Frustrated Gardener

So what do you do when on a sunny Sunday morning, you have been given the morning off from participating in a Sydney Spring Cycle event (with the 3 boys out of the house) because you are sick? 

Arran, Charlie and Aiden off to Spring Cycle! Cuteness

The sensible person would curl up on the lounge, drink cups of tea and watch rubbish TV. Or perhaps a slightly less sensible, but social person would join a couple of girlfriends who invited you to go visit the Matt Blatt showroom at nearby Leichart and drink coffee. Or perhaps, if you had a small sadistic streak, you would put together around 30 pieces of Ikea furniture for an upcoming party at the house. Or if you were feeling domestic you might fold the mound of washing that is taking over your bedroom.

I didn't do any of these things. 

Even feeling pretty low with the onset of a sinus infection (that I finally succumbed to after the rest of the household has been sick for the past month or so), the thought of half a day to get some stuff done was too attractive. I went into a small frenzy.

Saturday was Charlie's first birthday party and I bought these amazing potted hydrangeas from Michael at Glebe General Store. 

They were so nice I got inspired and wondered how they would look in the ground. Well established hydrangea plants are dotted all around Glebe. I have written about them before, so I figured the climate must be ok for them here. I have a little strip of ground in the backyard which when we bought the house contained the start of a camellia hedge. Unfortunately they were a bit straggly and at different levels of growth. Not being much of a gardener and not liking camellia's that much meant my passion for saving them was on the low side. They got pulled out. I have had a bare patch there for a while now, cultivating weeds. I had planned to plant bamboo there to act as a screen, but we have been talking about having the whole back yard redone so I haven't done anything about that. 

Pretty inspiring, huh?

We have a little party coming up so I thought it would be nice to have some bright colour in the yard. I spent Saturday night thinking about planting hydrangeas in this spot and so given the opportunity off I went to Flower Power first thing on Sunday morning. 

How great do they look?

Ahhh...

I have decided I must be a frustrated gardener. When given the choice I wouldn't choose to get into the garden. I don't get a buzz out of having my fingers in the earth or get some kind of Zen feeling from connecting with nature while pulling weeds. I don't want a big back yard with lots of grass and would be just as happy living in an apartment with a nice balcony. Who needs a big yard when you live in Sydney's inner city? The Sydney City Council have done an awesome job of upgrading and creating the parks in the "villages" that make up the Sydney council area. We have an amazing park,  Dr H J Foley Rest Park right across the road from our house and I walk around the Glebe Foreshore at least a couple of times a week. Love.

Of course I am incredibly grateful to have a nice outdoor space to enjoy and entertain in. Any amount of space at your house in the inner west should be treasured, however most days I'd much rather be doing something to the inside of the house. I think what gets me out into our lovely outdoor space is the need to make it, and keep it looking beautiful. I don't particularly like the process of gardening but I like the finished result. If the plants don't die. And I have learned that the best way to prevent plants dying is not for me to pay more attention to them, but to buy plants that suit being neglected.

Wish my hydrangeas luck! 

Aiden gets another new room!

It seems to me, that if you are 3 and you have had 3 new bedrooms, then perhaps you are a little spoilt. Yep. That's Aiden. He got a new room in our Glebe St house when he was born. You can read about it here. Then we moved to Bridge Rd and even though it took us a little while, he got a new room and a big boy bed. You can read about that room here. 

And then Charlie came along. Poor Charlie has not even had one new bedroom. He has spent most of his life so far in our bedroom, which is not ideal. No one was sleeping that well. It was hard for Arran and I to come to bed without waking him and it was hard to get ready for the next day by the light of our mobile phones. Often the three of us were awake when Arran got up to ride his bike at 5am. I was finding it hard to sleep because I woke up with Charlie's every move, snort, snuffle and cry as well as waking up to feed him a couple of times a night. Arran was finding it hard to sleep...oh wait. Hold on. Arran can basically sleep through anything. Bastard. Arran was only waking up when I shoved him to go put Charlie's dummy back in. Really, the only person who was sleeping well was Aiden. No wonder. He keeps getting nice bedrooms.

So with me returning to work and being fed up with not getting a decent nights sleep, something had to change. Aiden needed to move into a different bedroom so that we could put Charlie in the room beside us, so it's easy to get to him during the night. I thought about them sharing a room together, I know many small kids do, but up until recently Charlie was very good at screaming in the middle of the night. Despite Aiden being a good sleeper I figured that as we have the room, we may as well make use of it.

Aiden's new room used to have cream coloured walls (same as every other room in the house), a bare MDF cupboard with stained brass coloured knobs, exposed beams and light brown carpet. Not that exciting. I really should take 'before' photos. Before becoming Aiden's new "Big Boy Room", it was a spare room with two single vintage beds and two basic (dare I say ugly), pine bedside tables.

Here's how it turned out. I seriously wish this was my room:

We had "Just Screw it" paint two of the walls in a soft blue/grey colour called "Miller Mood" and the other two walls including the built in cupboard in my favourite white "Antique White USA". Both colours by Dulux. I really like how these two colours provide a base for some of the vintage and industrial pieces I found for his room.

