an old friend

After the success of our previous table restoration I decided to have ago at our outdoor table. This one was given to me by my older sister about 20 years ago when a graphic design studio were throwing out 3 of them out.

It's had a quite a life with us from outdoor table to stained dark brown for our dining room in Surry Hills, then my Studio table (covered in paint spills) at Randwick and then the work bench during the reno here.

An hour or so with the belt sander, then a lot of hand sanding, a very dilute layer of Porter's Paints Palm Beach White, then 2 coats of Porter's Paints Clearcoat (sanding in between).

It will be our outdoor dining / my outdoor studio table now and I'm so it's starting afresh. It really does show the wear and tear of shared adventures.

sunday collector

With our Master bedroom (pic) now complete and the Study/Studio super close, it seemed like a serendipitous occasion to introduce you to the very lovely Briar Stanley over at Sunday Collector ... just in case you haven't met yet. She does happen to be the younger sister of a couple of my very dear friends (both big sisters are also amazingly stylish), but she is also one of my favourite bloggers. Posts on home, baby, styling, food, family and more make her site (and Instagram space) places of great beauty, energy, style and grace.

Why serendipitous? Because today she blogged about her new bedlinen, on exactly the same day that I was photographing our new room... and we just so happen to have exactly the same lovely linen quilt cover along with yellow and grey themed resting places (even if they come up a bit beige under lights in the pic!). Enjoy.

Adairs Vintage Washed Linen quilt cover, White quilt and pillows Country Road, Fabric covered canvas in Marimekko fabric from Chee Soon Fitzgerald (this colour no longer available).

keeping the doctor away

We have our first apple! My father gave the tree to my daughters about 5 years ago and this week we picked apples from it for the first time. In truth they've budded before but the possums always beat us to it. Happy girls today.

Also a pic from the backyard of the extension and pool - you can see the terracotta roof of the original cottage popping up behind - the house. A rather sadly neglected garden in the foreground but it knows I'm coming back soon. Bit more painting and then back to garden duties.

have a love filled day

addicted to chocolate

One set of hooks from Margarita at Chocolate Creative (dresses below) just wasn't enough so I've added a new set in the outdoor room by the pool (towels above).

Hopefully everyone else (i.e. small people) will also find them irresistible and choose to hang their wet towels on them... rather than in a puddle on the floor.

Always beautiful Margarita, thank you... again.

a long eighteen months

The dining room... hard to do a 'before and after' when the 'before' was a rocky slope and falling down fence, so I thought it might be better to show you the journey. It may not make much sense but gives you a sense of what we did. (The little grey house that you can see being dismantled was my old Studio).

This is the kitchen, living, dining extension that we linked up with the old cottage (you can see the stairs that go down to form the link in the plasterboard pic).

Definately plastering and sanding those high ceilings and laying that timber floor were some of the lowest moments for me... and my poor hands. However the result is so lovely to live in that we forget the pain.

shelter?

Very rainy Sydney weekend so we got busy making pipe-cleaner houses to ensure that the pom pom people and their dice friends had somewhere nice to live.

inspiring

Madrid Unemployment Office. Just lovely. Hope you find sunshine in your day.

buying handmade

Arounna at bookhou (maker of perfectly perfect bags, papers and more) wrote a touching piece about buying handmade last week.

It prompted a discussion about how we price and value 'handmade'. Isn't it lucky that we all thrive on the joy, the satisfaction, the frustration, the promise and the peace we find in creating handmade objects and art... because it's rare that anyone does it for the money.

You can read her thoughts and all the beautiful responses here.

more old house

Downstairs is taking shape. Beautiful wall hooks in yellow and grey from Chocolate Creative, Bridesmaid dress was my mum's and Christening dress is The Lovely One's great, great grandmother's. Memento watch from my big sister last year to remember the search for the pale oak floor.