more on that vase

Who could forget yesterday's glorious post about a vase. Well, now I have the sequel. Or as the chipmunks call it, the squeakquel.

Last night Matt and I were deciding what to put in it. I was thinking of a succulent like the below picture but I knew our vase was too thick.
I am still keen to try the succulent plant one day though. I have just the vase for it, but I might leave it till we get to the new place as for now, it is one less thing to awkwardly move when the day arrives.

So we were back to square one, then Matt came up with the idea of pens. You see, every place we go to, whether locally or overseas, we buy a pen to remember the trip. The places vary, from the city itself or one of their local attractions. We have quite a collection but didn't know where to put them. They were sitting in a shoe box under the bed in the second bedroom which is such a shame as there are some hilarious pens in there, from baguettes to fingers and all things in between. We decided it was about time we got them out.

We had a laugh going through them all and it brought back amazing memories. It also made us realise that we have done a lot of things together in our ten years as a couple.

They all fit very comfortably with enough room for us to add more. Here is a view of them looking into the vase.

Once they were all in I put the vase back where I had it. I hope, when we are in our new house, it can be displayed in a more convenient spot, but for now, I think it looks nice there. That side board holds our stereo, a lamp and the two ceramic animals. But now it holds so much more.  I love glancing over and seeing all those pens. It's a great salute to all the fun times we have had on our holidays and I look forward to adding many more.

Question. How do you display your holiday memories?

i blog about vases now

I had been eyeing of this great carafe at Target for sometime now but at a cost of $45 I knew I wasn't prepared to pay full price for it.
I know it is very cheap for a Spanish carafe as the one I had initially seen which started my search in the first place, retails for $149.00 at Freedom.
So when I did stumble across the one at Target for $45 my heart skipped a little as I was finally seeing a dash of hope that this could be mine. But at that price it was still too much.
 I really wanted it but I knew if I was meant to have it then I would come across it at a cheaper price.
And today my friends was the day.
I saw a small sign that said 50% off vases. But was still unsure as to me it was technically a carafe, so with steady hands I lifted the massive carafe/vase and took it to the price check section. Low and behold it read $22.50. Cue my happy wiggle dance all the way to the check out.

made in Spain. mi casa es su casa vase.

Once I got home I unraveled the ugly detailing they had glued on it and got it ready for its new casa.

Here it is up close

I don't know why they would have such a beautiful vase (as it is now known) and cover it with a piece of rolled up cardboard. Don't you love the cute little feature of glue dribble?

Removing the cardboard was quite simple once I started.

But it left a string of continious glue that had to be scrubbed off. I used a soft rag so as not to scratch the glass.

And here it is now. All cleaned up and ready to find its new spot. I am still deciding. It has been in a few places but nothing feels right. For now it is sitting here. But it doesn't matter as soon it will be moving homes anyway.

And just so you can see a comparison of size, here is a wonderfully awkward picture of me holding it up.

I shall keep you posted on where it ends up.
So what are your thoughts? Do you like it? Anyone bought any knick knacks for their home this weekend?

please enter our non existent doors

And have a peak at our insides.

This post is short, sweet and to the point. It is all about showing you the internal colours and here they are.

We have gone with soft light airy finishes except the carpet which is a charcoal (looks black in this picture but is lighter in person)
Our accessories tend to be very bright and create features in their own right so I like a blank canvas to work with.

For example. This style of stool is up our alley.

Can you imagine how they would look mixed with our colour choices in the below plan. With those Ikea pendant lights from this post

I am finally starting to get a real feel for the place now.


We decided to keep our bathroom tile the same in all wet areas including our kitchen. I know a lot of people, including designers and builders, say the subway tile look is dated and no longer in fashion. But we really really love it. More so than a splash back. I think it ties back to our desire to not have it so modern.

Would love to know your thoughts on our choices.....

super colour f******** expialidocious

Having slept on our chosen exterior colours for the night (not literally you fool) I woke up thinking maybe the colours we had chosen were a little "too" grey. No offence to My Grey and his 50 shades, but it wasn't sitting well with me.
The main reason why is this picture.

