A Little Bit of Decorating

A Little Bit of Decorating

O.k. so I am officially the worst blogger in the world. So please excuse my lack of posts.

We have part way completed decorating a few rooms to we want them to look like but some still remain frustratingly incomplete, my search for the perfect lounge suite is still ongoing and even the two feature chairs we recently purchased may still end up in the bedroom (who knows) because I feel they need to be patterned, but I thought I would at least post a few pockets of what we have done so far.

It hasn’t been as easy a process as I first thought as I am trying to give it a lived in feel by using both new and old pieces. Wall art seems to be my downfall as the wall spaces to fill are so large I am still pondering what to do with some so any suggestions would be great 🙂

I will post what I have so far, let me know what you think xx

downstairs ensuite

Downstairs Ensuite

living room close up 2 (450x800)

Great Room Close Up

ladder bookcase (450x800)

Ladder Bookcase in the Great Room

living room toward stairs (450x800)

Great Room Looking Toward the Stairs

upstairs living (771x800)

Upstairs Living Area. The view of the ocean isn’t visible due to the glare (and my rubbish photography)

upstairs living dining (450x800)

Upstairs Dining

upstairs view 2 (450x800)

A peek of the ocean in the distance from upstairs living area.

upstairs hall table (433x800)

Upstairs Hall Table

Bits and Pieces

It has been ages since I posted and I think I officially have the title of worlds worst blogger! but I will try and be a little bit more consistent with the posts ( I know I say that every month or so).

Everything from now is the fun stuff, all the decorating and bits and pieces but there is still sooo much to go as far as the interior, so I will post a couple of pics of what I have done so far but some are not total rooms as we have ordered furniture and are waiting on some new pieces to finish off the main living area.

On a rather exciting note, we had some professional photos taken of our Kitchen and laundry and these are being published this month in Country Home Ideas magazine! Its nice to think that it was nice enough to end up in a magazine as there were times that I doubted my design choices. Let me know what you think….

Kitchen, finished design

Kitchen, finished design with Ikea bar stools and Otava pendants

kitchen island baskets Byholma from Ikea

Kitchen island baskets Byholma from Ikea

Butler sink, dishwasher in island end opposite

Butler sink, dishwasher in island end opposite

Byholma baskets from Ikea

Byholma baskets from Ikea

Laundry sink - Ikea

Laundry sink – Ikea

Finished Laundry

Finished Laundry

Kitchen Buffet - clock from Freedom furniture

Kitchen Buffet – clock from Freedom furniture

Stairwell picture gallery, hall table - Hemnes by Ikea

Stairwell picture gallery, hall table – Hemnes by Ikea

Fireplace - gas Rinnai sapphire

Fireplace – gas Rinnai sapphire

Finished Facade

This is a bit of a slack post seeing as there is only one photo but I have been meaning to post it since we put the mulch down.
I will post more internal photos over the next week or so as we have finally finished off a lot if rooms. Still so much to do though..

Hampton's style house facade finished

Hampton’s style house facade finished

Finished but a lot left to do.

Well it was one final push the week before Christmas to get in but we made it!

There is still heaps to do from a decorating perspective but the main bones are all done, the following are some recent pics of the kitchen and a few other shots, please excuse the lack of other bathroom shots as we have some people staying with us at the moment.

We do need to get some new furniture pieces but  I don’t want to rush in and regret buying something so we are doing it bit by bit.

Kitchen with shaker style cabinets. Pendant lights from Ikea.

Kitchen with shaker style cabinets. Pendant lights from Ikea.

Completed Kitchen

Completed Kitchen

Finished facade.

Finished facade. We hope it is a little bit Hamptons and a little bit beach house.

Finished laundry

Finished laundry

laundry shelving

Laundry shelving, splash back white subway tiles.

Finished ensuite with wainscoting to wall. Mirrors hemnes white from Ikea.

Finished ensuite with wainscoting to wall. Mirrors hemnes white from Ikea.

stairwell

Stairwell, crying out for photos.

 

Bathrooms

These are the bathrooms so far, excuse the lack of mirrors, they are going up this week. We also have turf (yay no more sand) the majority of the bathroom photos are the ensuite, the wall panelling is finally done, the grey colour of the walls is Dulux Dieskau in both bathrooms.

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Moving….finally!

O.k I am officially the slackest blogger on the planet it has been so long since my last post.
We are now just in the early stages of moving so there will be better photos to follow once we are in there.

So much has happened in the last few months, our much anticipated timber floor which was a roasted peat was faulty and far too brittle therefore a new floor had to be laid over the top and we had to compromise on what the final product was, we settled on American white oak in a water based finish. Needless to say this was a huge source of stress for us both.

