Kids with real paint

We decided to get the kids involved in their own room makeover as part of our a-room-a-month mission.

So this past public holiday we dressed them in old clothes and braved two kiddies with "real" paint and paintbrushes... they had so much fun!

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully we'll be able to make our deadline for the end of the month... so much to do still!

A-room-A-month

Since the end of last year, the house and all renovations/redecorations that went with it were neglected.  Holidays & Birthday's took preference, and our time over the past few weekends were spent at parties!

This left us with an unfinished house, in a perpetual state of being "not-quite-done-yet".  From the time of moving in, to now, we've touched on each space in the house, trying to improve bits and pieces as we go along, sometimes a big reno, sometimes a quick fix... resulting in every space and room still needing "finishing".

Bradley and I have resolved to tackle all the loose ends over the next year, which brings us to the:

a-room-a-month challenge

It's simple really, each month we will try to complete one room/space/area in the house.  Not an easy task, but a necessary one.  This could include everything from painting skirtings, to fixing light fittings, to hanging curtains, refurbishing and decorating.

We haven't planned the order of which room we'll tackle in each month, as it will come down to time and finances available, so we'll decide after each room is complete which area get's our attention next.

First up: The kids bedroom

Amongst other things we have to:

Paint skirtings

Paint cupboard doors

Hang curtains properly

Put up pictures & hooks

Put window arms back on!

Organise soft toys

Make bunting flags

Clear out and repack clothing

(take out all clothes they've outgrown!)
Do something with the books that end up here instead of the playroom...

Hopefully I'll be able to report back on a finished room - the first in the house - by the end of this month.  Input, suggestions, ideas, feedback and encouragement is always welcome!

Have a happy weekend

PS many people have asked me about the floor in the kids bedroom.  

We "white-washed" it, during our previous renovation: sand floor, paint white, wipe off paint, apply water-based varnish.  I like the lighter floors compared to the dark wood look, and we'll probably end up doing the same for the kids playroom:

Snippets of Sophia

Kids will be kids, and kids will do what they do... and well, if Sophia wants to empty the entire jar of E45 cream onto the bed because she wants to feel the squish of it, then she will do so - there's no stopping this little girls' craftiness.  I probably should have seen the signs a while ago - always grabbing the pot off my dresser, claiming that it was hers, showing great interest in using it on herself.

Big brother came along and was very concerned with Sophia's "naughtiness" and promptly brought a tiny piece of toilet paper to wipe up the mess, not sure if he should back her up by explaining what she's done or scold her for doing it. I can foresee many more such moments :)

Luckily it was laundry day and the covers were already off the bed, so not much mess to clean.... Just another one of those priceless moments that needs to be taken with a good dose of humour! 

Some Pooh wisdom on a Wednesday morning:

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!

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