DIY turned wood pendant light.... without the turning

 

 

 

We had been looking for bedside lights for a long time, I would find something, stare at it for a while and then decide it wasnt quite right. I love our white bedroom but the thing I love about white is all the warming up you can do with fittings and furniture. I needed the warmth of wood.

 

I found a light I loved from Citta design, it really is so gorgeous....the wood and copper one?! But they weren't coming in until August and this "build your own home from scratch' project is hogging all my patience. So it was back to the drawing board, I youtubed lots of wood DIY's, mainly Canadian men with very Canadian accents, checkered shirts and serious wood working skills. I could do the checkered shirts, I would even give the accent a go but the skills....nope. I just needed the turning part done for me and then I could totally take it from there. I needed to come up with a DIY, a shortcut to perfect Canadian wood working. I think that's how my brain got me started, I was looking at this sweet wooden bowl, gifted to us from an Aunt and Uncle from....you guessed it, Canada. A wooden bowl, wood that has been perfectly carved and turned...ummmm. And then a trip to Briscoes sealed it....and then their 60% off all ECOLOGY wooden bowls made me fist pump in delight.... It was SO on.

I wanna be all cool and a bit "oh yeh, they worked out alright" about them, except I just think these lights are freaking awesome and I'm so stoked with them!!! So instead I'm doing that 'I have something on my shoulder, I'm gonna brush it off' dance in the most gangsta style I can muster.

So here we go, here's how we did it (I have left out most of the trial and error parts that lead us to the final result, I have also left out the exact amount of pilsner consumed and the Husband and Wife DIY 'just do it my way' battles, you're welcome)

 

 

 

 

 

1 x 25cm ECOLOGY bowl These are 60% off at the moment. go, go, go!

1 x 15cm Freedom serving bowl ECOLOGY also do a similar size bowl which is $10 cheaper but I think the colour difference and the fact you can see the layering in the Freedom bowl are little details that make the light.

Coloured cord (whatever length amount you require)

ceramic light socket - sorry, no link for these but any electrical store will have them. You need to use one of these and not a cheapy plastic one as you will screw this directly onto the bowl. They're only a few dollars I think?

We bought our wall brackets from Bunnings in a 2 pack for $10

Brass nut on top from Bunnings too, purely decoration.

Some screws and a drill

Ruler

Pencil

Strong adhesive

Enamel paint (our colour is resene alabaster)

 

Right, I would start by painting the inside of your big bowl with 2 coats of enamel. I did this at the end, which was not as ideal.

Once that's dry....

Find the centre of your bowls base, mark them and drill a hole large enough for the light cord to pass through easily

Attach your ceramic light socket to the cord. We did this ourselves but I'm not suggesting everyone does and I am not going to run you through how to be an electrician because neither of us are one of those, in fact when deciding which colour would be the positive/negative between the blue and the brown we decided 'poo is brown and poo is a bit of a negative so brown is negative' say no more, you are not taking advice from us when it comes to wiring.

 

 

 

 

 

Thread your cable through your drilled hole and then screw the light socket up onto the bowl.

 

 

 

 

Now tie a knot about 8cm up from where the cable is coming out of the big bowl, then continue to thread it through the small bowl. when you hold onto the top of the cord and hang your pendant, your small bowl should be resting on the knot with a 1-2cm gap between the two bowls. This is to take the pressure off the wiring when hanging.

Spread your super strong glue around the top rim of your small bowl and then press firmly down, wipe away any glue that squishes out and let this cure overnight, we originally thought to screw this down but with the curve of the bowl its hard not to split it, so the glue seemed the better option.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thread your decorative brass nut (if you so desire) over the cable so it sits on top of the small bowl

Either attach a plug or connect to your wiring and you are all done!

Look what you did you clever thing, you made a cool light, brush your shoulders, you are a light gangsta now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this very casual 'how to' is clear enough, feel free to ask me anything if it doesn't make sense.

If you do give this a go, I would love to see your finished result, if you instagram it, go ahead and tag me.

 

Good luck, have fun and may the sprirt skills of a checkerd shirt Canadian be with you.

