Memories Of Us

I'm in the mood for some romantic Keith - indulge me. 

Our Bathroom Bench

 When My Dad retired from the printing business a few years ago he sold the factory and we managed to get our dirty mitts on some fabulous industrial furniture.  I'll show you it as it comes out of storage but there was one item in the factory that Surfer Boy was particularly enamored of - the shelving.  Apparently it is made of some amazing timber that is cut to a width and thickness that is not available these days.  There were dozens of glorious long lengths of this timber so imagine Surfer Boy's horror to discover that Dad had CHOPPED IT ALL UP so it would fit in the skip!!  I kid you not, there were almost tears.


This is a perfect example of one man's trash being another man's treasure.  


While S.B. was mourning the demise of his timber (and spending inordinate amounts of time starring at one of the pieces he had brought home)  I jokingly suggested he put them all back together like a jigsaw.......  well it turns out that is exactly what he did.  He went back to the factory and picked every damn piece out of the skip and brought it all home.  
We decided it could be the top of our island bench until we realised there wasn't quite enough, so it then became our bathroom bench.

 

For the last week or so S.B. has been at the house painting and it turns out he has also been putting together our bench and it's looking amazing.

 (N.B. Surfer Boy says it is Grey Ironbark)

 

Once it is sanded etc it will look like this - then we need to decide if we wax it/clear stain it.  I can't wait to see how it looks in the bathroom ..... although how he's going to get it out of the bedroom is beyond me.  I'm assuming he's thought of that!

Good Karma

A dear friend of mine visited me at CHALK last week to do some shopping which was very lovely of her as she lives on the other side of town.  She was after some windcheaters for her son and as we received a delivery of boys clothes after her visit I took a couple of items with me when I went to her place for bookgroup on Tuesday night.  She kept the items to try on her son and said her husband would courier  back the items she didn't want. 
Well............she did indeed do as she said but when I opened the box her husband had added a little something......

How thrilled was I.  He works for MARS and I guess that's how they pad their deliveries over there.  Now comes the difficult decision of deciding what to crack open first.  (Did anyone else know they made HONEYCOMB PODS!!!!)

Reno Update

 

As you can see from these photos the weather in Melbourne has decided to crap out on us and I'm sure this will give our builders a perfect excuse for the agonisingly slow progress lately!   When so little is happening even the small things are a thrill such as the peak on the front of the extension.  This has only just been added and I'm relieved that the proportions are now much better as the peak looked rather small previously.  I know this is not a fascinating development for you but it's about the best I can do at the moment.

The scaffolding is up and it's made the house look enormous!  This is rather promising as fingers crossed the roof will go on soon......but then again I think I said that last week!!

Surfer Boy has enlisted the help of a friend to assess the work needed to install the steel doors - glad it's them and not me.

Princess Watch

  Photo from here

Kate made her first public visit to East Anglia's Children's Hospices this morning to formally open the Treehouse Hospice in Ipswich.  She also made her first speech.  All this was overshadowed as far as the press was concerned by the fact that her mum had worn the same dress on a previous outing two years ago!  That only impresses me more - more proof that Kate has not succumbed to the extreme pressures of fame.

Here is Kate's first public speech - written by her and delivered with warmth and sincerity.  This is the last we'll see of Kate for a while as Will is due home from The Falklands soon and they will no doubt spend some down time together.

What Kate wore - double breasted, long sleeved £139 Reiss Trina dress

1/1 Design - Artistic Upcycling

The fabulously talented James Simpson from 1/1Design has put together a collection of lamps that have me drooling with desire.  James is dedicated to creating functional art and design from recycled materials, leaving a minimal carbon footprint on this planet, to this end you will find amazing components in his artwork that constantly surprise and delight - take the 'Aki' lamp for example....the base is made from the disc brake of a Ford Laser! 

 

Drop by and have a look - You can find James on Facebook  or at his Website,

I will be furiously squirreling away my pennies as I have the perfect spot in mind for my own 1/1 lamp.  We even have some bizarre objects Surfer Boy has collected over the years that I'm sure James could incorporate into something amazing.

Bookshelf Porn

 

I have major bookshelf envy.  We went over to see our friends wedding pics last night - actually I must show you some, gorgeous - and they have almost finished renovating an old hat factory in Melbourne's inner North.  I spent most of the dinner being distracted by the view of these amazing shelves.  These photos don't do it justice but it extends from the ground floor, through the landing and on up to the soaring ceiling on the first floor.  

