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Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Im back ... But not back to reality!

Hello friends I'm back from my relaxing holiday cruise BUT I'm not quite back to reality yet.
 
I had a wonderful time cruising around New Caledonia and Vanuatu Islands, shopping at the local markets, swimming in crystal clear waters, sipping on cocktails and fine dining every night. It was an awesome trip Mr P and I had an amazing time.
 
Sailing out of Sydney Harbour
 
Watching the sun set over the ocean from my cabin balcony
 
Sailing out of the port of Noumea

Exploring the beach on Isle of Pines
 
 Sipping on a coconut and shopping at the markets on Mystery Island
 
Toes in the sand on Lifou Loyalty Islands
 
Cocktail dress code at night time ... I love dressing up!
 
I'm home now and the suitcases are unpacked but it has been raining too much for me to get through the washing (perfect excuse if I've ever heard one!)
 
The dust has settled on the furniture and the floors need mopping (boring!)
 
But I'm still in holiday mode so this is what I'm doing instead ... enjoying and wine and nibbles and catching up on my tv watching and blog reading.


It's good to be home :)


[All images my own]
 

Friday, September 14, 2012

Bon Voyage Friends


I'm signing off for a week or so as I'm heading off on my long awaited cruise holiday!
 
 
The house sitter is here to stay and feed my fish
 
This time tomorrow I will be boarding my cruise and standing on deck with a cocktail
 
Bon Voyage!
 
I look forward to catching up on your blogs on my return home
 
 
[Image from Pinterest]

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

The Garage Doors Are The Icing On The Cake

The much awaited garage door has been installed and really is the icing on the cake for the exterior of the house.

We picked out our 2 doors back in July and once the garage walls and floor were in we called the company (Gryphon Garage Doors) to come and do a final measure and quote for the doors. It was then a 5 week wait for the doors to be made, followed by a further week caused by the wrong door size being made.
 
So here's a bit of a look at the doors
 
Before
 

Now


Holy duly I still can't believe the changes we have made to this house! Sorry it gets me excited seeing the before and now wait until it's finished and you see the after!

So about the garage doors, the pelmet went on the week before last but when the installer went to put the door on he realised it was the wrong size (apparently the office girls put the wrong measurement into the computer) so it was left like that for a week until another door was made.


The pelmet wasn't installed flush against the ceiling either so we asked him to fix that as well which he did (after a little convincing!) when he came back to put the door on.


We picked a jarrah colour to match with the Jarrah Jungle theme of the home with the jarrah floorboards and sunrise windows to let in some light without the need to turn the fluro lights on during the day.



We also put an electric roller door in classic cream at the back of the garage, this area is the store room where we'll set up some benches as a bit of a man shed.


The roller door was installed without a problem, this is the view from inside the garage

 
This is the view from the back of the house (you can see the new brick extension and the old brick here - when we render the back of the house this will blend right in). Don't mind the pipe either the gutter guy has to come back to put in one more down pipe and this is what we came up with in the meantime so we don't get flooded!
 

The house feels a lot more secure now with the garage doors on and locked up which is good for my sleeping pattern - it was a bit touch and go there for a while when we had a tarp over the garage extension  we had some sleepless nights but feeling safe again now.
 
I'm sorry for all the garage posts lately but it has been such a big project starting with the Council taking 12 months to approve it and then 4 months for us to build it.

I'll shut up about it now that it's done!  

Sharing with link parties Savvy Southern Style and The Dedicated House
 
[All images my own]
 

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Holiday Planning and Packing


I'm heading off on my cruise holiday on Friday to cruise around the South Pacific islands for 10 glorious days of cocktails and sunshine and wanted to share with you my holiday planning and packing regime.

I learnt the hard way on how to pack a suitcase when I was 18 I went on a 6 month holiday and thought I could fill every last inch of space in the largest suitcase known to man BUT it meant I had to lug that thing from airport to trains and in the end it weighed half my body weight and was impossible to lift by myself.

There were things in there I only wore a few times and it was not worth me bringing them. I had to buy a trunk for all the goodies I bought on my travels to ship that home from the UK to Australia which took months to arrive.

Lessons learnt: Pack less means you can bring home more!


So after that youthful experience I now plan what I want to take from the tops and bottoms all the way down to the jewellery and shoes. I make a list of where I'll be and what I'll wear both day and night and then I can decide if the outfits I've picked are going to work together - what tops go with what bottoms, how many times I'll wear the shoes, etc so I get the most wears out of each outfit.

