First of all I thought I had better update you on the plans. Still no full plans but the Draftsman did email me last week. Apparently he is just waiting on the energy efficiency report and then he will hand over everything (YAY) along with the invoice (BOO).
Now onto the room for my daughter and daughter-to-be. As I said earlier they will now be sharing as we didn't want to have to go two storey and we want to keep our house a manageable size to live in until we are too old. My daughter told me she wanted a pink, purple, green and blue room!! I wasn't really sure how I would manage that but after scouring Pinterest I have come up with something!
I'm planning a feature wall like this except with green instead of dark blue:
I'm thinking blue for the other walls. The final wall will have built in wardrobes in white across it. The colours I have chosen from Dulux are Iced Vovo (Pink), Blackberry Sorbet (Purple), Applegate (Green) and Wild Clary (Blue). Their bed will go along the feature wall. I'm going to go with low, white wooden bunk beds.
Toy storage-wise I have a cube unit that I'd like to get some white wicker boxes to fit into. Then I will paint the cube unit Iced Vovo at this stage.
I love these decor ideas too:
Again I haven't really picked soft furnishings. For a light though they will have a baby pink chandelier from Ivory and Deene:
Okay onto the decorating plans for my middle child and son number 2 :)
His favourite colour is green so he wanted a vibrant green on his walls. Lime green can be a bit overwhelming so we decided to also mix in some navy and grey. His walls will be similar to my eldest's with the stripes just with different colours. So far we have picked Dulux Zatar Leaf for the walls with Dulux Passionate Blue for the large stripe and Dulux Timeless Grey accents. Here are some of the inspiration pictures:
I also want to create a bit of a rustic/industrial feel with wood and metal. He will be having the barrel cupboard I bought for the boys' current room. You can see it in this pic:
So I'd like to add a few other elements in the form of shelving and keeping his bed bare wood. Inspiration:
I also like the idea of adding some map elements. Maybe an old looking world map made into a pinboard so he can record his travels and I love the map fabric that you can choose to cover a chair with at Fantastic Furniture (I'd go the Wing Chair):
Not entirely sure yet!
Again I am yet to choose soft furnishings but there's no rush. He will also have a chrome pendant from Bunnings:
I went back and read some of my earlier posts and it's pretty funny just how much my ideas have changed. Also how much letting your kids have a say in their bedroom changes thing :P I thought I would update you on the plans for the kids rooms given the current plan is now nothing like my original idea. The kids have now given their input and we have adjusted the design so that they are happy. I'm a pretty big believer in kids having input in their own space (of course then it's my job to make sure it's something we can both live with ;) )
This post will be about my eldest son's room. He decided he really wanted a Navy bedroom. Our room sizes aren't massive but given the floors will be white we should be able to pull off the colour without it looking too dark. He also likes red and is a big fan of British TV (Dr Who is a favourite- the 9th doctor. The 4th is mine) so we decided to go with a light British theme/colour scheme. So far the blue we have picked together is Dulux Passionate Blue with Dulux Red Box and Dulux Vivid White accents.
I'd like to add some stripes to the wall to make it interesting. This gives you an idea but I'd like it lower and slightly thicker.
I don't want to be too heavy handed with the British paraphernalia but we will have a few nods in the room. He has a desk which I really want to try painting like a Union Jack:
I'd also like to paint his bed red like this one:
He's also very into Science- especially Astronomy. I'd like to add some star maps over his desk like the one here:
I have found a cool globe light at Bunnings for only $25 which he loves. He also spotted me pinning these and wants them for his wall:
I'm yet to pick rugs, bedding and curtains that I like but I will be going for something a bit more neutral I reckon to counteract the busy-ness of everything else. I have also picked out a chrome pendant light from Bunnings:
As you know though my family and I are very fickle with these things and can change our mind at any moment :P
Last thing for the Living area apart from decorative furnishings is an area rug and an entertainment unit for our television to sit on. As per always I have found a few different rugs that I like (〜￣▽￣)〜
Top of my list at this stage is probably this rug I found on Ebay under a seller called dealsdirect:
Black and white stripes scream French to me and they also suit a more modern look too. I'll be having thick even stripes elsewhere in the house as well and I'd like a cushion with some on it so I think it would fit in nicely.
The other rug I am looking at is also from Ebay by a seller called onlyonline:
Again I am planning on having some black and white damask decor throughout the house so this rug would also match beautifully. However I am thinking that maybe this would suit the Master Bedroom more than the Living area.
As for TV consoles again there is a choice of two at this stage. I want a TV entertainment unit that is white, elegant and fairly low as we have a very large TV (I swear it looked smaller at the shop @.@) so it needs to be able to all fit. One I love but it might be a bit more than we can afford which is this one from Mint Black:
I'm definitely leaning towards this one as though even though it's a bit more than I should probably spend it's actually really cheap for what it is. I love all the beautiful detailing and given we are going for fairly simply design armchairs and sofa I think it would be nice to mix it up with a bit of decorative furniture.