 Craig made them as individual boxes that he then screwed to the wall.

 

The kids were not so impressed by the shelves but were more than happy with the chair and the sausage dog that kept us entertained all evening.

 

Windows

Hey there's a window!    Every spare minute Surfer Boy has been at the house painting the windows and now they are in place.  We opted to do the exterior painting ourselves to save some coin and S.B.  sensibly realised that all our double hung windows were going to be a lot easier to paint while they were on the ground.

The second storey windows would have been a complete nightmare so thank god for a bit of forward thinking on behalf of my clever husband.
 

This is the floor to ceiling window that the heritage Consultant at our council made us add to distinguish the old house from the new extension - not too bad considering we fought for two years to reduce it to this.  Originally we had to lose 2 rooms to make the house 'look like two seperate buildings', no weatherboards, no peaked roof etc.  We managed to stick to our guns and our home will now be weatherboard with a pitched roof and instead of cutting in and losing 2 rooms we just had to add this window.  That's a win as far as I'm concerned. Yay us!
(I think it will add some lovely light to our kitchen too)

The roof is going on this week (supposedly!) and the scaffolding is up so more pics to come soon.

Princess Watch - St Patrick's Day

  

Kate visited Aldershot Barracks today to present shamrocks to forty members of the 1st Battalion Irish guards at their St Patrick's Day parade. It was Kate's first solitary military engagement and as usual she aced it, looking beautiful in a 1950's inspired coat dress in green - I particularly love the warm brown she chose to accessorize with.

 What she wore - coat dress by New Zealand born designer Emilia Wickstead.

Princess Watch

 

Today Kate began her work as an Olympic ambassador by making an unannounced visit to the

 GB hockey teams at the Riverside Arena in Olympic Park.  Kate played in the First XI hockey team at College so it was an apt first choice.

Later that day she made a quick change and accompanied Prince Charles and Camilla to the Dulwich Picture Gallery where Charles introduced Kate to his charity Children and Arts.

 

 What she wore -  Kate wore a grey pleated dress again by Irish designer Orla Kiely ($250).  To the hockey she wore J Brand coral skinny jeans teamed with an Emilio Pucci Jacket and a $10 Official Paralympic scarf.

Caravanning

The amazingly talented Joy Harmon Prouty from Wildflowers Photography is off on an adventure with her family and her CARAVAN!  I've been having such withdrawals from our van and it has been fun seeing this one on it's travels. 

No More Slushees!

The perfect episode to support  'Say No To Bullying' day. 
Glee Season 3 Episode 11 - 'Michael' 

Bath Time

Yay we have a bath!  
Admittedly it is sitting in the middle of the room, covered in plastic and no where near a water source, but what the hell....it's a bath!  Looks like we have part of the bath framing boxed out too so you never know, it could be mere days until our old dining room  kind of looks like a bathroom.

What's On Your Shelf?

Over at Penguin's Young Adult blog 'Between The Lines' they have a weekly post which asks for 'the books on your shelf'.  It is such fun to see what people are reading that I thought I'd do something similar here.

so..... the questions are as follows....

1.  What have you just read?

2.  What are you reading right now?

3.  What are you dying to read next?

..........................................................

Here are my answers for this week - 

1. The Reluctant Hallelujah by Gabrielle Williams

2. The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

3. Good Oil by Laura Buzo

Now it's your turn - I can't wait to see what is on your bookshelf at the moment....

Nikki Reed & Paul McDonald - Now That I've Found You

Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

Goodbye Pinterest?

It is a sad sad day for me today.  I have just been alerted to the fact that one of my favourite sites - Pinterest - may have to be deleted from my life.   There are real concerns over copyright and the legal ramifications of pinning images.  I won't even try to explian but please  read this article by Kirsten who makes some very startling and frankly nerve wracking points about the small print in Pinterest's terms of service!


I am going to have to re-think my Pinterest account which saddens me but I just don't think the risk is worth it.

Do you have a Pinterest account?  What are you going to do?

Now that my studio is starting to take shape - well it has a roof now - I can't help but daydream about how I am going to do the interior when we finally move back in.  There is a bit of room so I don't have to be too precious with space but I would love a work table that I can use to cut fabric, as well as a sewing area and desk space for the kids to do their homework.  The possibilities are endless.

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houseofbliss.blogspot.com

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niceroom.tumblr.com

 

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