 

 

 

 

The School in New Zealand

 

 

 

I've gone and done it.... The girl that says "no way, we can't afford a holiday to Samoa with some of our most awesome friends, we're building a house!" has dropped some decent cash on a course and is flying to Auckland to do it.

Seems crazy... A course over Samoa... EXCEPT this is a course like no other. First of all, Megan Morton is the teacher, umm say no more... amazing. Secondly, Kara Rosenlund, creator of all things beautiful (including the amazing vignette above) and owner of the gorgeous Frankie caravan is also amongst the team of women behind The School. I love Kara's style and would so love to go to her course on vignettes, yes there is a course solely on vignettes and yes, this is the school of my dreams (math, schmath) but unfortunately I can't do them all!!! So my one present to myself is The Science of Styling course. I am so excited.

BUT I am also a little nervous... Many of my friends and family who know me well (and you readers as well, seeing as here I am completely comfotable in my own little blog space) can never believe it but I get SO shy in certain situations. The word course or seminar make my face flush (s'pose that's not so hard, stupid flushy face) but I am so keen to go that I have just toughened up and done it, all by myself, booked it, going to it, red face and all.

A supplier of mine who has witnessed the awkward shyness bought on by course situations once coined me 'The Love and Ginger Ninja'... Yep it turned out she was a word genius. I loved it.

So I'm gonna make like Sasha Fierce and do it. The love and ginger ninja is going to get over her little fear, Hiiiiyah!

But if anyone else is going, let me know!!!! I mean every ninja needs a partner in ninja crime right.... it's not cheating. It's still kinda brave.

 

Brick.

 

 

Pretty simple title for a post, funny really seeing as this particular task hasn't been. We have a rather large feature fireplace going into the new house....well, it's really a fire surround. We are actually having a gigantic beefy logburner instead of an open fire (energy efficiency and all that jazz) but we'll be giving it the open fire treatment with a full brick chimney....kinda like the phot below...but instead of whole bricks we just need a 'slip' which is 20mm of a brick. So it pretty much becomes a tile.

 

 

 

Seems easy enough, brick isn't exactly hard to get hold of, brick slips on the other hand...not so easy. After calling almost every brick distributor in Christchurch, it was made abundantly clear that cutting brick slips is a reasonably unpopular task, up there with pulling teeth and watching paint dry. It was also looking like a costly road to go down and there is a big 'road closed' sign on that road by the way. But we'll talk about the budget later (when I have a wine in my hand).

After all the research, we've decided to go for second hand bricks and cut them ourselves....and ya know what? I find that waaaaaaaaaaay more exciting and I actually quite like watching paint dry, because I happen to be quite lazy sometimes and I get to just sit there watching. So, that's fine.

It's actually got me rethinking the kitchen backsplash.... I'm thinking I'll use bricks there as well, but left in their natural state. I still HAVE to paint the fireplace white because it's been in my head since before I had an actual floorplan and I'm not giving up on it!

 

 

 

 

 

I actually love both white painted brick and old red brick equally so it makes sense that they both get a see in (brick equality). And using the second hand bricks is a step in the right direction for my desire to make our new home look a little less new if ya' know what I mean.

 

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

 

Pic links were all sourced from Pinterest, if anyone knows if they came from somewhere else originally just let me know, I'm not super Google image savvy.

 

Weekend jobs

 

 

 

This weekend we were raking and leveling the sand on top of the compacted fill for the slab. It was just my Mum and Dad out there with me on Saturday because Guy had work commitments....although come Sunday when the rain REALLY started to fall, Guy was back in his gumboots with Dad and they worked the whole day in the pouring rain. Gotta love them.

I actually thought I'd add this little video my Mum took of Dad and I working....it's super boring....ha! But this is what our weekends are like these days.

Party on, Guy. Party on, Katrina.

 

Oh and yes, you heard right....only Guy and Dad were working out at the section on Sunday. Because I was tending to Rufus who we will now refer to as Frankenkitty. He had an emergency trip to the vet due to a nasty abscess on his noggin! It was horrible, there was blood and gag reflexes (not his), a very angry Frankenkitty and a slight misunderstanding on my part that my cat was indeed pregnant and having an emergency caeserean....slightly ridiculous, he is a tomcat.... Obviously what the vet assistant meant was that they had to perform an emergency caeserean on a different lady-animal and Rufus would be a little late. Of course. That aside, he is recovering well all thanks to Dr Thea Sweeney...aka Angel Face, from Total Vets.

