New Couch and Re-done Ottoman

It's been a while now since we convinced ourselves we needed a new couch and got one made, so i thought i best blog about it.

I loved my retro couch to pieces, but when your heavily pregnant and looking toward a future of being a couch bound stay at home cow then priorities change. The retro couch was particularly uncomfy, and our new corner couch... A.MA.ZING!




You like? Yes, Yes you do...
What's that beautiful ottoman/coffee tabley business in the middle?

WELL, good story... it didn't come with the couch.... it came from a run down second hand store which may as well have been free in its original life as it looked like this:

So i stripped its horrid 70's clothes off


And made a new upholstered cover for it from the same material we got the couch made in.


I then fossicked in my collection of wood all stored for a rainy day. I had a stash of walnut perfect for a nice solid wood inset table top to replace the horrid veneered original pictured above. So off Gaz went to work with the wood to convince some poor work mate to machine it up and laminate it ready for our ottoman. He did an awesome job and good old mates rates only cost $20! Gaz then spray finished it with a million coats of marine grade matt poly which look awesome and will last forever!

So here she is, think we did a good job for $60!

Playing with jewelry..

Child slept today so i got some design time. Whoop!

Here are two pendants in progress, made from old house renovation remnants.

Design: 'Plain trave'




Design: 'Old flakey trave'

Birthday Goodness!

Its a bit sad when you get excited about a ute load of dirt and a shovel. This was my 25th birthday present from my lovely husband... I wasn't counting on it being transformed into a garden too.. but he and his lovely mother slaved away yesterday creating the garden i had requested. :) Love it!
My new garden:


Completely satisfied and not expecting anything more exciting... i arrived home yesterday to find another pressy had turned up for me from Gareth. A hand held device that WILL show a bird a thing or two about who's boss of our section. Yes thats right, im going to hunt down the fricken bird that tells me all day long that i am trespassing on his property and shoot it with my new BB gun! The little shyte of a bird follows me around the house perching just outside the window i'm near to alarm my ear drums, and if i dare use his deck he flies down just out of arms reach to have a go at me. Sick of it, and obviously Gaz is sick of hearing about it.. so Yay my very own bird scaring device :)

And then to top it RIGHT off. Turns out my mother and sister too know me very well. Who spoilt the crap out of me at my new hang out... High Tea @ Sweet Pea.

Look at my baby

40 weeks and 3 days...

Child clearly didn't listen to my last post... as i am now 3 days overdue awaiting her arrival.

Ah well she'll come when she's ready, but just letting her know she has two very impatient parents dying to meet her!!!

Your bassinet is finally ready so you can come out now baby!

Wohoo, one project down!
The bassinet is finally finished. I figured she wouldn't want to come out of my big belly until her bed was made, so that gave me some motivation to complete it.

This is the bassinet that Nikki, then me, and eventually Rob slept in as babies. Prior to that Mums cousins used it... so i would go as far as to say it has had at least 30 or so years of existence. The most recent baby that used it was my favourite little ginger niece, so i its quite special to be able to put our wee one in it too!

It arrived in its stained pine finish, a wee bit rat chewn, and in need of little love after so many years of use or not so much use as being left in storage between babies.

Its crazy too.. because i was in a second hand shop down the road and found one EXACTLY the same! Never seen another before, haven't really looked to be honest, but for one to be still rocking around be it in tragic baby yellow was a bit awesome, especially because i needed to knick a few parts off it to restore our one! So i paid the man $20 and took away my new donor basinet which was soon to repair our the family one.


The old original basinet with its new parts it was missing


Once it was fixed up Gaz got his nesting on, and sanded it back with me ready for paint.


Once painted in a nice clean coat of white lacquer, i got my sewing machine out and whipped up the new fabric interior lining.
Here is it in its finished state, all ready for a mini Ramson to get some sleep in.

Finished work!

Woah. Im actually now a stay at home mum! and for the next 6 months at least!! Minus the child of course.. just hanging out with the podge of a belly and the wee one inside that is welcome to come out at any time now!

2nd day off work so far and im not bored yet. Spent the morning converting a few items of white clothing into more colourful ones. White can be a bit boring when you have lots of time on your hands haha.

Creation #1 - wee birdie top


Can see house blog turning into baby blog real fast.. Whoops!

Sore, uncomfortable... but only 3 weeks to go!!!

This:


This:


and This:


Are all reasons for making this: ALOT more bearable...



And... other than being completely sick of being fat, sore and uncomfortable... its quite a scary thought that these two people are going to be parents in 3 weeks!!! Whats the world coming to!?

Deck Furniture

The Ramfins have done it again. That is Gareth Ramson and Dave FInley in their 1 day building episode 'outdoor furniture for both ours and the Finleys decks'. 2 sets of furniture in 8 hours... not a bad effort!

I love it.. under $300 and completes the deck! It got its first work out last weekend at our baby party and worked a treat!

Very happy Jute - Thanks Ramfins!

Cosy feet in our rooms

Gaz organised through his tradeys at work to be put on the waiting list for any end of line carpet going cheap.
Only instruction from his wife was a nice neutral colour...
A batch popped up with the perfect amount for our two bedrooms and a nice mousie brown colour (which happens to be pretty similar to the orginal carpet but a brand new Godfrey Hurst wool cut pile) so i was happy. Finally we could ditch the shitty pieced together carpet which was about as comfortable as walking on bare floor boards. So we moved our two rooms into the lounge for the week and ripped into it. No underlay to be seen under the old carpet... and the ease in which it came up with suggested someone had just cut it to size and slapped em in place. Beauty.






Once it was all ready we handed it over to a carpet guy... and in and a couple of hours later we had that nice new carpet smell wafting through the house. What a treat on your feet! Underlay cushy goodness! And this is how it looks:



Doesnt it look pretty!?!

New cupboard

Gotta new cupboard... it is deceptively small with its little wooden door... but inside there is loads of room with shelving up the side and coat/shoe/vacuum cleaner storage as well us under house access. Its good little storage places like this that make a small house easier to live in i rekon! Managed to save some $ and retain some character too by re-using the old door from the hallway cupboard that we removed.

Bringgggg on summer cos we have a deck!

I haven't seen something come together so fast in my whole entire life! A deck in a weekend - Score!

It started out like this...


Required a whole lot of this:


Two amazingly motivated husbands which i can only lay claim to one of.

Oh, and a LOT of beer!

Might i add that the deck/beer drinking started at 8am on saturday...
wasnt long until it was looking like this:


and by 3pm on Sunday the last boards went on and we could lay claim to a brand new deck! Never mind the fact that we can now stare straight into our neighbours lounge... akkkkwaaard!

But who cares cos looooooooooooooook!!







Even lego thinks it a bit of alright!


Thanks a million Mr Finley! and thanks Lee for letting us steal him for the weekend! :) Was worth every single smart arse comment that came out of that boys mouth!