Smelly memories

Isn't it funny how smells and sounds take you instantly to another time and place? There is a certain squeak (that ought to be followed by a loud bang) which whenever I hear it I am certain if I turn around I will see the kitchen door into the laundry closing with a slam. Of course, it is in my parents house almost 20 years ago that I heard this regularly, but it still stays in my subconscious and the sound triggers an almost tangible conviction that I am back in the farmhouse kitchen.

Less pleasant is the smell of school buses. I have been on plenty of school trips with my kids over the last 10 years, being a full-time mum, and any that involve a bus trip are a little more challenging than the others. I have to firmly push down the urge to gag sometimes, recalling bus trips back in the country district that I grew up which involved nearly an hour of extremely windy roads. I'm sure my siblings and I were the most unlucky students, as we lived only 7 km from the school, but as it did a large loop and finished at the bus-driver's house, he dropped us off last, 1 hour later. I tell you, all us students in those days were lucky to be alive. My mother would occasionally relieve at the school also and has reported to my father once she returned home, having taken the school bus, how the bus-driver, bless him, had gleefully shown her his foot flat on the floor with the brake pedal - he had no brakes and was only using the handbrakes on these hair-raising hills and corners. And that was not at any slow speed either. I'm sure it would never happen now, but somehow kids were a little more dispensable then possibly? ;-)

Lately I've been back in my grandparents 'attic'. At least, in my mind. My grandparents sold their house of 30+ years last year and built themselves a little granny flat on my aunty's property, but their last house will be forever etched in the minds and hearts of my family and me. The attic was not an attic as you would imagine one - dark, dusty, cramped. Their attic took up the whole area above their garage, accessed by the customary steep, narrow staircase, but carpeted, light and airy. Three low, narrow beds were lined up against the far wall, covered with quilts and feather pillow from Bali, Norfolk Island and England. Some of them were probably 60 years old but they were all so cosy for us when we stayed with them. 

Over one side of the room stood a large, high table covered, enticingly, with pieces of coloured glass. My grandfather made lead-light lampshades and windows there. Of course, we weren't allowed to touch them and amazingly, we didn't! In another area stood my grandfather's desk, with his desktop computer and printer. He had got into computer programming and mucking around with it back in the 90's and often spent an evening up there with a little heater by his feet. For many years his big home-made loom also stood there. He had tried to teach me how to use it when I was about 14, but it's not a skill much in demand these days! But the most fun area was the one closest to the stairs. It held a huge big wood-bound chest which they had transported their belongings in when they immigrated to New Zealand in the 60's, and which now housed the dress-ups. How we loved to dress up in them! The favourite was my grandmother's wedding dress - an embossed satin - and my grandfather's black lecturing gown - great for being the wicked witch!

And finally on another table stood Nana's sewing machine, the cause of this walk down memory lane. You see, I've been sewing and the fabric I have smells like Nana's sewing room. On looking back I think maybe the smell was the wool rugs and loom-work in fact, as the fabric I'm using is a natural linen, but sewing was something Nana taught to Mum and Mum taught to me, so I make that connection without even realising it. 

In fact, I'm very excited that I'm back sewing again. The focus for so many years has been purely structural things, like walls and doors. Then it's been painting, painting, painting. How I hate painting! But finally I have decided I'd get back into some sewing. I bought a nice machine a year or so ago, and it's been wonderful! A couple of months ago I ordered 4 metres of some fabrics from Cabbages & Roses in the UK which is just gorgeous. I'm rather precious with it as it was not cheap, but it's been so worth it. A cushion is a great evening project if you haven't got time (or the room) to do a big project but just feel the need to feel good about yourself! An affordable source of inners is a must though, I have decided. 

As we approach winter, several things have occurred. One is the money is running out. For some reason people don't buy plants when it's winter. Go figure. The second is that it gets cold. And the third is that it gets very cold in the lounge as I built 2 walls and a door around it, cutting it off from the fire, which now roasts the rest of the house. (I still maintain it was a good decision!!). And the fourth is that it gets very, very cold in the lounge as I took the old curtains and blind down to paint it and refused to put it back up. There are 3m french doors and a 2.4m (very old) window in the room and probably very little insulation. Ouch, cold! 

