Gender Neutral Nursery: Part Two

Just a few more snapshots of the nursery to share. We decided to forgo the change table this time around and went for a space saving option instead. We have had this white chest of drawers since Harry was born (my lovely Dad painted them for me) and they are a great size for a nursery.

I found a second hand Tesori change top which fits the drawers perfectly and hopefully will provide an efficient changing area, at least for the first few months. Although there isn't as much storage as a purpose built change table, there is a small area for nappies and wipes at the end.

My favourite rocking chair.

I have "borrowed" my favourite replica Eames rocker from another part of the house and it is now at home in the nursery, finished with another chevron cushion. :)

One of my favourite items is the mobile above the change table. I made this very simply with some Wee Gallery Art Cards which I found on Trademe, and a photo mobile hanger. These are bold black and white prints and I really love them.

Wee Gallery Art Cards.

Clothes and shoes are also a great inexpensive way to decorate your nursery. I found these baby Ugg boots for 99cents from Savemart and they look like they have never been worn. I know many people don't like buying second hand items but I love searching for little bargains and it is one of my favourite hobbies. I just wish I had more time to do it!

99 Cent Baby Ugg Boots!

I picked up a couple of these wooden grey elephant wall plaques for $1 each and they also fitted with the unisex theme well. The elephant motif is very popular in children's decor and it is quite easy to find bedding and other items in this theme if you wanted to take it further.

Creating a space for baby is such a fun part of the nesting process and whether it is a corner in your bedroom or a dedicated nursery, there is so much you can do to personalise it and make it fun.

My babies are in their own room from Day 1. We had every intention of sleeping them in their bassinets in our room (which is recommended) but after one night, we realised this wouldn't work for our family. We seem to have very loud little sleepers and we wake constantly with every sniffle and movement.

The nursery is only a few metres from our room and this arrangement works for us. Only a few short days before this new baby arrives and I am trying to relax as much as I can and enjoy the last few days of being a family of four. :)

Gender Neutral Nursery: Part One

The room is ready for it's newest little occupant.

Well, after a final burst of energy I have finally finished pottering around in the nursery and created a new gender neutral place for the new little one to sleep. Knowing me, I will want to make changes as soon as I find out whether it is a boy or girl and for that reason, I really didn't want to spend much money at all on the room.

The birdhouses and my two home made cushions.

I looked around the house at what we had and apart from the Expedit cube storage unit and the cot, most things were either a Trademe or Op Shop find, or items we already owned from other parts of the house. The room was finished really inexpensively and I got to complete a couple of mini craft projects along the way.

Grey and white theme with a touch of pink and blue!

I love these little Charlotte and Austen pink and blue birdhouses which I found at Mary's Market a few months ago. They belong to Rosie and Harry but I have "borrowed" them from their room for the time being. You will also notice my grey chevron cushions made it into the nursery after all.

I love this Eeni Meeni Miini Moh wool blanket, a Trademe find.

I am a huge fan of Dwell Studio, a US based company selling high end linen, but needless to say, most of their range is cost prohibitive for me. When I stumbled upon a square dove patterned crib sheet set on Trademe which had never been used, I snapped it up, knowing it was the wrong size for our cot, but hoping I could use the fabric for something else.

The cot is now assembled.

As it turns out, one of the sheets fitted the cot perfectly so I have used that and out of the other sheet, I was able to make two cushions and the bunting flags you can see hanging along the wall.

Pink gingham cushion, courtesy of Rosie.

I love bunting and it is so easy to make. I didn't even bother sewing the flags, I just cut them out with a pair of pinking shears and sewed them to some plain white binding that I had cut off a new electric blanket we bought last year.

The toy box hiding in the corner...aka drinks tub from the supermarket!

The little toy box you can see peeking in the corner of the photo above is a plain white drinks tub which I found at Countdown for $10. It fits a lot, is lightweight and easy to carry to other parts of the house if need be. There is so much out there now and it is easy to find loads of great items for next to nothing. Part of the fun is in the finding!

Part Two to follow. :)

Nursery Progress: Driftwood Mini Hanging Wardrobe

One of the challenges of creating a gender neutral nursery has been finding the motivation to tackle some of the projects I had in mind for the room. I really enjoy hunting for bedding and special touches for a specific gender and in the absence of this knowledge, I have held off committing to anything other than plain white and grey, which I admit is rather boring.

Our driftwood hanger.

A few months ago I was browsing one of my favourite blogs, The Happy Home and came across an idea I fell in love with. The talented Belinda had created a super cute driftwood hanger to hang her new baby's clothes from and I vowed to keep an eye out for something similar on our next trip to the beach.

Fiddling with fishing line to get the height just right.

When we visted Rangitoto Island as a family after Christmas, we found a few pieces of driftwood that we popped into our backpacks and then promptly forgot about for a few months.

Voila! Driftwood hanger complete.

A couple of days ago we finally got around to this little project (the nesting instinct has now kicked in!) and my patient husband was super obliging and hung my driftwood hanger for me. Isn't it cute?

