The carpug that changed our living area for GOOD

I think I have made it well and truly clear on the gram that deciding to ditch our living room rugs and replace them with a large carpet square has been an absolute win. But just in case you didn't quite get the point, I have decided to talk about it at length on the blog. Because when you're a 34 year old Mother, carpet becomes something that warrants a lot of excitement and plenty of chat...
I can't believe you 20-somethings still think that drinking cocktails in Croatia while wearing super cool clothes that I'm definitely not jealous of and having the time of your life, is actual fun. You crazy, glistening, suntanned fools.

Carpet! Carpet is life! 

So our living area was great, I'm not going to complain about a big, warm, high ceiling'd living room in a new house (except now I kind of am...the shame) but it never felt right. The white walls which I loved, felt too expansive and the two sofas sitting on the large layered rugs, which only just filled the floor space between them, left the room feeling a little bit nil and kind of just floating, if you get what I mean. Check out this before shot... geeez talk about lacking, Mclacky pants.

So after talking to my friend about how she was going to have a dark feature wall in her living room. I realized I needed to do the exact same thing. Originality!!

And having been loitering around a carpet shop (as you do) a little earlier in the month, I decided the dark wall and a big area of lush carpet was exactly what the room needed. A tall lick of Dulux Blackwood Bay and one giant white wall was taken care of, the room was finally anchored, but a little dark with that dark concrete...So now just the flooring remained.

We went into the Cavalier Bremworth showroom. We chose them because we love their carpet that we put in our South facing bedrooms while building the house. It's the Lattice in Weathered Grey, in case you were wondering. And we had heard whispers of this holy felted wool carpet that they do and how walking on it felt like a thousand clouds spooning your feet. How could we not investigate further.... and as expected, the foot cloud feeling got us good. The carpet we chose is called Curlicue - To die for.... and it's actually amazing! The soft grey colour was perfect and such a good contrast sitting on the dark concrete and it's just SO thick and soft under foot.

See, the thing is... we would have never found the right shaped/large enough rug for the area we needed, it's 3.66 by 4.7, That's large. And quite the exact measurement because it had to be a certain measurement out from the wall and it had to meet a certain cut in the concrete. No rug could do that. Am I getting the point across that this was no job for a store bought rug. Am I mad that it only took 3 large and rather expensive rugs to realize this? A little. But now I have some great ruggage in the bedrooms that I could have never got past Guy to begin with. So, every cloud....

Most carpet rolls are 3.66 wide, so that's where you begin and then you pay the per metre price until you've reached the length you need, 3.66 too wide? Make a runner with the leftovers?! It's your carpet, my friend, do what you like. Our carpet square only cost $124 to have bound in a matching wool, which we had done here. 
Depending on what carpet you go for, that's an affordable large custom size rug.

It has been a game changer around here, I was such a hard floor person and now I'm a person who writes long blog posts about carpet. Our living room feels so cosy but at the same time, the right sized carpug (carpet-rug) has given the room that much more space to relax and be comfortable in. I'm a total convert. And I can't rave about this Cavalier Bremworth felted wool range enough. It feels like it has been shorn right off the Royal Sheep Family's back, it is actual luxury.

Note: I wrote this a few weeks back and since then, we have had dirty dog paws, dirty husband-boots and alllll the dropped food from toddlers hands and that carpet is a champion. Not once has it complained. It's long pile was born to hide many sins. We're stoked.

Dusting off the back of a horse

So yea, as the title says....Im dusting off the old blog, getting back on the horse....or someting like that. I'm a new Mum. I'm sleep deprived. You knew what I meant, right?

So, many of you have probably found us via the Homestyle article.
Wow, so exciting for us.... after many years slaving away on this house beast, to see it all glossy in print like that was just too cool.

I really slacked off on the blog this last year, we were busy doing a lot of "finishing" jobs, which I will get to on here eventually.... Instagram has been my blog for those this last year. Between that and baby baking + working away on the day job, I took my slack blogging to a whole new level...It become non existent.

SO! I hereby pledge to blog,  we have an exciting project coming up. What would our life be without one...and I will start to keep you all informed on that, along with our landscaping around the house and general DIY adventures.

Right now, I'm enjoying the latest project we created, the "New and Needy Human".  I'm waist deep in "mustard seed poo" (to the non-parents, that's actually a thing... Babies are so grossly gorgeous) and I just took a typing pause to clear my bra of a ridiculous amount of cookie crumbs that i shoved in my face while feeding Freya.....note to self, check child for residual cookie, it was my last one, would be a shame to waste it. So until I have things other than poo and feral speed eating to talk about, I will spare you. But it wont be long (says new and naive first time Mother)....

Stick around, or sign up for updates....I dont know how/if you can do that. I will have to ask Guy if I just led you up the garden path with that suggestion. But anyway, I'll see you real soon.

K

I just had to chair

 

 

Hey all! I wanted to leave you with a parting gift before we go bush. My trademe watchlist gems that are closing over the next few days...

 

I would like them all, but holidays are expensive and house stuff is taking a backseat this month in place of some R&R and adventure.

 

This hanging cane chair, he's a little rough around the edges maybe but a coat of poly would have him looking pretty great again....or left that sweet bleached out grey....just add sheepskin and he's looking smart!

