My Makeshift Bathroom

With me all caught up in the bathroom renovations I thought I'd share my little makeshift bathroom I've been using for the last 4 weeks while my bathroom has been turned into a room of sand and rubble

This is where I'm brushing my teeth nowadays, yep in the laundry sink! I also do my makeup here which is actually a pretty good spot because there's lots of natural light. And the best bit is I figure with the washing machine covered with all my things, if I can't see it I don't have to use it until I run out of clean clothes which will never happen with a wardrobe my size!

We also have a granny flat just a few feet from the house out the back door which has a little bathroom, shower, toilet, and runs on it's own hot water system. The granny flat is pretty daggy we have just been using it for storage up until now but after lots of scrubbing and cleaning I'm glad we have it for the renovations.

Now be warned - nothing can prepare you for the sparkly floor, swirly shower base and flowery wallpaper! Shower times have been reduced dramatically I'm in and out in just a few minutes and I'm embarrased to admit I've been going as many days as I can without washing my hair because I'm too scared to close my eyes incase any creepy crawlys come out!

I just keep imagining that I'm on holidays camping or staying at a caravan park or somewhere because that's what it feels like using the laundry and granny flat as my makeshift bathroom!

Ah the joys of renovating!

Life Is Art

Awesome quote to get me going this week

I hope everyone has a fantastic week ahead of them  :)

[Image via my Pinterest]

Book Review: Notting Hell by Rachel Johnson

There's a reason I shouldn't go into the library unprepared without a few books on my wish list, because when they didn't have any of the books I wanted to read I was left to walk the aisles and grab a book at random.

Bad idea, all that I had to go by was the cover and name and ended up walking out with Notting Hell by Rachel Johnson

As the name suggests this was a bit of a hellish read and I debated whether to write this review because I don't have a lot of nice things to say about it. But in all fairness I'm going to review all books I read, both good and bad and you never know it just might stop someone from dying from boredom in the near future! And hey, it's just my opinion, you might love it you might have your own sexy billionaire living next door that wants to marry you on his yatch, who am I to judge!

This book is based on an english share garden residence where the rich and famous spend their days going to yoga, shagging their neighbours and ignoring their children. The story is told by 2 women and they each take turns to tell their story alternating chapters all through the book, talk about confusing, I didn't realise this until half way through when they were talking about one another! The humour was the only thing keeping me reading this and maybe the sex scenes although even those weren't that steamy.

I would recommend this book for any one who loves to live in a fantasy land of the rich and famous. Or thinks their billionaire neighbor wants to marry them on his yatch.

I give this book - 1 star

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


[Image via Dymocks]

Double Shower Indulgence

In the bathroom we are forsaking having a bath and toilet and having just a double shower and double vanity. I've just realised how completely indulgent and coupled up it sounds to have just a shower and vanity but the plans are drawn, the plumbing is in, there's no going back now!

My reasoning is I never used the bath we had in the bathroom as it was so small and the toilet is located separately in the laundry, and if we wanted to include these in the room we would've had a shower/bath which I'm not too keen on and squeezing in a toilet would make it poky.

The way  I see it its  Saving Water + Time Together = Happy Campers!

Have you ever used a double shower?

[All photos from my Pinterest]

Real Living Christmas Edition

What a welcomed sight I came home to last night my favourite magazine Real Living was poking out of the mail box. This meant a night off from researching on You-Tube how to remove a bathroom window (I kid you not!) and instead I spent the night with a glass of wine flipping through the mags Chrissy edition.

There's lots of great ideas for making your own wrapping paper and decorations and I've always wanted to make an avent calendar too so this year could be the year!

I've started making my own Christmas Cards early this year (you can see last years lot here) and everyone seems to like getting a hand made card so that keeps me sticking with the tradition for the 3rd year in a row now.

Do you make your own Chrissy decorations, wrap or cards?
 
[All images via Real Living]

Lighting The Way

I'm ashamed to admit I have only bought 1 light cover for the house so far - a small black chandelier for the master bedroom which you can see a snippet of here. Every single other light in the house is a sad looking naked bulb protruding from the ceiling, and nothing makes a room look unfinished like an ugly bulb I can tell ya!

If I liked simple light shades that would be fine as we can install them ourselves, but I keep going for pendants which need to be fitted by an electrician. And on further inspection of our lighting we realised that there is no earth on our light fittings so not only do we need the electrician to fit the lights for us, we also need him to rewire an earth into each light fitting. This is going to cost us a lot of money so the plan is to keep costs down as much as we can by buying all the light covers we need so the electrician can install them all in one go.

We have already bought lights for the living room and guest bedroom and they are wrapped up in their boxes waiting patiently to be installed. I'm going to move the small black chandelier from the master bedroom into the craft room as I think it will look better in a smaller room.

So all that's left on the wish list for the rooms that we've completed are:

Master Bedroom - A larger light shade something bigger, blingy and dramatic

Man Cave - Something bright and modern and fun

Hallway - A funky glass pendant like these bubble glass chandeliers

Do you find picking lights difficult?

I just can't seem to make a decision and buy something!

