In Good Company

Sometimes when you least expect it, you have the best of times... during the last school holidays, we went to the Company Gardens in town. 

Filled with a sense of nostalgia from when I was a kid I walked through the gardens with some serious deja-vu. The restaurant hasn't changed its décor since the 80's, the aviary's still the same and the statues are all there... the grass is greener than ever, the flora is beautifully maintained and the local wildlife are still nuts about the nuts.  We loved it! 

Good friends enjoying a morning in town, feeding squirrels & running through the sprinklers...what more could we ask for!

I realise that this may be photo-overload, but I couldn't decide which pics to leave out and there were so many more I wanted to include.

I wonder if there are some photos in a box somewhere of me running around Company Gardens, and if there are... I'm sure they'd look a lot like this!

Ring-a-roses

Chasing birds

how big are you?

following the baby chicks...

bench time

a few ducks in a row

imitating old Cecil

I'm pretty sure I may have climbed that same tree at the restaurant

friends having fun

moms and babes

I'm also pretty sure I sat in this tree when I was a kid

ROAR!

in deep conversation

sprinkler fun!

the long goodbye...

my boy and me x

What a great way to spend the morning with the kids... a real walk in the park!

Building a Bathroom... and Passage

I'm having a lets-procrastinate-some-more-today-because-nothing-seems-to-get-done-anyway-and-there's-way-too-much-to-do-before-Sophia's-party-next-week kinda day... generally feeling beat down about the state of my  house and not seeing the end of all this!


The best medicine for these moments are looking back at how far we've come, it helps seeing the change from this point of view and hopefully motivates me to keep going... so here are some more photo's on how the bathroom and passage progressed from concrete jungle to a semi-finished space:

Bath - check, Basin - check, Toilet - check!

Attractive wall space...

"Building-in and Bricking-up" the Bath and Basin

Tiling starts - Yay!

Slowly seeing progress...

At this stage I realise that the colour we decided on for the walls are the same as the tiles! Eeeeek, too much cream for me! (so I've repainted it in the meantime)

There's that monkey again :)

Passage pre-painting

Passage post-painting!

Feels like things are coming together, bit by bit! 
For now I can live with "semi-finished"




Happy Productive Friday!

Street Braai!

24th September was a Public Holiday... Heritage Day, also known as National Braai Day.  I realise that this post is slightly delayed, but I just had to share what we did on Braai Day... 

Starting off as a lazy Saturday afternoon, sitting in the next door neighbours "Garage", with no plans.  None.  This year , we were going to order take-out and veg on the couch... no effort, no fuss.  

With grumbly tummies (after a few beers)... the conversation turned to food and steak and the special price Spar had on Beef fillet.  Well, it didn't take long for Bradley to hop into the car and literally grab the last fillet steak off the shelf ahead of the next shopper who was gunning for it from down the aisle.  Before you know it, we had the Braai rolled out to the front yard (as no one felt the need to move from their comfortable spots), the fire was roaring and the salads made.

The afternoon was so spontaneous and relaxed... sitting, chatting, drinking with good friends.  Just the way Braai Day should be celebrated. 

Lekker!

Fillet on the Braai

Reuben (the grandson dog) also made an appearance

Merlin & Sophia

Happy Days Harry!!

Sophia's new: "smile for the camera" look.

Chappie and Chris

Staring at the fire... 

Playing with the opposite neighbours doggie

Good Times!

Hello Yellow!

I fell in love with this yellow and grey colour scheme....(thanks Pinterest!)... simple yet happy, neutral -  with a significant pop, gentle and fresh.  Well...

...as you can clearly see, my inspiration board and actual room are miles apart... in fact they're in different time zones entirely!

The yellow is off-key, the temporary curtains with the "hello"-turquoise detail are severely hampering the effect... and the lack of artwork/accessories is dismal.

Except for the jumping monkey, I feel the space is lacking severely.  So back to the drawing-board:

 * Get new curtains

* Get storage!

* Get artwork

* Get side-tables to fit

* Get a door

* Get some rest!

Anybody got more ideas for me!?!?

What I am happy about is having a carpet installed and having the skirting boards put in immediately (and not waiting a year, like in our lounge) and redoing the yucky old steel window frame (more on that in another post) and of course I'm super-amped that the space and the whole house is taking shape. 

The next phase of bedroom renovation will hopefully see us knocking through another wall (the one that the tree was painted on) to the outside room to create a dressing space and en-suite bathroom - this I think, will happen in about a hundred years time. Not just from a financial perspective, but also from a disruptive-chaos point of view. 

Enough with the havoc! in with the calm, harmony and organisation ;)

Thoughts, feedback & advice most welcome!

Keep calm, and Paint on

Let's focus on the main bedroom for a bit... before the carpet guys came on a random Friday morning, we realised, on a random Tuesday evening, that it would make most sense to paint the walls first. So paint we did. At night. 
Sadly this part is where we say goodbye to the tree I painted for Sophia, but we say hello to yellow!
I've embraced this happy colour into my bedroom on a focal wall behind the bed... hopefully it will do its therapeutic-thing and spread the sunshine throughout the house.
(this would mostly be needed at 05:30am when the kids decide that its get-up-time, because its already getting light outside *yawn*)

This is a "it's 22:15 and we have a lot of word still to do, please put down the camera and get busy " smile

knocking up the parquet flooring - thanks Stephan!

Just a sneak peak at the room, watch this space for the next post in my renovation story with more on how the bedroom's décor unfolds.

♥ Jo