My House Update

Sorry for being MIA - I met a severe case of food poisoning this weekend which I just couldnt refuse.... anyway he (Its painful and messy, food poisoning has to be a he!) decided to make it an extended visit and today is the first day out of bed.

So today I have very exciting news - My block gets cleared on Friday. Oh yes, this Friday - 3 sleeps away I will have a cleared block and hopefully a retaining wall.

Looking forward to finally showing you pictures of my house not just my wish list!

YAY - finally moving forward!

Now I just wish the Pool contract would arrive so I can start getting things done.

Take care everyone and I promise to talk more sense tomorrow when I am more coherent.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Today I want to talk to you about furniture - it seems that in Perth there is plenty of ultra modern pieces to buy or else you go for the Asian Bali look - if you want anything slightly different to that ... you will be paying BIG bucks!

Where is our originality - how can you not love something different and eclectic. Why do you have to have the same cane outdoor setting every one of your friends has!

these are some of my all time favorite pieces!

Look at this buffet cabinet - is this not absolutely heavenly? Is this not worth losing a hand for, I mean the colours and textures... I would die to have this in my house

And this foot stool - its beautiful, look at the legs, you dont even notice it straight away but once you so it makes all the other pieces in the room look just plain dull (except for the very cool lamp!)

Dont have much to say about this coffee table except - I WANT IT!

Happy Australia Day to All

Happy Australia to Everyone - in Perth its a beautiful day - its sunshine and BBQ's and lots of time spent at the beach.... here is where it gets a bit sad so if your in a lovely happy mood it might be best to read this at a later date....

For those of you who have guessed my gorgeous husband works away - he is on a fly in fly out roster so there are always going to be times when he is away from me during important events. Another thing you may not guess, my husband is my best friend! I mean, if there was a huge sale at a designer store, or a I fell down the stairs in one of my very embarrassing moments he would be the first one I would call. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of lovely friends who I catch up with regularly and who I can sit and chat to for hours but there is not that ... spark when you instantly smile just knowing you are in the same room with them. So for me ... Hubby is that person and on days like today when friends gather together over BBQ's and families argue over whether they have put sunscreen on for the hundredth time, I sit back and realise .... When he is away, I am mind numbingly, painfully lonely. I was invited to lots of BBQ's, beach and even went to the movies but in my head all I was thinking was... this would be so much better if he was here.

We chose this life and I am in no way, shape or form complaining and most of the year I keep myself very busy counting down the days until he is home.

But on this very day 8 years ago, we had our first date and it was amazing and 8 years on he is struggling to get a chopper working so he can fly home (Those damn things always break down when I really don't want them too)

So Happy First Date Anniversary honey - Happy Australia day to everyone else and for me ... I am planning to go to bed very very early just so it can be tomorrow and he will be on a plane home!

A Little Piece of Heaven

My wonderful, adoring husband (oh yes, Major sucking up here) has told me that although we arnt allowed any holidays down south doesn't really count.....

So I'm allowed to organise a small escape down to Dunsborough / Margaret River. While I was organising I came across some totally amazing homes that people allow other people to rent... can you imagine giving up one of these even for just a little while....

So my imagination is going overtime and this is true heaven in a holiday home (or two) - this is definitely one of those... if I won the Lotto moments!

This one is in Denmark - a quiet country retreat?

And this one - a little beach shack (Ha ha) in Dunsborough

A Tale of Woe and Misforture

Apart from being the famous Russian folk story about a guy who just doesn't learn Woe found me Sunday morning and informed me that 5 hours of torture were about to begin.

Let me start by saying I had extremely good intentions, on Friday my darling Mothers vacuum cleaner died and she decided she wanted a Dyson. On Sunday unable to sleep I was cruising the net when I came across a website that looked like a dream come true. It was an auction website where you buy bids and bid for the item, once you are the last bidder you pay the final price and its yours. the price is easy to calculate, 1 cent for every bid! Wouldn't you know it sitting there as the next item to bid on was a Dyson vacuum cleaner so 6am on Sunday morning i start bidding, then mum wakes up and she sits with me and we keep bidding, 5 hours later and $150 out of pocket we still haven't won the item and in your head is that little voice ... I have already put so much money into this - I may as well put a little bit more... and so I buy another $50 bids and then by 11am I was out completely.

How could I have lost .... how is that humanly possible. Obviously this is a form of gambling, there is no such thing as a sure thing but in my head I was so so sure I was going to win! Well duhhh... I didn't.

So no vacuum cleaner and $200 poorer. Sad but true - and the moral of this story, I am forgetting the website, (even the beautiful Tag Heuer Watch I want) and as a gesture of good will - I'm not even going to tell you the website!

Oh yes - I have learnt my lesson - never again.... Who needs a silly old watch anyway!

