So for Mother's Day I got a .... HOUSE!

On Saturday, it was a year to the day (day before Mother's Day!) that we moved back to the coast from Sydney. The day before, we exchanged contracts on our new house. The house? The very first house we considered buying when we decided to move back. In a nice tidy roundabout, we spent a year searching for a home and ended up buying the first one we (kind of) looked at. Sounds like a nice waste of year, really, doesn't it? Not quite...

Our new (oldish) kitchen. It will eventually be replaced, but until then, I'll probably look to paint the cabinets a dark colour and maybe do something with the benchtop... The house has three bedrooms, one bath with a loo in the laundry (ugh), a weird little corridor room that leads out to the back patio (through that glass door, above), awful fluro lights, bad aluminium windows, highish ceilings, a water view and a large cabin with living room, bedroom, kitchenette, bathroom and laundry. So whatever we do to the main house, we'll have a "spare" utility in the backyard. Yay!

When we decided we wanted to move back, we were pretty determined to buy a waterfront property. They were so darn affordable compared to Sydney prices. In the area we were living in North Sydney, we might have got a not-so-great two-bedroom unit. For around the same price, we could have got a not-so-great two-bedroom waterfront shack. I know what I'd have preferred... So I moved into realestate.com.au (not even kidding - I should have shares in that site. I could account for a large percentage of daily hits all by myself) and searched. There wasn't much - just one house that we'd seen on the market a while back, but it seemed to have disappeared. Then I found our house - a three bedroom fibro shack a street back from the water. It had a bit of a view from the living room and access to the waterways a couple of houses along. It was way under our budget and we decided that our lifestyle would be no different if we lived there than if we lived in a waterfront property - except we'd have a much smaller mortgage and less stress of the "what ifs". A few weeks later we headed up to look at some other properties and it had disappeared from the market. We ended up renting and when the time came to start looking properly again, I called the agent to find out what happened to the house - I never found any sale data and she said the owners decided to wait and sell in a better market (which, mind you, is NOW. Houses are being snapped up around here within days of being on the market). She said they were still keen to sell but wanted a particular price. Having not seen it - and with tenants in the house making a quick inspection out of the question - we decided we couldn't agree to a price beforehand and so just let it be. A few months later, it was back on the market. In the meantime we were in talks with a former neighbour about buying their house, but when he said he was going to wait a while longer, we went to the inspection. Afterwards, Steve made an offer a little under the "offers over" price and a week worth of major stress later, we're just awaiting settlement in a few weeks. So our plans to stretch ourselves and mortgage to the hilt were replaced with a much better plan - tiny mortgage, great reno, awesome lifestyle, hopefully mortgage-free in a single-digit years and another happy home. 

It has been 10 years since we bought a house and while this is the third time we've been through it, I pretty much had no idea what I was doing again. A big bundle of nerves comparing, applying and waiting for final finance approval, negotiating contract stuff and dealing with various real estate agents about a million other different things... I have managed to lose about 5 kilos this past week. I also had 42 phone conversations in one day - I counted! How is something that happens every single day so friggin' stressful and painful? That said, I can happily recommend Bankwest - we ended up going with them after doing a lot of comparing and from the very first phone call, the guy I randomly got paired up with was brilliant. He organised everything so quickly and effectively - we were unconditionally approved in three days (would have been two but I had to resend something) and managed to set up our mortgage beyond the first "deal". 

And now just when I should be breathing again, we have more stresses. The house we're renting sold (in two days!) and we were given our 30 day notice on Wednesday. Today, the tenants in our house were given their notice. That is a week later. If they can't find something in the next few weeks and move out, letting us settle early and move in before the new owners of the house we're renting settle and move into their house, then we'll be homeless for a few weeks. YAY! How's that for confusing?! Anyway, I'm going to give myself a few more days before I go back to panicking about that kind of thing. 

And I'm going to spend those few days daydreaming about how we'll transform our fibro worst-house-in-the-best-street into something fab. It'll never be the best house in the best street when the houses across the road are million-dollar properties. But that's fine - it's just got to be the best we can make it for us. To quote Dana from House*Tweaking - "it's not the house of our dreams, but it's the house in which we'll pursue our dreams." I loved that line the first time I read it and can relate so much. And heck, if we pursue our dreams to the letter, then it might just end up being the house of our dreams as well!

I'm looking forward to getting into it - apparently I like living in rubble! But it's going to be fun - I'll share some more pics and ideas later and you will be SICK of hearing about renovations, I'm sure, but I plan to document it all right here. You have been warned :)

x

bad things happen in 3s...

Oh yes they do. Good things do too, but let's start with the bad.

Last day of school term: the day started well with a Wet and Wild day at Zak's school where they kids got wet on a watery obstacle course and were showered by the local fire brigade and end with not-so-great house news.

Bad thing 1: Last day of the school term (not officially a bad thing, though some days I might claim that!) we received notice that the owners of the house we're renting are putting it on the market in two weeks. We were given the first opportunity to buy it, but politely turned them down (not really what we're after despite all the floorplans of potential extensions and room rearrangements I made just for fun). So that means that if it sells straight away - and given the ridiculously quick sales around here lately, I'd say it will - we'll have around six to seven weeks before we need to be outta here. And with barely any rentals around to actually rent and still no house to buy, I was a little panicked by this news. To be honest, though, I was much more panicked about keeping the house constantly neat and tidy for regular inspections! After getting over the original "oh crap", I figured I'd have a good week or so to thoroughly clean, cull and get it ready like the very nice tenants that we are. But then...

Not since 24 first came out (and I only liked the first series) have I fallen hard for a TV show. Totally obsessed with Game of Thrones - it made (my first) sick day bearable! 

Bad thing 2: I got sick. I never get sick - well, of course I get the odd cold and sniffle and cough - but this was lay-on-the-couch-and-do-nothing kinda sick. Which was fine for that first Monday when my mother-in-law had the kids for the day. I actually kind of enjoyed having that sick day. But then I got worse and I was sleeping as much as the kids would allow it during the day and at night and was all weak and gross and couldn't do anything or go anywhere...  My poor kids have had THE most boring holiday ever. Bless them - they've been so great considering we haven't done a darn thing. Our trip to Canberra to stay with my parents was cancelled, we missed out on my nephew's first birthday, we couldn't have our playdate at the park with our friends and my plans to do fun, adventurous things these holidays went poof pretty quickly. Probably around the same time teeny tiny ninjas had a sword fight in my throat and made it so very, very sore. And then just before I lost my voice, I lost something else...

Out with the old... how the blog used to look.

Bad thing 3: Bye bye blog. Yep, during Wordpress' major bot attack, my blog was majorly affected (or it was noticed that it'd been hackked) and it went bye byes. Everything was compromised - the back-ups I had were also dodgy so while on my deathbed (!) and panicking about everything else I had to do and how many other people and websites my brother-in-law hosted that were no doubt stabbing Belinda Graham-shaped voodoo dolls, I just made the call to can Wordpress and start over on Blogger. I like Blogger much more than Wordpress - not really sure why I bothered to swap in the first place. I kind of understand Blogger and don't feel like a moron when I play around with the behind-the-scenes like I did on Wordpress. But because the backups couldn't be imported (and were too bloody big to convert and import anyway), I will be manually transferring the words and images over here from cached pages. Oh yes, it's going to a L.O.N.G and painful process. And because all those thousands of pins on Pinterest that have been pinned and repinned are going to go NOWHERE, I thought I'd better start with a few of the popular posts so at least they can be found on the homepage. Even that has been incredibly painful. So I think I'm going to edit the original blog way down to just the best stuff and things I want to keep a record of - so probably mostly tutorials, pics of my home, kids parties etc. I'll likely leave off a few of those posts that I kind of just threw together to get something up, but it's still going to take forever to do, so bear with me please! If there is a tutorial/info/post/pics you desperately want to see ASAP, let me know in the comments and I'll prioritise!

And just when I assumed the bad 3 things were going to start all over again - the week had that ominous feel about it -miraculously, a few good things came instead.

New look: clean and simple

Good thing 1: I gave the blog a makeover. Seeing as I was starting over, I took the opportunity to give the blog a fresher look. It had been the same for four long years and while I liked the design at the beginning, in the end I couldn't stand looking at it like that anymore. But of course wordpress and I didn't get along and I just couldn't make it work, so gave up trying, figuring I'd eventually get someone to do it for me. That never happened. Instead I played around with some fonts and photoshop and came up with this. I'm going to miss Photoshop when the trial expires (I can't justify that price. Maybe I'll get Elements again one day). I'm no graphic designer, but I'm happy enough with it for now. Also, let me tell you how smarty pants I felt being able to put the social media icons in a row like that all by myself. I may have high-fived myself. All I wanted was a clean, minimal design. I don't need tricky widgets and weird layouts on my blog. I couldn't care less about the bells and whistles that you can have with Wordpress. I just wanted something simple and (hopefully) nice looking. So this is what I came up with. Oh I have things to add - my blog links aren't there yet, I still have some other things to add like contact deets etc, but I'll get there eventually. One thing that has also disappeared is all my email subscribers. So if you had subscribed by email, you're going to have to do it again if you want to continue receiving alerts (you can enter your address at bottom of the sidebar). Otherwise you can click on the RSS button under my smiling head to add it to your reader.

Good thing 2: I received a lot of lovely words, advice, help and so-sweet support after whinging about it all on social media. Thank you for being so lovely - made me feel all warm and fuzzy to have such lovely readers. And nice to know I actually still have readers - I may have had a day or two where I thought "why bother continuing? No one will car!e". You know those silly down times you get... So thank you so much! I also physically feel better - I finally went to the doctors on Tuesday and have been shoving antibiotics down my still-sore throat. I felt a bit human today - whoo hoo!

Good thing 3: We may - may - have some news on a house soon. Steve hates it when I say cross fingers and toes and eyes, so instead I'd ask you to all send some positive thoughts our way. I'll share more when I can regardless of the outcome...

Thank you all again - hopefully the blog will run smoothly from here on! x

crafty decorating: painted cork-tile pinboard

My poor desk has been sitting there covered in papers and bills (ugh) for way too long. It needed something to make it look a little bit more inspirational than it did so I would actually want to sit there and work. And now, I think it does! I wasn’t going to do a moodboard and I’m still not sure if I’ll bother with the typical magazine tear-sheet moodboard – because I hate ripping up my magazines! And I have no time and patience to do the photo thing I wanted to do – maybe somewhere else another time. So for now, it was a graphic pinboard of some kind for a few pictures, cards, photos and other bits and bobs I feel like hanging/dangling/pinning on it. I was thinking of stencilling something, but then I realised I keep doodling this diamond-ish pattern so I decided to translate it in giant-scale on some cork tiles.

Oh look! More handmade touches – I made this cushion out of two napkins, the twine hanger was made with dowel and thin wire, the lamp is an Ikea Tertial spraypainted blue, the garland is another one I made from scrap papers and a half-inch circle punch. Rainbow and sticker art by Layla, dinosaurs by Zak. He is such an awesome drawer.

What I love about this simple pattern and duplicate tiles is that i can change it up – the same tiles can be rearranged to be a chevron pattern or diagonal stripe. I also left space on either side to add to the tiles if I want to later on. They’re simply stuck up with 3M Command Picture Hanging Strips* which are easily removable from the walls (thank goodness as I’m renting!) but also meant that if I DO rearrange, it’s as simple as pulling the tiles off, and pressing them back in as they’ll just click into place. Awesome. If you’re keen to DIY, I of course took some pics of the process. Why not make the project process even more drawn-out?! Ha! Here’s how.

You’ll need:

Cork tiles – mine are from Bunnings, $13-odd for packet of 6. They’re floor tiles so quite thick and hardy. 

Painter’s tape

White paint

3M Command Picture Hanging Strips – I used 4 small velcro-style strips per cork tile

A paintbrush 

Also helpful: a ruler and pencil

Step 1: The easiest way to do this corner angle is to measure the same distance from the corner on both sides, mark and then line up the tape to the markings. I couldn’t find a ruler – of course – so used the 3M tape itself to measure everything. As multi-functional as it is genius. Tape off your corner and then cover the whole triangle with tape if you want to (or if your 3-year-old daughter is going to be painting it and you want to ensure the paint only goes in the right areas).

Step 2: Use your ruler – or in my case – your 3M tape! – to measure the distance you want the stripes to be. Steve said you could use maths as well but PFFT. I’m not even going to go there (not even close to my strongest subject). Tape it up and around the edges and repeat – mine ended up being (coincidentally, but very helpfully) the same size as two strips of masking tape. Repeat with all tiles the same way. The maths way is something about dividing up the lengths of each side…

Step 3: Arrange your tiles in the pattern you desire to ensure the stripes line up well enough.- with this simple pattern you can do this diamond, diagonal stripes or chevron. Don’t you love options?! If you couldn’t be bothered to keep redoing the pattern to get it right later on, mark the tiles on the back (top-left, top-right etc).