The outcome of this is that I have had to get creative with the curtains that are needed in there. The fact is, there is no way we can wait for spring and it's accompanying stampede of customers wanting to give us their money. In the past I have had curtains made by professionals as they do such a great job and I was quite intimidated by the prospect. I had given up on finding a beautiful, vintage fabric in New Zealand so had priced up 28m of a favourite from the UK and it was almost $2000 just for the main fabric. Just in the nick of time, a friend mentioned a wholesale fabric shop in Wellington city was worth a visit. And wouldn't you know, I found several gorgeous fabrics. For a good deal less than the price of fabric from UK I got a beautiful floral linen, thermal lining, interlining (for the ultimate in warmth!) and thermal lining for another unlined curtain I had at home. 

Unfortunately, I find that the best part of the sewing process is the point where it's all nice and neatly on a role. Full-stop. Once it's unrolled, it's all downhill baby. However I have found this time to be surprisingly un-downhill. I admit I haven't used a pattern as, well, how hard can it be to make a curtain, right? And it's amazingly all come together like a dream. The only problems are that I don't have any floor areas large enough to lay out a 3m x 3m piece of fabric, and the carpet is so filthy that I wouldn't even if I did! I am fortunate enough to have a large dining room table and a king-size bed, both of which have been invaluable. And it's amazing how much of a curtain you can actually sew while it's hanging from the curtain rod!

This morning I found the perfect curtain rods: right colour, right diameter, right lengths, right style, right price, and even came in 2 pieces each so I could fit it in my car! I've got one pair of curtains up ready to be hemmed, and so far the curtain rods haven't fallen down. Fingers crossed they last 15 years or more. I am absolutely thrilled with the effect, and can't wait to make the second pair - the bigger ones, gulp. The room is finally coming together. 

I just need to scrape the paint off the windows, recover 1 and a half couches, make up about a half dozen more pillows, frame and hang about 10 more pictures and have a wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelf built including an attached ladder... (Before photo below)

Cheap romance

Next time you feel like you can't afford dinner out with your partner, be a little creative...

picnics

poetry

daisies

photo booths

ferris wheels, roller coasters, and merry-go-rounds

reading aloud to each other

back rubs and foot massages

boardwalks

fireworks

flirting

sugar hearts

faux pearls

ferry trips

sparklers

two straws in a milkshake

jumping the waves

love letters

(Mary Emmerling)

A vintage kitchen revival

Doesn't everyone love a nice '80s kitchen? Yellow formica bench tops, orange rimu cabinets, marbled vinyl, ground-breaking multi-bowled sink, brass knobs, Robin Hood range hood, about a million power-points but none in the right place, oversized dishwasher and all? And all shut away from the rest of the family.

I had the good fortune to have had part of my kitchen updated in the last 30 years - most of the yellow formica bench tops had been replaced with brown and white granite. I think that was about as far as the good fortune went. Here it is in all it's glory:

Taking out the wall between the kitchen and dining room was not on the budget yet, so we had to work with what we had. I don't believe in throwing out perfectly good things, especially when the replacement would be about $15,000, so the kitchen units all stayed. The drawers were original sliding ones without runners, and frankly fell apart in my hands many times. However the rest worked just fine. Plenty of space - in fact after a couple of months I found a cupboard at the end of the kitchen units that I hadn't realised was there! Go figure! 

I hated the boxy orange fake wooden shelves most of all. I had a vision of lovely open shelves filled with pastel crockery, preserves and cut glass vases. Finding nice wooden brackets was another story altogether. I had to get my father to help me cut some out of timber boards, which looked so cute once painted up! 

And here began my love affair with Annie Sloan's Chalk Paints. Oh baby. I am fortunate enough to have a lovely little shop about 20 minutes away which stocks her paints, so I have made many a trek out there to stock up. I actually went in intending to get Pure White as all kitchens are these days, and came out with Duck Egg. One stroke and I was hooked. Its incredible how panelling looks so much better once it's painted. 

The cabinets took two coats, a very, very light sand with 240 grit sandpaper, and a wax with clear wax. The ugly dishwasher even got the treatment until I could replace it! I'm not sure exactly what door pulls I'd like, so for the time being I have simply painted the existing brass knobs with the same chalk paint. 

One thing you can't see is the ceiling. As I have mentioned before, it was a gorgeous orange douglas fir in tongue and groove. Ugh. My long-suffering husband painted the ceilings in the kitchen for me and it's a million times better. I always loved a white t&g ceiling! The lighting was pretty marginal - old brown spotlights that could not work and a suspended bulb. I replaced these with white metal shades and every one of them got an LED lamp to help with the electricity bill.