Our Kitchen and other cabinets also had issues and had to be revisited a number of times, but finally all seems o.k. now (I’ve probably just jinxed myself by saying that) and we are moving things in bit by bit while we are getting our current house ready for sale (pass the wine) so hopefully by the 16th of December when our removalist is booked for it will finally be at an end and the fun decorating part can start.

Below are just some photos of the last couple of months, I promise there will be more very soon.

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Great room so far…

kitchen window and sink

kitchen window and sink

 

Over bench lights from Ikea

Over bench lights from Ikea

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Appliance cupboard

Dishwasher at end of island

Dishwasher at end of island

Theatre room colour Dulux Namadji

Theatre room colour Dulux Namadji

laundry tiling and cabinets

laundry tiling and cabinets

laundry integrated washing machine and dryer

laundry integrated washing machine and dryer

Stair case painting being finalised

Stair case painting being finalised

 

2nd Bedroom roman blind

2nd Bedroom roman blind

Bedroom roman blinds

Bedroom roman blinds

Cabinets and Tiling

It has been fairly manic of late at the house with trades everywhere inside.

We have had tiling happening and also cabinetry going in. The cabinets were full on, the cabinet maker was there from 7am till well after dark trying to get the majority of the cabinets in in one day which was a huge task so the photos that are below of that preliminary install, there is a lot left still be done, with the stone bench tops being templated today. The shade of white we chose for the kitchen is Dulux vivid white.

preliminary kitchen cabinets shaker profile

preliminary kitchen cabinets shaker profile

kitchen cabinets shaker profile

kitchen cabinets shaker profile

ensuite cabinet

Ensuite cabinet

Laundry cabinets

Laundry cabinets

Laundry cabinets corner view

Laundry cabinets corner view

The tilers have been great and haven’t complained once about the amount of brick bond patterns I wanted on the walls of the bathrooms. The have done a brilliant job so far but there is still a fair bit to doing in the way of splashbacks but now we have to wait on the stone which will be a couple of weeks.

Guest ensuite cabinet in Dulux flooded gum half strength

Guest ensuite cabinet in Dulux flooded gum half strength

ensuite shower tiling subway tiles on wall

ensuite shower tiling subway tiles on wall

upstairs bathroom tiling progress

upstairs bathroom tiling progress

The staircase is being started tomorrow, we have opted for a white timber one with just plain square profiles, we hope it will look similar to the one below. The carpenter specializes in restoration work so we are confident it will look brilliant.

wooden_stairs

 

The garage doors were installed and I must admit I had a moment of thinking that they were too beige (being surfmist) but that is the closest to white available. I think what highlights it more is the fact that we are edging the doors in Dulux white on white so it tends to highlight the difference, but I’m hoping that once its all properly painted it will blend in better.

garage doors in surfmist

garage doors in surfmist

scaffolding removed in great room

scaffolding removed in great room

view through to dining room ( with lots of tiles in the way)

view through to dining room ( with lots of tiles in the way)

I wish I could say it’s all smooth sailing at the moment but it’s actually the opposite, at this point in time every delay has a major impact on other trades that follow and there have been a few tense moments (that’s an understatement) on site when different trades are getting under each others feet. I tried to think back to the last couple of times we built with a project builder to see if it was any less stressful getting a someone else build  but it wasn’t. There is still compromise after compromise at this stage because the reality is not everything works how it should and you have to just suck it up.

Floorboards are starting next week, we are having roasted peat which has a lot of dark chocolate tones (see pic below) so I will post some more interesting pictures once it goes down and bench tops go on 🙂

Roasted Peat timber flooring

Roasted Peat timber flooring

Paint Colour and Progress

Latest exterior

Latest exterior photo

It has been a while since my last post. Things are at the pointy end now and we have started on painting the void areas before the scaffolding was dropped in these areas. The main wall colour we have chosen is British paints Stone Path, the photos are not a good representation of it, its a nice grey/beige.

The exterior is taking shape now the porch roofing has been completed but there are still quite a few details to be finished off on the outside. The tiling starts on Monday, that’s a bit exciting and I guess when it all starts looking more complete. This is also the stressful part where you wonder if all the selection you have made are going to end up looking like they do in your head.

