Friday 20 January 2012

Before and Afters

Yes I have been MIA, but I have an excuse (again).  We are moving house.  An opportunity came up for us and, well, you only live once.  We are moving to rural Melbourne on 9 acres.  We are renting at this stage, just to see if we like the lifestyle - and who wouldn't??  Consequently, we have been madly trying to get this house up to scratch (i.e. finish off all the projects I have started), ready for someone else to live in.

This is just a quick post, with some before and afters. 

When I have a bit more time, I will go into a bit more details about some interesting repairs I have done along the way.  Bear in mind I haven't had time to stylise the photos (not that I am much good at that - yet), and I am still in the midst a lot of other projects.  Here is the up date so far.

Laundry

Laundry Before
Laundry After (with new freezer)
Tiles Before

Tiles After (using tile paint)

 Lounge Room

Ugly Messy TV Cabinet and brown dresser with chipped drawers.
Newly Painted Cabinet (with hubby's new tv - I have hidden everything in the drawers and the DVD player is under the cabinet)
Ugly brown lounge suit that seemed too big for the room, plus cream cushions and cream walls, all seemed too brown. (forget that the room is messy)

Rearranged furniture has opened up the room, and the purple walls have toned down the browness of the lounge suit.
Looking from our front door, this is the sight you used to see.  That room through the arch is the kids playroom, and the toys just overflowed into the lounge.

Now looks much brighter and there is a place for the kids to put their toys away.


Just another picture, looking from the playroom back to the front door.  The entrance, I have painted virtually white (Dulux Antique White USA - for the Aussies), and it has just lightened and freshened the place up.

There are other projects going on, including packing and cleaning (which I am sure you don't need to see).  More updates will come about the remainder of the house tidy up, when I have a spare moment.

And if I am not back before 26th January, Happy Australia Day everyone. :-)



Friday 6 January 2012

Happy New Year

Yeah, all right I am a little late.  But I have a good excuse.  Hubby and I went back to Tasmania to visit our folks over Christmas for a week.  It was lovely to have a break and let the grand parents look after the kids for a while ;-).  But when we returned we discovered that our freezer had been unplugged.  I am not even going to describe the smell that eminated from the freezer, but you can only imagine.  Remember it is summer here and we have already had 40 degree temperatures (104 degree Fahrenheit).  Anyway, yuck.

I should take this opportunity to warn you that this in not a post with pretty pictures.  It is about the tasks I have under taken in the past week, and I am yet to finish.  These are the ugly before photos.

The freezer got moved outside and emptied and cleaned (several times).  Below is the space left behind with me testing out the colour on the wall.




Meanwhile, Hubby decided to look at some of the post Christmas catalogues for any freezers on sale.  What he did find was a 50" plasma, and he tells me, they were vurtually throwing it away.  Apparently you are only robbing yourself if you leave it in the shops.  After a bit of research, we purchased a 50" plasma for the lounge room and still had a smelly freezer for the laundry. 

Off course this presented an opportunity to update the lounge room.  Take a look at our current tv cabinet...


I needed a new entertainment cabinet for the tv to sit on.  I ended up using the cabinet I bought for the kids playroom (see below picture), and bought another (from the post christmas bargains found at the local charity shop) to go in the kids room.  I was under strict orders from Hubby to not paint it white, as it wouldn't match anything in that room, and maybe I should paint it brown.  (I almost listened to him, and definately would have in the past).


Finally, after the laundry was painted and looking much brighter and fresher, the tiles were the wrong colour. So they needed to be changed up.


So there are the before pictures of my projects I have been tackling over the last few days. Oh and by the way, yesterday I ended up buying a freezer.  I was prompted by Little Angel, who opened the freezer (which is turned on but empty), and said "eeewww, that smells awful", enough said.

In short, because the freezer smells bad we need a new tv.

I will be back with the finished projects as they get done.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.