A quaint and very practical feature of our kitchen is the eating nook. It is not even 1.5m wide and 2m long and juts off the side of the kitchen. It is on the north-eastern side of the house, and gets the most amazing morning sun. For the first few months it seemed a little pointless as we had no furniture suitable to fit in it, but trade-me sorted that out for me. After trialing a few different ideas with our camping furniture, I made a wide built-in window-seat at the end of the nook, with an upholstered cushion seat (perfect for curling up with a book in the sun), and bought an old oak table which fit under the window. This had already been painted Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in blue with a blue wash on the top. The blue of the legs clashed with my Duck Egg kitchen unfortunately, so a quick paint and it was white!

Add to this little corner our old family bench, a little stool so that all 5 of us can sit there, a few botanical prints and water-coloured hydrangeas framed in white, roman blinds covered with tiny pink roses, and a pile of turquoise and pink floral cushions, and it's a corner we use all day, every day. In fact, we eat every meal there and it is used for boardgames by the kids, coffees and planning for me, and every other family activity that requires a table.

The last thing to be added is a butchers block. I picked up the base of this from a little junk shop in Newtown, and we added a shelf at the bottom with casters, and a thick macrocarpa slab on the top from my parents farm. This stayed in it's very raw form for several months but I have finally managed to plane it back, sand it, and then waxed with raw bees wax. It began with Duck Egg but this was a little overdone, so it changed to Pure White and looks great. So functional and useful - I wouldn't be without it!

Wall colour: Resene's Quarter Spanish White - so vintage!

Window frames, skirting etc: White acrylic enamel - nothing flash

Cabinet colour: Annie Sloan Duck Egg

Furniture colour: Annie Sloan Pure White & Clear wax

Apron: Cabbages & Roses Vintage Amelia

Pendants: Lighting Plus Forge in white

And that's my kitchen! Now you can look forward to (!!) the next instalment which includes a wall demo, relocation of oven and fridge, some bamboo and two very large beams.

Up-cycling obsession

I am a little obsessed with junk shops. 

Recently my husband and I had 3 days, 2 nights away in Greytown to celebrate our 15-year anniversary. Now, I just love Greytown. It's so quaint and full of the cutest shops overflowing with antiques and collectibles. There are some gorgeous kids' decor shops as well as lovely little cafes. My husband has promised me a day to 'do' the antique shops for years, and finally my time had come. Three days! 

What I arrived home with was a grey jug. I had visited every shop there, religiously using every second that was in the day to trawl through these beautiful antique shops. The problem I had was that everything I saw, I wanted to change. And how silly is it to spend $500 on a carver for the office that you then mean to paint and re-upholster? 

Even the jug I could have bought from a wholesaler though our store, but I just had to come home with something!

Here are a few photos of one or two little projects that I have enjoyed. Hobby has gotten to obsession stage now, as new and partly finished projects mount up around the house. I've decided I better get moving and finish some so that the family can actually use them before they all start a revolt and send me to work! 

That's the key to all the up cycled items I do: they have to look loved. Many get the distressed treatment as it saves the kids from the risk of distressing me (and thereby themselves!) when they hit it with a hockey stick or a random stick.

Still sitting partly finished are 2 bar stools and an office chair. And a couch, some curtains, my new bed, the sideboard, a little stool, that fire-surround I mentioned...and that's not even starting on the items I haven't even started on yet - the other sofa, the lounge curtains, a foot stool, and the kitchen chair and arm chair I just bought...

This elegant lamp was brown and pink.

Ah yes, the kauri bench which I grew up with.

Gotta love a little kitchen stool. We use it all the time.

'Butchers Block'. Every kitchen should have one.
The macrocarpa top was from an old tree my parents milled.

Love, love this fabric. I'm going to make curtains from it.

Free Romance

No, I'm not going to start harking back to the 70s and promote free love and peace. For those of you who like a little romance and beauty in your life, I found this lovely list of romance that's free for the taking in an old library book and have added a few of my own:

Thunderstorms

Stargazing

Spring rains

Skinny-dipping

Mountaintops

Waterfalls

Birds' nests

Sunsets

Beaches and oceans

Moonlight

Shooting stars

Letting the sun dry your skin

Staying up all night and watching the sun rise

Outdoor showers

Old orchards filled with lichen

Chimney remains in a field

Tiny shells

Firelight flickering on skin

A little Shabby Chic

You will have seen the photos of our master bedroom on My Home page. What was once in this area was a much smaller bedroom with a window opening out to the front verandah, back in the '20s. Later, the end of the verandah was built in to make a sun-porch which was accessed from the remaining verandah, as was very common. During the '80s renovation, the door to the verandah had been taken out, the sunporch incorporated into the bedroom, and a bay window added to the front. Thank goodness for that, as it's about the nicest 'original' feature of the house and it's not even original!

