Things I regret....

Years ago R and I lived in a fabulous art deco apartment in the heart of Tamarama.  It was a fantastic, breezy apartment in the most amazing location, just moments from the spectacular cliff path that meanders along the eastern suburbs beaches.   In the eat-in-kitchen, the owner had painted an entire wall with blackboard paint.  On this wall we would scribble notes to each other, write out the shopping list and so on.  One day a flight attendant friend popped over to visit us with her then boyfriend who was an up and coming artist.  On our blackboard wall he drew the most amazing chalk drawing of our apartment building and the airport, planes flying in and out and so on!  We were flight attendants after all!  His wonderful mural then remained up on the wall until the day we moved out.  A sad day, but the Australia's Next Top Model contestants, who lived in the apartment underneath ours drove us away with their incessant partying!

Fast forward to today, my friend married her up and coming artist boyfriend and he is no longer up and coming, in fact he has been a finalist for both the Archibald and the Wynne Prize a number of times, two very prestigious art awards, and he is well and truly a success.

My regret?  I never even took a photo of his amazing chalk drawing!  But, I can say that for about 6 months I had an original Alexander McKenzie on the wall in my dining room.

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My other regret?  That we didn't actually buy one of his paintings way back when we could actually afford to!  His paintings are breathtakingly evocative.  Landscapes that are vast and timeless and hauntingly beautiful.   Just imagine for a moment that you had one hanging on your wall and the feelings that it would inspire in you on a daily basis!

If you are in Sydney,  Alex has an exhibition coming up in May at Martin Browne Fine Art in Paddington.

Little and Big

                 
                                                                      Or Little Richard and Big Richard.

These lovely lions were presented as gifts to the Captain when he was born.  The little one came from my brother and the big one from my sister in law.  Cute as they are the Captain only ever had a passing interest in them.  The little one however adores them and yes, they are both named after Richard the Lionheart.

The reason for this post is partly to document the presence of Big and Little in our lives.  If you ask the little one who he loves, he will invariably name Big and Little first.  He talks to them, carries them around with him, rubs his face into them and if I insist on washing one (or if it is a particularly disastrous) both of them, he has been known to sit in front of the washing machine ensuring that they emerge safely. Lucky for him we have a front loader with a 15 minute cycle and a lovely viewing window.

Big and Little are well travelled, having joined us on all family getaways.  One eventful trip to Melbourne even saw Little left behind on the City Circle Tram.  We managed to console the distraught child with a hastily concocted story that Little had gone off on an adventure and that he would be back shortly.  Consoling the distraught mother was not so successful.  I rang everyone I could think of trying to get the original Little back and then conceding defeat started to concoct ever more fanciful stories for the boys about what Little was up to on his adventures.

A few weeks later, the little one came to me and said, "Mamma it is time for little to come home!"  Oh the guilt!  He had even taken to pointing at every train we passed,  in his mind trams were obviously trains,   and asking if that was the one that Little was on.  Fortunately, this heartbreak came to an end very quickly.  We were on a shopping trip with my parents, when my Dad whispered to me, there is a shop here that has the right size Little's, should I go buy one?  oh yes!!!

My Dad went and bought him while we were having lunch and placed him discreetly in the little one's pram.  The Captain spotted him first, shrieking "little's back" and then loudly announcing, "he looks different." The Captain was no match for Mummy however:

 "Well, clearly Little was desperate for a holiday.  Look how fabulous he looks now that he has had a decent break and he probably squeezed in a few trips to the day spa as well.  Of course, he looks fabulous now!  His hair has even grown back!"

The little one bought it!  Nowadays these two lions are guarded almost as carefully as the two children.  If you look closely in the above photo  you can see that Little even gets to use the infants attachment seatbelt on a plane.  Safety first people!

The reason for this post though is this post, on this lovely blog.  I showed the photos to the little one and said "look this little girl has a Richard too, although she hasn't cut her Richard's hair by the looks of things!"  "No, Mummy, that is me when I was a baby" he kept insisting.  I gently tried to convince him that there was someone else out there with a Richard but he was outraged by the concept of this.  It ended up triggering a tantrum of fairly phenomenal proportions!  Now, a month later he keeps asking about the little girl with the different Richard!

