Bathroom ideas.

After we rip up the floor in the three bedrooms, we are getting stuck into doing the bathroom. I'm in the process of collating inspiration boards and ideas for the space - it is very exciting at this stage! I'm going to move the window up, change the door to a sliding door, rip out the bath and put in a toilet and shower. I am addicted to subway tiles as they manage to look a bit industrial and mental-hospitalesque (which is a good thing) but can still look quite traditional at the same time. The outside of the house will be fairly traditional, so we don't want that terrible 'Victorian exterior and hyper-modern interior' than can happen with this era of house. Subway tiles will help to marry the two styles.

I'm also thinking of tiling on an enormous mirror along one wall, which will open up the space and be a bit of a feature. Ideally, it would wrap around the two walls and include a medicine cabinet which pops open (technical term) but is sunken in. I have the idea fully-formed in my head, but hope it translates well in real life!

Here are a few bathrooms that I find inspiring, although most of them are quite literally five times as big as our tiny space!

I freaking LOVE this floor tiling. Wonder if I could make it work...
The chunky silver hardware looks awesome against the tiles. Might be over-capitalising though...
This makes me feel clean just looking at it. Hygiene-fest.

Property mogul.

Looking from the front bedroom into the back bedroom. Note the attractive green linoleum and reinforced architrave.

We bought a house! It only took two weeks. We have it pretty easy considering our criteria is that it must be cheap and in poor condition. I can't imagine how hard it would be trying to buy your forever house.

It is a three bedroom semi-detached on a big corner block in Coburg. The agent we have been dealing with is a bit rubbish-she doesn't seem to know a lot of the processes around buying a house and is terrible at returning phone calls. Anyway. The previous owner was an old lady who is in a nursing home, so it was sold by the State Trustees. Houses sold by the State Trustees can sometimes be a little bit cheaper as they aren't as keen to make a massive profit as regular vendors, and more often prefer to just sell it rather than negotiate.

It is in fairly poor condition but is structurally sound and has loads of potential. The thought of living in a half-renovated house (again) is daunting, but I kind of love it. We will be doing all of the work ourselves this time without help from Mum and Dad, so it will be a steep learning curve.

On to the tour....

The fireplace in the living room has been bricked up and "decorated" with butterflies. The terracotta tiles are going to go.

The laundry is huge- nearly as big as the back bedroom. We will move it over and put French doors in to a deck in the backyard.

The floor is separating from the wall in the front bedroom. We will need to restump and lift the floor before carpeting.

Mmmm, lovely tiles.

Bathroom is teeny tiny. We will gut it and retile and rip out the bath and replace it with a shower and toilet.

I am going to the estate agent to sign the contract this afternoon. Yay! Settlement is on July 18.

House sold!

What a massive few days. The house was passed in at the auction on Saturday, due to no bids. It was pretty depressing sitting in the front room of the gorgeous house that we built ourselves, looking out at 120 faces with not one person bidding. Apparently that is what is done now: by not bidding, the emotion of the auction is taken off the purchaser and put back on the vendor.

Imemdiately after the auction, four different parties came in and made offers. We had a mini-auction, with us sitting in the front room and the potential purchasers in the other rooms, with the agents running back and forth between us. Crazy times.

Anyway, after a sleepless Saturday and Sunday night, we eventually sold it to a lovely German lady for above our reserve, which is so, so excellent. I don't think it has hit me yet what has happened- the house is so full of memories and love. Even though it was only two years, I felt like I grew up in that house. It was where I learnt to cook, where Lee and I raged at each other and watched Mad Men in bed. It was where we lived with my best friend in one room, washed our dishes in the bath and used one tiny gas cooker for all our meals. I started my new job there, turned 25 there, made heaps of new friends and covered the bathroom in hairdye.

Au revoir, 153.

May goals

Good lord- I cannot believe that it is May already. The year is nearly half done! Scary.  Here are a few things I'd like to do this month:

  • Sell my house.
  • Crochet a teacosy.
  • Pick up some freelance copywriting work.
  • Dye my hair back to brunette.
  • Finish the Clean Program. (as if I was ever going to do this...)
  • Hem and take in my black pants.

xx

Auction this weekend!

Our house is up for auction this Saturday at 1pm. Gah!I have such mixed feelings. I want to live there forever, but it is so big and hard to clean. The location is incredible and neighbours are lovely. In a way, having the interior stylists prop it for us has been good as it feels less like my house and more like a display home, which helped me make the break. I really hope a big, sprawling, loud and messy family move in and fill it up. It is made for big family dinners and art projects spread out on the floor and napping in the hammock and gardening and walking to the shop after dinner to get ice creams.

What a journey it has been... here are some of my favourite memories of Project Beaconsfield Parade.

  • At the auction when we bought it, I was so nervous and sweaty that I though I'd fall over. Mum and Dad were in Adelaide so we had to bid on our own. I hadn't been to a house auction before, let alone bid at one! Probably the most nerve-racking thing I've ever done.
  • Our old kitchen with the lumps in the floor and the old pantry converted to my walk-in robe. I loved that- our shower was a garden hose gaffer-taped to the wall, but I had the luxury of a walk-in robe.
  • After we first moved in, Lee and I had a burst of enthusiasm for renovating and demolished the whole bathroom in an hour and dumped it in the front yard.
  • We used to draw and write all over the wall in the kitchen as we knew we were demolished the rear wall.
  • Learning how to use most tools properly and how to build walls,  lay floorboards, build a deck, paint, assemble scaffolding, tile a bathroom...
  • Whenever a major milestone was completed, like we finished painting a room or pulled down a wall or laid the floorboards, it was really invigorating and exciting.
  • Spending so much time with my parents (they came over every weekend to help). I learnt so much from my Dad and was constantly impressed with his work ethic and attitude, and it was lovely chatting to mum as we did the shitty apprentice jobs together.
  • The last weekend we spent in the house, Lee and I literally worked two twenty-hour days cleaning and finishing things off. We were so exhausted and cranky that I was in tears as I scrubbed walls and scraped paint and repainted architraves. I collapsed onto our mattress- the only bit of furniture left in the house- and had literally the best sleep of my life.