Bargain Shopping

Because I'm building a house I am trying very hard to make smarter shopping choices. forget about the whole "I must not shop" that is like telling me I'm not allowed to breath but I am trying to make a small difference and I must say my thought process is slowly changing... slowly!

Anyways where as before I would quite happily buy a pair of amazing shoes not when I look at them I seem to think ... "this is half the cost of my entry light fitting!" And it works so I am shopping smarter and thinking more about the lovely items I just to not really think to much about.

One of the ways is Internet shopping, there is no impulse there, you can sit and rationalise and also look around at other sites to find the cheapest solution.

One of my new favorites is the Salvation Army Site. Well done for moving with the times, I guarantee they will get 10 times more business and will probably be able to get a bit more money for their items.

these are a few of my current favorites on their site!

Silver Plated Egg Cups - $25

Stirling Silver Brooches - $60

Vintage Dress with Matching Shoes - $145

Vintage Toy Fire Engine (Battery Operated) - $250

Back on Board

Well as it says in the title I'm back on board. I also finally received my client drawings for the pool and although I am sure its going to be big enough I decided to map it out so I could see exactly how big it would be....

The two big questions were where was I going to map it out and what with... oh yes in the office between the cubicles and the what was with a 300mm ruler. It was long and hard and I had to bark many time "Don't you dare step on my blue stickers" but it was done and I now know roughly just how big my pool is.... I would say average size.

I even managed to get one of my engineers to sit "in" the pool just to see how deep it was ... "Why am I doing this again" "I just wanted to see if you fit!"

All in all a good waste of an hour on my hands and knees in my good pants just to make sure it worked.

The Mental Blank

Im a little bit lost today, see for the past year I have been making decisions on what colours and styles to use on everything and then today - after finance, after things are starting to look like starting .... total mental blank. TOTAL mental blank. I feel like I have nothing to say, nothing at all. Nothing inspires me today, nothing is good, its just all gone.

I think I have put so much energy into getting to this point im all out of inspiration...

Saying that just made me sad - hopefully tomorrow I will get it back... hopefully tomorrow I will have something to say... because for the moment, I am opening my mouth and nothing is happening!

About Bloody Time

Well Short and sweet today - if you havnt already guessed we have just had our finance request approved so we are on our way to building and I am trying very very hard not to jump around at work and look silly.

Have I told you recently I'm building a house!

I Must Live Under A Rock

Oh yes - its true it was yesterday at 3.38pm that I walked past reception and stopped to watch the flooding in Queensland on TV. What there is flooding, its so dry over here in Perth I cant believe any where else in Aus has rain and I am amazed at the amount of water, damage and panic the rain has produced. How could I not know about this.... oh my god!

So my thoughts go out to all those over in Queensland, and I'm almost tempted not to write about my Epiphany on style but as there is nothing I can do but hope that the water subside I will try to lift your spirits with pretty pictures.

I think and I say think because we have been through this before but I think I have finally figured out the style I am trying to achieve in this house.

Preppy!

Think old boys club, this old fashioned patterns done bold and modern, this of eclectic mixes of furniture and think functional meets interesting.

I think this is what I was trying to explain to you. Old and new meet and look lovely together, colour is bold and neutrals tone everything down tastefully.

What do you think .... is this what I have been trying to explain or am I still way off?

The beauty of the SALE!

This time of year EVERYTHING is on Sale and usually I would desperately want to buy up big but then you have to figure out whether you actually need the item and are you really saving money?

This year I have tried to be slightly smarter with my buying, this morning I have just about finished my birthday shopping for the year. Simple really - Mimco has a sale 50% off and then today they took an extra 20% off items. Perfect, jewellery for everyone this year so although I have just outlaid a rather large amount of money all at once I am actually saving because usually I would spend twice as much on each person.... lets just hope their tastes don't change between now and their birthdays.

I also waiting out the Christmas period and only brought my Christmas decorations after Jan 1st at 75% off. So instead of paying a whopping $9.99 per bauble I ended up paying about $2.50.

Also at lunch today I am off the the Vera Wang home section in Myer, I hear they have some amazing silver photo frames at 80% off.... I'm sure there is a wedding or two to attend this year and this will be perfect or even a house warming and we have plenty of those.

So all up SALES don't have to be about restraining yourself you just have to be smart ... and have some storage space for your pre-bought items he he he... thanks mum!

Finally, on a non shopping note (A lot of my posts seem to revolve around shopping) I would just like to advise that we have had finance pre-approval last Tuesday and then yesterday the block valuation came back ok too - so by Friday we should have finance approval and very very soon you should start seeing construction pictures!

Inspiration

On Saturday I was wandering around a furniture store and came across these lovely industrial letters and had this sudden thought - wouldn't it be amazing to mix them with something else as a bit of wall art???

But what - what do you hang on a wall - oh oh oh - a clock. Now for the word and it has to have an O in it.... that one is easy.

Love.... what do you think, I was thinking in the upstairs sitting room, it would be a lovely pop of colour and would look great with my huge world map and some cool Britannia cushions?

