FIREPLACE FRENZY.

For ages now we've been living with a half constructed fireplace. It's still not totally done, but the flue is up and I'm getting excited!!!!! We're not going to freeze this winter!!!

The old Turbo 10 was existing in the house when we bought it. Originally it was situated in what is now our pantry. To help with heat circulation and bad backs we decided to raise it up onto a woodbox which Dan constructed out of 25mm thick craft wood. We painted that the same colour as the walls and sourced an off cut piece of Caesar Stone benchtop for the fireplace to sit directly on top of. We got the Caesar Stone from a place in town called Toowoomba Bench Tops. They have a stone section and allowed us to choose from a few left over slabs. We chose a piece of Organic White Caesar Stone. The price to buy it and have them cut it to size and polish the edges into a pencil round shape was about $300. 

You can see that we're still part the way through finishing the wood box. We're tiling underneath it so as any stray ashes that may fall out of the fireplace hopefully will not fall between the cracks of the floor and burn the house down. The tiles we're using are 600 x 600mm porcelain tiles. We were lucky when tiling behind the fireplace that we could make the size work without having to cut anything. On the front of the wood box will be two small doors to hide the inevitable mess. I'm hoping to find some old worldly, quirky door pulls for these. We're yet to attach the skirting to either side of the wood box too. We'll do this at the same time we attach trim around the sides of the tile that comes out past the wood box.

I quite like the industrial look of the flue. For some odd reason it makes me rather happy.

Considering how cold it's starting to get, I'm hoping this guy will be fully operational in the next week or so. It will be our first winter living in our little house. I hope we're not in for a rude shock!

OUTDOOR DESIGN.

We have many jobs around the house at the moment that are about 80 or 90% complete, waiting for us to buy this or that, or fit something, or find the effort to finish them. So instead of finishing these things, what do we do? We start one of the biggest jobs we have to tackle. Redesigning the look of the outside of the house. We started by painting out the heritage red for a bit of gunmetal grey.

We used both normal exterior and paving paints in the Colourbond colour "Ironstone". The colour change definitely makes a difference. It also points out the rest of the areas that need fixing, like the red stripes on the outdoor blinds, the gutters and the horrible, disgusting, beer bottle glass. The plan is to paint the red stripes white, paint the guttering charcoal and replace the brown glass with clear glass. We're also going to put some wide panel venetian blinds (they look a bit like plantation shutters for those who can't afford the real thing) in the front "box" to tie in with the exterior, plus add a bit more privacy.

At the moment we're undecided on what to do with the brick steps. I'm going to leave them until last to see how it all looks. I have to do some major preparation on the paths and driveways before they can be painted. They currently look like this:

Gross huh? Those pictures were taken after I'd used hydrochloric acid to wash it 3 times, and went over it thoroughly with the pressure hose. The old paint is still flaking up, and 50 years of mould and grime is taking its sweet time coming off.

We've started creating a garden design for out there too. It's a tricky spot on the western side with average soil and the possibility of frost in winter. Everything we're planting out there will be as maintenance free and as hardy as possible. The first things to go in were these Electric Pink Cordelines along the front of the house.

I've also poisoned the grass along the front little fence and in existing garden beds. 

For privacy along the front, I'm going to use Yakas and Agaves. They seem to thrive in terrible soil with no care and bad conditions. Perfect plants for me! Then in the garden beds either side of the pathway I'll plant these Desert Stars (currently living in pots) to create a small hedge and to bridge the gap between the desert style plants and the big Camelia that is happy as Larry there already.

So that's where we're at. Hopefully I'll get the Desert Stars planted this weekend. I'm hoping to get all the planting done before it gets too cold to do anything.

Has there been much painting or gardening going on in your world lately?

HOUSE PLANTS.

 I am having to come to terms with a slight obsession. I've been trying to deny it for a while now, but I think it is time to admit I am a little bit addicted to succulents. Just a tad.

A while ago I found a vintage timber Golden Circle drink crate at a local secondhand store. The little compartments are perfect for segmenting plants.

Luckily, one of Dan's grandmothers who lives close to us has a garden full of succulents. She let me potter through her garden, collecting cuttings as I went. I didn't like the idea of seeing plastic pots under the succulents, so I kept glass jars out of the recycling bin for a while to use for this.

