Nesting - Master Bedroom

Before

After
Venice Navy/ Natural Embroidered Comforter Set c/o Just Bedding; shelf, vase and rug Ikea; lamps gifted; cushion handmade; bassinet was an ebay bargain, geometric cat print by Gingiber; framed painting by Kitty Horton; postcards from QLD Art Gallery.

There always seems to be much to do before one welcomes a baby - shopping, washing, folding, preparing - which is then followed by a period of waiting. How long those last few tiring days are! With both my children I'm quite sure the last week of my pregnancies has been as long as the first year of their lives - one going terribly slowly, the other just so so quick. I remember walking in and out of the nursery a hundred times while I waited for Cohen, trying to imagine what it would be like once my first baby was born. My hospital bag packed well and truly in advance.

It's a little different the third time around. I'm just as excited, but I haven't felt any real hurry to prepare for this little ones arrival until now. At 32 weeks I still need to wash the baby clothes and I haven't packed my hospital bag yet. We have most of what we need, except for the car seats (as we work out how to squeeze three of them in to the back of my car.) But 'nesting' mode has been kicking in, as it has with each pregnancy. And while I have been thinking about the children's sleeping arrangements, I've been thinking about ours too. I wanted to create a fresh, warm space to rest as I wait for baby, and to welcome baby home to. A little bedroom makeover was in order. I recently brought the bassinet upstairs so that Emerson has time to get used to it. I tidied away the paper work beside the bed, wiped over all the surfaces and changed out our bed linens for a new comforter set c/o Just Bedding. And then had a nap!

Yes, I think this will do nicely. When all is quiet on the blog and I am having a baby-moon after the birth - recovering, settling in to new rhythms and getting to know our new little one - you will know where to find me.

Were you super organised, or a bit last minute with preparations for your little ones arrival? 

Did it change depending on which baby it was?

Did you 'nest'?

Ta-dah! Our new kitchen

Before

After

As promised, photos of our new kitchen! A new light fitting or two, a blind, a few stools and our kitchen will be 'done'. But I think we are close enough to calling it finished that I couldn't resist sharing the before and afters. 

I am really loving our new kitchen. It came together just as I imagined and is such a lovely place to work. We looked at several options and decided on a custom built kitchen with routed, painted doors, white appliances and white stone bench tops. Dave was a little concerned with how an all white kitchen would look. It has long been a dream of mine and thankfully he trusted my judgement, as now he loves it. He put his own stamp on it by way of choosing the sink and tap wear, as he works in the plumbing industry. (Both pieces seemed enormous until they were in the space! Now I am loving the large double bowl sink and the tap wear.) 

How far our house has come in the almost two years we have called it home. It feels like it is really all coming together now that the kitchen is (almost) complete.

Home sweet home.

Weekending

Today I shall be taking a jar of jam to the neighbours and explaining the screaming they no doubt heard last night.

I made my very first mandarin jam yesterday, with a dozen mandarins from our neighbours tree. It was much more time consuming than I had anticipated. I doubled this recipe but only used the rind from three mandarins and two lemons. Peeling the skins, removing the membranes and seeds, then chopping a dozen mandarins is a lengthy process. Especially when baking bread, fixing dinner, supervising baths and nursing a baby along the way. Luckily my husband makes a rather wonderful, if somewhat impatient, stand-in pot stirrer. The results though are seven jars of beautiful jam, containing nothing but mandarins, lemons, rind, water and sugar. One jar saved especially as a thank you to our wonderful neighbours.

Possums are determined little creatures. We have one such little Brushtailed friend fiend who keeps managing to wiggle his way in to our garage despite our best efforts. Last night, after we presumed he had vacated the cavity beneath the bath to partake in his usual night time ramblings, we affixed a plank of wood over his garage entrance route. Determined to keep him outside for good this time. To my dismay, he was late in leaving his bath place abode, and at 10pm could be heard trying his usual exits in the garage to no avail. The possum proofing was working, except that the possum was trapped inside. My jam was cooling and my husband was sleeping and things were going bump downstairs. What to do. I woke my husband, who showed little interest in getting out of our warm bed. I cajoled him into coming down stairs with me and I grabbed the broom just in case.

This in turn lead to my bemused husband watching on as I chased said possum around the ceiling joists downstairs with the broom. He was supposed to be helping me. Apparently he was tired. So, I have a broom, the possum is running over the open garage door, then darting back inside and I am trying to shoo him out again. As you can imagine, my husband was even more amused when our dear possum unexpectedly launched himself at me. Flying through the air, possum paws outstretched, he landing on my jeans and foot. And I, well, I would like to say I remained calm and saw him on his way outside and calmly brushed my hands together in an 'that's the end of that' fashion. But, as you will no doubt have guessed, I screamed. Then did a little screaming-jumping-up-and-down-shaking-my-hands-get-it-off-me-get-it-off-me dance. Which I'm not proud of, but which had the desired effect. The poor possum ran, leaving me with two nice scratches on my foot in the process, but finally scampering out of the open garage door. My husband laughed all the way back to bed as I repeated several times in a shocked, high pitched sort of way, "Did you see that? It jumped on me? It JUMPED ON ME!"

I lay away half the night listening for tell tale bumps and scratches. Now I'm off to reapply some antiseptic and visit the neighbours with jam and explanations. And perhaps nap this afternoon...

How was your weekend?

(Long) Weekending

Before shot here.

Before shot here.

Things to do...

