Booming Daisies!

Daisies in my garden, the biggest healthiest I have ever seen and I have never done a thing to them, except pick the flowers.  

 

Happy New Financial Year, lots of exciting things ahead!         

Lou x

More eBay beauties... Shabby Chic french provincial chest of drawers

Now this one will be hard to part with!

I love it all, but I really love the pretty floral paper lining the drawers. This one is a beauty!

Another lovely rocking horse.

Lou x

Shabby yet Chic items for sale and a vintage advertising poster...

Yet again we are having a massive clean out of all of our goodies. Here are a few of the items I have listed on eBay. I love them all so much, but just if only I had a bigger house, OR several houses!

I LOVE this for it's vibrant colours!

The chair and the butchers block are for sale.

A beautiful wrought iron magazine rack.

I feel happy knowing that who ever buys them will give them a loving home.

Lou x

Retro plant stand makeover

How cool is this retro plant stand I have just parted with via ebay!

I gave it a makeover by giving it a good clean and de-rust and then several coats of hard wearing white gloss enamel paint, to give it years more life.

Before: It was a dark green.

Lou x

May flowers

 

 

 

May Bush

The May bush is one of the most spectacular white flowering shrubs you can have in the garden, but it is even more so when used as a hedge. The name can be confusing as it flowers profusely in September and October in the southern hemisphere but flowers in May in the northern hemisphere.

I have always loved these cute little white flowers as they are like a miniature bouquet. There was one at my childhood home, so it always reminds me of Mum. I used to love picking the flowers and turning them into pretty confetti. My daughters middle name is May, after my Grandmother, but I had really also wanted a flower name as a middle name for her, so this was a nice compromise. It flowers in October, Evie's birth month, so it's a good sign. I purchased one about 15 years ago for our first home and it grew into a huge bush and I am thrilled that this house also has a large bush flowering heavily too.

 

Lou x

Planning and dreaming...

After owning the new house for a few weeks, I have finally mustered up a small amount of excitement about decorating the house. Its a cheap and quick makeover to help us enjoy the home for a while until our building project gets under way. We will be using as much existing possessions that we can and will have to be creative with it.You can see some before and afters soon. 

For the main bedroom, we are getting it re-carpeted next week in a charcoal colour to match the existing charcoal curtains that we are swapping in from another room. 

Here is a few of my inspiration pics from Pinterest.

I'm still trying to decide on an extra colour to go with all the grey and white. Yellow  is nice.

Orange perhaps?

I love all shades of blue too.

Maybe just all different shades of grey.

Lou xo

Wall of shelves fantasy...

Don't you hate it when your mind imagines this,

and this,

and this

But you walk into your new home and you remember its a much smaller version.
The grander versions above give me great ideas and inspiartion for what I will do with mine anyway!


Lou xo

My Princess and the pea...

In the lead up to Evie turning 3 it was time to finally close down the nursery for good and set up her bedroom. It was a bitter sweet milestone, as it means no more baby cuteness but also that our little baby has grown into a little girl and  that meant some fun for me designing her new room.

This was my inspiration picture of the sort of thing I had in mind, mainly the bed : ( ok, her actual room does not really look like this room at all, but you have to start somewhere)

Now, the challange as always was to acheive something pretty but on a budget.

This is what we created:

As this used to be the Beauty Room, I was really happy to leave the white paint and pretty green and pink wall paper and just work with those colours.

Her very own ensuite

Block out all memory from your mind the fact that she dressed herself in sneakers and socks with her dress. Lets just pretend that never happened.

Bed frame $39 from Ikea, I cut the head board off, sanded the base and spray painted it white

Bed Head $10 from a 2nd hand shop was cleaned, sanded then spray painted white

Bed Head ready for spraying.

The finished bed: Evie May loves her room!

Lou xo

Our cosy new TV room...

The final make over.

The Fam enjoying our new room.

Evie in her nursery one last time.

This has all been moved to her new room now.

Before the final touches

This little room off our bedroom has been many things over the years, originally it was a horrid blue and pink nursery with 2 giant giraffes on the walls. 1st we turned it into a junk room, then it had its first makeover into a beautiful Beauty Room for my clients. Installing a sink and painting it pale blue and yellow, which was all the rage, with a sky blue ceiling that my Dad helped me paint, so that as the clients had their treatments they would be looking up to a nice view. A few years later my we repainted it a soft green with all white accessories. After our major reno, when a new Beauty Room was built, the room turned into an office and we painted it a cream colour.  

Then when baby # 2 came along it became her beautiful nursery, we painted it white but left the sky ceiling.

It was so nice to have her so close to us for those 1st few years, but she out grew her cot and we really wanted our own space again so we decided to move her to a bigger room and turn the room into what I hope will be its final makeover, into a cosy little TV room for us. We have kept it simply decorated, its a place where anyone can go to chill out for a while. I have borrowed some books and other pretty things to fill the shelves from my sister, just to decorate the room for a while.

Lou x

Our new, old table

We finally have a new dining table. We custom made it to fit into our very narrow but long dining area. We found the table top dumped ( you guessed it) on the footpath, it was a very shabby tongue and groove slab of wood that looks like someone had used as a work bench. We searched high and low for free turned timber legs with no luck so we finally bought 4 for $10 each on eBay from closing down warehouse. We then spent about $100 on more timber for the base, screws, sandpaper,paint and varnish. So all up this new table cost $140 and oh lets say about 3 months worth of work in short snippets on the weekends. We are loving it though and now the hunt is on for 6 or 8 perfect  chairs.

 

Lou x

Princess and the Pea,

I am on the hunt for the perfect little girl bed, fit for a princess. It has to be white, probably timber, possibly metal. Not too bulky as the room is on the small side. I am looking for something just like this....

Let me know if you see one!

Lou xo

Emerald Green

I am really loving this colour of green at the moment. It matches my front table. It goes beautifully with white and wood. Have a lovely weekend. Lou xo