Initially I had hoped to use this as our dinner table centre piece, but unfortunately the sides of the crate are slightly too high to be comfortable. It now sits on the side table between the couches.

I never used to be one for house plants, but the idea has certainly grown (ha) on me. The idea of living things breathing life into our own place of living is a wonderful thought. Sort of circle-of-life like. I'm quite tempted to add more!

What's your take on house plants? Do you have a current plant obsession? Perhaps you've found something unusual to pop your plants in? I'd love to hear!

QUICK UPDATE.

My glasses arrived! Thank goodness.

NEW SPECTACLES.

Fcuk for Specsavers

So it appears, as the years go on, I'm getting a little more blind. Thank you computer, compulsive book reading and phone apps. You are ruining my vision. I always get a little bit excited when I get told I'll need new specs though. It means I get to choose new pretty frames! I'm a one-pair-of-glasses-at-a-time gal. Too much choice confuses me and I'd just lose one anyway. This time I decided on these fcuk beauties at Specsavers (They have such easy pricing and so many deals to choose from). They're actually guys' glasses, but I much prefer the larger frame. Has anyone else found stairs a challenging prospect when wearing narrow glasses??? Depth perception issues, I tell you.

Fcuk for Specsavers

I love the white on the inside of the frame. It gives them a really graphic look when on. Unfortunately I have to wait two weeks for them to be personalised with my required lenses. They can't come soon enough!

Fcuk for Specsavers

Joanna Goddard from A Cup of Jo has always looked amazing in larger frames.

A Cup of Jo

This pair below are similar to my new ones. 

A Cup of Jo

Have any of you needed new glasses lately? What size frames did you go for? 

ART ATTACK.

 Slowly but surely, art has been appearing around our house. It's mainly slow because we buy it but then do not hang it up straight away. No idea why. Those magical art hanging fairies are on holidays again. Probably overseas with the house cleaning fairies. Anyway. Here are a few updates from our various living area walls:

Our family wall took the longest to set up. We had it laid out on the floor in different arrangements for weeks. The small, various sized frames I picked up in Big W for $10 for a ten pack. We needed two packs. The large frame was from an old black board in the laundry. Dan made it into a photo frame (at my pleading) and we popped in some Etsy art from Stay Gold Media. The longest part of this process was choosing and scanning the photos into the computer to get them reprinted. Luckily both our families have plenty to choose from. The only thing I want to do is change out the orange paper from the centre frame to another colour. Dan put the orange in just to get it on the wall. 

Here's a few more Stay Gold Media pieces. All of these I bought for Dan's birthday last year as he'd been eyeing off similar looks. The piece in the middle is the old tobacco packet we found in one of the lounge room walls when we pulled everything down. Remember this? 

I snipped it carefully down one of the sides and spread it out so you could see all the detail when framed. 

This crazy guy is one of mine. I decided to give painting a go to save a bit of money. This wall between windows is quite a large space and we couldn't afford to buy a piece that would fit it. I already had a few canvases (unfortunately no rectangular ones, which would have been ideal) so I sat down and gave it a go. All it took was a ruler and pencil to create the triangles, then I picked my colours and created a paint-by-letters board. I wrote on the canvas which triangle was to be which colour (Quite an important thing to do! Very easy to paint yourself into a corner otherwise.) and got painting. Again, this project took longer than I thought. Each triangle needed a few coats of paint so it wasn't just a once over job. Worth it though. Hopefully one day I'll be able to afford something bigger, or more rectangularly, to go here. 

Have you hung any new art lately? Maybe created some of your own to help with the budget, or have finally been able to afford a favourite piece? I'd love to fill our house with art of all sizes. Some of my sketches might just make the cut. 

COLOUR PSYCHED-OUT-OLOGY

From here

 Would you swim in this? The pool at The Library Resort, Thailand is tiled in stunning glass mosaic tiles from Trend Mosaics.

From here

We received some new Trend sample books at work the other day which I poured through a few times. It's amazing the reaction people have to a common thing being an uncommon colour. Most people said "Oh, I couldn't swim in that!" Why I ask? Water isn't blue! Oh colour psychology, how you fascinate me...