There's no place like home

We arrived home yesterday from a lovely two-week holiday in Thailand. We saw some amazing sights, ate fabulous food and spent almost half of our time there lazing around in the paradise on earth that is Krabi.

Ao Phra Nang, Krabi - a photographer's paradise, just a short walk from our hotel

In spite of having had a wonderful time, I'm happy to be home, and feeling grateful for many things, such as:

- The absence of smelly drains
- The relative peace and quiet of my neighbourhood (apart from that damn dog barking from over the back fence!)
- The lack of humidity. I truly love Melbourne's mostly dry summer...
- The order and tidiness of the streetscape around here. No rubbish, no piles of sandbags, no broken-up footpaths or drain covers, no mould covering buildings, no cars, motorbikes and street vendors parked all over pedestrian thoroughfares.

I think I even missed the noisy clamour of the cockatoos and corellas squawking every morning and evening.

We're not holiday shopaholics, and were on a reasonably tight budget, but we did pick up a few pretty things to decorate the house, including:

Silk fabric, Chiang Mai

Hand-painted silk cushion covers, Chiang Mai

Block prints on rice paper, Bangkok

Hill Tribe silver necklace, Chiang Mai

I won't be wearing the necklace - although it's beautiful, my preferred style in jewellery is far more delicate. Instead, I plan to mount it on black fabric, frame it and hang it on the wall. I've seen similar framed pieces for sale here, priced at around $700. I paid 250 baht (less than $8) for this, and if I DIY the framing, total cost should be under $50.

I also picked up a few ideas for furniture and decorative accents. Unfortunately, carting home heavy teak furniture was a no-no. The shipping costs were a bit high, and the fumigation process to satisfy our quarantine laws cost as much again. But I'll be keeping an eye out on eBay and cheap import shops for things with the right "feel".

It might take me a while to get our souvenirs sorted, but I'll post some updates along the way.

Slowly does it

Things are going along slowly in the decorating department, but I did get my family room cushions made. Of course, I'd bought enough fabric to make four cushions, but once I arranged them, I decided I really needed five. And perhaps one for the lounge. But when I went back to get more fabric, the shop had completely run out. :(

Oh well, I'll keep an eye out. Meanwhile, I don't think it looks too sparse:

Before and after - family room

Still some things to add/change, but I thought I'd post a before and after, now that I've hung my mirror and frames.

I had to turn the lights on to get a decent shot, it's late in the afternoon and very overcast today....

And here's the rendered image again of how it's supposed to look:

Nearly there!

Family room progress

It's been a while, but I'm finally back to doing some decorating - hurrah! We had our new couch delivered yesterday, so (at last!) I'm getting on with the family room makeover.

Last year I had a design consultation with Kristine from Lemonbutter Furnishings & Interiors, and I've been working away at collecting bits and pieces for the room ever since.

This is what we started with:

Much as I love my colours, the old navy couches made the room look so, SO dark and gloomy. So I had in mind a warm white modular couch, to lighten things up. Kristine suggested a large silver-framed mirror as well, to reflect extra light and make the space appear a bit larger. Here's the computer mock-up of her suggested layout:

The colour palette revolves around the wall colours (dark teal and olive-beige), the warm white of the couch and the chocolate of the ottoman (which I don't have yet):

And she suggested accents of silver and olive drab:

The silver adds some glamour and is reflective too, so again, should lighten things up a bit.

Slowly does it

I've picked up another item for my family room - I wasn't all that confident that I'd actually find just the thing, but eBay helped me out once again.

This was the side table/chest from Kristine's inspiration board:



I knew it was a concept and that I didn't have to find that exact thing, so I was prepared to look at all sorts of alternatives. I looked and I looked and I couldn't find anything I liked. Until I saw this on a furniture website and got all excited:



The price nearly made me choke though, so I filed away the photo and kept looking. *sigh*

Finally, I spotted the perfect thing on eBay. Only thing was, the seller had a set of three and was offering them as a single lot. I figured that if I couldn't find a use for the other two, I could always sell them, so I lined up my bid, waited for my moment and....SOLD! This baby is now mine:



The timber is a little scratched, but I can fix that. The latch is also a bit skew-wiff, but nothing that can't be fixed with a pair of pliers (or possibly a hammer).

My only issue is that the bamboo is too green for my liking, so I'll have a go at staining it and see what happens....

Snail's pace decorating

My family room re-do mission is going slowly, but I am making some progress. So far, I've collected a few items, amongst them...

