the language of love

i love handmade

Is there any better language? 

mirror mirror on the wall

As soon as I saw this mirror

from Kate at centsational girl (in her beautiful kitchen refresh) I knew what I had to do with this mirror

which I have had and loved for a long time but will no longer fit in with my obsession drive to have a beautiful black and white bedroom (it WILL happen, oh yes it will!)
But lest you think I have made no progress at all (a little faith please), here is one of my bedside tables which were once a very ordinary beechy colour and I think are now pretty spesh in their new black and white livery. Decorscaping still to occur!

...and everyone (I'm so excited about this!) I've solved the problem of the 'what is supposed to be white painted screen' behind the bed from being the slightly pink painted screen...see, not good against the new pristine white bedside tables..and it was complicated by the fact that only half of the panels decided to blush! You see my problem I'm sure.

The secret...White Knight undercoat...a white knight indeed!
I've also painted the ugly bookcase and another of today's jobs is to line the back of the shelves with the lovely IKEA fabric seen in this post.
So I'm off to the hardware store, and I just might make a quick pit-stop into the Salvos and Vinnies to see if there are any treasures just waiting for moi.
But one thing I won't be doing is popping into the Canberra Show...that I'll leave for others!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend. 

out on a limb

I don't know about you, but I wasn't lucky enough to have a tree house when I was growing up. I did have a great tree to climb though and I loved going up there with a book (what else!)...and then my parents went and cut it down and put up a garage in its place. Not at all happy!
I was reminded how nice it was to be up among the leaves when I saw these pictures in the March edition of House and Garden.
Who wouldn't want to have a lazy afternoon or a romantic night in one of these?

 The next images are from home-designing.com

and these are from flickr

Is it too late to rectify my tree house lack I wonder? I'll just go and check on the progress of the maple that I planted in the courtyard. Nah, not happening! Camping anyone?

bravery: the real deal

I have a thing about people being called heroes undeservedly. It's a tag that seems to be bandied about without any real thought, except perhaps when we're talking about a war or a natural disaster. You see heroics everywhere then don't you? People putting their own lives on the line for others. Sportsmen get called heroes all the time in this country. Sportsmen are not heroes people. Role models maybe, heroes no. Celebrities are not heroic...well some of them might be, but I seriously doubt it. That's what I think anyway! 
I believe that heroism and real bravery are about sacrifice and giving; often about everyday people doing extraordinary things and you don't bump up against it all that often...well not in my experience. 
But in my circle of volleyball friends there is one very brave woman; a heroine by my definition. Someone who is making a real sacrifice, though I suspect she wouldn't describe it that way. Denise is giving up one of her kidneys for her brother today in a hospital in Adelaide. She is, by her own admission, an intensely private person, but she said it was ok for me to write about this as long as it was about promoting organ donation...and it is organ donation week after all. So please take some time to think about this. There's a good website Donate Life with loads of information. And if you're not on the register, please think about that as well. If you want information about live kidney donor transplants there is information here. Apparently at least 30 percent of willing, and otherwise appropriate kidney donor-recipient pairs are incompatible, and currently can't proceed to live donor transplantation. Thankfully this is not the case for Denise and her brother. 
So Denise, you heroine (oh yes you are!), here's blessings to you both xx

do you see what I see?: typography

A wonderful friend found these for me, aren't they fabulous?
I'm not quite sure what to do with them yet, although I do know that a couple will end up in my black and white themed bedroom, somewhere, somehow! (yes, they're meant to be backwards!)

traditional living room design by los angeles showroom The Old Painted Cottage

living etc

out of the way

living etc

vi.sualise

progress of sorts

It's been an extraordinary day of busy-ness at the tranquil townhouse today.  The MGM put up my Ikea shelf in the study this morning...we won't tell anyone about the slight problems we had with that!
I finished painting the pergola...and got a very sore back and shoulder as a result, but I'm pleased that the Mission Brown has gone to its maker! Can you spot the Vampire Slayer in the photo?

I undercoated two bedside tables and the ugly bookshelf in the bedroom...this one...yuck...can't believe how much better it looks already...photo when project is done.

and framed my very kitsch but oh-so-lovable heavily beaded Taj Mahal cushion cover I bought in India a few years ago.

and, oh yeah...bought these gorgeous Eiffel Tower paper clips yesterday...too cute, from Typo...now there's one dangerous store to hang about in.

...so, to use the great Australian vernacular...I'm knackered and off to watch Dr Who.
Will leave you with this lovely study in lieu of a photo of mine which, despite the shelf is still a work in progress!

eclectic home office design

Enjoy the working week.

three little words: an ikea run

Warning: the following photos may be distressing to some readers (but at least they'll be useful for the before and afters down the track!)
Despite what some people say, Canberra has an awful lot going for it...except a major omission in the form of an Ikea. Which, I do concede, is probably quite handy for the wallet. I usually rely on the wonderful people at BringitHome (a fantastic Ikea pick-up service for Canberrans) when the Ikea bug hits, but not today (sorry guys)...today (ok yesterday) a wonderful friend Chris did an Ikea run to Sydney with her son's ute and said son's girlfriend Alex in tow (not literally of course although the ute did get a bit full!) and bought me back this red Lack shelf destined for the study...

and these Knuff magazine files for this project from Real Living

and this lovely fabric 

that is going to line the back of this ugly bookshelf once I repaint it white...

and best of all this squishy armchair that is going to look great once I've redone this part of the bedroom that I showed you here

...and moved all the boxes that the chair came in, out of the bedroom

and finished painting the pergola, and...

...deep breathing begin.

So I'm heading out to the courtyard to tackle the pergola, but at least while I'm out there I will have these small bits of tranquility to look at. I'll keep you posted, as they say!

an itsy bit of etsy

I am an etsy novice so imagine my delight when having ordered something on-line it arrived around 10 days later from the other side of the world...where exactly in the States is Raleigh NC anyway? (it's ok, don't panic, I've googled it!). Just enough time to have almost forgotten about it (the necklace that is, not Raleigh), but nowhere near long enough to be worried that it wasn't going to get here...perfect combination.
I opened the postpack and saw...

I undid the bow and there was a lovely thank you from Tracy herself

...and then revealed in all its loveliness was the gorgeous necklace I spied on opening my very first etsy-finds email

I was mightily impressed,and so it seems were some of the lovely young things in my office...this is NOT my neck!

...so, thank you Tracy for such a painless first etsy experience. You should all head on over to photoglassworks and have a look at all the lovely things that Tracy has on offer...but leave some more for me please! 

Books: Cicero was right

Oh Cicero, who said "a room without books is like a body without a soul".

Amongst my (reasonably few) obsessions is the one I have for books. I can't remember never having loved reading...up to the library each week with my dad when I was a kid, taking out six books at a time. 

And now I add the new obsession of scouring web sites to find pictures of beautiful houses with beautiful bookshelves. I did start to colour code my own books until a mischievous friend (you know who you are Mr T!) started to come around and take a blue spined book and put it with the browns...or an orange in amongst the white. Now the organiser in me just categorises! But I still do long for something like this...

but would be thrilled with any of these...

images from design sponge, house beautiful, living etc, house and garden, flickr