Now, it has a new colour on the walls, ceiling, windows and doors, new hardware on the windows and cupboards, new curtains and a blind, and the last couple of things will be a new bedhead and carpet. (The curtains were installed later, so I'll include photos of them when I get around to taking them) I had to sell almost all of our bedroom furniture, much to my husbands disgust, and buy new, smaller furniture to fit the smaller dimensions of the room. I guess that's what you get when you cram 4 bedrooms into 143m2! I haven't managed to get him to agree to downsize from a king-size bed (now that the three kids aren't regularly in our bed in the mornings!) to a queen, so it's still somewhat cramped and I keep crashing my thigh into the bed-end when I walk past when I'm tired! 

An op-shop side table which I painted.
This little window now has a striped blind
and I have bought a new linen-upholstered bedhead
which I need to install and photograph.

I put up an old-fashioned 'picture rail' to make the most
of the high ceilings. 

NB. I finally convinced darling husband that we needed a different bed. My battered and bruised thighs still twitch as I walk past the foot of the bed in the dark but are now safe from sharp, wooden bed-steads!

All the cupboards had rimu architraves,
brass handles and cream paintwork.
They all got the white high-gloss treatment.
We replaced the four big, round downlights with
a nice crystal chandelier. 

My sewing corner

Shady garden makeover

Since marrying my husband 15 years ago, who came attached to a garden centre, I have had an increased interest in gardens. My last house consisted of 12 acres of neglected paddocks and was possibly a bit too much to bite off on my own. This house is only a 1/4 acre, and much more manageable. However the one problem it has is that the usable areas are on between 5 and 10 levels, depending on what you consider useable! So the only way to tackle it is one garden 'room' at a time.

The first garden we started on was the little shady garden between our house and the neighbours, a garden of 4m in width and about 15m in length, sloping, and sporting a terrific 60's brown fence and a whole heap more mud than grass. I never mowed it (mowing involved bringing the lawn mower down 3 flights of stairs...and then back up again afterwards), and none of the kids ever played on it as it was too small and rough. Probably also because I never mowed it. It also had enough ivy growing over the old fence to sink a ship, at parts reaching almost to the overhead powerlines. Once we started clearing of the garden bank which was shading my eldest son's bedroom, we discovered a little garden above a curving brick planter box wall, and a big pile of bricks just waiting to be turned into a curving brick path to match. The garden also included an existing concrete paver path curving around the edge of the brick planter to meet a little gate opening into the neighbours back path in a very sociable way.

The garden ran the full length - no great length at that! - of the house. Access was either around a path from the back door or else down 3 steps from the front porch of the house. The bottom of the sloping garden, which faces towards the front of the property, has a beautiful view of Whitirea Park once we cut out all the ivy and was perfect for the spa which was languishing in the parking area at the top of our steep property, where it had been for nearly a year since moving into the house. (5+ levels of garden = lots of stairs which does not combine well with moving a spa) It would be easily accessed from the house, with a lovely view, and makes use of a cold garden well as we didn't want to waste our one potentially sunny north-facing garden for a spa.

Down came the 40-year old fence and a funny little oriental trellis which was hiding the a/c unit from...well...nothing!

The second job was to create a level area for the spa pool. Initially we got a huge quote on both re-fencing and building a 4x4m deck for the spa, so we decided to pave instead. It didn't need a lot of 'cut and fill' - about 300mm both ways and a little sleeper above and retaining timber below and it was ready to go! I find a 450mm paver looks great when it is edged with old bricks. It takes away the brand-new look of it which clashes with old houses.

From there we continued the paling fence up to meet the brick garden, and built a new garden gate through to the neighbours' house. These two houses were built at the same time so many years ago - I wasn't going to be the one to break them up!

After the spa area was finished, it was time to get rid of the remaining lawn to avoid any more marital tension over lawn mowing! We had the brick path built just off-centre, and dug up two beds either side. The soil was terrible, of course. Up until the '80s there had been a concrete water tank - two sides still visible behind the pile of bricks - when most of the steep bank had been dug away to create this garden. So all that was left was clay and rotten rock in many areas.

 Stay tuned for an updated photo of a year's growth. Once I have weeded it...