The other one is about half the price and I do still really like it just not quite as much. It's this one from the Elegance range at Fantastic Furniture
I do still like this piece. It's not as fancy as the other one but it's still elegant in its simplicity. It also has a price tag of about half as much as the other one so we'll see!
I have been to-ing and fro-ing on what I want to do with the lighting in the Kitchen/Living Dining area. I have had so many ideas although all involve at least one chandelier. I think I have finally settled on something though
＼(^▽^＠)ノ
Like I said I always knew I wanted a chandelier in either black or white. I thought I might scour eBay and see what was on there as the budget isn't huge and I thought I might find a bargain. I found a few different ones that were well priced that I really liked and I noticed they were all by the same seller and that the seller not only offered free shipping Australia Wide but had a website too. I thought I'd check it out and lo and behold the company is actually fairly local. Their name is Ivory&Deene and if you are a fan of pretty chandeliers that are also quite cheap then I suggest you take a peek at their website. I have been umming and ahhing but I am now pretty set on the 12 arm Cassie black vintage chandelier:
It's just stunning and under $300 as well which is unbelievable. I have always wanted a chandelier. ( ˘ ³˘)❤
Originally I was thinking of having 2 chandeliers but I didn't realise the ceilings were cathedral (don't ask me how I missed that haha) and I also thought the space probably wouldn't suit 2 as it's not exactly huge. I also want to have a bit of a modern mix throughout my house to complement the French Provincial/Victorian pieces and stop it looking too over the top.
I did some searching on google images and found this which I thought was pretty perfect for the look I was trying to achieve:
I love the look of the chandelier in the centre and the down lights discreetly lining the centre of both sides of the slanted roof. Obviously I would just have the one big chandelier right in the centre of the room though. Even though the down lights are a more modern looking fixture I think they complement the old fashioned looking chandelier nicely and would help prevent my home from looking tacky which I want to avoid. I found these on eBay by a seller called bestlightings:
They are pretty cheap and are also LED meaning they should be cheaper to run and also last longer (which is good because I don't think I'll enjoy changing light bulbs on a Cathedral ceiling!
I also found this funky floor lamp from Freedom that I thought might work for the Living area:
It's a nice mix of modern with the chrome but also has that old fashioned look. I really love it and I think it makes a nice sculptural looking piece as well as being functional as a lamp!
And I think that's about it for the lighting in that space. I may need to wait until these lights are in to see if I need anymore.... and for that I'll probably need the house 。(⌒∇⌒。)
Yay my first post talking about the fun stuff- the interior decorating
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧
I think I may have mentioned earlier that I wanted a very French Provincial/ Victorian interior. I figure chalets are French enough to get away with this kind of interior in a non period home. Or maybe not but I don't care
＼（＾▽＾）／ I adore period style- especially restoration and/or historical building conversion projects. Unfortunately there are few truly historical buildings where I live and the ones that are aren't often for sale or sell for way too much. So I am going to have to sate my appetite with episodes of Restoration Man and Grand Designs and by making my interior look period style. If only you could get kit home castles!!
So I have had my wall colours picked out for ages (since before we were going to build in fact). I really want the walls the same shade of grey as I started painting our current house when I thought we would be renovating. It's a medium light shade of grey named Afternoon Storm by British Paints. I love it and it has a very slight hint of mauve to it which makes it a bit warmer. It's not the best photo but here is the colour on our current walls (photo was at night so it looks a bit darker, it's the grey on the wall the mask is on):
Like in the photo I am also planning on doing all the moulding in white. I also really want to add chair rails in the new house like this:
At this stage I am undecided though whether to do a darker grey down the bottom and have that two tone look like the picture above, or whether to just paint the walls the one shade of grey. As the decorating will be quite monochrome I am not sure if I want to add more than one shade of grey. Just don't know yet but if I do I will probably go 1/2 strength above and full strength below. I love the look of the picture rails though so they will definitely be happening. They will be painted white like the other moulding (* >ω<) I love painting houses and adding things like this because it's such a cheap and easy way to change the whole look of your house and if you don't like it you can easily just paint over it/remove nails and take it down. Painting walls is to houses what dyeing hair is to women!
Finally the flooring that we plan to have throughout the whole house. I think I may have mentioned we aren't exactly made of money so in some areas we will be scrimping more than others. The floors however we won't be and they are a little expensive. Last quote I got was $14,000 for the floorboards and underlay and that doesn't include the cost of laying them (which our builder has kindly said he would do. However I love this floor already. It's Limed Arc Bamboo flooring from Choices . It's environmentally friendly because bamboo is a highly sustainable grass, it's as hard wearing as most hardwoods, it's cheap and easy to maintain and I just love the look as I think they will go better with grey than traditional floorboards:
Isn't it stunning ヽ( ★ω★)ノ
Our window treatments will probably be the same as the ones we have now because I love them and we can then reuse the ones we already have so we'd just need to buy a few more. They are Roman Blinds in Saturn: Snow from ABCExpress. They were pretty cheap but also great quality and will go nicely with the floor and walls:
So the floors, the walls and the window treatments will recur throughout the house to bring it together. There will be some slight differences to the floors and walls in some rooms but I'll get to those at another date!