I am having a massive freak-out out over whether we will get a good price, whether the sun will be shining for the auction, whether anyone will bid and where we are going to live next, but I guess it is all part of the journey.

Pinterest

So I am obsessed with pinterest. I am patiently waiting to get my registration authorised, so I can start making magic happen. I literally have a visceral reaction to beautiful imagery... LOVE it. I get all wanty and achey and don't want to do anything but look at pretty pictures.

LOVE.

Check out these gawjus boards...

Design in everyday things.

Desserts.

These furniture boards.

Crocheted lovelies.

I have design school tonight, I am pretty excited about it! Next week we start a unit on colour, so get to paint lots and make colour wheel. Yay!

Mood boards

For my Design Principles and Elements subject at design school, I have to create a mood board in the theme of 'vintage revival'. I am taking a mid-century, modern industrial approach, with lots of orange wallpaper and teak.  It is still pretty embryonic, but I will definitely post images when it is done! The mood board, plus a rendering exercise, a design matrix and an annotated interior is due next Friday. Back to it.. Another autumn arrangement for Go Go Berlinette

Via. Kitchen wallpaper 70´s

Via. My small West German Pottery Collection

Via. Cathrineholm 3

Via.

Book-buying overload.

I have a slight addiction to buying books. Since the announcement that Borders and Angus and Robertson has gone bust in the US, I am committed to propping up the printed-word industry. Here are some that I have bought/read lately... It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be

Life-changing. This little gem is written by longtime Saatchi & Saatchi Creative Director Paul Arden, and whittles down all the other self-help, inspirational business book to a tight, beautifully designed 124-pages. An excellent and easy read. I want to buy this for everyone I know.

Sew La Tea Do

The second book by the lovely Pip, this baby has sewing patterns for all sorts of gorgeous gear, from lady's dresses to quilts, kid's clothes, and purses. I have her first book, Meet Me at Mikes, as well, and cannot wait for the next one!

Less Than Zero

By 'literature's wild child' (God, I hate that phrase!) Bret Easton Ellis. Set in a very shallow and grimy 80s LA, this is an easy read but made me want to have a long shower afterward.

Glamorama

Also by Bret Easton Ellis. Revisits Victor Ward, the same shallow, vacuous kid from Less than Zero. Compelling and kind of grotesque.

Escape from Cubicle Nation

Based on this. This one made me want to leave my job IMMEDIATELY and become a full-time designer. Has awesome plans on the nitty-gritty of working for yourself.

25 before I'm 25.

I made a list in November of 25 things I want to do before I turn 25 in April. I have made a pretty good start...

  1. Go swimming one lunchtime
  2. Make a rainbow cake
  3. Ride to work everyday for a week
  4. Lose 5kg
  5. Get my pants tailored
  6. Sell the house
  7. Buy another house
  8. Cook pad thai
  9. Taste peanut butter
  10. Learn the single ladies dance
  11. Buy some nice lipstick and wear it
  12. Make a nice summer dress
  13. Finish sewing my quilt
  14. Stretch art onto a frame
  15. Make an appt for my next tattoo
  16. Make an appt about laser eye surgery
  17. Get a pedicure
  18. Print out photos from my overseas trip and put them into frames
  19. Build a bookshelf
  20. Visit my family properly
  21. Watch Back to the Future
  22. Make bruschetta from my home-grown tomatoes
  23. Read 5 new books- Freakonomics, Superfreakonomics, Outliers, The Book Thief,Man Bites Murdoch
  24. Go to Port Fairy Music festival
  25. Pay off my credit card

Locker room.

So, I found an old bank of lockers ripped out of a school at Lee's warehouse. I'm not posting a photo right now because it is currently in the front yard of my parent's house in Warrandyte, but I have very high hopes for turning it into some sort of  Expedit-industrial-pigeonhole thing. A bit like this...School lockers in our garage/office

Via. vintage lockers, repainted

Via. Josh's Studio

Via.

Sandy checks out the lockers

Via.

LOVE that teal colour. I think they will make perfect storage for craft supplies, the million different fat quarters I have, linen, wool...

I am Really. Very. Excited. Instead of painting my house and re-puttying windows this weekend, I want to paint my lockers!

Will post pics when it's done.

Back to school.

Old books in Sarah's house Via.

I'm a bit nervous about starting school on Monday. My course is a Diploma of Commercial Arts (Interior Design and Decoration). It is part-time for two years, so I can still work and afford to buy furniture and paint. I have my enrolment pack ready, and am going to Officeworks tonight to get new books! I LOVE Officeworks. The best part of the entire school year when I was in high-school was to go there on the day before school started and get new notebooks, new pens, weird shaped post-its and hi-lighters. Stoked.

If I was loaded, I'd get stuff from the Kikki K near my office, but 'tisn't possible on my $2 salary.

A girl can dream..