Fireplace Purchase

What better time to purchase a new fireplace than the middle of winter. Well, besides the start of winter that is, but I am SO happy with what we found. 

As the new house is a large homestead, it is pretty difficult to heat properly. The lounge room is especially hard, with the peak of the ceiling @ 7 metres high. Luckily, it already has a large wood fire, which at least takes the chill off the air.

Our bedroom-in-the-making has an open fireplace, but as you can see, it was in need of a serious makeover.

We contemplated knocking out the bottom layer of bricks and rendering, but soon realised it wouldn't do the room justice once made over, so have now demolished it. I have been dreaming of a beautiful fireplace surround.

via 3sidefireplaces.info

via pinterest

I love how this mantel is accessorised.

via hellohomeblogger.com

Would you believe this was voted the most beautiful object in an Italian Design Competition?

via boingboing.net

via pinterest

This would never work in our home, but it is interesting

via pinterest

via pinterest

Check out the herringbone pattern in the brickwork here

via pinterest

So after a little window shopping, this is the replacement: New iron insert with silver detail. LOVE!

And, a cute 'Richmond' style mantel to finish.

It will be so cozey in winter, and a great feature the year round. I am already thinking of artwork to hang above it!

More updates and installation pics to come.

"Before"

It is so much nicer to post pretty pictures of a finished and well designed room, but I thought I would share a few pics of where our house is at. They are the honest and ugly "before" pictures that I will hopefully look back on in the near future and say "wow, hasn't it come so far!" We have only been in our house 5 weeks, and the renovations are well under way.


For those of you that don't know, hubby and I just sold our brand new home that we designed and built, and have moved to an older, much larger homestead on 20 acres. Bye bye lovely new white surfaces. Hello crazy wall colours, mismatched carpet, and old school decor.


Excuse the poor photos, but you get the idea.


Here is the dining area.

This bedroom will be ours. Black vaulted ceiling anyone?

This is the second downstairs bedroom. I think I will keep these doors and give them a little TLC, then see how they look.

Cue the worst part of the house - The downstairs bathroom. Eek!!

The kitchen was never completed by the previous owner. They actually purchased more property and left this house for 3 years, so we have a LOT do do. Lucky I have a very handy husband! Here is what is looked like when we moved in:

Here is the dining room with more crazy features and deep pink paint. Oh dear. The doorway to the left is where we have created a new hallway to 2 of the bedrooms, our walk in wardrobe, and our ensuite.

This is the lounge room. The peak of the ceiling in here is just under 7 metres high. The last owners left it without lighting, as they couldn't reach to change the globes! You can see the fireplace area, which we just purchased a new iron surround and mantle for.

Before the adjacent wall to the 2 downstairs bedrooms was plastered. New french doors are in the background!

Part of our 'backyard'

And lastly, one of the pendant lights we just installed in the kitchen. This room will be last on the list, so it needed something.

I will post some updates along the way. Have a happy weekend!

Weekend Sugar Hit

Being so busy of late has meant I have spent very little time in the kitchen doing much of anything. I don't know about you, but cooking is (mostly) theraputic for me. It is a little luxury to have time to make something aside from weekday lunches and dinners!


Sunday was the perfect opportunity get back into it with some cupcakes for my in-laws family get together.


I decided on white chocolate rose cupcakes with cream cheese frosting - YUM.
Cake really is my weakness...

Crystal Rose Petals

Twisted on Bondi

As a child of the 80's, I am no stranger to colour. I grew up wearing every hue of fluro, and bright colours still catch my eye. With a lot of modern design being so conservative with colour, I was really impressed with this creation by Morris Selvatico.


It's the new TWISTED Frozen Yoghurt Bar that has arrived to no other than our beautiful Bondi Beach. Beach + frozen, yummy goodness in one - sounds perfect! The colours just scream SUMMER don't you think?

There is something about this blue and orange combination I love. It's a little retro.

I'll try one of each thanks!

I love the character given by tiling on an angle. They have taken care to give great features while keeping good clean lines. Notice how the floor returns up the wall below.

With candy inspired colours, the polyurethane wall looks good enough to eat.

pics via crosbieprojects.com, sweatybettypr.com, yossawat.com

Hello Again...

Now that I have returned from Europe, MOVED HOUSE, and finished up the End of Financial Year at work, I am free to get some blog lovin'! How nice it is.

I am sure all of you on the other side of the world are enjoying beautiful summer days right now. We are tolerating the gloomy, wet winter here in Oz, and what I would give to get some sunny days off to paint! We have just moved onto a property with a stack of trees surrounding the house, making for some COLD times : (. I am a bit of a greeny, but in this case, some of the lovely trees just HAVE to go.

My home is pretty much a nightmare right now. We have bare walls, a bathroom that needs gutting, a second bathroom that also needs gutting (but is liveable - for now!), carpet to be pulled up in some areas, and the remaining floors (bare and tiled) are just killing me. PLUS, we have 7 sets of chocolate brown (yes) sliding doors that need pulling out and replacing with something a little more pretty.

We have so far created a walk in closet, new hallway, and re-plastered 2 downstairs bedrooms, of which one will be ours. Oh, and built a second linen cupboard for that end of the house. A girls' gotta have space for all that linen!

Coming back to the blogosphere has made me CRAZY with wanting to get stuff finished and just pretty everything up in general. Project #1 is the main bedroom and ensuite, so I am on the hunt for cute double vanity ideas. I would like white to dominate the room (as usual).

Here is some current inspiration:

Gorgeous pendant lights make this my fave...

decorpad.com

Pedestals with cabinet storage...

homeanddecor.net

Classic white...

houzz.com

Although the style probably wouldn't suit our place, I do love this GLAM bathroom, via decorpad.com

I think having 2 individual vanity units looks luxurious, and I just love the idea of having a cabinet for all my own things! (Some needed, some not so).

What do you think?