this little house

This is me right now.

by Elise Posted on March 18, 2013

This last month has been completely chaotic.

We unexpectedly had to shift gears, literally dropping everything at home, to turn our attention to a little flat that we have rented out for a long time.

It’s cute and a fairly good size, it’s in a great location, but it’s also a bit tired and dated.
I was still on school holidays (one week left, sob!) so we attacked the flat with a whirlwind of energy and ambition. ( We couldn’t possibly have done it without the troops: mumma, scarlett, mark… We love you.)

After 3 weeks, it looks amazing but I am wrecked.

This was all planned and was fairly easy to achieve:

- painted all the walls (soft white)
- painted all the trim (gloss white)
- painted all the windows inside and out
- painted the front door (turquoise! Love it!)
- painted all the closets and wardrobes (gloss white)
- replaced the carpet in the 2 bedrooms
- scrubbed all the floors, windows and kitchen surfaces
- patched and painted an ugly brick wall outside

- turned the kitchen window into a servery to the back garden
- pruned, planted and mulched

Then we did this:

- demolished the wall tiles in the bathroom
- removed the vanity
- resurfaced the bath
- installed a new vanity
- installed new taps and towel rails
- installed new shower screen
- retiled the bathroom walls

This was unplanned. And a nightmare. But I love it! It’s a million times nicer than my own bathroom! And now I can add tiling to my list of skills!

We also did this:

- sourced a bed, arm chair, bedside tables, lamps, side tables, TV table, TV, and a desk chair for CHEAP on gumtree.com.au
- bought some el cheapo glass vases at the op shop and painted the insides
- begged and/or borrowed another bed, and a couch from parents
- found a desk (on the side of the road)

- found an outdoor metal table (on the side of the road) and painted it gloss white to become a dining table

- took my pillows, cushions, bedlinen, bedside tables, bedside lamps, candles, books, magazines, vases, faux flowers, forchids, framed art, towels, floor lamp, and dining chairs from my house to the flat. (my house is pretty much empty now.)

And now we wait…….

Posted in This Little House | Tagged bathroom, demolition, renovation | 1 Comment

Chk Chk BOOM

by Elise Posted on March 13, 2013

So…. I was harbouring ideas of destroying the carport.

Setting it on fire, taking a sledge hammer to it, whatever it took to get rid of the eyesore. And then of course, we would have to rebuild it.

Turns out after 4 years of putting up with hideous yellow and apricot, all it needed was a new coat of paint.

Before:

Progress:

The colour is actually a colorbond colour: “ironstone”. In some light it looks very dark grey, in other light it looks dark blue. It’s a great colour – and our front corrugated iron fence is the same colour, as are our other fences, and as is our shed. It’s all matching and beautiful!

Plus the windows are now clean white instead of a slightly dirty pale green and the fascias are now also ironstone instead of apricot. Phew!

Note to self: never ever wait 4 years to get rid of something ugly.
Do it immediately with a quicky paint job.

Proper photos coming soon, Internet People. Stay tuned!

Posted in This Little House | Tagged carport, demolition, DIY, renovation | Leave a comment

Besties

by Elise Posted on January 29, 2013

You know when babies see another baby?
And they both sit there, staring at each other in amazement, a glint of recognition in their eyes, as if to say, “Hey! I know you! You’re a baby too!”

Sometimes you meet someone and you instantly recognize that this person speaks your language.

And so you stare at each other in amazement, as if to say, “Hey you! You’re my kind of crazy!”

Posted in This Little House | Tagged friends | Leave a comment

‘no pain no gain’ is a lie.

by Elise Posted on January 25, 2013

Mum has two arm chairs and a round wooden table tucked into a corner of the dining room. It’s a cozy spot for a chat. On the table is piles of books and magazines, notes to self, a lamp, the dodgy old pair of backup reading glasses with only one arm left, and a little jar – a souvenir from hospital.

A PowerPort is the size of a thimble that they insert just under the skin on the chest, a little tube attached to the device is threaded into a vein that goes to the heart. This makes chemo a lot easier. Most chemo patients end up getting a port. It’s easy to insert and remove – its just a local anesthetic.

What I am furious about is that inserting the port doesn’t happen straight away: they wait until you can’t put up with the pain of the chemo IV drip anymore.

Why can’t this be offered immediately?
Why wait until the patient’s wrist is covered in bruises, and the veins in the wrist are “collapsed” because of the burn of the chemo???

Without a port, you turn up for chemo and get your wrist jabbed with the IV needle until they find a vein that will hold up. Sometimes it can take minutes.