The new Koskela showroom!

Yesterday the Captain and I stumbled across the most fabulous place, the new Koskela showroom in Rosebery!  He had an appointment at the studio next door and as we walked past I caught a glimpse inside the converted warehouse space and I was instantly captivated!  It is full of the most spectacular treasures and is well worth the visit.   As the lovely FF would say:

"run, don't walk people!"

Loving these vintage birdies!!!

The most exquisite bed linen for children that I think I have ever seen!

The Captain's croissant came to him literally straight out of the oven! His review... delicious!

We will be back, the Captain is hankering after one of the embroidered tree house doona covers!  

All of this wonderfulness is at:

Koskela 1/85 Dunning Ave Rosebery   

My two whirlwinds of destruction and mayhem!

I know, they look innocent enough and thankfully most of the time they are, when they get up to mischief however it can reach levels of unprecedented destruction.  The most recent incident of fairly catastrophic proportions happened a few weeks ago.  I am only really ready to talk blog about it now.

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We eat out regularly.   R and I love food and dining out and we are hoping that by exposing the boys to some fabulous restaurants and dining experiences we are doing our bit to raise them as little gourmands.  Perhaps we have even been a touch too smug about our little foodies that happily join us at the table, quietly colouring in or reading whilst we scan the menu and savour the wine list.  All smugness has been abandoned however in the aftermath of our first dining out disaster and it was at one of the most spectacularly located restaurants in Sydney, Le Kiosk at Shelley Beach

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A lovely little restaurant located literally metres from the sands of Shelley Beach.  It really is the most picturesque location and the restaurant itself is definitely a bit more sophisticated that your average neighbourhood restaurant which makes what happened even more mortifying!

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So... as we entered the restaurant R and I waited at the door to be seated and the boys were just behind us.  As I was saying to the waiter... booking under the name of ****** I caught they boys out of the corner of my eyes making their way over to the mirrored wall that runs the length of the restaurant behind all the tables.  Presumably to reflect the view for any diners not facing out towards the spectacular view... but before the waiter had even managed to look up our reservation disaster struck: 

The boys were making faces at themselves in the mirror.

The Captain picked up the little one.

The little one howled in protest and kicked his feet off the wall.

Everything started to move in slow motion, yet Ross and I were paralysed with horror.

The Captain fell sideways into a table set for four.

The table teetered and then tipped over.

A chair quickly followed it.

Both boys fell to the ground.

Four sets of cutlery, glassware and crockery hit the floor.

After the initial crescendo of crashing glassware and smashing crockery, the silence was deafening.

The kitchen staff came out to see what happened.

Time started to accelerate suddenly for some reason.

Both boys emerged from the scene of destruction completely unscathed despite all the hazards they were surrounded by. 

The little one started to cry.

The Captain walked out of the restaurant tears dripping and marched straight across to the far side of the beach (well out of reach of everyone!)

R whispered to me out of the corner of his mouth, "we need to leave immediately!"

I curtly announced out of the corner of my mouth, "definitely not, we need to order up big time and leave a massive tip!"

And, that's exactly what we did. To the credit of the staff they were amazing, Ross and I tried to clean it all up but we were ushered straight to a table and wisely handed a wine list.  A soothing glass of wine later and an apology to the staff from Nicholas and I felt (a little) better.  The meal we had was excellent and the service, considering what had happened was impeccable.  I highly recommend it, just make sure you have a meal during daylight hours to take advantage of the magnificent setting and maybe don't tell them that we sent you!

Puzzles for renovators

Or how to make a stone hearth:

So this is what Ross and I spent the weekend doing, a giant stone puzzle.  We had the Cannon Fitzroy gas fire installed before last winter, which was money well spent, it seriously heats up half the house! Since then it has been sitting in it's frame, albeit with a mantelpiece, waiting for us to get around to doing the stone surround.