The idea is to take as little clothes that make a variety of outfits so I have plenty of room in my suitcase to bring home goodies. I find dresses are the best because you don't need to work out a top and bottom and you can wear them different ways by changing your shoes and accessories.



About a week before I travel I get the suitcase out and get out all my clothes on the list. I'll try things on to make sure they go and to make sure I'm going to wear them (if I never wear them at home the chances are I'm not going to wear them on holiday so they may as well go to the op shop!)

Then I scrutinise and if there's items I'll only wear once or that only go with one thing then it'll go in the ''íf there's room pile''. Once I have my outfits decided I'll put them in the suitcase and see how much space I have left - I like to have 1/3 empty space. If I have that then I'll put the "íf there's room pile'' in but if there's not I won't!


Domestic travel usually allows you 20kg and the cruise allows 32kg. My case currently weighs 13kg ... that's 7kgs of souvenirs and gifts that I know I can fit into my case and still fly with no trouble.

So that's how I pack for a holiday a bit of pre planning and organising works for me!

Do you have any travel packing tips?

If you want to go on your own travel adventures around Australia check out the awesome deals on Travel Factory here


 photo F0F68C01A59FABD46732FC15E1D8816D_zpsc6047f2f.png

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[Images via Pinterest 1, 2, 3, 4,]

Monday, September 10, 2012

Book Review: And Then There Were None By Agatha Christie

I have just finished reading this classic book And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie


This book is a murder mystery about 10 strangers being sent to an island and they each start dying one by one, in the same sequence as this nursery rhyme ...
 
Ten Little Indian Boys Went Out To Dine
One Choked His Little Self And Then There Were Nine

Nine Little Indian Boys Sat Up Very Late
One Overslept Himself And Then There Were Eight

Eight Little Indian Boys Traveling In Devon
One Said He'd Stay There And Then There Were Seven

Seven Little Indian Boys Chopping Up Sticks
One Chopped Himself In Halves And Then There Were Six

Six Little Indian Boys Playing With A Hive
A Bubblebee Stung One And Then There Were Five

Five Little Indian Boys Going In For Law
One Got In Chancery And Then There Were Four

Four Little Indian Boys Going Out TO Sea
A Red Herring Swallowed One And Then There Were Three

Three Little Indian Boys Walking In The Zoo
A Big Bear Hugged One And Then There Were Two

Two Little Indian Boys Sitting In The Sun
One Got Frizzled Up And Then There Were One

One Little Indian Boy Left All Alone
He Went And Hanged Himself And Then There Were None
 
I really enjoyed this book it was written simply and descriptive. It also doesn't have a single main character - each character shared the limelight as much as the other which I found quite interesting.
 
This book is a classic who dunnit type mystery and will have you guessing right until the end - I still didn't know who the murderer was until the end of the book!
 
Agatha Christie is known as the Queen of Crime and even though this book was written 73 years ago I still enjoyed reading it which may be why it is in the top 10 best selling books of all time (rivaling the Bible!). There was also a 3 month wait from my library for it which again proves its popularity.
 
I would recommend this book to anyone - young and old I think everyone would enjoy reading this thriller. I give this book 4 stars. 

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:
1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch re-runs of Neighbours than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd pass up a pack of tim tams for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read


Sharing with Carole's Chatter link party Books You Loved
 
[Image via Better World Books]
 

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Interior Design Course: Week 5

Here's a recap of what I learnt in Week 5 of the Interior Design Course


WEEK 5
Colour Theory
Colour and its application
Colour schemes
Paint selections and finishes

This week we looked at all things colour. We made good use of the colour wheel given to us in week 3 which we have been shown bit by bit each week how to use to match up colour combinations (although just quietly I'm still a bit confused about how to use it!)


In fact - a lot of this class went over my head! It wasn't only me which was a relief, most of the class were a bit confused about colour tones and complementary and tirades and some words I can't even pronounce! These are the colour groups that you use for different effects depending on the scheme you want to achieve.
 
Emotional Colour - colours make us feel different things, in a dining room a red wall or red place mats can increase the appetite and make food look more appealing. In a study or playroom yellow walls increase stimulation and the mind. It also depends on what effect colour has on you personally, for me I can't wear anything maroon because it reminds me of my school uniform so we put emotions to colours as well and what you may love someone else may not.

 
A Colour Value is the lightness or darkness of the color. You can find the values of a color by its tints and shades. Tints are light values that are made by mixing a color with white, so pink is a tint of red. Shades are dark values that are made by mixing a color with black so navy is a shade of blue. A new trend is painting furniture in a colours value, I really love the look of this it's like a paint swatch come to life.


