green thumb!

image curtesy of here

So the love obsession with Jame Oliver continues.

There's just something so wholesome about the guy. Seeing the way he talks about his wife and children seriously warms my heart. And his passion for food is really addictive. Watching him hack away at food and create the most amazing dishes has kept me and LB busy this week. It's become our weeknight ritual, watch an episode of Jamie while we cook/eat our (not-as-appealing-as-jamie's) dinner.

The "Jamie at home" series is on our box at the moment (and the catchy jingle stuck in my head all day!) and it's made me realise what our dishes are missing: fresh herbs.

Fast-forward to DIY weekend activities and guess what LB and I have planned for tomorrow? Making our own herb garden! We don't have a courtyard at our apartment, so instead a herb box on our balcony will make do. I'm rather excited about this: hello Bunnings! Yes, even a girl can get mighty excited about a trip to Bunnings!!

Really looking forward to creating my own dishes with fresh home grown herbs and spices!

Happy weekend y'all!

Curtailing the sun!

{Green walls. Blah, blah blah!}

Now that we've got that out of our systems, let's move on to my latest project, replacing the curtains in our living room.

As we're renters, we thought we were stuck with the vertical blinds that let the sun flood on in during the summer and the blistering chill during winter. Not to mention that half of the blinds were missing and those that were there were filthy dirty.

After months of 'umming and ahhhing' over whether we could get away with ripping them down, we finally decided over the Christmas break to go for it. I spent a good hour in Spotlight looking at all the different curtains on display. With our mint green walls (insert another blah!) and chocolate brown couch it was tough to pick a colour. We knew we wanted curtains heavy enough to block out the sun, but I was also worried that too thick/heavy would be too overpowering for our small space.

In the end I chose a taupe pair of pencil pleated curtains. Once home, my trusty Handyman LB helped in pulling down the old curtains and rail and helping set up the new brackets and pulling the pleats into place.

We had absolutely no idea how to use the curtain hooks and no amount of Googling or Wiki-how-to could solve our woes, but alas - they're up. I'm sure my Mama Bear would have done a better job - but they sure beat their predecessors! What do you think?

Before

After

After

Now shhhh, don't tell the real estate agent - at least until we do!

Storage woes...

So our place is small, and I like to hoard.

Not the greatest marriage.

Our living area is home to a number of mismatched items: a dark brown really big couch; a pine wood tv stand; a dark brown/walnut coffee table; a dark brown wooden table...you get the picture.

With our small bookshelf overcrowding and my collection of junk ever-growing, I've been looking at the Ikea expdit series to help solve some of our storage woes. The only problem is - which colour do I go?

In my ideal world our whole house would be white with light/natural/taupe pieces of furniture (like my obsession with these couches which are popping up more and more). But our rented walls are green and the furniture that we have is dark...so I should go with the dark option, right? Keeping everything same same and possibly making the room look even smaller with all the dark heavy pieces?

Or do I throw caution to the wind and start my collection of white pieces - so that gradually I can start changing things over to how I really want the place to be. I've always wanted to get my DIY-hat on and paint the table white, after seeing too many cool examples in Real Living over the years, and I could easily paint the TV stand white. Or is that just a lot of unnecessary work?

But look at how pretty the white shelves can look:

But then the dark are not too bad either:

Oh decisions, decisions. I seem awfully incapable of making them these days!

Could gold really be the silver lining?

Ok, so I hate to bang on about the silly telephone table any longer...

BUT

I keep going back to Camila's High-heeled Foot In the Door and looking at this blog post.

Camila re-upholstered a little stool - AND left the legs GOLD!

Perhaps I should leave my little seat gold (just give it a recoat so that it shines) - and then simply give it a fresh face of fabric?

Telephone table inspiration

So after this weekend's find at the Camberwell Markets, I've been toying around with the idea of painting the telephone table white, using a velvet fabric for the seat (and maybe extending it to make the seat fill more of the empty space next to it and between the table), and a colour matching print for the tabletop (using wallpaper). With pink and red being my two favourite colours, here's two alternative inspiration boards that I have put together - using a white telephone chair that I stumbled across.




The red is totally based on my love of Viv's (from awesome blog Ish and Chi) amazing makeover of this stunning two seater.


This is just my first round of ideas. The other thought is to paint it white and just use one patterned fabric for the seat, and paint the tabletop plain white. The apartment we currently live in has mint green walls - so a few of these would suit it much better than red which would look terrible together. Although if we move at the end of the year I don't want to have restricted myself on the colour just because of the mint green walls - and knowing me I may not even be finished it by the time we move!


I'm in love with these Amy butler fabrics - so maybe just the seat recovered in one of these (and painted white):



I also haven't ruled out painting it black - but I do much prefer white furniture! Just not sure how the frame would come up in white...


As you can tell I'm totally throwing around too many ideas and realistically may not be able to achieve any of them. Would love some further help from the blogging world!

Market finds: telephone table!

So LB and I slept through the initial alarm for 7.30 but made it to Camberwell Markets by a little closer to 9am. I told you I'm hopeless at making it there early!

Nevertheless, a fun morning was had! I still struggled with the crowds though.

And what did I find? This funky 1960s telephone table! (excuse the photo quality, not the best!)

At the moment it's sitting in our very narrow entryway. For a cheap $35 I couldn't leave it at the stall!

I recalled seeing one of these tables recovered in really funky fabric - but of course now that I search through my favourite blogs I cannot find the exact image for inspiration. But there's a few good DIY examples online - a few of which I've featured below. Only problem is that most of them are wooden tables - which would be easy to paint white.

What do you think? Should I leave the original gold frame or strip it back and paint it? And the cushion? What kind of fabric? And the table top? Should I find some funky wall paper to use on the top? obviously it would have to suit the cushion...hmmm, decisions, decisions...time to go blog hunting for more inspiration I think!!

Design*Sponge

Design*Sponge

Design*Sponge

Not beige

Thoughts and opinions definitely welcome!

Treasure troving!

After seeing the latest before and after shots on Design*Sponge this week I'm really feeling the need to get all DIY this weekend!

Isn't this coffee table - com - bench perfect? DROOL!

First stop - a trip to Camberwell Markets on Sunday! I have a bad habit of getting to these markets too late in the morning, being overwhelmed by the crowds, walking around aimlessly and in the end give up and say "I cannot be bothered, let's go have brunch".

This week I'm going to power through those markets like the bargain hunter my mother trained me to be!

I might swing by a few opp shops tomorrow as well, who knows what treasures I'll find!

Have a great weekend!

Lamp shade makeover

This weekend was a quiet one. LB and I decided to drop by Salvos to see what goodies I could find to create a weekend craft project.

I came across a pair of oldschool lamps sitting by the window. With granny blue fur style shades, and dirty cream white paint, they sure needed a makeover! I got to work with some sandpaper and gave them a good sand back. Then stopped by Bunnings to collect a small tin of white paint. I gave them a fresh coat, then headed out on date night with LB. Mmmm, cocktails! (pic below!)

Sunday morning I gave the lamps a second coat of paint, then dropped by Spotlight to choose some fabric! Ohhhh! There were so many designs I fell in love with!! I cannot wait to get a sewing machine and start getting really creative. But for now - armed with a trusty hot glue gun - I finished my mini weekend project. And the result?? I'll let you decide!

Well that was a weekend well spent!

It's thirsty work DIY'ing!

Mmmm...Parisio Bliss!