So end of summer we have finally got around to it!  We started by laying all the bits of stone out on the deck so we could see the size and shape of each piece easily.

Ross hard at work!  I helped by documenting (ie. I took photos!) and occasionally held the odd bit of stone in place so that he could take a step back and survey his workmanship.

Now to grout it!  So pleased with how it is looking so far though.

As for how we built the bench seat.... I did take photos at the various stages but unfortunately I can't access them at the moment as they are all stored on the back up thingy and I have no idea how to get to them and Ross is in a conference at the moment and being most unhelpful.  ie. ignoring my phone calls and text messages!

So I have included a bunch of photos of it and maybe if you have any specific questions about it Jane email me and I will get Ross to answer them for you!

For those that asked, yes there is storage underneath it!

Ross did all the hard work here, although I did paint it and organise the cushions!  My tip on the cushions... shop around!  I rang a dozen different upholsterers and the prices were varied to the extreme ranging from $400 to $1500!!!!  I went with the $400 quote and am so pleased with his work that I will be using him again.  For the fabric I used a sunbrella outdoor fabric and went for the darkest navy that they had.  Again, shop around for the fabric.  I ended up sourcing mine from a sail manufacturer who imported it and was happy to sell me a few metres.  Best thing about it I can practically hose it down when the boys have finished eating!

The red bed...

We had the Captain's old iron bed powder coated red and I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am with the end result.  I wanted the bed to be a little pop of colour in amongst everything else and it most definitely is!

The powder coat guy thought that I was crazy choosing red.  He questioned my husband when he dropped the bed off and even rang me to confirm that I was going to spend "good money powder coating a bed lipstick red."  Oh yes I happily reassured him, although I do prefer fire engine red as a description for it!

Now I just need to hang some art on the walls... what to do, what to do...

I seriously can't stop grinning at how good that bed looks and I have now got my beady little eyes fixed on the bed in the spare room!

Hurrah... I have a computer again!

I started to write a long and lengthy post trying to explain about the rather difficult past 3 months we have just had but in the interests of keeping things in perspective, ie.  there are others that that have to cope with so much more on a daily basis that I decided to abandon it and instead update you all as what we have been doing.

I will say though that as we haven't had a computer for the past 6 weeks (details were in the explanation now abandoned!) and have moved out of the house twice and been on holidays, also twice, that blogging and all that it entails were temporarily put on hold.   Apologies to those that I alarmed with my lengthy absence and Jane a card will be in the post on Monday to you my lovely!

The house is now painted. The colours that we ended up choosing are Dulux Oyster Linen and Taubmans Aspen Snow for the trims.  A lot of people have emailed me about the colour of the house.  The number is actually mind boggling.... anyway, if I haven't replied to your email yet I apologise and am getting around to everyone slowly.  Hopefully I will answer all the questions here now:  Oyster Linen is not on the standard colour chart but if you go into Dulux or Bunnings they will be able to mix a sample pot for you.  It is full strength.  The front door is Dulux Domino in a gloss finish.

The little blue strip above the door is yet to be painted!

The inside is very slowly getting there...

My clever clogs husband built the bench seat! Well, he/we did most of the work inside the house!

It is a lovely spot for a cup of tea in the morning, actually just lovely all the time! The floors are blackbutt with a matt finish.

The laundry is in, I absolutely love the long bench top but do not recommend the product.  Ceaserstone Snow and it stains if you just look at it with a cup of coffee, some red wine or even a slice of fruit... don't ask... Unless you are considering using it somewhere, in which case be aware that it STAINS easily. VERY EASILY.  It does look nice though.

Will do some more house updates soon but in the meantime the Pirates are well.  We had a fabulous break at the beach house.

They are both their father's sons and love the surf.  The little one, although quite a proficient swimmer scares me with his confidence.  He is always the smallest person out in the surf.

He started pre-school last week.  First time away from me and I was prepared for tears and drama.  Nothing.  Indeed, the little traitor practically rolled his eyes at me when I was saying goodbye.

I will be along to visit all of you soon!  xx