love and ginger

Kitchen update

If you've been following along here for a while you may remember this kitchen post and this image I was using as my inspiration.

Well, a feeeew things have changed.....I know! Shock horror, pick your jaw up off of the ground, a lady changed her mind. Ok, it hasn't changed massively because I adore the look of this space, but it's a pretty noticeable one....we are no longer doing bricks behind the kitchen. Pause for sighs' of disappointment, don't worry, I plan to win you over before this post is done.

So this was more a practical change over an aesthetic one originally. The bricks we're doing on the chimney all have to be found, cleaned, and then cut down to a thin veneer before we can adhere them to the wall. Quite a big job, very timely and we are time poor. So, naturally I went back to my trusty subway tile. Used it before, loved it, still love it. But arrrghhh it's my new house I want to look at something a little different and I don't know how I feel about the real brick being so close to the subway tile...too close but not close enough... If you know what I mean?! So it was back to the drawing board (Pinterest) for all of 2 minutes (how freaking great is Pinterest!) and then I found it.

SQUARE SUBWAY TILE!!! Woohooooo the trumpets were sounding and I was doing a jig and thinking about how hip it is to be square. I love squares (hello, instagram photos!) and this totally solved my problem with the too many rectangle brick shapes competing against each other. Here are a couple more pics that really got me going...

I know what you're thinking...Katrina, is your kitchen really going to be full of gluttonous amounts of artisan breads and pastries? Well, yes. I would like to hope so, and I will try my very best.

If you follow me on instagram, you would have seen these beautiful lightshades I picked up at a vintage store. IN LOVE. But for those that haven't....Ta Daaaaa! Three of these big berthas will be hanging over the kitchen island. If you live in Christchurch and have been to Morrell&Co in Addington, they also have them there! When I bought them the shop owner told me he had just sold most of them to a new bar opening up... A friend saw them in there and let me know. Snap, Morrel&Co. Nice choice.

Oh and I'm still have the reclaimed wood shelves like my initial kitchinspiration photo.....hopefully you're getting a bit of an image forming in your head...hopefully not long now until it becomes a reality!

The other great thing about this decision being made was the flow through of it.... I had been really struggling with what to do about a dining table. I love those big long trestle tables or chunky reclaimed wood rectangle dining tables but they are just not for this space. The kitchen and dining are open plan and our kitchen island is a 3 metre long reclaimed-wooden-benched job, so fitting a table into the dining space was on my mind, you could do it, I just don't think I'd like it....just in case you don't remember the space

The answer was found in the shape of my new tiles, SQUARE! As much as I do love those long tables I can also loathe them.....ever been at a dinner party or wedding and been stuck directly opposite Sally Sad-Pants who just broke up with her "musician" boyfriend and is drinking ALL the wine, wine you wanted to drink! Well, she becomes your problem, because you are directly opposite her, if you were at a round or square table, it would be a group responsibility (and other bottles of wine are then within reach). Square it is, it fits in our space, it compliments the shape of the tiles and it's socially responsible. Winning. Look! here's one....

As much as I am a massive white lover, I have decided that my table will be black and painted in blackboard paint. Because, one of the things I picked up from The School with Megan Morton is that food in particular looks great on black. And when it's not a sit down dinner but more of a drink and nibbles kinda night (my personal favourite), I can do this...

except it won't be so neat and it will be flat on the table.... You'll have to use your imagination....I haven't actually done it yet, you see.

I'm going to hopefully build (or have Guy build, ahem) some bench seats in an Lshape in that dining corner, then I'll just have a mix match of whatever chairs I find in my travels around the other side. And I've even bought a table runner for this yet to be built table..... Phoar! organised!!

This fella will be hanging above the dining table, I originally bought 3 for the entrance but they just didn't look right in that space, so, happy birthday dining area, have a hand me down that your cousin didn't want. It actually looks great in that spot, the other 2 are being moved to the master and guest bedrooms.

Wowza, if you all could see me right now, I am red faced from strenuous typing and house excitement.... I'm sorry if none of it makes sense, I'm sure the pictures will help, no?! I would proofread but I don't have time right now, so maybe later....or not.

links for images not my own 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Cedar time

I had talked about it numerous times....obsessed over it slightly, and when the day came for the cedar to go up, I was prepared to document the shiz out of it. I downloaded some geeky apps, knocked up a tripod thing out of offcuts and set up my iPhone to take to a photo every 8 minutes. The result was just a little exciting....to see something happening FAST was just awesome. I never know how many of you readers follow me on instagram, so if you are one of them and you've already seen this. Sorry, Yawn...this is so last week. But for those who haven't, watch how fast we are. Pow!

