Sunday 31 March 2013

sunroom quick fix

My mum and darling 2 and a half year old nephew are visiting at the moment. He's so much fun, I just love him!! But between the two of them and school finishing our painting has stalled a bit. Hopefully we will put a second coat on tomorrow while he sleeps. Going to the beach, reading books and playing together is much more fun!!
A before before shot-from about 6 months ago

How it used to look
I love our sunroom. It is one of my favourite rooms. It's bright and cheerful. We've turned it into a study, with a side of yoga and golf room. But through summer it was too hot-windows on three sides, including a whole wall on the east turned it into a bit of a sauna, so we didn't use it. It had started collecting junk, and I find junk attracts junk. My dressing table can be clear for weeks, but once something is dumped there, more and more keeps getting added. The worse the sunroom got, the less I wanted to be in there, so the dump and runs continued!


Terrible
Even worse....
It's still not perfect, and the bookcase needs a bit more prettying up but our house is a bit baby proofed at the moment, and it was such a mess in there that I couldn't even comprehend what to do before! The ironing board usually lives in the spare room cupboard, but was in the study while mum and my nephew are using the room. Same with L's wetsuit.
That is the big pile of filing on the top of the bookcase
I started with the foot high pile of filing that had to be done. I sorted into 4 piles-bin, house, L, and me. And then further sorted and filed in the woven filing basket from Officeworks. 
Next was putting things back where they belonged. Then I reorganised the piles of magazines. I think I need to go through them and pull out any pages I want to keep out and bin the rest. Until then I have sorted them into like piles, which looks so much neater!


So much better
I hardly threw anything away-it's just organised now!

I can actually work here now!

The back corner is still a bit of a pile. I brought a whole heap of school work home to cut, laminate and velcro, so the blue tidy tray is a short term thing (at least I have put it all together now, not scattered on every surface available!!). I was also given a huge pile of bridal magazines-like literally about 40! I think I'll just donate them-our decisions are pretty much made. I think I might donate our dvd player too. We haven't had it plugged in for a year, and haven't missed it.


Ignore the awful putting mat. It's a definite upgrade from the lounge room or hallway where L used to want it to live! I cleared a few of the storage things off the desk, and moved them to the bookcase. It's a bit less crowded now, with more room for me to spread out. Much nicer in there.


A diary, to do list and a weekly planner... overkill?? :)
The curtains in the doorway lead to our bedroom, and were a temporary measure to cut out the light at 4 in the morning. We will put some blockout blinds up eventually!! Some of the windows also need to be fixed-reputtied and sanded and repainted. It's a massive job though, and we will eventually paint the VJs. The couch is actually a hand-me-down from mum's, with a calico cover-it's a foldout for when we need the extra space. The cushions used to be in the lounge room. 
I ended up going back in and prettying it up a bit with a few things I had around the house
All up it took about 90 minutes, and looks so much better! Have you had rooms get away from you? What clean ups have you done lately?


Tuesday 26 March 2013

learning curve

I just started. Like ripping off a bandaid I just had to start the painting. Otherwise I would have fluffed about not making a decision for another few months and never would have started. 

We decided to paint one of the downstairs bedrooms to get rid of the awful green paint, and so if we were hopeless at painting for our first go we didn't have to live with it forever-it wasn't staring us in the face every day when we were hanging out and watching tv. 


We did learn a lot as we went, some of it is probably pretty obvious if you've painted before, but despite reading heaps of advice, and talking to people at Bunnings there were a few things I would change. 


  • Definitely do the prep on Friday night. I had planned to, but then was tired, and didn't have everything I needed.
  • Don't plan a florist appointment for 10 o'clock, and then go shopping after that. 

This all meant it was 11.30 before I even started prepping the walls by washing them down and giving a light sand. I then had to pop out again for a drop sheet. In a west facing room, on the hottest weekend in months this wasn't ideal. 

  • Just buy the good canvas drop sheets in the first place, because the plastic ones are hopeless, don't stay put and tear really easily. 
  • Use an undercoat if you are going light. Our green ceiling still isn't covered after 2 coats. Frustrating. 
  • It's much easier when there are two of you-so don't start on a day when L is playing golf and then working.





On Saturday I did the prep and cut in and painted the ceiling twice. 

On Sunday I had to go out and buy undercoat for the walls. I cut in and L rolled. 

 

Yesterday we both went to work all day, I went to a friend's house to work on our wedding invitations (they look so good!), after dinner there was nothing on tv, so we decided to put a coat of paint on. With both of us working together it took just over an hour to cut in and roll. It looks so much better already! Can't wait to put on another coat and do the trim. 



Saturday 23 March 2013

lists

I love lists. I write lists constantly. I love being able to cross things off, and seeing what I've achieved, and giving me some order to what I'm doing.
When work gets crazy I even have 2 lists-a work list and a house list. When I'm having a break from doing work related stuff I have to do something home related, so at least I'm achieving something and not bumming about on the internet. This holidays I might end up with a painting list, a schoolwork list and a wedding list, and flit between them. A slippery slope... 
Kikki K note pad-love pretty stationery!!
I also find that having a list keeps me accountable and on track. I usually put too much on my list, knowing I wont get it all done, but it gives me a bit of flexibility with deciding what I feel like doing. I find if I don't write a list on Friday afternoon for my weekend none of it happens. 