The cabinets are now in production and are due for install at the end of the month, its hard to believe that by the end of this month it will be finished to that extent. The amount of overlapping/organising of the different finishes at this stage is immense, already the install of the timber flooring  has delayed the island bench install as we need it to sit on top of the timber as it has a skirting board around it and we wanted to do away with beading around the base of the cabinets. As with other trades once one thing is delayed it has a knock on effect on everything else. This is the part you wish would run smoothly but never does, needless to say wine consumption in our house in the evening has gone up to cope with the stress.

The end is in sight though now. The next post I will show you the finishes we have chosen.

View looking down to to the great room

View looking down to to the great room chimney breast

Round void window

Round void window

temp balustrauding around void

temp balustrading around void

Ready for garage doors

Ready for garage doors

 

Painting and Plaster Progress

It is now part way through June and we are hoping for a September move in date. Things have been powering on and we have had that many people on site its hard to find a parking spot most days.

We have had a team of plasterers for the last week putting up gyprock and starting on the cornicing upstairs. We had some quotes on rendering and white skim coating the interior but surprisingly it was cheaper to gyprock and tape the entire interior rather than plaster, this also worked out better in the two storey height great room as we could use really large sheets of gyprock across the upper  slab which would do away with putting a stringer around the join to disguise cracking around the slab line that usually occurs in plastered interiors.

The cornice we chose was CSR Concerto, we had a moment this morning of google-ing pictures of it to double check which way it was to be installed as this one can be used either way, in the end we chose based on what looked better holding it to the ceiling and we are happy with it.

We have had our cabinets check measured on site, I’ve lost sleep over the design of the kitchen so I hope it looks as good in reality as what I envision it to look like. At this stage the cabinetry will be ready by the end of July.

Josh from Talbot Le Page Design continues to be our go to man for trades, his help has been invaluable on this build and I doubt we would have kept things moving so fast without his help.

The R9WA guys are still going hard finishing off the windows, which thanks to the millions of cross bars that need to be applied are proving a time consuming  job, these Hampton style windows are a lot of work but look brilliant, the guys are doing a brilliant job.

The build is changing daily so I will post more photos of the progress soon.

Exterior progress

Exterior progress

Exterior

Exterior

Weatherboard in Dulux Flooded Gum half and window detail

Weatherboard in Dulux Flooded Gum half and window detail

Interior plaster upstairs sitting room

Interior plaster upstairs sitting room

Cornice plastering detail - Concerto

Cornice plastering detail – Concerto

Plastering completed upstairs

Plastering completed upstairs

Chimney breast plastering

Chimney breast plastering

Master bedroom plasterwork

Master bedroom plasterwork

Blue board moisture resistant gyprock in ensuite

Blue board moisture resistant gyprock in ensuite

Backyard view of office window

Backyard view of office window

Backyard view facing Great room upstairs windows

Backyard view facing Great room upstairs windows

View from backyard of Upstairs sitting room bifold windows

View from backyard of Upstairs sitting room bifold windows

 

External Colour Scheme

We have finally decided on our external colour scheme for the house.
This was not an easy task and one that we were still debating right up until the night before the roof colorbond had to be ordered.

For ages now the house has been (and still is) littered with paint swatches and computer print outs of houses in various colour schemes stuck on the fridge. We finally decided to go with a dark colorbond roof in monument in a trim deck profile as opposed to the usual corrugated profile.

trim deck profile

trim deck profile

colorbond monument

colorbond monument

American colorbond profile

American colorbond profile

That sorted we knew we still wanted white gutters, window surrounds and garage doors. You would think that white would be pretty simple colour to find in gutters and garage doors, WRONG, unfortunately the closest colour to white that colorbond makes is Surfmist which is not white but a very light beige colour. Admittedly it does look white in the sunlight but you would think that with the squillions of dollars a year that colourbond makes they could produce a basic white. The reason for them not doing this is not clear to me, maybe all whites discolour over time, I’m not sure, but again I refer to the squillions they make and wonder why they cant come up with a UV stabilized white. :/ So we had to go with surfmist for the guttering and hopefully the slight difference wont be noticeable. Anyway rant over about surfmist.

Colorbond Surfmist

The second dilemma was the weatherboard colour, after many failed attempts to convince my husband that there is a colour referred to as ‘greige’ which is a warm toned grey we finally decided on Dulux Flooded Gum at 50% strength which we think will look brilliant with the dark roof and white trim around the windows (we hope) below are a couple of pics of schemes that we like.

Dulux Flooded Gum and half strength Flooded Gum

Dulux Flooded Gum and half strength Flooded Gum

Light grey weatherboard

Light grey weatherboard

Greige exterior Colour Scheme

Greige exterior Colour Scheme

Grey weatherboard Hamptons style house

Grey weatherboard Hamptons style house