1. A mirror with a mirrored frame. It's similar to this, but I did NOT pay over 2000 pounds for it, which is the price tag on this one:



I'd been pricing large silver framed mirrors, both online and in numerous shops and they ranged from $250 to the ridiculous price above. Then, when I was shopping for something entirely different, I spotted mine in Lincraft. It was a reasonable-ish $140, but thanks to a special they were running, was marked down to $90. My ideas of scouring op shops for a suitable frame, painting it silver and getting a mirror cut to fit were immediately discarded and I grabbed that baby off the shelf faster than you could blink.

2. A couple of these faux leather cushions, also from Lincraft. THESE were the reason I was in the shop, after I spotted them advertised for $9.99:



3. My potted palm... which I've shown before. That cost me about $40 for pot and plant.



I'm going to add some styrofoam pellets topped with pebbles to hide the black plastic inner pot.

4. Some vintage botanical prints. Well, freebie downloads anyway. I'll have to choose which four I want to use, get them printed to the right size and grab some frames from K Mart or a $2 Shop or somewhere.





5. A few decorative odds and ends. These, I mostly already had, but I spotted this silver lantern for $9.95 the other day, and plan to grab one in the next couple of days:



I still need one of these:



There seem to be plenty around, but I'm not paying $700 for one. It has to be chocolate, but can be real or faux leather; I'm not fussy. And I prefer one with legs.

I also need something like this to use as a side table, which is going to be much harder than finding an ottoman:



These only come as a set of three, and the price is a bit steep, so I'm still looking (pleeeease help me out, eBay!).

I need to scour all the furniture shops in my area this week while I'm on leave. I'm also planning an expedition to a few fabric places, since I can't seem to find any cushion covers that are remotely like what I want. And the lamp? I decided I didn't like the op shop offering after all, so I'm still sans lamp. I may just go buy one from Freedom after all. ;)

The couch fund is slowly growing. I may be able to think about ordering the thing after Christmas. Fingers crossed.


Oh, and here's my inspiration board again, just to show you I'm on the right track...

Improvising

We spent a lot of time today getting our outdoor entertaining area ready for summer. Bike Boy cleaned the pavers - the horrible wet winter we had this year had caused a lot of nasty green moss/algae to grow on the sandstone. Then there was the accumulation of dirt that blows in and the odd food spill...

I oiled the outdoor furniture and tidied up the garden. After all that work, I decided we need to have a BBQ tonight and spend some time relaxing in our piece of paradise. But we still need some lounge furniture for the alfresco room. So far, I haven't seen anything I like for a price I'm prepared to pay. Well, there was that one eBay bargain, but while I dithered over whether the chairs would fit in my car, someone else bought it.

So I put my thinking cap on and came up with this temporary solution:

Dining setting plus market umbrella - these, we already had. With a coat of oil, the table came up a treat, as usual. The chairs need replacing though. My renovation a year ago made them look like new for a while, but they've faded badly again and the fabric on the backs is starting to tear. I'll have to start looking for replacements.



Lounge furniture required some ingenuity....

One old bench seat (haven't oiled that yet) plus a cheap seat pad from Bunnings plus some cushions collected from various rooms in the house equals a lovely outdoor couch:



For extra seating, two armchairs and a small table we've had forever (which also got a coat of oil) and more cushions:



My "coffee table" is actually three baskets turned upside down. The contents are spread all over the family room floor, but shhh:



Now I'm off to enjoy the space I've created.

Family room design consultation

As I mentioned before, Kristine of Lemonbutter Furnishings & Interiors did a design consult for our family room. I'm now sloooowly working on finding the furniture and accessories I need to bring her beautiful design to life.

I'm not going to post all the details and pictures from the 20-odd page document, but here's a visual overview -

Inspiration board:

Textiles & textures mood board:


No painting to do (thank goodness), but a couple of big furniture items are required, which was our intention all along. After all, the old couches and the IKEA side table aren't quite the look I was going for.

The crucial part of the whole design is the couch. Which unfortunately is going to cost some big bickies. I did the rounds of furniture shops months ago and I know where I'll get the best deal, but it's still going to be a hefty slug. So saving madly is my priority for now.

Most of the rest, I ought to be able to do on the cheap - Kristine has given me some great suggestions for finding bargains or working a bit of makeover magic. Last weekend I sourced a palm tree and painted a cheap pot to come up with something that looks surprisingly like Kristine's image. (It still needs some pebbles to hide the inner black plastic pot):



Today I spotted a really ugly lamp in an op shop that's a likely candidate for a makeover... I just didn't have any cash on me and they don't take cards, dammit. Let's hope it's still unsold when I can get back there on Thursday.

I have a money-saving plan for the silver-framed mirror ....and the framed prints. If I can track down the perfect fabrics, I can make new cushion covers. I could just go out and buy those smaller things, but that would make a dent in the couch fund, so I'll be doing them on the cheap.