Cube storage

The best thing about this little DIY project is that it costs virtually nothing! We just used fishing line and a couple of little screw in metal eyelets in the ceiling. I wouldn't like to hang anything too heavy on it, but it is perfect for baby clothes. :)

Belinda's nursery picture that inspired me so many months ago.

Landscaping Lessons!

A few weeks ago I mentioned some of the landscaping madness going on at our house. It is still very much a work in progress but I thought I would share a couple of the lessons we have learnt recently.

The first lesson is: If a truck comes to deliver a large load of soil, it really isn't worth it to push them to drive through a small set of gates in order to dump the soil closer to your intended project.

This was unfortunately a lesson we had to learn the hard way. I have to say, I was dubious from the start but I am married to an optimist! There was literally 5cm to spare on each side of the truck but it had made it through.

All was going well until the large load was emptied, somehow causing the truck to no longer fit through the gates! I think it had something to do with the shift in weight after the truck was empty.

This marked the beginning of a very complex process to remove the truck and keep the fence and gate intact. The truck driver and Taff worked closely together and all was looking good...until the very last moment when we heard a crack. The truck had taken out the fence! This wouldn't usually be the end of the world but this fence is one of our pool boundary fences so we needed to address it immediately.

Thus began the search for a fence builder...and fast. This then led to landscaping lesson number 2: Do not try save money by choosing the cheapest quote you can find, you get what you pay for. The builders we went with were only a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than professional fence places and in hindsight, this is only a small amount in the bigger scheme of things.

The first day they were onsite was looking good, until after several hours of work they (and we!) discovered that the gates had been built wrong. The fence is on a slope and they hadn't taken this into account, instead building a completely straight bottomed gate, leaving a nice little gap for young children to crawl under and get into the pool area.

To their credit, they came back and finished the job and rebuilt the gates but Taff spent the last two hours "supervising" their work and asking them to redo things! Not one for confrontation, I chose to hide inside at this point. :)

So finally the new fence and gate were finished and after a couple of days of uncertainty, we actually quite like it now and think they did a reasonable job in the end. There is still much work to do to get it looking finished but we have plans to sand it and paint it further down the track. Still, it is functional and 100 times better than the old brown fence. In the end it was a good thing the truck smashed the fence as it accelerated a project that had been a very low priority prior to that. I am also sure this won't be the last lesson we learn in landscaping! :)

Landscaping Madness

Things on the blog have been quiet lately (sorry!) but there is a reason. We are in the thick of some much needed landscaping at our poor neglected house.

There has been major plumbing work going on downstairs as we are having our pipes replaced...here is some of the evidence laying on our drive way. :)

As is often the case, the interior has been our priority since we moved in and after making lots of cosmetic changes inside such as new carpet, polished floors and painting, etc, I guess it is fair to say that we ran out of steam...for quite a while. This is nothing unusual for us and sometimes several months can pass before we feel like tackling anything else.

Remnants of a large soil delivery outside the old built in BBQ...still not sure what to do with this area?

Our house is 50 years old and many of it's features are original, including most of the landscaping! There are lots of poorly positioned trees, overgrown patches of shrubs and weeds and pool tiling which has suffered from subsidence over the years.

Greenfingers couldn't collect our bag this month, as their access was blocked with rubbish and soil! lol

There is a lot of potential, BUT there is a lot of work to be done before we even get close to reaching that potential. Being seven months pregnant, I'm afraid I haven't been much help physically in the work being done outside for the last few weeks, but I have been very supportive and tried to keep a supply of snacks and drinks going for Taff as he toils outside in the rain and sunshine. :)

Clearing out the garden

We have had some high points and low points, which I may expand on at another time, but at the moment our property looks like a dumpsite. A couple of days ago I decided to walk around with my camera and snap some of the landscaping chaos that surrounds us at the moment, just to share with you. :)

Mini piles of rubbish, waiting for the skip to arrive

Taff has been slowly gathering piles of rubbish and green waste, strategically placed around the yard in anticipation of the large rubbish skip we plan to order for the coming weekend! I LOVE getting skips and there is something so satisfying about throwing out your rubbish and having it driven away a couple of days later. :)

This little pile has been here for about 18 months (blush)

We have had a family working bee, builders working on a new fence (I will share that story another time!), tiles being painted, new grass seed sown and tomorrow these ugly little babies (trees at the front of our property) will be gone forever as they face the chop from the experts! I can't wait to come home and see them gone, ready for the next project...a front fence and driveway gates.

Major tree work to start tomorrow!

In the meantime, enjoy the photos of all the mess. I am sure they will make you feel like your backyard isn't as messy as you once thought! lol. :)

Sneak Peek: Harry's Big Boy Bedroom

We have recently made some changes to Rosie and Harry's sleeping situation. They have loved sharing a room and have had hours of fun keeping each other awake in the evenings, talking and laughing together. Taff and I would often stand outside the door and just listen to the fun going on in there, it was lovely.

Sneek Peek at Harry's Big Boy Room

Just recently Rosie has started to mention that she would like to move back to her old bedroom (now the guest room) again. She really enjoys playing with her dollhouse at the moment and builds elaborate set ups which she is very protective of. Harry was not so careful around these and there was the occasional melt down as her well planned sets were pulled to pieces.