I'm not writing a big list of things to do for this year-considering we are getting married, I think we will have a fair bit on our plates. But this is my 2013 house list. We did pretty well with our 2012 list, and some of those things will come over (in blue)




-Blinds for 2 upstairs bedrooms


-Blinds for sunroom

-Refinish french doors

-Paint lounge room and dining room (and maybe kitchen?), including trims and ceiling


-Paint the railings on the veranda white 

-Re-cover the outdoor furniture

-Sand the decks, and oil

-Kill the awful plants in the side garden, and do something with it
-Varnish the outdoor chairs

With a wedding, and two of us that work 50-60 hours a week I think that's enough. See how we go. Mostly they aren't huge changes, but I think they will be the type of changes that will make a difference. 

Do you have lists going? 

Monday 18 March 2013

pre pre painting

Picking a paint colour is awful. I don't know if I'm overthinking it, or what, but I cannot decide a colour. L is happy with any of them. We are getting a 'white' as our house can be quite dark. It doesn't have big windows, and the windows in the living area have wide verandahs around them, meaning less light makes it in. Our floors are also dark, which affects the colour.

I narrowed it down, and bought a few sample pots of paint from Bunnings. I've painted 2 coats of each colour onto the cardboard. We want a really pale wall colour, pure white trim and cornicing, and probably the ceiling in a lighter wall colour. Painting onto cardboard is good-you can move it around, check the colour in different rooms, and it's a nice big area of paint.


Hogs Bristle (I accidentally typed that as Hogs Breath) with White on White.


Antique White USA with White on White


I had thought that the White on White had to go. Downstairs it looks wrong, but upstairs it looked ok. We want a pure white, so that the wide skirtings and beautiful cornices stand out against the wall colour.


Antique White USA with White on White

Hogs Bristle 1/4 with White on White (the bottom 2 inches is the cardboard)
Antique White USA with White on White

While I was in Bunnings I also picked up a Lead paint test kit. $30 for two testers is a bit expensive, but basically confirmed our thoughts that we have lead paint in the under layers of paint. Means we will have to be a bit careful wen prep-ing our walls and trim-especially with sanding and removing chipping and flaking paint. And definitely NO heat treating!! (It was interesting some of the contestants on The Block were heat treating their windows to get the paint off...) Pink=lead. 

Pink

Very pink

The walls should be fine-although we have a bit of prep work to do, which means sanding back, we shouldn't remove enough paint to take it back to the lead. It's the trim where we have flaking, chipped paint.







I think we will probably go for Antique White USA. I think I have made my choice while writing this post-yay!!

Sunday 17 March 2013

oh so pretty wedding flowers


Between working out what we are going to do about painting, I've been trying to get some wedding stuff done. It's amazing how long everything can take-especially when we know pretty much exactly what we want.


Our wedding date August 31st this year-just over 5 months to go. All the big stuff is done, but now it's the nitty gritty. We are currently trying to sort out invitations and flowers.


These are some of my inspiration flowers-I know some won't be available in August, but hopefully the look can kind of be recreated!

source
source

peony and rose bouquet

source


wedding tables
Roses and lavender - perfect pew decorations


source
source

Lots of pretties! We are having a cocktail wedding, so will have little collections of flowers on the dry bars, coffee tables and along the back of the banquette seating. I think we will have some hanging flowers too. I recently changed my mind about the flowers, and decided to go colourful, rather than white with foliage, so it's changed a few things. Including our invitations...

Wednesday 13 March 2013

paint indecision

I have holidays coming up in a few weeks, and I'm going to start painting. Wish me luck. So far I can't even decide where to start!!

1) Painting the railings on the decks white (weather dependent).




2) Begin painting inside. Even there I have options. 

   a) downstairs to get rid of the awful green
   b) upstairs to get rid of the slightly sickly purple.








Both have big pros and cons though.
Downstairs is an absolutely MASSIVE area, with a few fiddly bits-the vjs, around the stairs, and some quite high bits around the stairs, but being fairly new the walls don't need any work done to them. They are smooth, so might be a good place to learn to paint. Also, we don't live down there at all, so it's not going to be in the way, there is no furniture to move. But we don't spend any time there, apart from walking through from the garage. So as awful as the colour is, it doesn't really affect our day to day life. 

Upstairs is also quite a big area-the lounge, dining and kitchen are all purple. The kitchen has vjs, but even if we paint them the tiles, laminate and some cupboards will still be purple. The most concerning part is that the walls and skirtings are in quite bad condition. Some dents, chips, swollen bits, and water stains. So a lot more prep work. 


Sometimes I'm decisive, sometimes I'm ridiculously indecisive. Don't even get me started on choosing a colour!!! 


Any great painting tips-other than getting someone else to do it!?!


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