The results

It's progress update time.... I have been so terrible with blogging. Ooops! And even right now....my words escape me. My mind is boggled with fire decisions and budgets and accounts. So I have decided to make this update a picture book. Here goes

Before the cedar went on, after the front mound was wrangled into shape

A big day of cedar fixing ended with a gorgeous sunset

Guy working on the entrance cedar

Woohoo!! All done!

The cedar will continue through to the entrance of the house

Looking towards the dining room area

Standing in the living room, looking towards the fire

Insulation in the master bedroom all done!

Tomorrow is a big day... It's our big Pre line inspection. All going well, we could be putting some ceilings up this weekend, woooooooahhhhhh!

Working holiday

I hope none of you have been eagerly awaiting an update, because I've just realised it has been a VERY long time. In fact the last time I posted on the blog, I was a spring chicken, 29 years young and now I am 30, 30 years old. That's how long it's been, the other morning I pulled 3 grey hairs out of the very top of my head (they're crazy if they think I'm going to believe that ridiculous rumour that if you pull them out, more grow in their place, I doubt it, they've seen what happened to their friends) I would like to say that the grey hairs had nothing to do with the build but I'd probably be telling a lie.

It can get a little hard... I know, it's a romantic idea... Building your dream home from the ground up by yourselves, with a while lotta help from your old man and not a huge amount of work by sub contractors. It's easier on the pocket! Absolutely! I've said it before, there is no way we could build this house and live the life we want to live (not slaves to a giganto mortgage) if we weren't doing it this way...and it will be incredibly rewarding in the end. But we go through waves of "holy crap, this is pretty full on", the only weekends we have off are for weddings and surely we'll stop being invited to those soon because we are such bad friends who have to say 'no' to everything because we're "building the house!" So for the last month with everyone being so busy with the silly season in full swing, things have felt a little slow going...I have to remind myself, you're not going to see lightening-speed progress when you really only have 2 days a week to commit to the job.

But it's all bout to change, now that we're on holiday - a working holiday.

We're not back to work until the 13th of Jan, that's 18 days away which in Waikuku house building time is 9 weekends worth of work!! That's going to make quite the difference. So, it's time to catch you up on what's been happening and where we're at so I can keep you in the loop during this building boot camp we have ahead of us.

The whole front of the house is covered in the shadowclad (apart from one tiny patch, which we'll get to soon enough) the cedar has been stained in Cabot's - beach house grey and it's piled up in the corner of one of the rooms just gagging to be put up on that chimney, I can't wait for that day!!

You may have noticed the lovely piles of dirt that we have piled up out the front, they're from all the drains that have been dug in....in fact, you should probably know, we now have a toilet... That's a huge deal. There are no real walls around this toilet but it does the same thing and we are happy as can be about it.

I've made a good sized dent in the mammoth task of insulation....excuse the blurry photo. Time is of the essence when handling pink batts....get them in and away from you as soon as possible. It was scratchy and prickly and just horrible to work with. Also, each item of clothing I am wearing above belongs to Guy. #shopmylook #WIWT

Below is a shot of the guest bedroom ceiling all done, this happened so quick because I had Guy on hand to help. We had a masterful system down with him cutting and throwing them up to me so I could install them.

Then it happened, I had to cease working with pink batts because Guy and Dad had to run the rest of the wires through the ceiling, so it was on to the wall insulation. Hooray! I cried...because I had actually been looking forward to it. No more balancing on Papa's old wooden stepladder and climbing through frames...also I have no upper body strength so having my arms in an above your head position for a long amount of time was not easy for me...and best of all, GOODBYE PINKBATTS. We have chosen Terra Lana natural wool insulation for the walls and what a difference! No protective clothing required, no tiny fibers of glass irritating my skin and to cut them to size you simply tear the wool against the grain. So amazing right! Well not exactly....hahaha! I tricked you. All of the above is wonderful and true but wow, when I started to need to cut the wool to size long ways (many of our studs are closer together than the size we have) which is going with the grain, impossible! Even Fat Max (our grunty craft knife) couldn't do it without a lot of elbow grease and a useless shredded piece of leftover wool.

The only thing that works is a pair of old sheep shears. Dad gave them a good 'tickle up' by sharpening them as much as he could. Great for cutting through the wool, and my skin multiple times. I also have a bruised palm BUT I got a whole room done....oh and did I mention once it's installed you have to staple it to the framework. It's pretty time consuming but honestly I actually think it's worth it. Wool is naturally pest and fire retardant and it doesn't shrink or break down over time. By stapling it to the top frame I assume this also prevents any slumping over time. So my end call is, the pros outweigh the cons.....if you access to some shears.

Jed was a huge fan, and he kept the wool warm for me while I was installing. He never tried this with the pink batts funnily enough.

