let there be light

 

I've started to invest a lot of thought into our lighting in the new house.... I want to avoid using any downlights/ceiling lights that are so commonly used in new homes here in NZ. Two reasons, I don't love the look of them and they often create problems and holes in ceiling insulation, we want to make this house as energy efficient as we can. When I think about how we use the lighting in our current place, it is very rare that we utilize all of the down lights. We have one main pendant light in the living room that we installed during the reno and its on a dimmer. We pretty much just use that and barely ever have it going full shine! Same for the bedrooms.... The old style of one ceiling light in the middle of the room suits bedrooms perfectly in my opinion, we barely ever have our ceiling light on, instead we just light up the bedside lights. Ambience aplenty.

I have been obsessing over Ico traders lighting fixtures... Not to mention their furniture, but that's for another day... Check out this range of rewired vintage lamps that popped up on my newsfeed this morning. I'm in capital letters LOVE.

 

 

 

Also, these aqua beauties below would look perfecto above the future kitchen island. Dreaming big!!!

 

 

Check our their website for inspiration and wallet emptying, I've liked them on Facebook and have been loving the giveaways and news showing up on my newsfeed.

 

baby baby baby ohhhhh

 

 

On Saturday I co hosted my first ever baby shower for who is essentially my first nephew!!! My cousin Olivia gave birth to little Hudson when he was only 26weeks!!!! Wowza! If you have been reading these ramblings of mine then you'll already be acquainted.

 

 

It wasn't your standard shower.... We had pimms, bubbly and no games (as requested by Livvy). The fact Hudson had already made his debut, meant that Olivia could enjoy a wee tipple herself and for the first time in 6 weeks, have a bit of a night with the girls.

 

 

In Lieu of games I made a book for the wee fella to look back on when he is a strapping young lad, each person had a Polaroid taken and filled a page of advice for him.

 

 

 

 

I also made the print at the top (using the photo that Johno, Hudson's Dad, took of his first wave at the camera) and framed a big one for the happy parents, one for the nana and two for the lucky winners of the draw.......the draw being that everyone wrote their name and address on an envelope and put it into a big jar, we did this to make one less job for Olivia when it came to sending thank you notes. Success.

 

 

It was such a great day with great girls and a big thanks to my fellow host the 'real' Aunty Amy. Who thankfully did all the talking, something I am incapable of doing in front of a room full of eyes staring at me without the possibility of self combusting with nerves. She actually very near brought a tear to my eye...which as it turns out is not a very difficult thing to do.

 

In fact, many a tear flowed today when I got to hold beautiful Hudson for the first time... Look how big he is!!!!!

 

 

 

Oh and this guy.... Gary.... You can hear more about him below.

 

Garland girls

 

 

We didn't go craycray with the baby shower decorations... Just little touches here and there, but, we had our main feature. 

Gary the garland.

He was made out of a lot of fabric, which involved a lot of tearing or cutting and what felt like the beginnings of tennis elbow and some twine.

I was pretty certain it packed a fair punch in the visual stakes. We went for a carnival colour theme which was perfect for a baby boy, no?

Tools required on the day....

 

The coffee turned out to be a necessity for Amy....a coffee and kisses from Jed.

 

 

Oh, the little paper doilys I'm holding in front of the garland were from the $1 store and I spelt out Hudson's name on them and made a bunting. I was inspired by my clever friend Michelle,she had made doily bunting for her salon a little while back. I banked it.

 

Side note.....when holding a garland, that weird bending banana stance is the way to go. Aka, I have no upper arm strength, Gary was heavy and my body was buckling.

 

Keepin' it sweet

 

This house stuff really can be pretty stressful, so many decisions and so many ideas to come up with to keep the budget nice and LOW! I am so passionate about the design stuff and Guy just let's me run with it, which is actually great, but until his parts of the process come along, I can occasionally feel like I'm dragging the cart alone (enter the finance and spreadsheet stage, I'm breaking into a sprint in the opposite direction) they say building a house is one of the most testing things a couple can do together, and testing it has and will continue to be. To be completely honest we very rarely (practically never) fight with each other, not in an annoying 'we never fight instead we write love notes and he paints my toenails' kinda way... It's just, neither of us like the feeling of it, some people need that release and can have a barny and go on with their day, but for me, I'll worry about it until its all sorted!

I hate the feeling of being in a huff with someone, it eats me up. So, early on in this process we decided to have a safe song....kinda like a safe word but less creepy and a lot more fun. We promised that if anything ever got too much and we needed to shake it off and remember that this is actually a very cool thing to be doing and we're damn lucky, we would listen to this song, dance like awkward turtles and laugh it off.

Friday morning was the first time. We had a bit of a moment in the morning and hadn't really sorted it.... it was so minor in the grand scheme of the project and after taking the time to realise that, I went into the living room, turned on the surround sound, cranked the safe song and waited poised in the robot. Guy emerged from the other end of the house, big smile, bad dance moves. All was good again. Safe songs rule, meet ours and its hilariously weird video remix

 

 

 

Design haze

 

So.... I'm hoping I will be able to blog a little more than once a fortnight..... I'm determined to not make this like every other attempt at a journal I've ever had....10 pages in and it would seem that life had stopped. I definitely feel that this blog is going to make a sharp turn into the land of designing and building your own home on a crazy small budget, because that right now, is our life. My brain will not turn off and Pinterest is going to be the death of me/ the inspiration that will keep me going. These will give you a taste of what's going on in this head of mine and what I'm hoping to have going on in our future home...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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