Thank you Leah!

I was thrilled to win a giveaway recently on Leah's blog The Inside Story.  It is one of my absolute favourite blogs.  Full of stunning and very inspiring images. Leah also lives in one of my favourite places in the world.  Lucky thing!

Thank you so much Leah for such a lovely gift.  I am thrilled with the bag and the sweet little storage box and they will be well loved.

Photo Challenge - Day 14

"Eyes"

This weekend I painted the front door gloss black.  It looks amazing!  I helped husband put the gyprock walls and ceiling into the new living/dining room.  It looks ok!  Once the plasterer has been I am sure it will look amazing too.  Back breaking work though and why I am running so far behind with the photo challenge!

I am also considering re-qualifying as a plumber.  They are obviously making way too much money.  Any pumbers out there?

Photo Challenge - Day 13

"Yourself with thirteen things"

Technically I am in the photo... there is a photo of me pregnant with the Captain in amongst those items!  All the items that I have chosen are cherished:

1. My bed (it somehow manages to look prisitne amongst the chaos of renovating!)

2.  Tolix stool (if only it was vintage... one day, some day I will have a set of vintage Tolix chairs and stools)

3. Fresh flowers in jam jars (they make me happy, look beautiful and remind me of my wedding day).

4. & 5.  I collect vintage children's books and I have way too many of these old Enid Blytons. Yes, I have some complete collections.  I started collecting them as a small child.

6.  See there I am... photo taken the day before I had The Captain.   Edited to keep things decent.

7.  iPad.  I used to loathe it, it's growing on me.

8. Current favourite sunglasses.  Husband gives me such a hard time about them, he reckons I am trying to relive my youth.  I asked him what he would like to do for his 50th.

9. My watch.  My father gave it to my mother for her 21st birthday, they in turn gave it to me.  It is 43 years old, doesn't need a battery and is still going strong. 

10. Frog.  Picked him up in a tiny little gallery outside Canberra when I was at university.  He has lived on the kitchen window sill in every house I have lived in over the past 18 years.  He even survived a break in.

11. & 12.The outfits the boys wore home from hospital. 

13.  A drawing the Captain did when he had just turned four.  It is of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, drawn from a photo.

Photo Challenge - Day 12

It has been raining in Sydney for days now.  The chance of my capturing a sunset on the camera is slim...  I had to improvise with this photo.  Taken on this night!

And a huge thank you to Julia for making my lovely new header!  I would never have been able to do it despite having a few people try and explain it to me!  Thanks Julia!

Bathroom vanity plans....

I am interrupting the photo challenge for a quick renovation update, more specifically a bathroom vanity update!  Hours of research have gone into the vanities which may help to explain why I am so excited about them!  Over the years I have saved many images, filed carefully away in my home inspiration folder.  Unfortunately, I neglected to save where I sourced them from. If any of the following images are yours (or if you know who they belong to) please, please let me know and I will credit those appropriate immediately! 

When husband and I went to look at bathroom supply places we found lots of sinks that we liked, some taps that we liked... but not a single vanity.  Even the ridiculously expensive, high end vanities left us cold.  We really wanted something that had a beach house feel and didn't look too modern, but there wasn't really anything in that bracket.  After looking through all the images that we had saved and flicking through our extensive home magazine collection we started to get a feel for exactly what it was we wanted, plus I found this vanity that another blogger had had her husband whip up:

As you do, what a handyman!

I wish I could find her blog again to credit her, as her gorgeous vanity and the vanity that she identified as being her inspiration:

became our inspiration and it was these images that we showed to the various cabinet makers.  I investigated wood vs stone benchtops, 120 year old Kauri Pine vs recycled hardwood and after much deliberation decided to go with a laboratory style basin on a recycled hardwood base.  I decided against a stone top as I love the look of the wood top:

 The basin is just balancing on top at the moment as the plumber hasn't done the waste yet or installed the taps but you can get an idea of how it will look.  I had intended to put a couple of small cane baskets on the shelf below to store towels/bathroom bits and pieces in but I grabbed one of my vintage wine press baskets, as it was close, and now I love the look of it on the bottom shelf. 

Many thanks to the lovely Rupert at Beachwood for making sense of a couple of photos and creating a vanity that we are beyond thrilled with!

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Photo Challenge - Day 11

"Something blue"

Apologies for the interruption in service!  It has not stopped raining in Sydney for the duration of the long weekend and we have C.A.B.I.N.F.E.V.E.R!  Back to the photo challenge though, I found these gorgeous Eric Carle flash cards at an Op Shop the other day and I have been trying to decide what to do with them.  I am leaning towards framing them and hanging them in the new playroom...

or should I just leave them as flashcards and let the boys play with them?  

They are so pretty that either way they will be well loved!

Photo Challenge - Day 10

"Childhood Memory"

These photos were indeed a challenge.  It is very hard to photograph old photos in 1980s photo albums...

In 1983, I was 10 years old and we lived in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. During our time in KL we often went camping on the islands off the coast of Malaysia.  My absolute favourite trip was the time we camped on Pangkor Island.  On one side of the island there was a bunch of big resorts, the other side though just had a couple of thatched huts and was relatively untouched.  That's where we camped!  To get out to the island we loaded up a Malay fishing boat and hired the "Captain" to take us out to the island. Remember my fascination with pirates and how as kids we were all desperate to be attacked by "real" pirates... well, in the above photo, the pile of luggage you can see there, that is where we were supposed to hide ourselves if we were actually attacked!  Ha, those in charge (the parents) obviously had no idea!  Luckily, we never crossed paths with any real pirates, much to our bitter disappointment at the time though!

That is 10 year old me in the "kitchen" hut! 

Me, my brother and our friend Sean (his parents were with the American Embassy) exploring the lagoon set back from the beach.  We spent most of our holiday playing around this lagoon.

Fishing in the lagoon.  Tom (Sean's brother) at the front, my brother in the water and me at the back. Not sure where we got those rods from, I am guessing we made them.

There was a dead palm tree hanging over the water of the lagoon.  Somehow we scaled it and then dropped into the water.  I recall this as being fabulously fun, looking at this photo though I think I might have been a bit uncertain about the whole thing!

My brother looking much more confident!

We took a little inflatable Zodiac with us to explore and also to pick up fresh food and water.  I can remember snorkelling at this beach and finding lots of bits of old china that had washed up from shipwrecks.

A truly wonderful holiday and I am forever grateful to my parents that they had the courage and the trust to take us on a holiday like this and leave us to pretty much do as we pleased without any intervention.  Yes, we all nearly drowned... but I will save that story for another blog post.