Should i buy them.... may keep searching for the clock - I think it needs to be white and industrial!

Guess What I Found

Oh yes again this week I found my scales at the morning markets.... it was heavenly, walking through the markets in the sunshine, coffee in hand and then I see this lovely red glint in the next row.... could it be, oh yes. Of course I didn't want to look to interested so I casually made my way around until I was there and guess what - The owner had dropped the price from $60 to $50. Now I don't know about you but I'm not one to bargain and yet I did it

"Excuse me, would you take $40 for these?"

"If you give me $45, they are yours!"

Sold and the scales are mine. MINE MINE MINE!

I can't wait to put them in my kitchen, little bit rough, little bit old and yet I am totally completely in love with them! YAY

Its All Becoming Clear Now

For a while I have been trying to communicate my ideas and design thoughts but its really hard because I'm not 100% sure exactly what I want - How do I mix new with old, how do I make something old fit in with our young modern life? Well before Christmas things got a little bit more interesting with me buying a lovely old Queen Ann desk for my bedroom. Totally lovely, delicate and pretty and in so many ways perfect for me (Although husband tried to stand on it the other day to get to a top shelf in the garage - Honey look at those legs.... do you really think they will hold all your weight?)

I adored it but was unsure how to coordinate this with the rest of my bedroom furniture (I have not yet bought yet) and then I saw this picture and it all came together beautifully. This is what I'm trying to achieve.

This is the quilt I have brought and obviously I'm adding the lovely maps behind the bed, I am having a dark grey shag pile carpet and 2 lovely armchairs (still trying to figure those out) so hopefully you can start seeing where I'm going with the space? Beautiful blues, greys and soft whites, it should be a calm luxurious space... hopefully. The question is, will it all blend together cohesively of will it look like I'm trying to hard?

Are We Being Brain Washed by the Media?

This is just a little thought I have been having over the last couple of months but do you think that perhaps the home decor / design magazines / pictures are becoming more and more like the fashion magazines featuring stick thin air brushed beauties half the worlds woman aspire to be? See I saw the picture above and I wanted that. I wanted the beautiful calm sedateness of it all and thought - why cant my house look like that.

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Then I started really looking at it and felt a bit put out. Here is what I saw - there is a lamp on this coffee table that isn't plugged in. Its just sitting there looking pretty and I thought - how totally impractical and I actually felt ripped off. There is a little blue tea cup on the fireplace, this isn't so obvious but its really not practical in today's society, you you really want to be dusting it every single week because with something like that you know its going to be hot real estate to everything floating around in the room.

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Finally the chair - beautiful chair, very pretty and then I saw the small little wheels. Firstly I would be afraid to sit on it with tiny little wheels like that - I would be scared if my little dog sat on it for that matter and secondly can you imagine what wheels like that are doing to your lovely wooden floor?

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It sounds small and silly but do you think perhaps magazines are giving us unrealistic design ideas, things we will never achieve and if we do we will have to work damn hard at keeping it that way!

Cutest Thing Ever

Ok not alot of writing today because I am blown away with this DIY project.

I want to find a vintage suitcase just for my little Lacey.

Tell me this is not the most adorable thing you have ever seen!

New Year's Resolutions

Welcome back one and all and sorry for not really being there that last week before Christmas. Yes our house was broken into and our car and lots of other things were stolen. It was a drama filled time full of paperwork, assessors and new car smells.

However everything is finally sorted and life seems to be back on track ... slightly.

Anyways I am a big one for new years resolutions. Every year for the past 5 years my husband and I have only one resolution and that is to get rid of or simplify debt. 2010 was the year we finally achieved that goal so this year I had to put a bit of thought into my resolution and I have settled on three. I know three but still - this year I have three resolutions I am going to try very hard to stick to.

One - Be fitter and lighter than I was last year!

It may seem like a bit of a cliche but I think you have to understand, I have never in my life like, done or even thought about exercise, I love food and almost married to pasta. I have the type of body Nigella, although I am happy to say slightly less wide and I love myself.. mostly. However this year I want my life to be slightly healthier, I want to make smarter food choices, I want to enjoy spending time outside being active and I would love to have a bit more energy ... so for me this is quite a big deal.

Two - Make this year less drama filled than last year!

If you read my blog regularly you will notice that my life tends to be slightly .... drama filled. I would love for one year to complain about nothing happening. I want a year of no emotion, no ambulances, police or fireman, no insurance companies or crying family members.

Three - Make more of an effort with my friends!

This one i kind of stole from a friend who has the same trouble, it very easy to get wrapped up in everything in life and when you have a quiet moment just crash on the couch with a book instead of thinking and making time for your friends so I am going to try and resist the urge to slouch on the couch and go out for coffee and obviously no cake (See resolution 1) but maybe ... bugger fine just coffee with skim milk!