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.

The bed we made

A friend on Facebook pasted a link to this website Knock-Off-Wood, I fell in love with the Farmhouse bed the moment I saw them.  I quite madly decided there and then to build two for the boys bedroom.

I asked my Dad to help me, he ordered the wood and we spent one weekend building the bed in his workshop.

It turned out to be a bit bigger then I thought!  My husband wasn’t to impressed when I unloaded it from the back of his van.  But none the less I managed to convince him to putty up the nail holes and paint it.  So this weekend we put it altogether and set it up in the boys room.

I made two beds, but the baby is a bit to little and young to have his bed yet.  The big boy who is 3 loves his new bed that Mum and Dad made.

I can’t wait until the baby is big enough to have both beds in the room.

3 Month Maintenance

We have moved out of a rental and into our new home. The owner of the last rental has been a bit nutso and tried to claim almost our full bond back from us for the stupidest tiniest things. So I think I went a bit overboard and nit picking with our maintenance list.
I was scared I wasn't going to met the deadline if I posted it in, so I emailed it to there maintenance email address. I got a response in about 5 minutes that they had assigned it to there maintenance person. That person called about an hour later and we set a date for two days time for the guy to come out and address our issues.
I thought he would tell me I was being stupid and wouldn't do half of it, but he did every nit picking little thing on the list!! Including sanding the bits of roller fluff of the walls and repainting! He did however say he had never seen a list quite like it before!!

So here is the list:
Laundry – internal door needs sand and repair as per the Handover Items requiring attention form
Laundry – internal window frame needs sand and repaint as per the Handover items requiring attention form
Laundry – external door lip where tiles are, cement/mortar holding the tiles on has fallen/broken off
Laundry – paint top and bottom of Internal and External laundry door
Laundry – Internal door only has one coat of paint on one side
Veranda – Chipped tile
Veranda – White film on tiles that I can’t clean off
External – Clean mess made from installation of Water Heater
Entrance – Front door, external paint job is splotchy can see undercoat in places
Entrance – Front door needs top and bottom of door painted
Entrance – hole/chipped plasterboard that adjoins front door frame on the inside
Entrance – Front door doesn’t latch easily, needs to be pushed very hard to latch, locking mechanism is very stiff and hard to lock and unlock
Bed 1 – two holes in ceiling, looks like nail has gone through, ceiling plasterboard is sagging
Bed 1 – Robe - Chips in centre edge of laminate on either end of RHS shelf
Bed 1 – Bubbles of paint have dried and burst and flaked off on the window sill
Ensuite – Chipped floor tile in shower recess
Ensuite – Chipped wall tile in shower recess
Ensuite – Hair sticking out from grout in shower recess
Ensuite – Can’t clean cement off grate in floor
Ensuite – Door not painted top and bottom
Ensuite – Door missing second coat of paint on one side
Ensuite – Gouges in door just above latching mechanism, that have been painted over
Hallway – blobs like from a degrading paint roller stuck on wall near Bed 1 door
Kitchen – Pantry – Chips on end of every shelf in centre
Kitchen – hole in bottom of door leading to garage
Kitchen – splashback tiles on corner – the ends are painted on 2 the other 5 are not
Meals – Sliding door frame chipped and dented from where bricklayers ran wheel barrow over it
Rumpus – chips in window frame LHS
Bathroom – hole in grout behind sink in bathroom
Bathroom – Door not painted top and bottom
Bathroom – Door has gouges above locking mechanism that has just been painted over
Bathroom – white film on tile near shower recess that won’t clean off
Bathroom – holes in grout in shower recess
Bathroom – chips in wall tiles in shower recess
Bathroom – Hole in silicon/grout around basin
Bathroom – badly painted over patch job on window sill
Bathroom – sharp tile edges on bath hob – tile layout needed a little more thought , my children have cut themselves on these tiles
Toilet – 4 marks on back of door at even height from top and bottom
Toilet – door not painted top and bottom
Toilet – chips on window frame
Doors – ALL internal doors are missing a 2nd coat of paint on one side
Doors – All doors to wet area are missing required paint on top and bottom to seal them
Paint – bits of roller left in the paint throughout the house, these need to be knocked off and patched
Ensuite – silicon beading around top of tiles in shower recess where it meets the ceiling as per the Handover items requiring attention form
Bathroom – cold tap drips, have to turn it really really hard to turn it off
All the tiling stuff has been referred back to North Adelaide tiling, so I have to wait for them to call and send someone out.
All in all the maintenance guy had to come back 3 times to get it all done. But he did every thing that I listed (minus the tiling stuff).
Including painting all the doors!

Plantation Shutters - Painted and Installed

Hey everyone, we have been busy!

We have had our 3 month maintenance, but more on that later, because, finally I have a piccie of our fully installed plantation shutters in our bedroom!



I love them, love them, love them. It seemed to take forever to paint them, then the guy doing all the maintence repair work suggested we use a little roller, things speeded up considerably after that.

So just how much wood is in 4 big plantation shutters?




80 louvers



First coat with the paint brush took two nights.




We took some lumber out of the skip next door and drilled holes in it to stand the louvres up in to dry.



The little bits with holes go inside the frame.

The frames


The mid rail supports and frame ends


Once we got the roller it was a much faster progress and we finished the painting in a weekend.

We did one under coat with an oil based undercoat, then two top coats with Dulux Aqua (something)
We got the same 'First snow' colour that is on our walls, but it seems there is a bit of a difference in the white base.





I think it got down to like 4 degrees last night


Now I just need to paint the bedside tables, get bigger lamps and a white duvet




Hubby put them together in about an hour with the boys help. It was very easy to mount them also, only took about an hour.

The middle two are just held on by magentic catches, they just lift off. Being Western Red Cedar they are very light!

We got the shutter from Shutter kits

Red Stovetop Kettle

Hubby rang all excited from Big W the other day "I think I have found you a kettle" he surely had, and it was only $20.

I love it, love it, love it. It whistles and everything. I've packed the electric one away !

The kids were sick on Friday, so I took the chance to let me fingers do the walking and find somewhere to get the kids towels embroided with there names.
So the new towels are up!




I also got a mirror for the frame for my daughters room. I will post a piccie of it up later when Hubby puts it up for me.  

I am off to Ikea to get a few floating shelves for her room so we can put the mirror up with a shelf under it.