That leaves me a new blind to organise and a few pieces of furniture to find, but I'm being patient(-ish). Don't they say "Good things come to those who wait"?

When in doubt, call a professional!

I had a vague decorating style in mind when we built the house, but due to taking our time with the purchasing part of the operation, I've found myself getting a bit distracted from my vision. The idea was for a modern look, but with some Balinese/Thai kind of tropical accents. I didn't want a whole lot of heavy carved furniture though, nor did I want a clinical tiled and sparsely furnished look. Yep, I was good at knowing exactly what I didn't want.

I was attracted to a number of different styles and had picked up a few bits and pieces along the way that didn't really fit the modern or tropical genre... and I was worried that what I'd end up with was a mish-mash of styles that just looked all wrong together.

I kind of knew what I wanted to achieve, but couldn't pinpoint the how. Would this work with that? Was I getting too far away from my intended style? The more decorating magazines or blogs I read and the more shops I browsed through, the more confused I got. Aargh!

Then in my blog travels, I stumbled onto The Painted Hive. I loved Kristine's style, not to mention her talent for spotting a treasure in an ugly old piece of furniture and then working her transformation magic on it. I stalked her blog and her eBay auctions for ages, before I finally realised that HERE, right under my nose, was the answer to my decorating problems. Not only does this talented lady offer design consultations, but she's a whiz at helping clients perform miracles on a budget. I remembered what a relief it was to get professional help with the landscaping design... So a quick email was sent to Kristine, begging for help, and before I knew it, I'd hired my own interior decorator.

We met, we chatted, she asked lots of questions and took lots of photos and notes - and now I have A Plan (yes, with capital letters) for our family room. One that I know will actually work. No more worrying about buying things, then finding that they just don't work with the other furniture and "stuff" we have.

I won't be rushing straight out and buying everything I need to achieve the look though. Some of the items on my list will take some work to track down - only because I don't have a budget of squillions, so will be keeping an eye out for bargains and most likely transforming them with a bit of paint and elbow grease.

This will be a work in progress, but I know it's going to be worth it. Next I have Kristine working on the lounge...

Vintage dresser - before and after

Who would have guessed that this would turn out to be so easy-peasy? From bedroom dressing table to living room drinks cabinet, and all done in a few days with no dramas at all.

Here's what my eBay bargain looked like before:



The photo doesn't show just how bad the finish was. Numerous coats of shellac had bubbled and peeled or been scratched away. And those handles - ugh. You already know the saga of the unorthodox mirror removal method, so I'll skip that.

Sanding was pretty easy, the old finish came off with no probs. Except around those pretty curvey carved bits.



Some chemical paint stripper helped, but in the end I decided not to be a perfectionist about it. There was also this to deal with:



Mmm. Lovely 70s brown and mustard Contact, firmly stuck down to the drawer bottoms. I tried to peel it off one drawer and ended up with broken off pieces and gunky sticky crap still on the drawer base. Then I had a brainwave - my craft heat gun might do the trick! It did; that nasty stuff just peeled away.

Next I gave her two coats of walnut stain, left over from the chair...



...some satin poly...


...and she was looking just gorgeous. Then I added some new teardrop pulls, which is what the original handles would have been:


Look at that gorgeous cedar!



Sorry about the flash glare. I must fiddle around with my camera settings and perfect the art of indoor photography sans flash. One of these days.

I've just thrown some "stuff" on the top, but this is the general idea for our drinks cabinet. The grog we most often use is on top, and the rest stashed underneath. The basket is temporary - I have a plan for a vintage crate to hold the extra bottles, but that's a whole other story.



This is another bargain I picked up this week - a silverplate footed dish from an antique/secondhand shop near my office. The classic and so-heavy-it-would-break-your-wrist decanter behind it was a wedding gift.



My $2 Shop tray is doing a brilliant job of keeping the bottles and glasses tidy. It was white with a horrible butterflies and flowers print on the bottom, complete with corny poem, but a quick spray with black paint and a coat of wipe-on polyurethane sealer fixed that.



And inside the drawers? No putrid Contact anymore, just a wine rack I found at K Mart, plus a shallow basket to hold corkscrews, openers and assorted bits and pieces.



Happy? You bet.


I'm linking this post to Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday

P.S.

Also? This afternoon I got to spend some time with Kristine from The Painted Hive. I probably talked her ear off, the poor thing, but she was lovely and full of brilliant ideas.

More on that later!

In the mood

I have a newish version of Photoshop that I've barely used, so I thought I'd get some practice in by making a mood board for the lounge. I'm still figuring out the editing tools and I need to hunt out a few more images, but you get the idea: