Happy New Year .. no resolutions .. just enjoy the moment!

Ahhh .... glass of wine and book anyone?

Photo courtesy LivingEtc

Inspiration to help me save save save

Kitchen and open plan looks I love. Thanks to LivingEtc.  You may detect a theme ?!

Merry Christmas

It's a very exciting christmas this year with Liam so in love with Santa and the family celebrating Eamon's first christmas.  We are very blessed!

We did encounter one small problem this christmas due to the renovations.  Our christmas tree is in the storage pod somewhere far away in never never land.  So we decided to work around it and still create some homely christmas cheer.

Our hang it all was the perfect spot for the stockings and tree ornaments.

The sticker tree we used in our previous smaller home was brought to life again, above the toy bench.

And of course a few other christmas touches here and there.

Wishing everyone a very merry christmas and a fabulous new year!!  May all your dreams come true xoxo

Sunday turned Monday inspiration - gardening

It's been a really busy week on the outside this week.  Jeff (aka Santa after his amazing achievement) delivered lawn to our backyard just in time for Christmas.  Hooray and an enormous thank you to both Jeff and hubby!!  They worked tirelessly and as a huge bonus put in a few garden beds.  I'm really excited and am now thinking about the soft landscaping (as I've been stock piling nursery gift vouchers :).

I have a couple of favourite landscape designers, whom continuously inspire me.  They are Rolling Stone (Dean Herald) and Paul Bangay.  Both are Australian designers and although they are different in many respects they are quite similar at the same time.  I love the types of plants and colours they use and their seemingly effortless (but actually precise) placement.

I'm thinking with our style of house we'll need something more formal (Paul Bangay inspired) in the front yard and then something more contemporary (Rolling Stone inspired) in the back.

Here's one of Paul Bangay inspiring images and one of his books

And an amazing Rolling Stone image from the Chelsea Garden Show in 2006 and some of his beautiful Japanese influenced residential work.

Enjoy the renovating mess

I try and involve Liam in as much of the renovating mess as possible, as long as it's safe.  He learns heaps, meets lots of friendly tradespeople and of course he has tons of fun making a mess.  And I long ago came to the realisation, that it's better for him, and me, if I just give into the mess.  Besides I grew up on a farm.  (Tip: always introduce the kids to the tradies, aside from being good manners, there's a mutual understanding and respect that it brings.) 

So last weekend, he ran around and around and around in our messy front garden, as we frantically repotted plants that we thought were in the danger path of diggers/excavators.  And he told everyone in sight "I'm a messy little piglet".  It's a line from one of his books that goes .... "I'm a messy little piglet always in a scrap or muddle.  If I'm not wrestling in the mud I'm diving in a mucky puddle."  So true!

Then this is Liam a day later making the most of a pile of rubble that the excavator stacked up.  "Look at me mummy, I can slide down".  Thank you for being such a trouper xo

To be enjoyed with those young and young at heart

I can not recommend this book highly enough.  It's so beautiful and fun to read.  We always have a few laughs reading it.  I'm sure my son, Liam 2, knows more about buildings all over the world then I ever did at 20.

Andrea Beaty’s 2007 children’s classic, Iggy Peck Architect -  the tale of a little boy with big ideas about designing buildings. His architecture-phobic grade 2 teacher, Miss Lila Greer, forbids him to follow his passion. All that changes, of course, when he masterminds a brilliant solution to a problem that leaves his teacher and fellow classmates floored.
David Roberts’ intricate illustrations complement this fun and funny tale that paints architects as problem-solving, humanitarian, out-of-the-box thinkers rather than cravat-wearing egotists! Budding designers of all kinds will love this book.  It begins ....

Young Iggy Peck is an architect
and has been since he was two,
when he built a great tower – in only an hour -
with nothing but diapers and glue.

Sunday inspiration - the garden shed

Some time ago, when we realised the existing shed/garage was unstable and needed to come down sooner rather then later, we started our research into a new garden shed.

Thanks to our research the humble garden shed has grown to workshop and kids outdoor play room (room for the big adult kids too).

Here's one of the original sources of inspiration from Modern Shed.

Ours won't be quite this fancy, but it did inspire us a lot.

 

Future plans "the concept"

We absolutely love the house we've bought, location, architecture, neighbors.  But realistically it's probably 5 - 10 years before it's our dream home.  So everything we do to the house we'd like to do wisely, with future extension in mind.  And because of that we decided to get an idea of what we'd like the future extension to look like, so that we could plan around it in the mean time.

We've met architects before when we were looking at extending our last house.  So when my husband read about My Architect in The Age, we thought it was a good cost effective way to avoid future renovation problems.  They offer a great "first visit package" of concept drawings plans and views hand drawn, and then attach a fee schedule to take you through the various stages to completion.

We met Robert back in July when our second son was just 2 weeks old.  He came to the house, measured up, chatted and then sketched out various floor plan ideas for us.  We decided on a favourite which he then completed and sent to us.  Robert was fantastic to work with, we definitely seemed to relate on a design asthetic level, and we hope to progress the design further with him, when budget permits.

Here's the concept drawings he did for us.

 

Check out the cover of Inside Out JAN FEB 2011 magazine

How beautiful is this? ... Come on summer, I'm ready!!!

What inspires me?

I was blessed to grow up in a beautiful country farm house.  Mum is a bit of perfectionist, and yes I can truthfully say she has passed that gene onto me.  My childhood was a happy one, nice warm wood fired roasts cooking in the kitchen.  Logs on the open fire in the lounge.  A huge verandah around the entire house, which was great for bikes, roller skating, dancing and running.  A formal dining room for the special family occasions.  Surrounded by a garden oasis, in comparison to the usual dry country side.  It's an old house, so my passion for preserving the history and integrity of a house started there. 

A more recent source of inspiration that I picked up 2 years ago (just after Liam was born) is a fantastic book. "Home" by Anita Kurshal.  I often read this book as I'm going to bed, or first thing in the morning if I wake before the boys (rare!) :)  It inspires me and makes me thankful at the same time.

My favourite quote.  "... ideas based on the heartfelt philosophy that it is possible to create a home that is both beautiful and nurturing.  Embracing the modern concept that children are a natural part of our lives, neither inconvenient beings nor precious centres of the universe, this book focuses on the needs of both parent and child as a unified whole."