Decorating wishlist #3 - Let the light shine

A quiet week at the block this week whilst we await delivery of the windows & external cladding and a veritable flurry of activity at the house next week. Meanwhile we have been considering some lighting options as the need to do an electrical layout draws nearer.

We had a recent family weekend excursion to Brunswick St primarily to visit The Fabric Store. After gathering some lovely cord, knits and denim for the girl's Winter wardobes we wandered to a cafe for an iced chocolate and then popped into Wilkins & Kent where we spied a potential drum light shade for above our new dining table in our new house. Imagine the shape of the shade in the left photo covered in fabric with the pattern in the middle photo but in the colorway of the right photo! (all fabrics are ink & spindle).



We are also liking this David Trubridge shade for the entry. Apparently, it is delivered in little plywood pieces to be put together ourselves, ummm, it might be fun.


We are also leaning towards three of these Ikea pendants over the kitchen island bench.


This is the fun stuff. Deciding on location of all powerpoints and switches and which lights they should control...less so!

Surfing for couch covers

Whilst I fell in love over the Internet with a Jardan couch, the realities of small children, their sticky fingers, the fact I need to fill a whole room with furniture and, ummm, a budget, meant this was one on-line relationship that was not going to last the distance. Enter Ikea. Hooray! Very happy with the design of the Karlstad couch, however, not totally loving the fabric options and not sure they will make the distance with afore-mentioned small children and sticky fingers. Enter Google. Hooray! A company called Bemz that makes covers for Ikea sofas, armchairs and cushions out of a huge range of quality fabrics and funky designs and who shipped me 10 swatches of sample fabrics all the way from Lithuania, for free!


I guess in the olden days if one wanted a new couch one pretty much had to buy it, and and it's covers, from at least the same country, if not state, city or village - imagine that!

Just hanging around

I had a square of Ink & Spindle fabric leftover from the Finders Keepers market. Instead of making another cushion, I thought I'd cover a canvas to make a wall hanging.


I am quite pleased with the result. Small and sweet!

Flexing our green credentials #2

#1 - The lovely roof will not only keep the rain off our heads but will also hold the solar panels for our hot water/hydronic heating and possible future electricity production. The roof faces solar north and, apparently, the slope (around 34 degrees) is at optimal pitch for maximum solar gain across all seasons in the Melbourne region.

#2 - Rolled out underneath the colorbond is Air-Cell an ultra-thin thermo-reflective insulation that is fibre-free and non-allergenic. In conjunction with the bulk insulation batts to go in the roof space it will help keep us cool in Summer and warm in Winter.

#3 - The whole house has been sited for maxium passive solar gain, which wasn't too hard as the block runs north-south and is kind of big enough to put a house in a good location. It does help explain why it is a long, narrow house - maximal North facing windows! Loads of natural light! passive heating!

A perfect pitch

The shale grey roof appeared today - a few days ahead of schedule. Here it is in progress: Of course, the builder needed to visit the roofers on site but he also had a 7am meeting in Kew. Thus went a mad morning of early starts, breakfasts, school lunches, laundry, hair blowdrying, work-readying and then meeting Toph at school to hand over the girls so I could go teach and Toph could go build. Just an average morning in the life of building a house an hour and a half away.

What colour is your roof?

You know you are building a house when you can name the colourbond roof colour of random houses at 20 paces. That one?.....surfmist!.....over there?.... woodland grey! (very popular)....the house over the road?...definitely dune! Yes, much of my spare time in the past few weeks has been concerned with roof colour. The colourbond colours website is fun because you can choose a house style and then colour it's exterior roof and walls any which way you like. It can occupy a lot of time...although you still have the niggling suspicion that the colours seen on a computer are not quite the real deal.

Anyway, roof is going on in the next week (shale grey it is).

Progress photo:

A few days on

The roof trusses are on, as is the floor of our upstairs bedroom. It was very exciting wandering around the real rooms and feeling like it will be a real house. This is the view from the front: The view from the vegie garden: The children happily play in the dirt while Dad inspects: and I think he likes what he sees (glimpses of the bay & You Yangs):