19 May 2011

New bedside tables

Good morning, how are you all?
I am sorry for being away from you for sooooo long.  We have been busy with our bedroom renovation, the new wardrobe is in, the new blind is up and the new paintwork is done.
  
I have been loving every minute, my creative juices have been flowing!!  But I must admit the house is upside down, I have no energy for any housework, (so I am blogging instead)!
We are so close to a reveal, but I have to hold out just a little longer.  I am so excited as the  new carpet goes down tomorrow.  We have chosen an eco friendly carpet made from corn.  Very soft and extremely hardy.  You can read all about it here.  I have never had new carpet in any of my homes before and I can't wait...

I can show you our new bedside tables from La Maison.  They are so beautiful and we got them on sale too, which is even better!
Here is a sneek peak...

 Isn't she lovely?  A soft creamy ivory, which will fit into our scheme perfectly.  We will have one on each side of the bed.  I am still on the lookout for matching bedside lamps but I think they will have to wait for awhile.

We spied some beautiful chairs for the bedroom too in our local La Maison store, Wishbone, unfortunately the budget wouldn't S-T-R-E-T-C-H that far....

 I will be back soon, (I promise!) to reveal our new Master bedroom, so until then take care. 


23 April 2011

I'm thinking a photo wall

Hello dear friends, I hope you are having a relaxing Easter!
We are spending our time with family, the kidlets are so excited to have some lovely family members around for the holidays!
Speaking of family, I have been thinking about the multitude of photo frames we have been accumulating.  Before we painted the interior of our house we had a wall of large frames in our stairwell.  The nail holes are all still there but we haven't put the photo frames back up.
I am thinking black.  As the frames are all different I think a uniform black would look great.  And you know I am loving black at the mo...  Mr Echoes is taking some convincing, but I can work on that!

Here are some photos I have found on the web that are of interest...




One of my favourite blog reads is, Young House Love, John & Sherry have a new photo wall in their hallway, which looks fantastic!  If you want to read all about it go over here!

Anyhoo, I will endeavour to work on Mr Echoes for our black frames, stay tuned!
Until then...

11 April 2011

All things black...

Good morning dear friends, I hope you had a relaxing weekend.
I am in a dark mood, not a bad mood but a black mood!
Who is loving black at the moment?

I certainly am.
Thinking, new black pendant light for over our dining table, we've got the new black clock for the kitchen/dining and I am going to paint my small desk (where I am going to blog from in the very near future) gloss black!

So enjoy my small feast of black!







So until next time, enjoy your dark mood with me!

Take care,

29 March 2011

Winging it!

Hello lovelies!
I am thinking a new chair for our bedroom.  Maybe a Louis wing chair is in order?  I am not sure if I will be mixing styles but it is always nice to be able to sit in a bedroom.


I am loving this one here with the linen look fabric on the white, gorgeous!



An all white one?





Maybe something like this will suit the room better?




This one is nice, but maybe a little over the top?






I was inspired by a blog I have recently found, dear lillie.  She has the most beautiful home and her new baby's nursery is to die for! 


Go over and have a look!  Here is a sneek peek and the reason I am thinking new chair!








Hope you are having a great week,
  I am off work at home with a sore throat & head :(


As always,


25 March 2011

A calming living room



Hello beautiful people, 
I hope you have had a great week.  I am feeling really excited about all that we are planning to do in our little home.  I have been looking over carpet this week and it is so confusing!  Lots of different colours, piles, makes, textures, quality.  I have a headache thinking about all the possibilities! :(

A calming living room photo is what I need, isn't this one just beautiful?  It all works together perfectly!


Photo courtesy House Beautiful


Have a perfect weekend.
Take care,

23 March 2011

Chandelier before & after...

No, it's not my work (unfortunately), but I had to show you this fantastic job Ellie Snow of Mint has done with her chandelier make over.  You can read more about it here.



Drum roll please...
to this...

Maybe I could do something like this for our bedroom reno, a chandelier with three lights instead of five.
I might have to arrange a trip to our local tip or charity shop...

*Sigh*
As always,

22 March 2011

Overripe bananas, a bedroom renovation and making a cake...

Good morning everyone, I hope you are having a great week!

I am at home today, normally I work on Tuesday's but both my girls are a little under the weather and are staying home from school.
As I only work part time it is normally Mr Echoes that stays home with sick children.  He had something he had to do at work today, so I am the one nursing the girls.

I put on a load of washing, made all the beds, (I really need to change my sheets but they can wait another day or so!) tidied up the breakfast dishes, chose my Roman blind fabric, baked a banana cake...


Did I say, chose some fabric?  Yes I did, I am soooooooooooooooo excited!  Can you tell?  We are starting our main bedroom renovation very and I mean very soon!

Let me start from the beginning.  We bought this house a three bedroom, (with living, kitchen/dining,  bathroom, laundry) and the potential for a fourth bedroom and small ensuite downstairs.
 

We started using the downstairs room as a movie room,  a mancave for Mr Echoes an adults room for us to relax in, watch movies, sit and chat once the kidlets were tucked up in their beds.

When our living room tv died, we lugged up the one from our movie room.  It is a far better tv than we had anyway.  We lost our movie room but we gained a better tv for all of us to enjoy but the room became lots of other things...
It became, the family guest bedroom, (they only get a blow up mattress to sleep on, I know it is not great but they keep coming back, they really do like us!), a computer room, an exercise room (Mr Echoes cycles), and a junk room - where everything that doesn't have a home ends up, or is that the garage???
 
 
Now, getting back to our reno, we have decided to move our bedroom downstairs so each kidlet can have their own bedroom.  Miss Echoes 10, (going on 18.. ) says she is way too old to share with Miss Echoes 5, and truth be told they are kinda squashed into a little bedroom :(
 I have been constantly talking at Mr Echoes with all my ideas, non stop for the last 6 months Mr Echoes and I have been discussing all OUR fabulous ideas on what to do with the spare room and the little ensuite bathroom.

It is a total mess at the moment, so I am sorry to say I can't show you any photos just yet, but I promise, very soon!  

So, the first little thing I have done is choose the blind fabric for our new Roman blind!  I know it is only a small step, but Rome wasn't built in a day - small steps are always good! Well that's what I am telling myself anyway :)

Here are two shots of the fabric, it is hard to tell the exact colour, but it is a creamy stone colour, which will match with the paint we have on our living, kitchen/dining walls.

I hope you like it, the scrolls match our bed which is a bronzey wrought iron style - photos to come...


Back to the cake baking...
I had some overripe bananas and between selecting fabric, I baked a fail safe recipe, which turns out every time!  I am not the best baker but this one always gets favourable comments!
 
A piece for me :)
 
Here is the recipe if you are interested.
 
Moist banana cake
250 g soft butter
1 cup castor sugar
3 eggs
3 overripe bananas, mashed
2 cups self raising flour

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add eggs one at a time and beat well between each
Stir in mashed bananas
Stir in sifted flour

Mix well and put into a greased cake tin, cook in a moderate oven for 45 minutes.  Stand to cool on a wire rack, dust with icing sugar, then eat :)

Yummo!
Take care and thanks for stopping by! Any main bedroom do overs, or renovation stories to tell? I would love to hear from you!


As always,