 

 

Baby showering 2.0

 

Last Saturday I had the absolute PRIVILEGE of throwing my Sister and Brother in law a baby shower. After 15 years of a gorgeous marriage and good times they are finally becoming a family of three after adopting their beautiful daughter who will be home with them in September!! Woohoo

I flew over to Melbourne with my Mum and I only lost my passport twice once.... Thank goodness for the lady in 20e who found it on her seat and tracked me down. I am useless when it comes to traveling without Guy, next time I am off away on my own I have asked him to put me in a straight jacket of sorts and draw a diagram on my front which points out little pockets containing my passport, boarding pass etc and I'll just be quiet and let the straight jacket diagram carry me through.

I wanted to make a special gift for the baby shower (kinda like Hudson's book) that Gracie could hold on to and something that everyone who loves her and her parents had contributed to. I took further inspiration from Hudson and his intense love for his blankie and decided a blanket was going to be it.

 

 

 

 

We bought a gorgeous cotton/cashmere blanket and then I took a trip to spotlight and picked up some wool and pompom makers. We set up a pompom making area and after everyone left I trimmed all the pompoms and attached them around the edges of the blankie with some wool and a wool needle. Actually Homestyle mag had a great 'how to' recently which featured pompoms which is worth a squiz!

 

 

 

A pic of the two new parents holding it up and a quick run through the Over app and it made a super sweet thank you card for them to send to their friends.

 

P.S I solemnly swear to stop being lazy and using my camera for my photos....

Upholstery girls

 

A few weeks back my friend and I organised a gaggle of girls to come out to the shed in Waikuku and bring an old dunga of a chair with them (or in Alice's case, a 2 seater sofa, girl got skills) we had a lovely upholstery man called Nigel come along and teach us how to turn these chairs from smelly-yuck to spiffy-wicked in two days.

Not all of us finished the chairs/sofa in the weekend but we all got pretty close, even Fliss whose chair had lived a hard life and was covered in bullet holes, had broken springs and a feared possibility that something furry and alive could have been living in it.

Unfortunately our 'after' photo was taken by Nigel and featured more of his finger than the chairs.... I'll hopefully get some photos from the girls over the next few weeks and show you their before and afters, until then it's just going to be my little fella.

 

 

Here he goes, my little chair's extreme makeover (upholstery edition)

For those with a keen eye, you are right, I have not quite finished..... I just need to staple the underneath cloth down and cover with some calico.......soon.

 

 

 

Fabric from Femme de Brocante ....the girls there were super helpful and friendly which was a real bonus on top of the fabric find!

 

If I can offer any advice for a weekend like this...

• Keep your class small
• Try and pull all of the old fabric and staples out before you go, the first half of our first day was filled with chiseling, ripping, pulling and cussing
• Keep it simple splashy, I was so pleased I didn't choose anything with arms to sew.... In fact my makeover required zero sewing, only a few hand stitches. Although in saying that, it meant I didn't get to learn any of those skills. Pros and cons

 

 

 

Oh yea, this is my sandwich. Haha. The reason I'm sharing is because feeding 8 girls over two days ended up being really easy, this is how I went about it

• Fresh ciabatta rolls
• Baked free range chicken breasts coated in spelt flour, chilli powder, turmeric and salt+pepper, then shredded
• Salad greens
• Beetroot salad (this recipe from the ripe cookbook) without sultanas and with chia seeds and sliced almonds and maple syrup instead of the molasses
• Parsley dressing (my mother in laws recipe)
• Feta

We all just made our own sandwiches and then we ate cookies.

 

It was such a fun weekend and we're all keen to keep catching up over crafty workshops. I'm thinking the next one could be macramé.....

