Kitchen Blind and Key Corkboard

After a bit of shopping around I discovered that no-one wanted to make my kitchen roman blind for me.  The material that I had chosen was too heavy and no curtain makers wanted to take the chance.  So I made it by hand myself. It was so big I had to do it on the floor of the computer room, my knees where shot for days.

But I think it looks great in!  We also had down lights put in above the kitchen sink as we couldn’t see when doing the dishes at night.

I also found this corkboard / picture frame at Spotlight, so I removed the cork and put a piece of leftover fabric over it, and some ribbons so I could put notes in there as well as push pins.  I bought some hooks from Bunnings and screwed them onto the frame just under the kids pictures.  I figure when the kids are older they can hang there car keys under there picture!

I hung it next to the kitchen door heading to the garage.

I used the drunk octopus hooks, because they just make me smile every time I see them

With the last of the material I made some door snakes, with little button eyes.

From the outside I now have all red, to match the red front door, red garage door and red laundry door round the other side.

I just realised I haven't put up a photo of the dining area curtain.  We put this up in July.

Beginnings of a Deck and the Rock Wall

You can scroll down and refresh yourself with our landscape concept. We have finally saved up enough to start.

Given the cost though I am wondering how and why we are doing it. We have 12 months from when we move in to do the front landscaping and I can tell you some of the other houses in the estate are definately not adhereing to this encumberance rule!

I think hubby and I both got sick of the dirt pile out the front at the same time. Also he works from home and has had a few customers come around lately to drop of machines and watching them clamber up the dirt pile whilst amusing is not really good for business. So we got 3 quotes for the deck and 2 quotes for the rock wall. There are only 1 place in Adelaide that we could get the rock that we wanted from, and only them and 1 person they knew who would work with it, so we where a bit limited with those. Unsprisingly they quoted the same price! so we went with the person who was available the soonest.

For the deck we went with the middle priced quote, mostly because the guy seemed to know what he was talking about the most! and had the most experience.

The dirt pile before.

The start of the deck. The front support beams had to go in before the rock wall, so that the rocks could sit ‘under’ the deck and give the illusion that the deck is ‘floating’ above the wall.


I told my daughter to take some photos during the day when they where laying the rock, she's only 10 but there not to bad.




Steps leading up to the house and the deck






My 3 year old having lots of fun running back and forth over the rocks






The boys playing




My favorite shot

The last of the Plantation Shutters

Bouyed by our success with the shutterkits (www.shutterkits.com.au) in our bedroom we decided to do the rest of the rooms we had planned to put shutters in.  The 5 windows across the front of the house, the ensuite, the main bathroom and the toilet.

After much discussion hubby decided to just do what I wanted and we oiled the front ones rather then paint them. He wanted them white, I wanted them wood to match the deck we are putting out the front, I argued that we could always paint them if we didn't like them, but that once painted we couldn't go the other way.
I am so glad I won this argument as I think they look amazing! They bring a real warmth to the look of the front of the house.






Toilet (obviously)

Main bathroom


Now I had bought some cheap undercoat paint to do the kids beds, since we had some leftover hubby thought he would use it on the shutters, EVEN though I had bought the Expensive undercoat paint recommended by the shutterkit place and had told him to use the other one. Would he listen NOOOOO
So this is what happened in the bathroom. The red cedar bled through

Guess what his job this long weekend is going to be!!!

My Busy Weekend – Curtains and Stickers

I finally finished the curtains for my daughters room today!
They would have taken me a lot less time if I had less help from the boys!
At one stage the baby was pressing down on the sewing machine foot, I thought my machine had gone mad I couldn't work out what was wrong with it because I couldn't see him under the table or feel him pressing on my foot!
She had a wood bedside table that we spray painted black, after weeks of searching I found the ideal knobs on ebay. They where a little smaller than I imagined they would be when they arrived, but they look alright on the draws.
We also put her Ikea frame mirror up!.







Check out that pattern match! That took so much concentration, and measuring twice cutting once!
My husband thinks they are to long and I should hem them more, I explained to him that they are supposed to puddle. He doesn't get it.

So my next door neighbours moved in, and she showed me around the house. In the boys room they had a racing car bed, and a square light shade the same as mine, but they had stuck car stickers on it. She said she couldn't find any lampshades with cars on them, so they made one themselves.
I could have smacked myself in the head, such a brilliant idea! So I promptly went out to Spotlight with my little boy and got him to pick out some stickers!
I let him stick on all the ones for the Green room, which is there sleeping room.



Then he got bored, so I did the one for the blue room, the play room.




I scanned the stickers on my computer before I stuck them on, I am going to attempt to make them bigger and print onto some iron on transfers and make a border around the bottom of the curtains or some pillows.
Maybe even print them onto some white vinyl contact paper and put them on the walls.
Hubby also finally put together the IKEA Trofast storage units for the boys play room

So what did you get up to this weekend?

Landscape Concept

My (ex) brother-in-law has been kind enough to come out and visit us and draw up a landscape concept plan for us.
We are going to work off this, with a few changes, mostly just adding a rainwater tank up the back.
I hope the deck will make our place look stunning !! We should get the shutters for the front windows soon, instead of painting them white we are going to leave them natural so that they will tie in with the deck.