Step 4: Have your slave child paint the remaining cork. Then go over it yourself to redistribute the paint that all ended up on the one cork tile in huge glumps. Paint the tile in smooth strokes in the one direction. Leave to dry.

Step 5: My favourite part about painting with tape – peeling it back to see super-straight neat non-bleeding lines. Yay!

Step 6: Stick two 3M Command picture strips together – they click together a little like velcro.

Step 7: Peel off the backing tape off one of the sides, stick into place on the tile. I used one in each corner for super-strength and also to ensure the tile was evenly set off the wall – it sinks a tiny bit in the middle when you press in a tack, but is not going anywhere! Stick into place on the wall and repeat with all tiles until you have your pattern. These strips are great for any kind of wall hanging you want to change up – photos in frames can easily be swapped by simply taking the frame off – leaving the strip on the wall still – and then pressing back into place. Same might go if I rearrange my pinboard (although if the tiles turn to the sides they might not fit in perfectly, but they should still stay put.)

Step 8: Stick, pin, tape, hang, decorate!

 And one more to see it in the rest of the room… There is an Expedit to the right of the kids table. I really should take a picture of the whole space, but it’s always so messy… Even too messy to show you how messy it is, if you know what I mean. Normally I’m happy to do that, but at the moment, sheesh – the place is appalling. I had to turn down an impromptu playdate today because the place looked like a bunch of teenagers had been allowed to live in it parent-free for a week. That bad.

Anyway, there is my new pinboard. I just need some things to pin on it now! It’s a bit sparse, but it was mainly to show the pattern. I kind of don’t want to cover it up too much… I like diamonds. Real ones too! x

* I was sent a packet of 3M hooks to use in some way and enter into a Blog Aloud competition. I think if you read my blog regularly you’ll know how I feel about them (I love and use them for EVERYTHING) so I decided against a review and incorporated the competition requirements – image, link and mention – into this project instead. My project has been shortlisted as one of the top 8 and it’s now down to votes. If you have a spare minute and enjoyed this project, please pop by to Facebook and “like” my project here (I am assuming a like is a vote?!?!) to vote. I would very much like to win the prize. Thanks!

{Images by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home}

how to... make a book-page wreath

I fell in love with the book-page wreath on Alice’s door in the latest issue of Real Living. Not quite willing and able to part with $250 for a ready-made one, I did a little googling, found some various instructions and parted with $2 to make my own. And being the nice, sharing and caring person that I am, I thought I’d show you how to DIY too and add a little sparkle.

Apologies for the Tolix chair AGAIN in the pictures – it’s my new favourite prop. And I couldn’t just snap it hanging blankly on the wall (or on the door cause we’re not decorating until the 6th of December). But you will see it again soon enough once we get decking the halls…

Your toolkit:

1. An old book – sorry, Stephen King, but I won’t be reading Salem’s Lot again…

2. Spray adhesive (optional)

3. Glitter (optional)

4. A hot glue gun and extra glue sticks

5. A foam wreath, $2 from bargain stores

Also: ribbon to hang, a paper plate

How to:

1. Spray the page edges of the book and press into glitter on a paper plate.
2. Cover all three page ends, shake off excess and leave to dry.
3. Tear the pages from the book and roll a page into a cone with the circular end that will be on display the glittered edge (there won’t be a lot of glitter on each individual page, but altogether it should sparkle a little).
4. Scrunch the base a little and glue onto the back of the foam ring.
5. Repeat, butting the rolled pages up close to each other until the back is complete. Turn over.
6. Start the same process on the front of the ring. Instead of scrunching the base of the cone, fold it over slightly and glue to shorten it a little. You’ll need to play around slightly with the lengths to ensure they’re not too long or too short when you layer them up.
7. You’ll have to do a few layers here – three or four for maximum impact. I did three but could have squeezed in another lot. Start the next layer slightly off centre so the new cones are in front of the gaps of the first layer. Once done, you might need to fill in a few random gaps with some rolled pages.
8. You might find some of the cones will fold into the centre a little, like this.
9. For the inside layer, don’t fold or scrunch the base. Instead, wrap the base of it around to the back of the ring and glue the whole part of the cone that touches the inside of the foam. Once dry, this will keep the cone straight and push the rest of the scrolls out slightly.
10. Turn over and use the glue gun to squirt on a glob of glue to the back. Press in the ends of a piece of ribbon as a hanger.
11. If you want a little more sparkle, take the wreath outside and lightly spray the front of it with spray adhesive.
12. Gently sprinkle the leftover glitter onto the wreath and shake off the excess. Hang!