With a port, they numb the skin and jab directly into the device. It takes less than a second.

No pain no gain?

Posted in The Big C / Cancer Sucks | Tagged cancer, chemo, mum, Pain | 1 Comment

New Carport, Please!

by Elise Posted on January 17, 2013

My brother has cruelly been spreading the rumour that I chose to paint our carport hideous banana yellow!

What’s worse? Some people (*ahem* Emily) actually believed him.

In fact the carport is mainly banana yellow, but one side of it is painted apricot.

Avert your colour-sensitive eyes People! You’ve been warned – here’s a visual:

Sorry about the bad quality photo… They were taken way back in 2009.

Yes. For 4 years we have had a banana and apricot carport which welcomes our guests like a beacon. Makes it a lot easier for people to find us, so I suppose that’s a plus.

I don’t know why anyone would make the decision to pair those two equally foul colours, but when you consider the other colour choices around the house, it becomes less surprising.

No less horrifying, but less surprising.

I have been dreaming of the day that we would a) set fire to the carport or b) replace it.

While Option A more accurately responds to how I feel about our eyesore, Option B is more sane.

So I have been trawling Pinterest, and taking the “scenic route” home from anywhere to get some ideas. (If you see me and darling husband slowly driving down your street taking photos, please don’t be alarmed.)

Here’s what we’ve come up with so far:

Oops, sorry that last one makes me feel a bit seasick… I was taking these on my iPhone out the car window…

And this one is from the www.realestate.com.au home ideas page – so pretty!

So that’s where we’re up to in the great carport ~~explosion~~ replacement plan.

I’ll keep you posted, Internet People.

Posted in This Little House | Tagged carport, demolition, DIY, renovation | 2 Comments

Chalkboard inspiration

by Elise Posted on January 4, 2013

I have been collecting images of gorgeous kitchens for a long time.

As soon as I see something I like, I pin it without analyzing why… which has really helped me define what it is that I am continually drawn to (clean white kitchens with floor to ceiling cabinetry).

Lately though, I have been drawn to black walls/chalkboard paint as a really nice counterpoint for lots of glossy clean white.

These are from my kitchen inspiration board:

It’s one thing to live vicariously through Pinterest – collecting pictures of chalkboards you like – and quite another thing to bite the bullet and actually follow through on a project.

Let me tell you – chalk board paint is a nightmare to work with: It’s like trying to paint with honey.

But I am proud to say that I am not all talk and no action – this is my chalkboard wall in the kitchen!

Before:

Progress:

After:

I initially thought I would add upper and lower cabinets to this little nook to create some proper wine storage underneath, plus create an iPhone dock/charging station/stuff collection area like this one I found at houzz :

But I really love the blackness of the wall!

Here’s another visual: it’s a small section of wall tucked beside the pantry cupboards.

What should I do???

Posted in This Little House | Tagged DIY, ideas, kitchen, renovation | 1 Comment

by Elise Posted on December 28, 2012

If you live under a rock, you may have an excuse for not knowing what Pinterest is. Maybe.

If you cast your eyes a couple centimeters to the right, you will see 4 little pictures. And a squirly P.
If you click on it, it will take you post haste to Pinterest.

But be warned. Pinterest will eat you alive.

You will be bleary eyed, exhausted and barely able to recognize the pretty, pretty pictures in front of you, but you will also be frantically, excitedly and obsessively pinning them all. For hours.

Here are some of my favorite pins that perfectly express the joys and terrors that is the most glorious of all the internets – Pinterest.

Posted in This Little House | Tagged DIY, inspiration, Pinterest, renovation | Leave a comment

St Ali’s

by Elise Posted on December 18, 2012

Another hipster café in Melbourne. I went with mum and Stefan on his recommendation: I think he likes to think he’s a regular. (Admittedly, I will be telling everyone I know, and probably a few random strangers too.)

It is so, so ridiculously cool.

In case you can’t tell the difference between St Ali’s (cool) and Michel’s Patisserie (not), I’ve generously compiled a checklist so next time you are out for brunch you can casually whip it out and check your coolness factor, ok?

(Although I’m pretty sure brunch is not. Also, not sure if your brunch date should be your mum. I’m starting to think checklists might be out, too.)

The Definitive Guide to Checking the Street Cred and Coolness of a Melbourne Café:

1. An obscure location and/or signage:

St Ali’s has no sign.
It is located in an alley.
If the roller door was down, there would be no evidence of a café anywhere.

