Exterior

I thought I'd post some pictures of inspiration for our house exterior that I have collected. I love the whole Georgian look as you can tell:

This one below is our main inspiration except instead of the veranda we'd like a Juliet balcony:

Busy, Busy

It's been a rather hectic week. Feels like one big whirlwind of working, staining, sanding, school drop offs, pick ups and kids after school activities. I am exhausted!

On the plus side I have 3 coats of the all-in-one stain on the table and chair tops, so tomorrow afternoon I can start the priming on the base. It shouldn't take as long because it's all water based paint and primers and so has a quicker drying time. I have everything crossed that my table turns out as good in real life as it did in my head when I imagined it. 

I think I am ready to dive into bed with some episodes of Restoration Home. I love those kind of shows (especially love Restoration Man) and they make me so jealous. I would love to have the money to do up an old building. I'm so much more attracted to old architecture and furniture etc than I am to modern designs.

Sanding!

I am exhausted. Started work on my 8 Seater Dining set today. I tried to start a few days ago and realised there was no way in hell I was going to hand sand the table top and all 8 seats, so yesterday evening I popped over to Bunnings and picked up a Random Orbital Sander. I still haven't quite finished the sanding but it's almost done:

Tomorrow I will finish off the sanding (just a bit left in the hard to reach places) and then I can do the first coat of the Chocolate Walnut Stain I bought. I cannot wait to see how it turns out. Fingers crossed I don't stuff it up!

Hessian Curtains

I have decided to have a go at making my own grommet curtains for the house to save on money. I'm not the most accomplished seamstress but I can do basic sewing through making my cosplays so I am hoping that will be enough. I have found a tutorial and it doesn't seem too scary. I actually understood it which gives me hope :D Here is the tutorial.

I have fallen in love with the idea of using hessian (or the material you might know as Burlap or Jute) for the curtains. It's a very simple, rustic looking fabric and I think the juxtaposition (bringing out the big words :P) between the elegant wainscoting on the walls with the rough fabric will look lovely. I have noticed a lot of true French Provincial homes use a lot of natural materials and textures that are practical and yet still look elegant. I'd also like to add a panel of lace to the bottom of the curtains just to add that touch of pretty to an otherwise plain fabric. Sort of like this table runner except a longer strip of lace:

 
I've also noticed in many pictures that it seems pretty common to add a differing panel to curtains so I feel pretty good about the decision. How pretty does the simple, rough hessian look with the delicate, elegant lace <3

I also stumbled across a great idea for curtain tie backs that I think I will use. Spoons! I know it sounds sort of weird but I think the result is gorgeous and looks a bit like some of the ornamental French tie backs I have seen (but with a far cheaper price tag):

Coffee Table

I realised I never posted a picture of the little blackwood coffee table I also found on Gumtree. I'm planning to do a similar thing to the dining table with it. White base and then stained walnut coloured top. I adore the little cabriole legs. Cabriole legs seem to make all furniture look more elegant. Sorry for the bad photo- it was evening when I took the picture so it's a bit dark.

Now I have all these pieces I really had better get my act together and get started on transforming them!

The House (Take 3)

I've changed my mind again -.- We did a check of the size of our block and to make the house fit we would have also had to rip out 2/3 of the driveway and another concrete patio area. Plus we'd be getting dangerously close to the 50% roofed land area regulation that we have here. So it's back to the design we liked before I even started the blog. It's called The Brighton and it's still by Kitome but it's a two story design. This means our slab can be a lot smaller but we can still have the space we need and we won't have to worry about removing our other concreted areas to make it fit.

Here's the outside view of the Brighton:

And here are the house plans:

The only issue is it's a little too wide for our block given that two story houses need to be at least 3 metres from the side boundary. So we are changing it so that 1.8m is removed from the width. This basically equates to removing the side verandah and space equal to that. We will just have a smaller dining area (which is fine because it's still pretty big) and we will have 5 bedrooms instead of 6. We'll move Bed 4 across getting rid of Bed 3 and just increase the size of the study slightly to account for the little extra room from removing a bedroom. We will also get rid of the laundry/toilet addition at the back as we don't need a laundry or third toilet. Hopefully this will also make it cheaper as this one is more expensive than the other plan.


In other news I picked up the Dining Table today and I am so happy with it. Such a bargain given it's solid timber (and very heavy) yet cost me less than half the price of an 8 seater setting from the local discount furniture store (which is cheaply made, so nowhere near the craftsmanship and longevity this table has).Totally loving Gumtree right now!

When moving it I managed to trip over my son's bike and land on my bum with the table on me- so co-ordinated! It's finally in the shed though awaiting my makeover. I feel kind of bad about painting it now because they even oiled it for us but the top will still be wood and so will the seats (just stained a darker walnut colour). I'm also not going to paint the underneath of the chair seats because they have all been stamped as it's part of the Flinder's Collection. I'd like the stamps to remain :)I cannot wait to sit at this and eat as a family!!