NURSERY...

Ok so time for another room reveal... this time it's CHARLIE'S ROOM or what is now the nursery but will one day turn into the office/study. 

Charlie is so lucky to have so many talented people in his life. His room is filled with handmade delights, paintings, mobiles, prints and more made by my mum, aunties, cousins, sister and friends.

My mum painted this for Charlie when he was born, it is all true and correct to the local area and what his dad sees most days hes at work (plus a few hidden extras). 

And special things that are close to my heart. These leadlights hung in the window of my grandparents house when I was a child. Plus who doesn't love Winnie The Pooh. 

 I had fallen in love with these cloud shelves a while ago and had every intention of making them.

Click here for instructions over at How To Nest For Less

However when I stumbled across them at Adairs Kids on sale I opted for the easy option and brought them instead.

Cloud Shelves from Adaris Kids and Anchor Marquee Light from Modcloth

Our nursing/reading corner is cosy and inviting which is lucky when I think about how many hours we've already spent in that armchair.

Framed prints from Etsy and Hard To Find, Armchair from Pacific Furniture, Compass decal on table from Etsy and cushion from Spotlight  

Even the cot is a special piece of furniture with significance, it was my sister-in-laws and all three of her kids slept in it. After a coat of paint it was good as new and has such great history that I can't wait to tell Charlie about. And as for that cute little jellyfish mobile, that was crocheted by my cousin all the way in England. 

Cot quilt from Bubbles Lane

Hotair Balloon from Schots Home Emporium

I put together this table using a cheap coffee table from the $2 shop and a compass wall decal sticker I found on Etsy.

Compass sticker from Etsy

Wall colour - Snow Patrol by Porter's Original Paints
Trim colour - Natural White by Dulux
Curtains - Ikea
Carpet - Swiss twist from Carpet World

Just for a laugh ;)

Week 27...

Flooring and Concrete.

Inside Barry has been busy putting down all the floor coverings while outside the concreters have been hard at work pouring the slabs for the alfresco area, porch, carport and front veranda.

We decided to go for tinted concrete and chose a dark charcoal similar to the roof colour. Although at the moment while we are surrounded by so much dirt and therefore dust it is showing up every footprint, I am hoping that once we get some turf down this should be significantly improved.

Flooring: Karndean, Van Gough series in Bunished Beech Light: Felix Pendant Light in Nickel & Clear from Schots

The dark floor in the kitchen, dining, halls etc had worked out so well. In such a large open space with so much white the darker colour has offered a welcome contrast while matching the Hamptons style perfectly. We did apparently break all the rules when deciding which way to run the planks. Instead of running them lengthways down the halls we decided to do the opposite making the planks run lengthways as you walk in the front door and I'm glad we did despite the rules. They're there to be broken anyway, aren't they?

Week 23...

I'd still like to believe that we'll be in by Christmas but that is just around the corner and my faith in what the builders are promising is slowly fading. However, progress is still happening and we are moving closer to the finish line every day.

The painters have been busy this week and we now have colour on the outside walls and the start of the colour inside.

Dulux Silkwort for the render, Surfmist (to match the facia) for the boards and white gloss for the pasts to match the window frames. 

Slightly of topic but how cute is our new neighbour?!?!

Just added an whole new level of beauty to the view over our back/side fence.

And not to mention this cuteness we've been working on for the past 30 weeks.

Last weeks 4D ultrasound. And part of the reason we are really feeling the  pressure to be in before Christmas. 

Now we are just waiting on the concreters and hopefully the cabinet makers next week. The cabinet maker had a slight delay when the quality of the 2 pack finish on the kitchen doors and drawers wasn't up to standard when they received them back last week so the whole install had to be delayed until they could get them refinished. Sigh... I guess delays are all apart of the building process but please cross your fingers that this is the end of it for us.

Week 22...

Render is done and we are now ready for paint!!!

Oh the difference 5 months makes!

Week 22

The inside is looking like the real thing now too. We have cornice, skirts and arcs, doors, WIRs are fitted out and the last of the outdoor beams have been boxed up.

Left: Double shower in en-suite, Top right: Master bedroom WIR, Bottom Right: Loving the Gyprock Concerto Cornice we used throughout the main living areas.

One of the kids bedrooms.

Living Room.

We chose our slab of marble this week too.
Well wasn't that a daunting task... so much pressure to pick the right one when its costing so much. In the end we picked this one for the even spread of veins and lack of yellowy-brown tones. 

From Corsi & Nicoli

Next step is paint, first outside, then in. Once the outside is painted the concreters will be back to do the front verandah deck, our bedroom patio and the alfresco area.

Week 20...

Yet another trip out of town and another million decisions in a day.
This time it was to finalise flooring, tiles etc.

But best of all it was for two dear friends WEDDING DAY!!! Which meant a lovely weekend in Metung with friends.