Below is the list of plants I have used. These are suitable for shady, south-facing and slightly acidic soils:
Largest:

• Magnolia "Genie" (rich red, deciduous, will grow to max 4mHx1.5mW)
• Berberis "Helmond Pillar" (burgundy foliage, deciduous, will grow to max 2m x .5m)

Medium:

• Hydrangeas "Limelight", "Bridal Bouquet", and "Bloody Marvelous/Merville Sanguine/Raspberry Crush" (lime/cream, white, and rich red flowers, deciduous, 1.5m x 1.5m)
• Loropetalum "Burgundy" (burgundy foliage, pink flowers, evergreen, 1m x 1m)
• Azalea "Brides Bouquet" (white flowers, evergreen, 50cm x 50cm)
• Pieris "Christmas Cheer" (pink flowers, evergreen, 1m x 1m)
• Anemone "White Knight" (white flowers, 1m x 75cm)
• Daphne "Alba" (white flowers, evergreen, very fragrant, 75cm x 75cm)

Small:

• Heuchera "Obsidian" (burgundy foliage, evergreen, 50cm x 50cm)
• Bergenia "Blessingham Ruby" (green/red foliage, evergreen, pink flowers, 35cm x 50cm)
• Buxus hedging. This will be trimmed to 40cm x 30cm. 
• Annuals: Summer - white impatiens, Winter - white pansies, silver cinerarias, white primulas.

Our "The Block" week

When we moved into our house a year and a half ago, I promised my husband that I wouldn't start renovating until we had lived here for at least a year. All the experts say that is what you should do, to get an understanding of how you live in it, where the sunny and warm spots, as well as where it's not really used and a little cold and unpleasant. I had full confidence I could do this, as the race to suddenly finish all the projects we had started on our last house in order to sell it quickly had left me somewhat tired of the whole renovating thing. Or at least I thought.

Three months later the first school holidays hit and we had decided to have a "The Block" week in my younger son's room. Yes, I know, what about being sick of renovating? Don't ask me. Anyway, my son's room was on the southern side of the house, absolutely tiny at 3x2m, and was painted a sort of mushroomy-pink colour. You can see it on the "My Home" page. Yep, every boys' dream...

Now I do love vintage styling, however most little boys won't appreciate too many old suitcases, bevelled mirrors and floral fabrics, so we decided to theme the room according to what he was interested in: animals. And more specifically, African animals and Sea Mammals.

Wall colour is important and I am a big believer in making the most of small and cold rooms not by painting them warm whites, but by using gorgeous, jewel-like colours that enfold you in beauty and energy. Rafe decided on Emerald as his colour but let me tell you - this is no easy colour to find! After about 3 or 4 samples (getting up to $10 a sample isn't cheap!) we happened upon a tin on the clearance table with a green blob on the top that looked about right for $30. Four litres of gloss enamel should do the trick in a room prone to dampness, we gave it a try! Sure, it did take 4 coats to really get to the depth of colour we were after, but the result is stunning.

The space under the sleeping platform is nice and high - nearly 2m - but still a little boring, so we ordered a photo-murel from the US - a cheetah and her cubs which are Rafe's favourite animals. At nearly $400 it was an expensive wall but gives the room a sense of space that it lacked before and makes it truly feel like you are out on a safari! In hindsight, I would purchase one with a single drop, rather than two pieces as the thick vinyl is very hard to stick down, even with the thickest wallpaper paste. I ended up stapling it down at the edges. 

Other little details are a hammock hanging below the sleeping platform (we started with a string one but this was uncomfortable so we changed it for a green and blue silk one from Mitre10), a stripy blue, green, and grey mat from The Warehouse, hooks for all his caps, and a tall cubed shelving unit to keep all his knick knacks and animal models.

I made a little desk space with a fabric-covered pin-board for his awards and sports photos, and we picked up all kinds of gorgeous pictures for his themed room - a canvas of a tiger, a 'moving' picture of some dolphins, and a poster with all kinds of whales on it. His bed has a cheetah fleecy blanket from Spotlight and pillows with cheetahs and zebras from Trademe. On the floor are a beanbag and pillows in zebra and cheetah prints. I covered his light shade with a green 'batik' my husband had brought back from Africa 20 years ago.

Virtually all of the house has rimu skirting boards and architraves, which I find absorb so much of the limited light. Rafe was given the option of painting these out white or leaving them timber, and he chose to keep them natural. I'm glad he did now, as it's nice to feature some native timber somewhere in the house!

A future projects for the room is an army camo mesh 'curtain' along the front of his sleeping platform which he has to climb under to get in and out of bed but I haven't managed to source one yet.

The truth is that it took more than the prescribed week that was our challenge, but it takes time to get things perfect!