 

Recap, update

 

We took possession of the section on September 21st 2012 and we are now in April 2013. I think when we bought it, Guy and I had these ideals in our head, we were gonna have our plans in for consent by the end of 2012 and hopefully pouring our foundations in late Jan or Early Feb giving us plenty of long end of summer days to get as much work done before Winter....

 

That was before we met reality

 

Reality is often a slightly muddier version of what you imagine.

 

We did get our consent in as of two weeks ago and now we wait HOPING that it comes back with a big green light and a GO sign in the next few weeks. Cross your fingers for us. Because the days are getting shorter and shorter and winter is fast approaching which means Guy (an integral team member) will be working almost 100% of the time. This means that building is going to be pretty slow, add to that my parents are off on a well deserved holiday to the States to visit my Sister and Brother-in-law for 5 weeks! So there isn't a huge amount of the big stuff we can get done when Dad is away seeing as he is the man with the know how. Guy has picked up so many skills during the shed/workshop build though, I'm pretty sure he'll have a hefty list of what he can do in Dad's absence!

 

 

Another big one is the financing of such a project, well we are hoping to be doing it in stages, for example, we borrow x amount and we advise what that amount will be going towards and what we should expect to have finished with that money...when that checks out, we go to the next stage, then the next etc etc until it's all done at the amount we agreed upon.

When we start to draw down on these mortgages we will need to move in with my parents.....goodbye little house.....that part will be hard.

My Parents are great, obviously, we live in front of them and soon they will live in a cottage on the 2.5 acres with us. But Guy and I have lived alone together for so many years now, that moving in with ANYONE would be hard. You have your own habits and roles/jobs around the house and... ya know when you just don't feel like seeing anyone or don't have the energy for chats after a long day, you can just BE with your husband, on the couch, watching tv and not even notice that you haven't spoken a word for over an hour because you're both totally comfortable and happy to be sitting silently in each others company. It's those times of just being completely alone together that I will miss. I'm sure my parents feel the same way!!! Haha! But it's not for a long time, hopefully this build won't turn out to be one of those 5 year long 'Grand Designs' fails.....it's a hardly a grand design so I'm sure we'll be fine.

 

 

 

When I think about what we've got done in that time though, I think we can all be pretty proud! We started with a paddock and we now have a proper section, complete with mailbox.....although I'll touch on that another time.

Jobs done so far-

Planted a shelter belt of 100 trees

Built a post and rail fence and entrance gates

Excavated and partially completed a 100m long drive way and turning pad

Built a board and batten pump shed

Put in a water tank

Set up hundreds of meters of irrigation

Built a 160sqm workshop and shed which will be hugely utilized during the build

Landscaped mounds ready to be planted

There are so many sub-jobs that go into every one of those things that I would be here forever, if I know anything for sure, it's that we will appreciate our new one more than anything. As every part of it will be built with our blood, sweat and tears!

 

 

 

 

 

i think below is a great during and after shot of the workshop/shed...

 

 

drive in

 

That's me using a very heavy compactor like a boss. Yuuuuus!

That aside, I have been really struggling to keep up with posting.... So much happening at the moment and so little time to document it. I vow to try harder so that I can look back and have a step by step of this massive journey. Ok. Right, here I go again.

The shed is pretty much 100% done, I'll post a photo after this weekend when it reaches full completion (I would prefer if you read 'full completion' in a deep theatrical movie trailer voice) it is so exciting to see it completely come together and how far we have come since digging holes in the scorching heat in December. The latest big job was laying the base course for the driveway, and seriously, what a huge difference.... Just seeing the base course down even... We actually have a driveway....a real driveway! No longer are we just driving onto a paddock but we are following a gravelly path (aka a driveway) and it put a huge smile on my face and made me feel like dancing every time Dad unloaded a truckload of gravel.... So I did.

 

 

 

Once we had unloaded all of the gravel it was then time to use the grader on the back of the tractor to smooth it all out. Dad has mad skills in this department. Obviously from years of practice (see even blurrier than usual pic below of my parents on their first tractor in 1975...cute) ,although I did spend some time in the tractor with him telling him where he needed to push from, take from, even out....I'm pretty sure he loved the help. Ha.

 

 

 

Dad and Guy doing some more compacting out the front of the shed.... These two make a great team.

