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!

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!!

Furniture and Windows

As I mentioned in my last post I have decided to keep an eye out for furniture to paint up and look nice. In Tasmania it's so hard to buy brand new pieces of French Provincial looking furniture. There's not a lot around and what is around is expensive. You can get it a lot cheaper on the mainland but by the time you freight it here the cost is the same as buying an expensive Tasmanian piece!

So yesterday I ducked down to the local City Mission shop to see what they had. Some of their stuff is brand new and expensive which is not what I was after. However i did find a few really great pieces that I am going to go back in next week and lay by. 

One is a large timber table which would seat at least 8 people. It has gorgeous carved legs and they are only asking $120. I reckon it's been looked over by a lot of people due to the fact it's an ugly orange-y pine colour. However with a paint and the top stained I think I can make it look as nice as some of the tables I have been looking at that go for $1500+

The second is a dressing table with mirror. It's pretty ugly superficially but with a lick of paint and some new handles it has a lot of potential.

The third one is a lounge suite. It's already in great nick but it's an emerald green colour which I think is why it hasn't sold. Given our house will be very neutral I think the emerald green might give a nice punch of colour. I'm planning on putting some neutral coloured cushions on it too to help tone down the vibrancy a bit. It's really green! But the fabric is in mint condition and is a lovely soft velvet. The couch, two armchairs and 2 footstools are under $300 which is a bargain given similar lounge sets brand new are in the $4-5k range.

I'll take some before and after photos when I do them up and you can see what you think :) I'm actually quite excited to have some new projects to work on.

Also I have decided to go with light grey curtains and sheers on the windows instead of wooden shutters. I still love the idea of wooden shutters but they are sooooooo expensive. I figure curtains will be a cheaper option for the immediate need of privacy and then later on we can always get wooden shutters.

Dining Table (Take 2)

I have been having so much trouble but I think I have finally found something I like that is also really cheap. I started looking at outdoor tables instead of indoor ones as I wanted a fairly solid simple table but they're either too expensive or not long enough. Turns out Ikea had a cheap outdoor table that will suit the look I am going for and also seats 8 people. The Angso Table:

Which I would pair up with these quite Provincial looking Ingolf chairs also from Ikea:

The Ingolf range also includes matching bar stools that I could use for the breakfast bar:

Dining Table

I'm having a bit of trouble finding a dining table that I really like that doesn't cost the earth. All I really want is a nice solid timber table in white but a lot of the white dining tables seem to be coated in laminate or plastic. I have however found one at a reasonable price that I quite like which is the Cancun table from Freedom

I'd white wash it just a little more though.

I am going to have a look around the second hand stores before I commit to buying anything though. Hopefully I can find a solid table that I can sand back and white wash/paint. I also may have to wait until the house is built before I can really pick one as I am not sure if the size I want will fit in the space I have. I would love a big 8 seater so fingers crossed.

Dining chairs I do have picked though. I found heaps that I love but so many of them were so costly. I had no idea dining chairs could even be as expensive as some that I saw ヘ（。□°）ヘ
 I found these Millicent chairs from Freedom  though which are pretty reasonably priced and come in both black and white. I thought it would be pretty cool to alternate white and black chairs around the table just to make it visually interesting:

 I really love the simplicity of the chairs, which again manage to suit both the provincial and modern style that I need them to.