Ready to party!

When I said we were adding a bar to our al fresco area, I meant a serious bar.

Bars, buying and bidding

Bike Boy has a biiiiiig project going on at the moment. Somebody has a significant birthday coming up very soon, and there's a party planned. And what does every outdoor entertaining area need for parties? Why, an outdoor bar, of course!

I'm telling you, this thing is the mother of all bars. I'm about to go sand and seal the countertop, which is my only contribution to the project - apparently this is a MAN job! Then there's a beer tap and a stainless steel splashback to be installed and some finishing touches to do, and voila! Hopefully tomorrow evening we'll be giving it a test run. I'll post photos when it's all done.

In other news, I think I may have found my couch for the family room. Hallelujah! I was browsing around Nick Scali yesterday and they've slashed all their leather lounge suite prices. I was going to go for fabric, but I figure that if I can get leather for $1,000 off the normal price, I'd be crazy not to.

If I can get that thing in place, I can finally add all my other bits and have the room looking half-decent. I'm also bidding on something on eBay that would be perfect as a side table, so cross your fingers and toes for me...

:)

Beating the heat

We had a real problem with our west-facing sliding door on the studio. In summer it was unbearable in the afternoons - even with blockout Roman blinds and the evaporative cooling running.

We were originally going to build a pergola outside to provide shade, but there's a major drama in the form of a sewer easement, which means that getting a permit is unlikely. So we thought maybe a shade sail - as a bonus, that can be taken down in winter to let the sun in for some natural light and heating.

After getting some quotes and doing some extra research this week, we've decided on a folding arm awning instead. This sort of thing:

Now you see it


Now you don't


No posts, no permits required, and it folds out of sight in winter when we want the sun to shine in. We'll be ordering it tomorrow so we can have it made to order and installed before Christmas.

Now that a decision's been made, I can finally finish off the strip of garden out the back.

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.

Progress, at least outdoors

I've sourced a couple of small items for the family room recently, and have my eye on a few other likely candidates, but that's as far as things have gone with the inside over the past couple of weeks. So there's nothing to report, really. I'm hanging out for Cup week, when I have some leave planned and might actually get something done.

Meanwhile, Spring has finally arrived and the garden is putting on some growth, so at least there's been some progress there. A quick tour:

The kangaroo paws are all flowering madly, making a nice bright splash against the house wall outside my studio.



My succulent garden has put on some amazing growth over winter, and the variety of plants constantly suprise me with flowers at different times. These two are covered with buds about to burst open:





My "jungle" in the corner is growing well and should provide enough shade in a year or two for my giant bird's nest fern. Fingers crossed, anyway.



The scleranthus are still on their mission to take over the world.



The tiger grass may be tattered on the tips from the winter winds and frost, but new shoots are growing like the clappers.



The cannas are throwing up new leaves and this one is even flowering early.



And the herbs have gone completely mental.



The sage...



...and thyme are flowering.



And my parsley, self-sown from seed, is now a beautiful frilly clump. I can never get excited about continental parsley; I much prefer the curly variety.



The Chinese star jasmine around the side is impersonating a Triffid and things are happening in the front yard too, but that's a whole other post.

It's nice to see nature doing its thing.

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"?