Please, please, please!

This is a painting by one of my favourite Australian artists, Joseph Zago. Sorry, I cannot tell you the title of this work. My brother has a gorge landscape that I have always admired. Zago passed away in 2008 and his last works are being brought into the gallery that my brother bought his piece from. I have always wanted one of my own and now I may be so fortunate. I am (not so) patiently refreshing my email waiting on details of these last paintings. I think it would be a perfect piece to grace our new home.

Inspiration

Its funny how location affects you.

I have a subscription to Australian Country Style and Home Beautiful. My husband always gets me a subscription for a gift during the year. Its his recognition that I need time for myself. Anyway, I used to love devouring them cover to cover, dreaming of designing my dream home. We moved across the country in October and although the magazines kept coming, I have had no inclination to read them for the last 4 months - if you look closely, there is an ACS still in the plastic. I couldn't put my finger on why until we signed to buy our new house. Suddenly my urge to read them came back.

I realised that although we had rented for the past 3 years, it was this particular rental house that sapped the creative spirit out of me. We are all living on top of each other and noone has any space to do just what they want and to be able to leave it without it being interfered with by little hands. Not even room to sit and read in comfort. We also don't have a dining/kitchen table or even a proper laundry. The bathroom is incredibly impractical in design and it all adds up to a disorganised house.

But that is all soon to change. Even with out the planned renovations, my husband will have a study, I will have an area to sew ( I'll blog about that room later) and the boys will have a corner of the living room as well as a bedroom each. If having the toys in the living area doesn't work, we can always put the boys in the same room again (they share now), move the sudy into one of the bedrooms and the toys into what was to be the study (an open lounge room). This shuffling and talking about rooms makes sense to me as I know the home's layout - I hope it makes sense to you.

You might notice that I try to make a distinction between 'house' and 'home' as I don't feel like we've had a 'home' for a long time - certainly, for me, not since I left my parents home and my husband is the same.

Fresh

I thought I'd give you a sneak peek of our new home. This is our new bathroom.

Image from realestate.com.au

And I love it! I never in a million years would have painted a bathroom bright green but this is lovely. I'm even considering painting the second bathroom (that I plan to install one day in where the kitchen currently is) this colour.

As it is, the bathroom is a bit storage poor but I think a couple of white floating shelves and some baskets should do the trick. Add a palm and some white towels (although I'm not sure how practical white towels are with 3 males in the house - I may stick to my tan bamboo towels for now) and I think it will be a beautiful space. It will be getting a new shower stall in the near future though as this one is a bit small for my 6'2" husband. Oh and some long towel rails too. One of my pet peeves of bathrooms is lack of towel drying space. You must be able to hang out every person's towel to dry properly.

Happy Day!

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary.

Image by Linda Norris

We have come a long way since then. My Husband was studying to be a teacher after a varied career. I was working full time and we lived in Western Australia. Now we are parents to two wonderful boys and live in regional Victoria where my Husband is finally teaching the areas he trained to teach and has a real passion for. I am able to be a stay at home mum and once the boys are in school, I can pursue whatever I want.

Today is an extra special day though as this morning we signed a contract to buy our first family home. In the past 7 years of married life, we have lived in shared or rented houses and rarely in a location of our choice. Our eldest son has lived in 4 different houses and he hasn't turned 3 yet! Add to that a month of being 'homeless' where we stayed at holiday accommodation between rentals and we are well and truly looking forward to making a real home. A place where we can hang our pictures and paint the walls. So, all things going our way, we become homeowners on the 20th of March, 2009.

Image care of Realestate.com.au

I'd love it if you would follow my decorating journey as I make this house a home. Those of you who don't have the opportunity to decorate a home yourself can live vicariously through me as I'm sure to be asking for opinions and suggestions.