It is as close to the colours we are choosing as possible. The moment I saw it I thought "why is our house black and white against a blue sky?" I know it isnt a true representation of what it will be but it was enough to make me instantly think that it looked like a house straight out of the movie Pleasantville. You know, midway through when colour starts to appear in joyful places. Our house looked sad, and I couldn't have that so I have changed my mind.
Prepare yourself for THE most dramatic change in colour choices to have ever passed your eyes.
We are going from this...

phantom

moon and stars

To This...

sussex

dusty miller

I know, I know, it is such a subtle difference. But when I put them side by side you can really notice.

the old

the new

See how the picture on the right has a hint of blue and silver to it? Something that the one on the left seems to be lacking.

the old

the new

It is even more obvious when you compare the two highlight colours. See how on the left it just looks like the colour is missing, the right is a lovely soft blue/green grey that reminds me of an overcast day at the seaside.




Anyway, that is where we are at the moment. I can only assume that there will be many more changes to come and therefore, unfortunately for my dear Husband, more stress. But at least we can laugh along the way. As we were talking about colours for the house I referred again to our land as Landy. Matt suggested I stop calling Landy by it's name as in his words "Landy will soon have his skin ripped off" referring to the soil. So it would be best to stop associating the land with a living thing. Poor brave Landy.
Who thinks I am nuts? Does it just look like the same grey? Or can you see the difference I see? 
Go on, you can admit it.

50 shades of grey

Actually, if I count that again there are only 3 shades-my mistake.

Well it has been a long long time since anything has happened but today was a milestone.
It was the day we chose our colours.
It took three solid hours but we had a blast. Emma, the colour specialist was wonderful and very helpful and respected our sometimes whacky choices with a gentle nudge in the right direction.
So without further ado here are the nominees for best colour scheme in a new build.

Roof - Colorbond surfmist
Garage door - Colorbond surfmist
Render colour 1 - Haymes phantom
Render colour 2 - Haymes moon and stars
The Colorbond website has an online visualiser to help you get an idea. I had a play around and got it  to as close as our colour choices as possible and took a little screen capture for your viewing pleasure

You may be thinking, where are the bricks gone? Have we gone mad? Alas, we have not. They will be rendered over. We couldn't decide on a brick that matched what was in our heads and for $1200 we could render the whole front and have a choice of two colours. "Sign me the friggen hell up" I squealed in my head, but casually advised we would like to go ahead with the rendering please. I love the light and airy feel it gives off. I want the front yard to be quite simple with grass and big beautiful flowers (possibly hydrangeas) under the window. I hope with that it will have a nice homely feel and not come across as too modern which is what I am trying to avoid. This is quite a challenge when the modern style is virtually bursting at the seems of our soon to be new estate. But I do feel that this colour scheme, although sleek and fresh, still has a casual feel to it.  Is it just me or does it seem rather homely and lived in?

Also, something quite exciting I have noticed is that our car will match the house.Call me crazy but doesn't that make you want to break out into a dance? The nutbush perhaps? Really emphasising the leg kicks.

But with all good things we have to take into account the bad.
Today we found out that our soil survey was a P which is bad news. In my head I thought of  fail PHAIL. It means the slab we had planned on having and the density of it needs to be reassessed to meet the requirements of the soil. It will cost a few thousand dollars. But I try to find the positive in it all and there is a clear one. We will have top of the range slab quality that will stand the test of time and be even more sturdier then originally planned.
Tomorrow I will give a run down of the internal colours we have chosen. Also, I might even be able to get an image of our actual colour choices on a 3D image of our design. Fingers and toes are crosssed.

So until then...

shopping with our eyes

It is the hardest shopping to do, but the most purse friendly.
We went out on the weekend to buy a light bulb (which is ironic as we did venture into homeware stores to get some "ideas" on our home furnishings).

 First stop...IKEA which I am pretty sure is Swedish for "female heaven".

Over our kitchen island bench (the plans can be seen here) I want two large industrial style pendant lights. I think these will be perfect and at $59 each they are very affordable. Especially when I have seen others sell for upwards of $300.