Room in it's original state

We decided that we would separate them back into their own rooms again and there was much excitement from both of them!

Varnished woodwork and peach mottled effect wallpaper

Harry stayed in the original room with the bunks and Rosie has moved down the hall to her old room.

The stripping in progress

There wasn't a lot to do in Harry's room but we decided together (both my kids like looking at interiors and talking about them!) that we could create a more boyish space for him.

Ably assisted by Harry!

So here is a sneak peek, and just to show you how far we have come, here are some 'before' photos of the room when we moved in. :)

The Sofa Saga

A couple of months ago I mentioned that we had purchased a new sofa for our living room. Choosing a sofa is without a doubt one of your most important decorating decisions as it is one of the main features in your living room and can make or break the whole look that you are trying to achieve. I know a little about this as we have had several (nine at my last count) sofas since moving into our current house. I know this sounds indulgent but I can explain! I thought it was time to share some of the lessons I have learned and laugh at some of the mistakes I have made. Everyone knows that I love a good bargain so my first place to look was on Trademe. In fact, all the sofas we have had at this house have come from Trademe, apart from the one we have now...more on that later.

Our cream macrosuede sofa which showed marks easily

The tricky part about choosing a new sofa has been our oddly shaped living room. If I had my way I would have a modular sofa in a L shape but sadly, this room is not cut out for that. Funnily enough, this knowledge did not stop me from trying out two different Freedom modular sofas in the room, just to confirm that they indeed did not work. :)

Macrosuede also requires a lot of  'brushing' to get the nap of the fabric looking decent

This then took me to sofa suites. I wanted something good quality and durable so I chose high end pieces (from places like Living Edge and The Design Store), often coming from the holiday homes of the affluent who were upgrading. What I failed to recognise was that these homes usually featured no children and were not suited to life with two littlies! It was back to the drawing board again.

In a brave moment I went for teal macrosuede, obviously I hadn't learnt my lesson...

One thing you should know is that this acquiring and culling process did not cost any money. When I purchase things from Trademe and find they are not suitable, I am sure to sell them for at least the amount I bought them for and more often than not, for more. This was a danger in itself as it made it far too easy to keep searching for the elusive "perfect sofa"! After yet another failed experiment (the teal one to be exact) I had finally had enough and decided to get the sofa I wanted, rather than search for a second hand sofa that did not tick all the boxes.

I loved this sofa but it was a little to modern for me and the low back was not comfortable...

One Saturday I pulled out all the back issues of my favourite interiors magazines and searched for a sofa colour, shape and style that I really wanted. It soon became apparent to me that I was after a very simple square armed sofa with a comfortable high back and in a textured light coloured weave. I popped into a local furniture store (not an expensive one) and found what I wanted, chose the fabric and in a few short weeks, it was ready! As soon as the delivery guys brought it in the house, we knew we had found what we had been looking for. It is a plain, simple, comfortable and versatile. We love it!

Finally, the "right one"!

Anyway, some tips I have learnt along the way regarding sofa shopping:

I know, it looks similar to the cream one at the top but it is the fabric that makes all the difference in this one. :)

1. Just because it is cheap, it doesn't mean you should get it.
2. Just because it is a designer brand, it doesn't mean you should get it.
3. Despite what experts might say, macrosuede marks easily and has a nap to the fabric that you will forever be 'brushing' to try and get it looking good.
4. Low back sofas look great but are incredibly uncomfortable.
5. When buying from Trademe, what constitutes "no marks and new condition" varies greatly between sellers.
6. Hiring a trailer and picking up sofas from people's homes WILL require a loving and patient husband. :)
7. Sometimes it is a false economy to buy second hand, especially when the item doesn't meet your needs.
8. Leather is always the best option with kids (though I haven't followed this advice in our latest purchase!).
9. Shop around for the best deal on what you want.
10. It is worth paying a little extra to choose the fabric and colour you want and have it custom made. It is money well spent it in the end.

Hope some of you can learn from my mistakes! :)

The Master Bedroom is Finally Finished!

I am thrilled to finally be sharing some photos of our finished master bedroom. This room was painted a year ago in Resene Double Alabaster but it was left unfinished as we knew immediately that the colour was not right for the room.

There was all the cutting in to complete, all well as completely repainting the wardrobe, frames and skirting. A couple of months ago Taff decided to tackle this room and he worked extremely hard for a few days to get it all done.

After a lot of test pots and paint swatches we finally decided on Resene Soapstone, which is a warm neutral. After some initial doubts we are now happy with the colour and think it suits our 1960's house a lot better than a stark grey white.

In fact, we like it so much that we have decided to paint the rest of the house in this colour. We also chose to paint all the frames and skirting in white high gloss enamel, to provide a nice contrast to the Soapstone. 

As you can see, there is always a certain amount of upheaval when you redecorate but it is worth it in the end. Taff is a perfectionist in his painting and he did a fantastic job. :)

We have now finished three of the bedrooms and are continuing work on the other areas upstairs. It is a slow process as we have to fit it all around work and family time but we will get there! :)