 

This wire egg chair and its long lost banana chair cousin (minus the sexy cushion). Love these two!! Hey, I've said it before but, sheepskins. Throw 'em on..... Your butt will love ya! And don't forget about the affordability of a fresh powder coat!

 

Oh, and four dining chairs for $150, not bad I reckon....again....without the cushions.....And have I mentioned sheepskins?? By the way, I have nothing against sheep. Eek now I feel terrible, baa.

 

Hope some of you love them as much as I do. I have a chair problem and if one of you buy them I can live vicariously through you, you are not an enabler to my addiction, it's totally fine.

 

Enjoy.

 

The shmeg

We had high hopes for our under bench fridge, in my dreams it was a black smeg bar fridge, everytime I would go to fetch a beer we would share a moment, he would gently hum as if to say "thanks for choosing me" and I would sigh and say "thanks for being you". But I was immediately torn from my sweet fridge dream when I saw what he would cost me! More than my first car! Not that that would be hard...but still, that's besides the point. I couldn't, nay, I WOULDN'T pay that much for a cold box. (Ok to be honest it's pretty much "I couldn't", we totally do not have dispensable fridge monies lying around) so we started looking for alternatives and found a pretty cool retro smeg-looking fridge called a Husky, we saw it at Harvey Norman on some super special for around $600, but at the time we had just bought a washer and dryer and we had the money spending shakes already, so we left it behind.

Since that day, there have been many more days when I have said "let's go get that fridge" and there have been days when Guy has agreed.... And on those kinda days, you've never seen a girl get ready and in the car so quick, because an extra minute covering that chin zit could cost you a change of mind, you must move swiftly, Taylor Swiftly. Alas, when we would get to the store, it was never on special ever again. It was either $999 or $749 and that may not seem like a big deal if your name is not Mr and Mrs Nurse but we have a mental road block when it comes to paying any more than what we have seen it for in the past. The Husky was a goner...... erm, Literally, it has now been discontinued apparently, Ha!

So we were back at our empty hole under the island bench. What would become of it? All it did at the moment was house Jed's water bowl and give him and excuse for lurking in the kitchen "who me? No, no I'm not waiting for scraps to fall to the floor, I was thirsty, so thirsty, just looking for my water bowl, oh I found it, lap lap lap *side eye* lap lap". I was desperate to fill the void and get a fridge... Then I came across a dusty old Kelvinator in the shed, no one is 100% sure where it came from, an orphan fridge. So I decided to give it the Annie treatment and show it that tomorrow was only a day away and it was going to be spruced up and loved by our family and it's forever home. If I couldn't have a Smeg fridge because my wallets weren't deep enough/are fake pockets that are sewn shut then I would freaking well make my own smeg.... And we will call it the SHMEG because smeg shmeg, our beers will be just as cold.

 

 

Blah blah blah, geez I go on. Here's what I did.

 

 

Find suitable hole under bench.

 

 

 

Find dusty kelvinator in a shed and give it a good clean

 

 

 

Meet your new best friend, I LOVE this stuff and have gone through bottles of it, it sticks to any metal with crazy intensity and dries a really great matte black. You can also get a top coat in this range in a matte black but the primer gives such a great finish! Tip, etching primer that is brushed over top of etching primer.....removes etching primer. Moral of that story, stick to these spray cans and not the little pottle of paint.... Learned during the painting of our flashings. I sprayed two coats on the kelv.

 

 

 

Buy stick on letters, I couldn't find any brass letters that went beyond A B C so I settled with these red reflective jobs for $2 each and I gave them a coat of etching primer before spraying them with

 

 

 

 

I would have used a specific brass coloured spray but Christmas had stolen all the bottles so I went with gold. It's important to spray them with the etching primer first, the normal paints just won't stick. I gave them one coat of primer and 3 coats of gold. Remember to leave the adhesive on the back until you've sprayed and dried them all (bit of a no brained but you never know, too much eggnog or something like that)

 

 

 

 

 

This is what it looked like at first, I got a little over eager and got straight into the sticking. After a few hours of looking at it and thinking "something's not right...and I don't mean the h", I realised the letters were too close is just before we sat down for dinner I ripped them off and did it again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tadaaaaaaa! We love him. He keeps our beers cold and our hearts warm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* by the way if you just have an ugly fridge that could benefit from a splash of matte black without the lettering, that spray is seriously so good.

I bought everything from Mitre 10 Mega, aka the place that absorbs allllll the monies!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's all coming along, promise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fireplace, finally finished and undercoated!

 

 

 

Time to start dreaming of a deck for summer.....

 

Life, oh life, oh liiiiiiife

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saw this quote today and thought nothing could be more true. There are always things in life we wish would happen for us but it just seems to take it's sweet time. In all honesty for us, after almost 11 years together, it's tiny people that are half him and half me (maybe three quarters him, ha!). For others, maybe it's a home, a husband, a wife, a promotion, a lotto win or maybe just your hope that your monthly hormonal zit scar will one day fade. I'm all about the trusting!

Happy Tuesday! :-)

 

 

Did someone say montage?!?

 

Throughout the build I've made little flipagrams out of our progress photos, it always gives us a boost to see it happening so fast....as opposed to the day by day drag it can sometimes feel like. But today, I went next level, I compiled them from start to finish....epic piece of videography, it is not....but....Motivation-us Maximus it most certainly is. Hooray, we've come a long way baby