 

Next was our caesarstone bench tops. Below is a close up of what it will look like. We plan on having white cabinets and it creates a really nice and light feel which is what we are all about.

 

 

After our IKEA perve we went into Freedom Furniture to try out some of their couches. 

our couch. Perfect for the size of our current home

 Just to set the record straight, our current couch is wonderful. It was a wedding gift from all our amazing friends and family and it is so comfortable that we can often be found having a snooze on it at least once or twice a week. But for the area will be moving to it will be too small. We need to speak to Freedom (where it was from) to see if they still make it and see if we can get one or two more modules for the couch. If not, we have a perfect spot just for it in another room. We also have visions of having a lazy-boy each (yeah we are those kind of people).
Where was I?? Oh that's right, we had entered Freedom Furniture.
The first couch was sensational. I think although new, it may have been the reason behind the creation of the word comfort. This couch was devine. I instantly felt relaxed the moment I sunk into it. I could feel the excitement rushing as I almost shouted "we'll take it". Then we saw the price. Well technically it went in this order. I saw it, Matt saw my face, I told him to guess how much, he came up with $5000 and I laughed because he was spot on. Then almost cried as the price registered in my head. Moral of this story? Can you put a price on comfort? Why yes you can.
After this we sat on too hard, too soft, too low, too high. But then we sat on this bad boy and it felt amazing. Forget the colour as it comes in many different shades but for comfort it was perfect. And one of the features we loved was the armrest and how you can lay with your head against it which we currently cannot do. The photo is quite deceiving as it doesn't look much bigger than our couch but it was. Matt is fake relaxing (falaxing??) to show the length. It is over 6ft either way which is plenty big enough for us to both lay and have a joint snooze. (those snoozes will only become more frequent as we get older) This one was $3000 but they have 20% off so at $2400 it was starting to fall into our price range.



























Now I don't know if it is just us but standing up and sitting down trying out couches was extremely tiring for us and we realised we had worked up an appetite. I mean, to justify our Philly cheese steak and custard pastry we were pretty much doing lunges but in a very relaxing and slow way.
Before I go I will leave you with this photo. Just for fun. I picture us with one each, asleep with the television blaring only to be woken up at 3am by our cat Ralph attacking us. Not so happy on the price $1620 after discount, but it has given us some ideas that is for sure.  I hope to have more news on our next stage of the build shortly.

all done? all finished? SOLD

We have a sold sticker!!! Even though it was already official, somehow seeing this made it all the more real.
On our way home from window shopping (there will be a post on that soon), we took a detour in the hopes of snapping a picture of a sold sign should there be one. And low and behold as we turned the bend there it was. In all its blue and white glory. I may be biased but is that not the best looking sold sign you have ever seen?

 Please excuse my poor erasing skills. Thought it would be best to remove the real estate agents contact details and address 

After we saw the sign and took some shifty photos, (I wonder if the neighbours are suss on us yet?) we seized the opportunity to cruise the neighborhood and gather some information on what the other house styles were.
We drove around til Matt spotted one that looked the most similar to what ours will look like. There are slight differences with the rendering and roofing but you get the idea. See our original plans here

Even though this looks like a basic standard home, there are some upgrades. The first one being the eaves. That's the extension of the roof which creates cooling in summer and warmth in winter. Below is a graphic picture of a house without it. Not only is it more energy efficient but we think it has a big impact on the whole look of the house.

 And the last upgrade to note is subtle but if you are anything like me, once you see it you will probably notice it all the time. That is the brick infill. If you refer back to that original photo, you will see bricks above the garage. But in the below picture there is an alternative which is some sort of boarded material. I am not saying the below style looks bad but for us and the style we want, we are going with the brick. Builders use the below method as a way of cost cutting and difficulty in placing the bricks, hence why it is an upgrade. So I understand why people don't go ahead with such a subtle change



It will be interesting to see, as we go along this process as I am sure that we will have features to our house that people will think we a crazy for doing/leaving out, but to us they are perfect. It is such a personal thing. Almost like your own baby. And I just know I am going to be one of "those" mums with this house. I just hope we don't have these kind of reactions.