My Daughter's Room

So I have now finished my daughter's room. Over all I am really happy how her room has turned out. It has a vintage feel. I got the fabric for her blind frilled pelmet, bed skirt, and the flags and lamp shade at Spotlight and they all match in together, they were all $5.00 a meter. The doona cover I purchased matches in with the Spotlight fabric perfectly. I couldn't have matched it up better if I tried. I would have loved using fabric by Heather Bailey but was not sure how it would turn out, plus my daughter really wanted all pink.

I made the butterfly canvas above her bed and covered the butterflies with different fabrics. The cupcake prints are by Suzie Crooke a Australian artist.

Her bed was just $20.00 for the local second hand shop. The mirror was $5.00, the bedside table was FREE, yes FREE!!! (although it was in a pretty bad state), but nothing a lick of paint couldn't fix!! The dressing table was $25.00 (I think.....) So of course they all did not match, but with some white paint, a bit of a sand to make them look shabby chic, and it brings all the furniture in the room together. Changing the handles on the dresser and bedside table also makes a big difference to the pieces.

Frilled Flannel Pants

I have finally got around finishing the PJ's for a friend's daughter down the road. I love the fit of these pants and they look great on. I just got a top from Big W and put some butterflies down one side in the same fabric to make the set. I have made my daughter a couple of pairs and she loves them!!

I plan to start to sell them.... I was thinking of making them in flannel, so the can be cozy PJ's and also in cotton fabrics to be worn during the day.

I will be making them from size 6 months to 8 years.

I just have to get my etsy site up and running. Maybe I'll have to look into that on the weekend.

The Boys Room

To make the third bedroom we had to close off the enrty into the kitchen. My brother-in-law came to lend a hand, so he was able to block off this entry and open another entry off the dining room.
After I had stripped all the wallpaper and exposed the bare wall, it was brown. I thought nothing of it until I started to paint. I started with a sealer thinking that would cover the brown. Not to be. With each coat of paint, the brown from the wall kept bleeding through the paint. I phoned my mum to ask her what I could do. She told me I would just have to keep painting until it covered. Thanks Mum!! I was hoping for a different answer!! I was so sick of painting, as it took 7... yes... 7 coates of paint on the walls in the boys room until I was finally happy with the result.

I used the pelmet that was already in the room. I stripped the wallpaper off it and initally thought I would cover it with some fabric, then thought it would be just as easy with paper. There are some really nice papers about these days. I went to the scrapbooking shop and picked up some paper that I think was made to go with the pillows on the beds. I still need to do some artwork for the walls in the boys room, and the lamp shades that I covered are in need of some additional trims to finish them off, but overall I am happy with how it is looking. I am going to make some more pillows for the beds, to tie in with the red, blue and white. The desk area is not finished yet but think I will put a bookcase in and some shelves above the desk. Big change from how it looked 6 months back!

P.S. Thanks to my best friend Belinda for being my first follower on this blog.

Before Photos - the rest of the house

This is the laundry and 2 toilet.

Lounge room

This is the dining room below

Photos below are of the back room which is being used as the play room for the kids.

So now that I have posted all of the before photos, I will start to take some photos of how the house is looking these days, after 6 months. I do think it will be a 10 year project though. Everywhere I look there is another job waiting to be done.

Before Photos - Kitchen and Bathroom

The previous owner was obviously not capable of cleaning up the house herself, so she offered us about $1000.00 to get it done. If I had known all the crap she had left behind the fee should have been alot higher.

At the end of the day we just wanted to get her out and start the clean out. She had delayed settlement 3 times before so by this stage we just wanted her out. It was the most stressful experience, even the real estate agent said, any place we purchase in the future will be a breeze compared to this one. We got the house at a good price because of the state it was in so all was good - I think????? Were we mad?????

Below is a photo of the bathroom. A lovely black and pink 1950s style. Painting will hopefully make big difference to it's appearance. There are so many fantastic paint products on the market these days that you can paint just about anything!!

The Kitchen was an absolute mess, as you can see by the photo. The bathroom was just as bad. She had left the kitty litter trays in there and they had not been cleaned in months. I could not even enter the bathroom because of the smell. So the real estate agent braved the smell and went in and got the litter trays to take out side.

Before Photos - Bedrooms

This is the main bedroom, this was one of the better rooms in the house, it did not seem to smell as much as the rest of the house.

This picture below is of the formal dining room.

To make it a three bedroom house we blocked off the entry from this room to the kitchen and opened up a entry off the dining room to get into the kitchen - this room is now the boy's bedroom.

This is the second bedroom.

It is now my daughter's room.
The entry into my daughter's bedroom.

What a mess!!

Before Photos - Outside

This was the outside of the house on the day of settlement.

Front lawn

Front driveway

A $2 Lamp Shade

I love thrifting and often go into the local Salvo's store here to see what's about. Last week I went in and saw this lamp shade. Should have taken a before photo but forgot. It had a burn mark in it, so the guy there said I could have it for $2.00. What a bargain!!! Spotlight had 20% off, so off to Spotlight I went in search of some fabrics that will tie in with the colour scheme for my lounge / dining area. I have a brown couch so deceided to go with Black, Beige and Brown colour ways. The lamp base was also a bargain. Reduced at Target, down to $4.10. So all up the lamp finished cost $22.35. I used gigham ribbon to cover up where the fabrics meet. It still needs something around the top. Maybe some wider ribbon? What do you think!!

The Clean Up!!

The clean up!!

After getting over the intial shock of the state of the house and the task ahead. We had only given ourselves two weeks to get the house liveable. I did not even think about if this was going to be possible, as we just had to do it, I had already given notice at the place we were renting.

The day after settlement I got up very early to make a start on cleaning up the house in preparation for painting.

We had left the house windows and doors open all night to let some air through the house. I took one step inside and just turned around and ran straight back out. The smell was disgusting and I was pysically sick.

Phoned my Mum who was at home minding the kids and said it was too bad, and I couldn't stomach being in there. Believe me it was bad!!! Mum to the rescue, came up and spent all day raking out the house. Yes that's right, she came armed with a rake and raked out all the rubbish left behind. Then cleaned it. After everything was out I could at least help with the cleaning and the smell was not as bad. We hired the biggest skip you could get and the busy two weeks began!!!

In need of alot of attention.

6 months ago my husband and I bought a run down house in need of alot of attention. There was mess everywhere. The previous owner was a hoarder, I have seen stuff like it on the TV but never come into contact with anything like this in my life. The woman that owned the house had to get two truck loads of stuff out of the house, before we could even get a pest and building inspection done. Even after two truck loads of stuff out of the house it was still cluttered.

On the day of settlement I really did wonder what we had done to ourselves as I walked around the house. I also wondered if we would ever get the terrible smell out of the house that was created from animals and rubbish and never having a window open. How could any anyone live like this???? But guess there are probably more people than you think that do.