Complementary colors sit opposite each other on the color wheel. Because they are opposites, they look really lively when used together and each color also looks more noticeable. Examples are purple and yellow and red and green.


 
Analogous colours sit next to each other on the color wheel usually up to 3-5 colours. They tend to look pleasant together because they are closely related, like these images with greens into yellow and yellows into pink.


We spent some time doing a colour workshop where we had to pick a colour and say what emotion it makes us feel - I picked blue because it makes me calm and relaxed.
 
 
We then had to create a casual relaxed theme and a formal dramatic theme using the emotional colour we had picked.
 
We got out our paint charts (that we had to get from Bunnings before this class) and started cutting out colours. In my formal scheme at first I had the accent cushion as orange, but when Natalie the instructor came around to see how we were going she suggested a lighter shade of the blue would be more formal as the orange was a bit too funky! So I'm glad I asked to get the colour combo right.

The trick with casual is to add white and the trick with formal is to add grey in light and dark tones - I can see in my schemes that this definitely makes them look different and gives them a different feel to one another.
 
 
To be honest I still don't complete understand how colour combinations work and the different groups of colour and shades and tones and so on, I think it will take more than a 3 hour class to figure it all out.

I have my colour wheel to practice with and I have picked up how to put a casual and formal room together. At the end of the day it's also about picking colours that you like and that make you feel good ... not just what works on a colour wheel!

Week 1 you can read about here
Week 2 you can read here
Week 3 you can read here
Week 4 you can read here
Week 6 is the final week and is all about decorating

[1st and last image my own, Colour Wheel HomeBase Expo, Colour Emotion Pinterest,  Colour Value Pinterest, Complimentary Purple Pinterest, Red Pinterest,  Analogous Green Pinterest, Orange Pinterest, Blue Pinterest]

Friday, September 7, 2012

Fridays Letters - Dear Retail Therapy

Happy Friday everyone! Adventures of Newlyweds are still having a break from the Fridays Letters link up but I'm writing my letters anyway as I like to have a weekly vent!
 
I'm imagining I'm writing this weeks letters from this quaint writing nook on that old antique typewriter while sipping on a cup of sweet tea.
 
 
Dear Retail Therapy - 3 dresses a belt and earrings from one store on my lunch break had me smiling the whole way back to the office. Nothing beats the rush of retail therapy!
 
Dear Suitcase - You are out and ready to be packed. I've got my packing list and have started getting out my clothes and accessories. I get so excited packing to go on holidays!
 
Dear Car - You are getting a new bonnet and door today, I'm out of pocket $550 because of some little punk but at least insurance is paying the rest.

Dear Car Battery - You not starting had me shit scared stranded in a deserted car park late at night and I had to wait over an hour to be rescued by the RAC. I felt like a sitting duck doors locked looking every which way for my rescuer. I'm just thankful that I was kept safe and got home eventually!
 
Dear Hayfever - The start of Spring this week has given me red eyes and a runny nose .... No people I haven't been partying all night it's hayfever!
 
Dear Cousin's Birthday - I'll be dressing up as the Birthday boy tonight in a flanno singlet and jeans to celebrate my cousin's 50th ... can't wait to see the look on this face when he realises we have all come dressed like him!
  
Photobucket
 
 
[Image via My Pinterest]

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Roof And Its Restoration

Since my last exterior transformation post the roof has had a full restoration and looks fantastic. Here's some flashbacks in before photos to show what we've done
 

 
new roof construction could be built
 
 
 
 
New gutters, facias and downpipes were installed
 
 
Putting the tiles back on
 

Then the roof was ready for a full restoration
 
 
We picked the roof colour - charcoal (far left tile)
 
 
We booked in the roof restoration guys 10 weeks beforehand
It was a 4 day job for them
 
 
They replaced all the cracked tiles, all the ridge capping was re bedded (with cement) and pointing (with flexible cement) and new valleys were put in
 

They pressure cleaned all the tiles
(and discovered our new down pipes weren't draining the water so
refitted them into place for us)
 
 
Then it was ready for painting - an undercoat and 3 coats of charcoal
 
 
After all painted and restored
 
 
 
The house looks so different with the roof done, it really is worth the money I think and we know the roof is strong and sound for many years to come.
 
Next thing I will show you is the garage door fitted and then this epic garage extension is now finished!
 
Playing along with linky parties Savvy Southern Style and The Dedicated House
 
MakeitPrettyMonday 
  
[All images my own]