Around a month ago I had what Arran refers to as the "Festival of Lisa". Inspired by Arran being away on another mountain bike weekend I decided that Arran could look after Aiden and Charlie all weekend while I got to do whatever I wanted. Those of you who are friends on Facebook know that there was facials, massages, a "float" as well as some shopping. The shopping was focused on some furniture stores on Regent, St Redfern. I have driven past these stores many many times on the way to the airport. I thought they were just second hand furniture stores but discovered they were an amazing collection of mid-century retailers selling second hand and restored furniture and artefacts. They made me want to redesign our whole house to incorporate this era of design and furniture. I had a lovely time talking to each of the store owners and learning about their connections with the other stores on the street and their history and backgrounds. 

Some of the wares in Rudi Rocket

Graham and Graham Design

I wanted something quirky and unique for a bedside table and was looking for something that wasn't designed to be one. I found this great mid century set of drawers at Rudi Rocket that were most likely used in an office or factory. I thought about changing the colour and sawing off the legs a little but once I put it in the room I like it just as it is. It's one of my favourite finds. The lamp is from Ikea and it has a similar industrial feel.

Industrial vintage meets new

 Another favourite is the "Fresh Young Poultry" sign which I also found at Rudi Rocket on Regent St. It's retro but fresh and young and vintage, and really cute. I imagine it would have hung on the farmer's fence and I like that it now has a new home, where the sign-writing and colours are appreciated for a new purpose: as art!

Aiden's big boy room!

I bought and stained this table for my nephew's Marley and Jordi when they were little. Now they are in Aiden's room!

 The letters are from Typo and the red lacquer book shelf-come toy storage is from Ikea  I like that is has an industrial feel with the castors on the bottom.

A place to keep books and toys in red lacquer

Every boy needs a Tonka Truck

Just like new

 The old MDF cupboard looks like new. I was going to buy new handles for the cupboard doors and drawers but man are they expensive!! I ended up spray painting them silver. They look great. They looked like this before:

This was so easy!

 Aiden loves his new room. Who wouldn't! I think its my best "Aiden" room yet.

 

Aiden's Little Room

When I was pregnant with Aiden we continued the renovation of our Glebe St house by converting the 3^rd bedroom into his room, though we didn’t know he was a he. It was at the back of the house and was nice and quiet, so seemed like a good choice for a new baby. It was also pretty small and babies are pretty small, so they don't need much stuff, do they?

Our 3^rd bedroom was the typical room that most houses have; where all the junk went! It was full of boxes of comics, a crappy desk that we didn’t use, boxes of random stuff we had nowhere to unpack to and probably didn’t need, a sewing machine…. Just a whole lot of stuff really. Lots of people have this kind of room. If we were to have a room for the baby, as well as a second bedroom where guests could stay, something had to be done.

We went to Brisbane that year for Christmas and I was desperate to get back and start work on that bedroom. I was entering the third trimester and all the pregnancy books said you get really tired leading up to the birth.  I wanted to get the room finished before that happened.

Once we moved all the crap out and found other places for it (mainly the tip) we had a tiny and very tired room. I needed to fit in storage, a change table, a cot, a chair,  a little table, a bin... hmmm...I thought babies didn't need much?  I (eventually, we) started by painting the room.  For some reason I just want to be up a ladder painting when I am pregnant. Must be a nesting thing. I’m getting an inkling to paint the casual TV/dining area in our current house in Bridge Rd. Maybe just one wall?

We painted 3 of the walls in Dulux Antique White USA, and one wall a deep blue/green (sorry I can’t remember the colour!) I wanted to brighten up the room and keep it light, as well as create some depth and contrast to the Expedit bookcase from Ikea, we already had. I thought this would provide great storage for a baby because each of the cubes can be used for different functions and you can buy all sorts of options to insert in the cubes for flexible storage. I bought some little double drawers, some cupboard doors and some wicker baskets to fit in some of the cubes. The bookcase took up a good part of the wall but wasn’t very deep so it didn’t take up too much floor space of the room.

After the painting was complete we selected and had installed new carpet. Even choosing relatively cheap carpet, it was still $600, which included new underlay, installation and taking away the old carpet. The rest of the upstairs had to make due with the 20+ year old carpet! Spoilt baby! We added a Stokke Sleepi Cot and change table and a wicker chair that our friend Jacqui gave us when she moved to NZ. I added a little table from Spotlight which cost $17 because it was the last one and had no screws. A trip to the hardware store and a little paint and its been a very handy table!

To finish the room I added a large wall sticker from The Wall Sticker Company called Tree of Life. I paid a little extra to have them customise the colours to match the room. I sent them the colours I wanted and they sent me pictures in the chosen colours for me to approve. It arrived in a couple of weeks, and it really completed the look, along with new curtains and a new light fitting.

Unfortunately I don’t have any “before” photos but here is the finished result.

 I thought I would tell you about Aiden’s room in Glebe St as we are about to decorate his room in our Bridge St home. We have lived here for 1.5 years and the pretty pink and green girly room is about to be transformed into something more suitable for a 2.5 year old cheeky boy. Will tell you all about it in a future blog post!