We are matching the tiles in the main bathroom with the ones in our en-suite the only difference is that we are using an off-cut of marble for the vanity top in the main bathroom.

Tiles from Carpet World Bairnsdale

For the flooring we are using vinyl planks in the main living areas in a rich chocolatey brown, the sandy coloured textured carpet in the lounge and plainer one in the pool room with the grey carpet going in all the bedrooms and office/nursery.

Carpet and boards from Carpet World Bairnsdale

 
We came home from our weekend away to the plaster mostly hung and the render started which was sooo exciting. Really looking like a house now.

Lounge room.

Kids bedroom end of the house.

While in Metung we came across this stunning new house under construction perched on top of the hill with the most amazing views over the East Gippsland Lakes. Needless to say I had a serious case of house envy! Even the pelican sculptures in the front yard are beautiful.

Week 19...

Quote of the week "White is apparently not just white".

Deciding on exactly which white we want to paint the walls and therefore match the cabinetry to was not as easy as it may sound. There are cool whites and warm whites, then there is what it looks like in natural light verse under lights and even then what colour lights are you having? The questions and options to consider just kept coming.

Finally we got there and decided to go with Dulux Classic White 

For the babies room we are particularly conscious of the smell of fresh paint being pretty strong so at least for that room and maybe ours we are thinking of using Porter's Paints as they are know for being less toxic and better on the environment. We are thinking Snow Patrol or maybe Grey Goose. 

Week 18...

The builders are back to finish off the eves, boards etc. And there's no messing about; 3 of them hard at work in the rain on a Sunday.
The cabinet maker has been to measure the kitchen, pantry, laundry and bathrooms to make sure his measurements are exactly right.
And the external doors have gone on so we are finally at 'LOCK UP'!

I can't wait for the renders and painters to do their thing now.

Render will be Dulux Silkwort :

 and the boards will be Surfmist to match the fascia:

  

I finally ordered the pendant lights from Schots:

and all the door and drawer hardware for the kitchen, pantry, bathrooms and laundry:

Next step is plaster and render so by next week it sound be looking even more like a house.

Kerb appeal

I've been thinking a lot over the past few days about how I want to present our home and what it is going to look like as you approach our property and drive through the gate. We are staying within the Hamptons style for the facade and to some extent for the garden as well. However, we don't want to go too formal with the landscaping in an effort to maintain a large useful area not cluttered with plants on the flattest part of the block for things like soccer games etc. Towards the back of the block it slopes away quiet quickly and there will be a large cut and retaining wall in the bottom right hand corner where the shed will be so I imagine the front yard will be used frequently as well.

Our house is going to sit quiet wide on the block as we wanted to make the most of the space we are lucky enough to have. We also didn't want to have the house sitting too close to the road for the same reason, why buy an acre and a third if you plan on building right on the nature strip. We made a choice to go for space rather than water views when we were buying the land as that was what was the most important to us. As it turns out I think we have ended up with the best of both worlds, the room we wanted and a great rural view over the creek, dam and adjacent horse paddocks.

Our beautiful view and my husband and I on our first wedding anniversary.
Left hand photo credit: Vanessa Janss Photography

The stunning house built by the writer of Our Forever Home a blog I found while searching google for my own. We appear sometimes to have eerily similar taste so Louise I promise I am not stealing your ideas (however I will defiantly be borrowing some). I can't believe I haven't found your Pinterest boards previously, they are fantastic!  

We are having a similar facade to her house using a combination of render and weatherboard detailing in whites and greys but instead of the light roof we are going for a darker one.

An example of colours but lacking the weatherboard detail.

      

Along the lines of what we are thinking for colours

This is a house built from the original floor plan we started with before we made all our changes. So ours will have a similar foot print and along the same lines for style but again with a whole bunch of changes to make it our own.

We're not exactly sure how deep the cut for the house site is going to be yet until we see it. We had originally planned to batter it back on quiet a large taper to avoid having any retaining walls but in order to have the extra large turning circle/driveway we are planning we may end up having to rethink this a little. So at the moment we are just going with the flow and will see what the excavation brings when it happens (hopefully in the next week or two). If we need to put in retaining walls and steps that will most likely happen down the track at some stage when the budget recovers a bit. But I do know that I want some small box hedges to define the verandah and also large blue Hydrangeas and my favourite David Austin Roses we had on our wedding cake.


 

Our wedding cake was covered in cream David Austin Roses to match my bouquet. Wedding photo credit: Vanessa Janss Photograpghy

Blue Hydrangeas in white planter boxes either side of the front door with hanging lanterns = perfection if you ask me!

The front door colour choice is something I have gone back a forwards with many times. As we are already planning on three different colours for the facade I am cautious about bringing in another element, however I do want it to be a statement. I want a a solid wooden door with nice traditional detailing, chromed knocker and glass either side and possibly above.

At the moment I am leaning towards black but luckily I still have some time before I have to make a final decision.