I hope that makes sense? You don’t need an old book – any will do. I’ve read you can age the pages a little by rubbing the page edges with a little brownish-coloured paint.

Mine isn’t quite as neat or full as the one in the mag, but I’m happy with it! It was a little time-consuming so set aside a few hours. And maybe some ice for the hot-glue gun burns. Ouch!

{Images by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home}

before and after: roadside desk

Remember the discarded dining table Steve and I half drove/half carried home? Well I painted it and finally cleaned it up enough to take a picture of it for an after with my brand new replica Tolix chair from Life Interiors (they were the most organised company I’ve ever bought from – called to confirm the order & arrange a delivery time, sent me a tracking code for delivery and delivered the next day – even to me in the sticks). The before is below – JUST in case you couldn’t work that out all on your own! haha

I haven’t actually finished the space so this is a bit of a half-hearted attempt to make it look decent (in fact, the other side you can’t see is covered in assorted half-finished projects, receipts, and melted crayons). In the end, it was too difficult to cut the sides to make them square due to the supporting wood and brackets etc underneath, so I left them curvy. It’s only that one corner that is a pain and so I covered it with books! I painted the bottom a white and the top is Wattyl Quartzy Blue. Love the colour.So now it’s in the corner of my cabin or “studio” and is my craft table. I love that there is no computer (not even a laptop – it died. RIP) so I’m not distracted while I work in there. And everything I need supply-wise is an arm’s length away on the desk or on the shelves to the side.

5-minute project: twine hanger

And I even whipped up a little holder for my baker’s twine. Mind you, the amount of various twines and ribbons I have, I’ll need an extra-long, double-decker one! I saw a bought one on a blog somewhere and figured I could make my own. It took all of five minutes – you just need a piece of dowel, wire and wire cutters. Cut a length, wrap around one end of the dowel tightly, loop up and around itself to create a hanger, then back down to the other side and around itself again (not as tight this time – you want to be able to slip it off to get the twine roll on and off). And hang!

For those who want to know…

Cream basket and white holders, Ikea.

Silver embossed box, Tree of Life.

“I think you are fab” print, Lemon Tree Lane.

{images by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home}

project doily: star decorations

Last doily project – promise! These are easy-as to do and look cute stuck against the wall with Blu-Tak or masking tape or hung from the ceiling. I hung these with fishing wire for this shot and stuck against a wall for one of my Christmas projects. For Christmas they’re snowflakes; for now let’s call them stars. Or flowers.

Toolkit:

3 paper doilies per star Double-sided tape

How-to:

Step 1: Fold the doily into a concertina (like a paper fan).

Step 2: Fold in half.

Step 3. Stick the two ends together with tape.

Step 4. Repeat with other two doilies so all three are connected and are fanned out slightly. Then stick on the wall or hang.

Are we all doilied out? I know I am… I’ll try for something a little less frou frou next time! Bx

{Images by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home}

bedroom makeover: new black wall

I think it’d be safe to say I love my new black wall. I had a feeling I would – as soon as I started slapping on the black paint I could picture it finished with the side tables and new/old lamp. And this is exactly how I pictured it. I wish the rest of the room looked this clean and tidy, but it’s not even close. From the end of the bed there is this-sized-space-and-a-half, and it’s mostly piled with all the stuff I slid out of view for this picture hehe.

 

I changed my mind about the chalkboard paint – they do have a water-based version but was out of stock so I went for Wattyl Low-Sheen in Colorbond Night Sky. Pretty much a perfect match to my beloved chalkboard. Two coats is all it took!

My side: an old tree stump is my side table. Wondered what happened to my Tord Boontje garland light? Wonder no more – here it is! In case you’ve been living a world that doesn’t have design blogs or interiors magazine, let me tell you: hanging lightbulbs as bedside lamps with cord casually hanging from the wall or ceiling? Totally hot right now. Possibly and probably started by Sibella Court who has one in her bedroom. Of course mine is neither vintage or a cool designer find and is a total cheat: a handheld workman’s lamp from Bunnings of all places ($18!) with the garland wrapped around it. But I like it and that’s all that matters.

Steve’s side: the newspaper pile again (Steve is a newspaper editor so we have quite the fire hazard collection of newspapers) with some fave books, an antler and fig candle.

Now I just need to get myself organised to finish the rest of the room… One day! More importantly, do we like?!

{images by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home}