We also got our western mound planted and barked and the fence railings put up. We did that to protect the trees as much as we can and get some privacy from a neighboring shed until the plants grow! We're stoked with it, the weeds thought it was great too because they decided to crash the party and grow their little hearts out. Why can't the plants we PLANT grow like weeds! Haha.

There you go, that's where we're at... Let's hope by the end of this holiday we've made plenty of progress and I've made plenty of posts.

HOPE YOU ALL HAD A FABULOUS CHRISTMAS!!!

Waikuku Welcome

What a welcome home I received on Tuesday. The sun was BLAZING and the beach was perfect.

The weeds hadn't stopped growing or pulled themselves out though. A bit rude, I thought.

It was a great day to come home to because as much as I loved Auckland and was insanely jealous of all the cool restaurants, flower markets and shops. They do not have Waikuku Beach on Ponsonby Road.

Talk about our happy place. I mean, this was Guy's lunch break!!! I got up to my knees while frolicking in the waves and it was actually quite warm. If I had a cossie I would have dived straight in....up to my waist, because I'm not a huge fan of the ocean. I know, gasp! Am I even a kiwi? I promise I am, don't get me wrong, I LOVE sand....I could lie on that all day. But the ocean... As soon as something touches my foot I can't get out fast enough (it makes surfing hard, which is why I don't do it), some may call me paranoid, bit I ask you....why are so many scary movies based on the sea? Jaws 1-100, Open Water, which also had a sequel...because 2 people being eaten by sharks just wasn't enough and then there was Deep Blue Sea.... The one where a shark eats Samuel L. Jackson like he's a French fry.

It's because there are scary things in the ocean that can eat you. I'm a river girl, give me a river to swim in any day! The only scary river movie I can think of is River Wild, which means I only need to fear Kevin Bacon while swimming.... And seeing as Kev lives in Hollywood, I think I'm in the clear.

OK, see how my brain works...wildly off topic in milliseconds. No wonder my report cards always said 'easily distracted'. Back to the wonders of Waikuku, which only has happy vegetarian sharks with full bellies swimming near it.

It wasn't all play mind you, I did pull out a trailer full of weeds from our front mound and help finish off a fence and some irrigation. I also did some drop saw cavity batten cutting the other day, which I forgot to tell you all about. It was very exciting and made me feel like a real builder. That's what's been happening on the house lately, cavity battens and flashings....they don't exactly make for great photos and reading.... But I took a photo anyway.

Whenever I look at this photo all I can think about is the future decking..... how great it will be to sit on and look out at the native bush that we planted (at my feet) and all the happy birds tweeting away their thank you's for their bushy retreat. I will cheers them with a pimms and wish them a good day eating worms and berries and pooping on people's heads for luck. Truly the only living thing that could get away with such a thing, I'm pretty sure a bird started that rumour.

Happy Friday X

Go and type Marcus Foster into your spotify search and listen to him. So good. Apart from that strange woods song....it's a bit strange. So to be fair he did warn us.

Ico traders sale

Oh dear, this is an injustice. I thought this was posted 2 days ago!

If you don't follow Ico Traders on Facebook, you now have ONLY today to take full advantage of the sweet deal that Miranda from Ico traders has offered up to us all on her birthday..... A whopping 50% off furniture and lighting! That's incredible!!

I have so many picks, but in my eyes the hero piece is this incredible hanging chair! Miranda worked on the design of this and got it just right, she has a love for hanging chairs and I share that love. In fact we sometimes had conversations soley about hanging chairs.

Go and spend an hour on her website and get anything that needs getting, but if I were you I wouldn't be missing out on this beautifully formed fella. He will be hanging at my house on Christmas Day. I may not have lined walls or fully functioning bathrooms but I WILL have this chair.

The school loves NZ

And NZ loves the school.

Well, I did it, I got brave, I became my alter ego (the love and ginger ninja) and I went to Megan Morton's science of styling course in Auckland.

Ok, so my friend Caroline will tell you that I almost didn't get out of the car when she dropped me off in the morning, and I may have fantasised about her coming in and standing at the back of the class until she saw me settle in and make a friend. But then I remembered that in a few short days I will be 30 and that I was being ridiculous, I didn't need Mama Caroline to look after me.... I just had to go in there and hope that everyone wasn't so cool that I would be rendered mute and weird.

Result, everyone was very cool but also very nice!! The first girl I met was Hayley of HHD Event Styling, we realised quickly that we attended the same high school, she recognised me and I quickly remembered her as the 5th former with the bananas in pajamas backpack who I thought was super cool (in case you weren't a 90's teenager...they were the business, I had a matching b's in pj's watch with my best friend) and coincidentally that friend had her unbelievably beautiful wedding styled by Hayley earlier this year. Small world. Hayley really has an amazing eye and I can't think of anyone quite like her in the (03) area, so I thought it worth mentioning to all of you Canterbury brides.

