Used to be the bedroom, now it's the living room!

Remember this shot of our Master bedroom?

Well as you may know we are no longer in this room now and are in what was my office/design space. Oh and the canvas above the bed here is now the 'free' canvas that is above our sofa in the other living space I showed you a few posts back...I know it's all confusing!
This is the very same part of the room you just looked at, now it is our other living room. This room is meant to be the living room off the original 1883 floor plan, but we had seized it to use as our master bedroom as it never was used. Now that we have the boys, they quite often come in here and watch a movie if I am sewing or making noise up the other end of the house. The light in here is not very flattering at the moment...it is FREEZING outside!!

I did do a little change around on this mantel. It will change as not all of the decorative pieces have been put out yet and some have to get packed away, but I am liking the sepia Tulip print above the fireplace. As you can see the lamp bases on the floor still have to go out of the room and the glass fronted cabinet, which is an original medicine cabinet from an old country Ambulance Station I found under a house mic and I rented when we were first married. The landlord said I could have it!! It did take 3 months to hand strip it with a chisel though. It was in bad shape...I am waffling now - it has to be filled is what I was trying to say =0)

I like it as a living space now.

I did have to steal the sofa from the other room and paired it with my little wing back chair, both of which I have slip covered and added some of my own cushions to. The table under the canvas my Sister made is an old Singer iron sewing machine table my Mum found for next to nothing.

I left the little prints on the wall were they were...couldn't find anything else I liked for that spot right now and the trunk you see here was Mic's Grandfathers and has a beautiful patina to it with some of the original green paint showing through.

This piece is very special to Mic and we will never paint over it. His Grandfather was a prisoner of war in Changi Prison and went through an awful time as you can imagine. It is so nice to have some of his belongings that our boy's will eventually get too. I really love it in here too.

...not sure what to do with the old mirror there yet. It is SO heavy!

So, there you go...our 'new living room', which cost nothing by the way.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Ness xx

New and free canvas!!

I don't know about you, but on a dark, cold winters day I always find myself making things from whatever is at hand. Like our 'new and free canvas' for the family room. You may remember the canvas that was up here with the magnolias on it (see side bar photo) that my Sister made, well that is now in another room. This canvas used to be the dark grey one that was above our bed (also see side bar photo). I repainted it in Dulux Chalk White USA, which is the white under our chair rail which I have loads of left still.
Then went outside to our Twisted Willow tree and got a big bunch of long, pliable branches. Stripped the leaves off and set to work.
While Mic and the boys were curled up on the sofa watching a movie by the fire, I laid out the branches and sewed them onto the canvas. Now, I actually started with invisible thread, doubled over for strength, but it still snapped. So if you are going to try this I would use fishing line as it is much stronger...I ended up using a cream cotton instead.

That was it. Free, easy and very quick. I think all up it took about 30 mins to sew the willow on and about 10 minutes for the painting (I cheated and used a hairdryer to dry the paint faster).
Here you can see it with my $5.oo chairs that I showed you a few days ago.

Now, it is not my ideal artwork for the space, but we needed something quickly to go here and seeing I will be changing our decor a bit when we get a new house this will have to do =0)

Ness xx

Project...$5.00 Armchairs!!

I bought two of these chairs a while back for $5.00 each to go in Mics slot car room (the man den!) and had planned on recovering them for him with a ticking in navy and white. But, as we have had to change our rooms around for the sale of our home I have had to use these in the Family Room as one of the sofas from here is now in the Living Room (more on that soon). So, I did have to recover them as this brown tweed fabric was horrible and I had to make it look the part to match the sofa...

SO......
I recovered them!
(you can still see the $5 price label on the arm. It is gone now)

In this lovely white waffle weave fabric which was an unused quilt/duvet cover that never sat properly on any bed. It is such a soft fabric I thought it would work well to cover the chairs. I re used the zippers from the original covers.
They needed cushions to go on them and I had this lovely stripe fabric that my Mum picked up at an op shop for $2.00 for about 6 meters and I have been wondering how I would use it for a while now. I covered some buttons in white linen to match the waffle weave fabric and filled them with poly fill.
So, all up it cost me $10.00 for the chairs, and about .50 cents each for the cushions.

Not bad for about 2 hours work I think =0) I have just made a new canvas for above our sofa to go with these chairs. I will show you it all soon.

Hope you are having a great weekend - I am!

Ness xx

Matster Bedroom done...check!

So, I have finished moving the furniture out of my old office to become our 'new' bedroom and it is so nice to be in here. The light has always been amazing in this room (which is why it was my office).
I took these pictures today before I had finished getting all of the small pieces from my office out, like the small unit next to the white 2 door cupboard that you can just see. That little white 2 door cupboard was another of my $5.00 finds. All I had to do was add the new blue china knobs and give it a clean. It has all of my fabric in there and I thought I would just leave it in this room as it just goes.

The big cupboard on this wall was a freebie and houses all of our clothes shoes etc and it is so big. It just didn't have any doors, so some white cotton curtains was all it needed to soften the space. All up it cost us about $15.00 for the material. The little cane bedside was my Grandmothers and is special to me so it had to stay =0)

Oh, and see the stuff on top of the big cupboard? Well that is some of the things that will be going in the virtual yard sale I will be having here on my blog throughout June. I keep finding more pieces for the sale, so instead of doing it in one hit, I will just add here and there which will make it easier to track...there is still 3 other rooms to look through yet!!!

Now one thing I still have to do in here is finish painting the French door. I have loved sitting in here looking out of the door. It is such a wonderful room and I love how cozy it is.

...maybe it is because it is all white !!!!

Ness xx

Smitten...and confused!

from my files - unknown

I am totally smitten by this amazing kitchen!

I would just be happy to unpack my belongings in here and start cooking straight away.
That is one thing which is on my list for the next home, is a nice kitchen that doesn't need work done...oh heaven!

all things cottage
This is what we will need when all of this is done.

Our house is like a bomb site at the moment while the moving room adventures are underway. Our old bedroom, which is the other living room has just small bits and pieces in there while we give it some TLC. Until this is done, I cant move the furniture in there...so it is all in my old office, which is now our main bedroom - confused yet?

It will only get more confusing I am sure.

wish us luck please!!

Ness xx

The Changes Have Begun

The changes have begun. Mic and I have decided to change the configuration of our home back to how it is supposed to be. Now this setting will look familiar to you...that's because it used to be my......
....office!
The room we had occupied as our Master Bedroom is actually the other living room, but as we never used it we stole it as our bedroom. At the moment there is nothing in that room except for bits and pieces, but it will be the other living room shortly. We want to show the future owner the exact layout of the house. That and the fact that some people cant see past what is in a room!
As of now, all my office things are in boxes, suitcases etc for the time being but thats ok. It is a small sacrifice to make for the sale of our home.

This is the room as of about 1/2 an hour ago when I moved the bed in there. I could only show you this part of the room as I still have office stuff on the other side waiting to get packed up. I will probably change some of the pictures behind the bed as the bedhead is too tall as you can see, but for now it will do while I shift all the other stuff about - then I will get into it.

Oh! I did want to show you a house that caught my eye, in our price range...

Isn't it beautiful. Fully renovated in keeping with the era of the house, but garage for Mic and room in the yard for the boys. Problem is, Mic hates the area it is in - argh!

Never mind there has been more I have looked at and we are not ready to buy just yet.

Doesn't hurt to look though, hey?!

Have a great weekend.

Ness xx