2. Industrial interiors:

See above: Roller door.
In fact, to get to the roller door, one must first side-step a dumpster.
Add in some exposed steel beams, chains, concrete floors, chipboard walls and giant vintage posters, mismatched chairs and chunky timber tables.

3. Your mum doesn’t like it:

- I’m scared!
- Is that because we parked in an alley?
- Yes!
- And because of the graffiti?
- There’s graffiti! It’s too modern! Let’s get out of here quick!

4. Great food:

I can’t remember the name of what I had, but it was slow cooked eggs (??!!?!!) with cauliflower purée and toasty bread. Stefan had some kind of burger arrangement.

Delicious.

I had real trouble deciding what to order – the excellent wait staff were happy to explain dishes and give me plenty of time to mull it over.

(I’m such a hopeless foodie I also forget my second choice – some kind of incredible sounding salad – if you go, try it for me.)

5. Proper coffee menu:

They roast on site. ‘nuf said.

A winning combination, no? Unlike my photography skills. Here’s a woefully blurry visual:

Posted in This Coffee / This Spot | Tagged coffee, South Melbourne, St Ali | Leave a comment

Renovation realities… or possibly denial

by Elise Posted on December 16, 2012

There are some definite pros and cons to renovating. And they are all obvious to anyone who has ever renovated a house, or has seen a renovation show on TV, or has experience living in a house, or has a brain.

The budget.
On the one hand, you may find a bargain…
On the other hand you might trust the wrong person *ahem* *me* to take measurements and end up having to redo/tweak/customize. Which takes time. Which costs money.

The time line.
Luckily we didn’t have a deadline, but tradies can be hard to pin down. They may not necessarily start when they say they will (although ours did) and they almost certainly won’t finish the job when they say they will. In our experience everything takes at least 50% longer than what is quoted. If they say 2 weeks, expect at least 3.
If you are the DIY type, then your deadline will be even more unlikely. While we paid people do to the things we weren’t comfortable doing ourselves, the other jobs – demolition, plastering, painting, cornices, lighting, shelving, splashbacks – we have decided to tackle ourselves. All of those things are still 50% started and 0% finished.

The chaos.
Renovating laughs in the face of organization. Tidying up, or in fact any kind of cleaning becomes pointless when a cloud of plaster dust hangs in the air waiting to attack every surface and item in range. Not to mention saw dust, bits of wood, bits of plaster, old nails, ladders, tools, and a light layer of general dirt and debris all over the floor.
It is somewhat liberating for someone with definite OCD tendencies (colour-coded clothes, files, etc) to be able to blame the mess on a renovation, rather than my slovenly self!

Posted in This Little House | Tagged kitchen, renovation | Leave a comment

Chicken Holiday

by Elise Posted on November 8, 2012

Nuggie, Schnitzel and Scrappy lived in the back yard.

They had a good life.

Plenty of fresh grass to nibble, plenty of fresh veggies to nibble…

And plenty of deck to poop on.

I cannot begin to describe the amount of poop on the deck: even though they had vast swathes of delicious lawn and a smorgasbord of veggies, they chose to huddle together at the back door.

Watching us.

And pooping.

So we erected a little fence. A tiny fence.

It effectively kept the chooks off the deck for about 3 days until Nuggie and Schnitz discovered they could hop over. Poor little Scrappy never made the leap. (An awful pun, I’m sorry. That wasn’t punny.)

It did slow them down a bit, so the pooping was minimized a bit.

But the veggies were still copping it: I tried an army of upended beer bottles to protect my little seedlings.

Ultimately though it was time for a change of scenery for the girls: mum suggested a chicken holiday in the front yard.

The coop has two doors: one leading to the backyard, one opening down the side of the house to the front yard.

So simple, it’s perfect!

We closed one, opened the other, and presto!
Chickens in the front yard, the deck is pristine, the veggies are flourishing…

And presto!
The neighbour comes to ask if I’ve lost a chook, as one has toddled down our busy main road to graze in her garden!

Don’t worry. We have erected a hideous but effective fencing arrangement: orange safety mesh wrapped around our hideous yellow carport.

So now the girls stand on the lounge room windowsill watching us, and pooping.

Posted in This Little House | Tagged chickens, deck, garden, lawn mowers, poop | Leave a comment

This is me right now.

Chk Chk BOOM

Besties

‘no pain no gain’ is a lie.

New Carport, Please!

Chalkboard inspiration

Pinterest

St Ali’s

Renovation realities… or possibly denial

Chicken Holiday

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