Enter Megan Morton, this super tall, gorgeous woman with ridiculous blue eyes (sorry do I sound like I have a crush on her, ok I'm not sorry, I do) she is such a warm and approachable person (not that I was brave enough to approach her all on my own) and actually kind of hilarious. You know how you watch interviews with Cameron Diaz and you think "yea, I wanna be her best friend" she's like that!!!!! She was full of shiny pearls of wisdom when it came to making spaces look like they just fell into a house looking amazing. Actually some tips included just actually letting things fall. But that's all I'm going to say because next time she is in town, you must go.

I also went to Stephanie Stamatis's (aka IG user Stephanie_somebody) class on instagram, that girl just captures things so beautifully and makes every corner of the world look amazing through her iPhone. We were very lucky and were given some photos of hers. Which I love! Again, a very inspiring woman, who is letting her creativity and natural talent cut it's own path for her to follow. Note to self: be more like that. Stephanie and her fiancé have taken off for a quick trip around the south of the South Island, I'm looking forward to seeing the photos she captures of that area and if you are too, follow her on instagram

I so wished I could have gone to Kara Rosenlund's vignette class (damn, regret!) it would have been awesome to do some hands on styling and it looked so great on everyone else's instagram feeds. Check them out on #theschoollovesNZ

Image by Gemma from www.blackbirdgem.blogspot.co.nz

Auckland in General was also just incredibly good fun. It helped that I was swamped with freakin gorgeous friends to catch up and hang with. But honestly, the food. THE FOOD. I pretty much ate my way through Auckland and Holy Cronut! It was good. So here is my list of where you should eat.....

Late night Diner - because mac cheese and chilli con carne at 12am is ALWAYS a good idea

Mexico - the guac and corn chips and the beef tacos....just, YES.

The Food Truck Garage - you probably saw him on tv, going here is so much better than licking the tv screen

Depot - we ate tapa after tapa and had red wine after red wine in tumblers like cool kids. Delish

Federal Deli - the Banoffie Pie, I just... Have no words. But there is a little drool in the corner of my mouth. Ew

Petit Bocal - the best breakfast with the most delicious bacon. And they are all French and beautiful! Legit.

Zomer - best juice in town surely. It was like drinking raw liquid energy. And some damn good Guac.

Oh yea, I had my first Cronut. Endangering waist lines everywhere. And I'm the rebellious type.

I also got to Junk and disorderly which was at the top of my list. My heaven on earth. I found a few treasures to bring home with me. I also found many treasures that I couldn't logistically bring home with me. stupid baggage allowance.

So in Summary, l do love the School I also love Auckland. It was good to me.... Better than good. And for those of you that have a 'Jafa' attitude towards AKL. I will leave you with this short story.

On Saturday night after gorging myself on tapa's and banoffie pie, my friend Cecil dropped me off at our friend Caroline's house where I was staying. Caroline was out babysitting and her flatmates were either out or asleep. I tried my key, I heard a lock turn and I tried to open it. Nope. Something was wrong, a deadlock had come into play (*more on that soon) and I was locked out. I checked my phone, flat as a pancake... No surprises there. I knocked for awhile, no one heard. I was outside, phoneless, with no idea where I actually was because I have absolutely no sense of direction. Usually I just follow Guy while I look at everything....yes, kind of like a toddler. There was no other option (in my eye's) I needed to charge my phone and coming from Waikuku where all the neighbours are amazing. It seemed the best thing to do at 11:30pm was to go and ask the neighbours if I could charge my phone. So I wandered next door and a man named Roger answered.

I know what you're thinking. She was murdered. Well..... I wasn't.

I put my phone on one of their chargers and popped upstairs to polish off a bottle of his Syrah with him while we chatted away about not much really. He was so lovely....I didn't meet his boyfriend Jason, he was already in bed and probably pretending to be asleep while listening to the crazy girl in his living room thinking "what the?!??". I was having such a good time I actually totally forgot that I was stuck for awhile. Eventually I went down and grabbed my now charged phone to call Caroline who thought I was mental. And who decided to return home to get me immediately (in case of murdering). I bid Roger farewell and went next door to bed, where my room looked directly into the living room I was just in, I gave him a big wave and hit the hay.

A testament to humans, Aucklanders and computer software programmers everywhere. I made sure to leave them a card and a replacement bottle of Syrah before I came home. Thank you Roger, for not murdering me and for giving me wine.

*turns out I was just unlocking and locking the deadlock! not the actually handle lock. I know this because I did it again the next night after my class with Stephanie, but this time Caroline was there to wake up (you should never wake Caroline up) stare angrily at me, and tell me. "ITS NOT THE DEADLOCK, ITS YOU!"