DIY lace bunting

Remember how I posted about about facing my sewing fears, and sewing lengths of lace bunting for reception decorations?
Here is a visual reminder:

The more I looked at it, the more I realised I wasn't entirely happy with how the ribbon was hanging-it kind of puckered a bit, and just didn't hang quite as well as I had hoped. What to do, what to do?

I unpicked it all, and started again! This time I researched it a bit more, and discovered biased binding was more appropriate. 18 meters of unpicking.... 

But.... it looked fantastic on the night, and I was much happier with it! You may even catch a back view of the bride... (excude the blurring of the faces...)

just adoorable....

This was my last weekend of holidays. My last holidays before the wedding. I had the house to myself. Originally I planned to pretty much relax, go for a walk or two, do some yoga and some school work to get ready for the term. Then on Thursday afternoon I decided to go to two shops to buy supplies for not one, but two entirely separate projects.
Remember these cupboard doors in the spare room? We had matching (but bigger) ones in our bedroom. We always hated them, and planned to paint them, but just never quite got around to it.

Before-boring, matt chipboard

Now look at them! White paint is magic!

After!

Bright and glossy!

It ended up being a bit harder than I thought. I planned on having all four doors in the garage, and do them all at once. I took the two spare room doors off and carried them downstairs to the garage. I took one of the ones from our bedroom off, and realised two things.
One-Being taller and wider it was a lot heavier-I couldn't actually carry it by myself.
Two-Even had I been able to carry it, it was too tall to fit through the doors, and I don't think I would have been able to negotiate the corners and furniture.

I ended up having to do the doors in our bedroom one at time, in the bedroom, on saw horses, which wasn't ideal, and added quite a bit of time to the project because once I finished the other three doors, I still had one to go.

My working environment!

I lightly sanded with 180 grit, vacuumed the doors, and then washed them down. Then 2 coats of the sealer/primer-quite a bit of the colour was showing through after 1 coat, and I was afraid they might bleed through.

I was getting pretty worried while priming the last door. They were just sucking in the primer on the first coat, I wasn't sure I would make it! I was literally scraping the last of the primer out of the tin. 

I am so happy with how they look-they really make the rooms so much brighter, reflecting light around. I can't believe we left it so long. L was pretty impressed with me too! 

I did another project over the weekend too, stay tuned!

little jobs

School holidays-I love you! I have spent the first week exercising, eating well, catching up on sleep, reading and TV shows (ohmygod-Mad Men!!!). I've also been checking off a heap of little wedding jobs, and decluttering and reorganising like a mad woman!

Our hall table arrived! Initially we freaked out, and thought it was too big, but a little styling and getting used to it fixed that. This is only temporary styling-we are going to hang a big mirror on the wall to reflect more light in to the lounge room. It has lots of my favourite things-a small bone box from Turkey, filled with all of our random overseas coins. Two of our travel photo books-one from our year living in London, and one from our Turkey and Egypt trips. My favourite, limited edition Versailles Glasshouse candle. I use it sparingly! I also thought it was a nice place from some inspirational and happy quotes I picked up from Kikki K. I've had words with L that it is to stay pretty, and not be a dump ground. Hopefully it being nice now will mean that it can stay that way. 

It's such beautiful wood-Tasmanian Blackwood

You can see how narrow our hallway is

Our bookcase in the dining room was overflowing, so I pulled it out and started again. I'm not sure if I like the colour-coding or not. But it looks less like books shoved in. I find it hard to make a bookcase look nice with lots of books-and I am a reader, and a book lover-no ipad reading for me! Bad blogger didn't get a before-but here is a cropped shot from a few months ago-add in about 20 more books piled in there.

This photo is about a year old-that's our stove before it was installed!

And now

My vent for the week is at gumtree. I've been looking for some wooden bedside tables. We have gone without for a year, and I am sick of reading with a headlamp at night. I figure I'll get something cheap, paint them, and when we get around to getting good ones I will just re-purpose them to the spare room. I found some good ones the other day, good price. I texted the seller asking questions-INCLUDING are they wood, or a veneer over chipboard. The reply came-wood. I drove for 25 minutes to go pick them up, and while the front was wood, the sides were bulging chipboard, that was dropping flakes everywhere) covered with a laminate veneer. So I drove another half an hour back, minus the bedsides. FRUSTRATING. Vent over.

I have linen press and bathroom storage to go and deal with!

We also sent off our invitations! I love them! Here they are-a good friend made them for us, and we had them printed. They are printed on a linen paper, apart from the post card, which needed a heavier cardstock. 

Are you decluttering? I find winter is good for it-you stay home, and want to feel nice in your home!

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?