Paint over purple closet doors

Give in to temptation and paint nursery furniture white

Sand, stain and varnish hand rail

Buy new fittings and hang handrail

Install 99 cent ebay light in dining room

Replace door hinges and stoppers

Hang closet doors

Go shopping all alone while children sleep

Order door knobs (top left)

Thank sister for all her help

-

(I shall be back again this evening to draw the lovely Gretchenmist prints giveaway.)

Picture ledge Inspiration

Ideas to Steal 

 Say Chez!

KatjaR

Going Home To Roost

Romana Howells 

West Elm

 pinterest

Made By Girl

Emerson's picture ledge waiting to be decorated

You can't go past a picture ledge to add a little charm to a room I think. I could easily go a crazy with them. But I am limiting myself to the one in our room and this one (above) in the nursery. I uncovered some wonderful picture ledge inspiration on pineterest, which then inspired a print purchase from Etsy (found via Pip). Now I'm thinking a vase or two, an old printers block of the letter E and perhaps some other thrifty finds are also needed...

Nursery Progress

The renovations on the house have continued quietly in the background, though it has been some time since I mentioned them or updated the House Tour page on my blog.

We've had new sliding doors installed leading out from the lounge and the master bedroom to the front deck. The old glass doors were quite worn, the locks were suspicious and the doors themselves kept slipping off their runners. Also, the fittings wouldn't allow for the addition of a sliding screen door. And in Summer in Queensland, fly screens are a must in my books. So along with the new doors, we have new screens made with marine grade steel mesh to deter kitty claws. Which is working to a degree. The builders have also installed the new eaves around the entire outside of the house. The original eaves had to be removed as they contained asbestos. We had all the asbestos removed at once (back in August?) and the poor house has been eave-less this whole time. Money is always the major factor when renovating.

There have also been the annoying jobs, like possum proofing the garage (twice. Possums are determined little things!) and re-hanging the shelves in my studio, as the special wall plugs and screws that were supposed to be able to hold the weight of the shelves and books were failing. The shelves are re-hung, but the books have been moved and a lighter display will replace them.

There has been progress in Emerson's room too since the last update. She is still sleeping in her bassinet in our room but she is fast outgrowing it.

Looking in to her room now.

Looking in to her room when we brought the house.

Still loving this thrifted $2 light fitting.

The little green chair is a Cohen addition. He brought it in from his room to 'help' at change time.

Dave installed this Ribba picture ledge for me on the weekend. Now to search for some sweet thrifty decorations to adorn it. I've been looking at some inspiration that I shall have to share with you too.

The room still needs a rug of some kind and blinds on the windows to further block out the light. I am tempted to paint that little three tiered shelf and the change table white. And like the rest of the house, the skirting board still needs painting. I ran out of time when the rest of the painting was being done because the floor was due to be sanded. Now with two little ones, moving everything to paint the skirting boards through out the house is going to be an interesting challenge!

We have a long weekend in these parts this weekend, and a list of renovations planned for it. Expect another up date soon.

Snippets

Dandelions for Mama

A gift from the lovely Rie

Home made soup 

There were four in the bed

Emerson's vintage style

Cherished classics

Dried four leaf clover

Picture perfect puss cat

The weekend was

Rearranging furniture and redecorating

Harvesting my first corn

Buying strawberry plants and a mushroom growing kit

Wearing rain coats

Removing the remaining tree trunk with a bob cat and a neighbour

Filling in those bob cat tyre tracks

Trying to convince Cohen to stop digging up said tyre tracks

Unpacking our Winter clothes and organising the closets

Weaving in the ends on Emerson's blanket

+

I found this pair of old, rusty, green and white enamel industrial lights on ebay recently and declared them my Valentine's gift from Dave (making things easier for him indeed) and the perfect lights for my studio. In return, Dave decided upon a concert ticket earlier in the month to see Cavaleara Conspiracy at West End. (Not my cup of tea I'm afraid.) Dave also surprised me with an array of sweets yesterday and cooked me my favourite meal while organising for family to look after Cohen. He surely knows the way to this pregnant woman's heart is with good food and sweets.

His next trick is to dismantle and hang the second light shade...

How was your Valentine's Day?

+

Another item has been crossed off our long list of renovations. Tree lopping is complete. Despite starting a little veggie patch in one corner, we were yet to really start on the yard, having concentrated on the house instead. Before we could turn some of our plans into reality we needed to remove the neglected, unwanted and problem trees, giving us a clean slate to build upon. 

The past two days the tree loppers have been hard at work. Gone now are seven huge palm trees and their clusters of nuts. (I've never been a fan of palms, especially when they are taking up perfectly good space that could be used from a more productive plant, like a blueberry.) Gone too the pine tree out the front that had grown so tall and difficult, between two sets of power lines. And gone, the beautiful tree in our back yard that was sadly just too big and too close to the house for comfort. It's such a shame. It was a lovely tree, better suited to a paddock or a park than a suburban yard. Especially given it's habit of first shedding all it's leaves and then shedding all it's bark and dropping large branches. The grass, the gutters, the neighbours pool, none shall miss it I'm afraid. Thankfully the timber from the trunk and branches has been saved for a friend on property with a wood burning fire.

Not without drama, one wrong cut sent a large branch into the neighbours fence, though thankfully it has since been fixed. Sadly, a few stray branches also swiped at my little veggie patch, laying low my corn and tomato plants. I'm yet to fully inspect the damage. Though I'm hoping a little extra love and care will recover some of my first crop.

The yard has been transformed by the removal of the trees and have left us with space and light to begin slowly transforming the space, adding more veggie gardens, a chicken house, a shed, a water tank etc. As well as new trees and shrubs that are more appropriate for the size of our yard. A decision not to be made lightly in light of the cost of making the wrong choice!