[First light from Beacon and all other images via my Pinterest]

Bathroom Vanity Design

It may sound a bit extravagant but we're getting the bathroom vanity custom made so we can get the most out of the space. To me every last spec of space for storage is pretty important and while I might not need 4 different types of hand cream I have them and they have to be stored somewhere!

I have drawn and redrawn the bathroom vanity design a million times and was finally ready to meet with the cabinet makers Qndesigns (who were recommended by friends who just renovated their bathroom) so I went prepared with my sketches and ideas folder and guess what happened?

My design completely changed! I wanted all drawers with a small cupboard door on the side kind of like the Ikea design but it turns out the pipework for the basins will take up all the room in the drawers so the best thing was to have cupboards instead. I even quivered my lip and fluttered my eyelashes but there was no getting around it, it had to be redesigned. He did tell me if he designs our kitchen for us (yes he does them too) it will be all drawers, drawers and more drawers so I guess that was the compromise!

We spent 2 hours with the cabinet maker who designed the cabinet on the computer as we talked so we could see the 3D image of it. The design we ended up with was cupboards on both sides and drawers in the middle. The cupboards will have just one door instead of two to make it a bit more minimalistic.

Once it was designed we walked around his showroom and picked out the cabinet colour and bench top. He specialises in granite bench tops and of course I was lured towards the most expensive but extremely gorgeous black granite with flecks of shell through it. It's called emerald pearl, stunning don't you think?

Once the top was chosen it was onto the cupboards, I had initially wanted to be daring with the cupboard colours and pick something a bit different, maybe with a wood look, anything but white. But dark cupboards just wont go with the black granite and grey floor tiles so in the end I had to play it safe and choose a bright gloss classic white. Next we picked chrome handles in a curved design which will go with the shape of the round basins (you can see my glass basins here).

The cost is $1495 (just under our $1500 budget)
This includes 1400mm wide, 2 cupboards with shelves, 3 drawers, chrome handles, soft closing doors and drawers and a granite bench top. Made and delivered in 2-3 weeks time completely assembled no instructions needed or putting it together arguments

Can't wait for the call to say its ready!

[Granite photo from qndesigns all other photos my own]

Bathroom Plumbing and a Whole Lotta Rubble

These aren't the pretties photos but they show the mammoth job we did on the weekend putting the new plumbing into the bathroom. We worked for 19 hours with the plumber both Saturday and Sunday (lucky he's a friend so we weren't paying for his time, only cost us $75 worth of pipes as he supplied all the rest, what a champ!)

All the old pipes were dug up and ripped out and these are the new pipes for the double shower, cut into the brick, laid into the wall and cemented over. Then the double basin mixers were cut into the brick, laid into the wall and cemented over.

The new shower area is where our bath and vanity use to be (see before pics here)

And the new vanity area is where the shower use to be (see before pics here)

We also cut into the brick and laid the electric pipe ready for the electrician to come and hook it up - a new light switch on the wall and a new power outlet near the vanity - there was never a power outlet in here before I use to have to blowdry my hair in the bedroom and charge the electric toothbrushes in the study so I'm very happy about that one!

Once the pipes were in the wall we had to dig a trench for the shower grate and that's when the fun started. I thought the sand was bad that we found under those tiles and concrete, but we had to keep digging deeper and deeper and bringing up limestone, rock and rubble. I just can't believe the huge limestone blocks that were in there.

I carried about 20 buckets through the house, through the kitchen in fact and out the back door (thank goodness for drop sheets on our polished floors!) and dumped about 8 wheelbarrow loads full of this

As we now know houses in Western Australia like ours that have floorboards and sit on limestone blocks - in the wet areas they lay concrete and then the builders dump all their rubble and bricks in here to fill it. It is truly unbelievable what was in there and I'm now dreading the laundry reno as no doubt we'll be faced with the same thing.

Now the plumbing and electrics are in ready, the next step is finding a solution to our window in the shower problem - which is to replace the window with glass bricks. More on that to come when we figure out exactly how we're going to do that, if we'll do it ourselves or pay the professionals to take care of it. Will keep you posted! 

Joining linky party Wow us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style go head on over and check out some serious wows!

Book Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

I've just finished this bonus read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which was recommended by my Tuesday Girls Book Club

This story is a bit of a heart wrencher about a 9 year boy whose Dad died in 9/11 and the boy spends all his time trying to find out how exactly his Dad died and what he was doing in those final moments. This book had me want to laugh out loud in some parts and then trying not to cry (I read most of the time on the bus and its not a good look getting teary on public transport!)

The simplicity of how a child thinks makes this book something that I liked the most. To see things how kids do, uncomplicated and straightforward, (it actually reminded me of Room the very first Book Club read in that way). There are some strange stories told by other people in this book which I found a bit hard to swallow. There are also some quirky pictures and markings throughout the book which even had my librarian make a note "red marks part of book". Yes this is definitely an out of the ordinary book.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the events of 9/11

I give this book - 3 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

[Image from Wiki]

Bookfessions

I found this cool website Bookfessions which are confessions and thoughts of a self proclaimed book lover, bibliophile, book addict, reader, lover of literature, nerd. I found myself smiling at these confessions there are so many I can relate to, here's some of my favourites

What's your favourite Bookfession?

[All images via Bookfessions]