 

Shed update

This shed is getting closer and closer to being done, once the battens are all on we can give it another coat of stain to have it looking dapper as hell. Oh, and there is a working tap on the side of it, right there, a tap!!!!!! The process of getting that tap on the side of that shed is no easy task... It involved a lot of digging trenches and laying of pipes and refilling trenches.

 

 

Ok. So I dug about 30cm of it, and even that had my brain in a boggle! I'm so impressed with Guy and how he has picked everything up so quickly. So far there has been nothing he can't do and I am as proud as punch. He does have an amazing mentor in my Dad, it's like watching a building themed karate kid movie.... You need to be one with the digger Guy San....

 

 

 

Mirror mirror

Mirror mirror on the wall, make my house look big not small.... Clearly I missed my calling as a poet.

Seriously though, mirrors are the perfect way to add big space to small places. The first time I created a mirror wall was in our first home in Lyttelton....it was tiny and adorable. We had these beautiful French doors that looked out to the hills , which was great when you were facing that way, but when you were looking inside the house it was a little darker and felt a bit small. The mirrors were the first things to go into our home, I found 16 square mirrors on trademe for a silly price and bought them before we even went unconditional. When I covered the small wall between the kitchen and living room with the mirrors it suddenly bought masses of light in to the room, not to mention the great views that were once outside my doors were suddenly right beside my couch as well. Win, win.

These couch side views ignited my love affair with mirror walls, we now have two in our current home. Let me introduce you.

 

The first is a collection of retro beveled mirrors (most found on trademe yet again) I think the mirrors averaged $10 each. I laid each mirror down on some news paper, traced their outline and cut them out, then with the help of blutak I moved them around on the wall until I was happy with the layout and banged a hook into each piece of paper which I ripped away before I hung the real deal. The wall really brightens up what was originally a dark little area of the living room and the mismatched mirrors become a great feature.

 

 

 

 

The second is in my little home salon and it's a different look completely, the room is reasonably small but has French doors going out to the deck that open it up nicely. By putting a mirror wall directly opposite the French doors it reflects all of that sweet light back through the room and creates the feeling of a lot more space

This time I went to Mitre 10 mega and bought some mirror tiles.....which, may i add, I was undercharged for greatly and when I figured this out my conscience and I drove all the way back the next day to pay the difference. I think they thought I was mad but I super mario bounced and collected 50 Good Samaritan points, thank you very much!

When hanging mirrors in a clean grid like this you need to be a little more mathematical as anything that's a bit off when laid in a grid pattern is really noticeable. Measuring tape, pencils, patience and a measured cut out guide are your best friends in this case.

 

 

Diggin' it

What is the perfect activity to get into when its 29°c outside? Dig really deep holes and spray 130 plants to kill the evil aphids eating them. Spraying is hard by the way.... A drum of liquid on your back is HEAVY and the pump action required to make it actually spray....turns your arm into a jelly worm.

 

The poles for the shed are going in today. Woohoo!

I'm sorry that this update is shorter than Snow White's little buddy's... But I have so much to tell you all and so little time. Off to help with these poles. I mean....what would they do without me there! (They would just do it without me there) but I'm sure they would miss my voice saying things like "I don't think that pole is straight" or "I think you need to dig that hole a little deeper". This in fact, is the real reason for my short post with promise of the many other things I need to report this week... If you don't hear from me, I have been thrown into one of those holes with some water and a bag of chips (they're not monsters) and they have left me there. Come and save me, bring a rope....and some more chips.

 

stumped

 

 

 

It started with a stump......

As all good stories do right?

I should say that I only wrote that on the stump because it was a song that I had in my head and I thought it was quite nice. I actually did see the goodness in the stump and then I drew all over it.... I hope that's not too criminal.

 

I thought the bark made quite a nice frame and I felt like getting crafty. Arrows are so hot right now (ok, you have to say that in a zoolander voice otherwise I sound like a bit of a dick) I'm going to drill a hole in the back of each stump so that they can be hung.....on my wall/Someone else's wall after Xmas? I haven't decided. If you get these for Xmas and you read my blog, act surprised.