Boys room finished!

We finished most on the work on these a few months ago but have been slowly putting on the finishing touches.  It's actually quite amazing that I managed to take these photos of a (relatively) tidy room as five minutes after these were taken there 4 kids in here jumping on beds and pulling everything out of the closet.  Serves me right for doing things on the weekend when the boys are around.

Pretty much everything in the room is new except for the rugs and the little white bookcase that I've had since I was a teenager.

Dad helping me paint the walls in Dulux Ecru Half and the stained pine beds were purchased from Snooze.  The world map was a bargain online from Cudo.

The Tintin poster is from Side Street Vintage in Hawthorn. It was featured  in an issue of Home Beautiful Magazine and thought it would be perfect for my little Tintin fans.  Also I don't think it'd be something they'd grow out of that quickly.  I'd personally be happy to have it hanging anywhere in the house!  I'm still pretending I bought it for the boys not me...

 

I'm still trying to find a print for above Eoin's bed so he has a placeholder for the moment.  Curtains were made by me from Spotlight fabric.

 

The rugs were crocheted by myvery clever mother years ago and have travelled with me to Ireland and back.

The bedside tables are my Ikea Tarva hack. They come in raw pine ready to be painted/stained any colour you want.  It was a bit of work but definitely much cheaper than buying ready painted solid pine furniture.  Also I like that they have a little shelf for the boys books as well as a big drawer.

So, all done. 

T

Things that have happened.....

since I last blogged!

• I cut off all my hair -really short.  Not a fan of selfies so you'll have to wait till I have a decent picture. 

Emergency earring shopping session

•  Discovered you need earrings and makeup when you have short hair so that you don't look like a boy
• Finished the boys' bedroom over the Christmas holidays - photos soon
• Started painting our bedroom about 2 months ago and still have only completed one wall

• I have both boys in school so on my days off I have wonderful, exquisite solitude ... (so you'd think I'd have more time to paint)
• Have started learning Spanish at which I appear to be exceedingly crap.

Cheers
Tina

 

Handmade

I've recently developed a slight obsession with textiles especially handwoven and embroidered.  I've been drooling over Kanthas and Suzanis and spent hours trawling the internet and bemoaning the fact that I don't live in the USA.

uzbek-craft.com - look but don't attempt to buy if you're in Australia.

Those few US stores that do ship to Australia charge you ridiculous prices - US$100 to ship a 1kg suzani throw!

Kantha from Etsy

The way to go, I have discovered, is Etsy.  There are some wonderful Etsy stores that sell suzanis and kanthas and you don't need to sell your firstborn to pay the postage.  Wonderful.

While I was in Bali I visited a little shop in Ubud called Threads of Life tucked away up a narrow cobbled alley way.  Inside was a wonderful collection of Indonesian handwoven textiles.  As well as a shop it also offfers classes on indonesian textiles and tours.  The difference here was that each product had its own story attached so that you know exactly what the textile is, when it was made and its traditional use.

This is the textile I bought and here is it's story...

Sayut, Jawa, Tuban 2011

 This handspun, batik textile is called Sayut.  The cooperative, Sanggar Sekar Ayu, from Luwuk, East Java is one of the few remaining communities where natural dyed, traditional textiles are still being made and used.  The threads are spun from cotton and woven into a continuous 3 meter warp textile (gedog). After weaving, the motif are drawn with wax, and repeatedly dyed with natural dyes.  The motifs on this textile are referred to as Slimun (blanket) and are thought to have healing powers.

on my sofa

They even supplied a photo of the weaving cooperative so that you would know the people that handwove and dyed my beautiful textile.

The only thing better than a beautiful textile is a beautiful textile and its story.

Villa Raja

It's been almost a month since we got back from Bali and the wonderful Villa Raja, a 4 bedroom house we rented in Canggu.

via villaraja.com

It was a wonderful oasis of calm and relaxation in an otherwise hectic place.  The traffic in the southern tourist part of Bali is absolutely horrible which did restrict our movements a bit as every trip into Seminyak had to be weighed up against the possibility of getting stuck in a traffic jam that could make the 15 min drive into over an hour!

Combine that with the lovely pool, good food and company and we ended up staying in the Villa more than I thought.

Our bedroom!  via villaraja.com

The staff were wonderful and our chef's cooking so good that we ate in six nights out of seven. 

Eoin banging the gong for breakfast

The slippery slide and pool were a hit with both adults and kids alike.

We ended up having lunch in Kuta (not as bad as I thought but no desire to go back),  trips into Seminyak (fancy shops mixed with broken footpaths and uber-exclusive beach hotel and bars).

With Catherine at the Legian Hotel

We had a wonderful morning at a beach bar called Potato Head relaxing in a day bed and trying out cocktails and tapas.

Cocktails at Potato Head

We did manage to tear ourselves away for a couple of day trips.  The first one didn't go quite as planned.  We'd read in the guide books about an out-of-the-way beach called Geger Beach just south of Nusa Dua so we headed off with the driver for an afternoon of lounging in beach side deck chairs and warm blue waters.  Unfortunately two things went wrong.   Firstly the way there is through the worst of Bali's traffic and secondly Bali's largest resort is currently being built at Geger. 

We were expecting this.....

But we got this!

The most frustrating of it was that the driver was obviously aware of both issues but neglected to mention them till we got there.  So the whole afternoon was a bit of a debacle but we managed to laugh it off and enjoy a nice lunch of nice campur at a beachside warung about 10m from the building site!

Ulun Danu temple at Lake Bratan

Our second excursion was into the mountains and the north of the island passing through some lovely countryside, stopping off at a coffee plantation and ending up by a temple on a lake amidst lovely gardens.

Lex, Di, Me, Kara and Karl at the coffee tasting

Overall we had a wonderful trip.  Some things about Bali were better than I expected and some worse.  You hear so many mixed accounts of Bali and differing opinions.  But that's part of what I enjoyed about it.  It's enchanting, frustrating, aggravating and vibrant.  Love it or hate it certainly isn't boring!

Ubud

Bedside flower arrangement

Flowers, monkeys, broken pavements, hot days and cool nights.  And so many shops....

Ubud isn't a "village", it's definitely a town.  Or maybe more accurately a series of villages that have spread out, joined up and become a town.

At Ubud palace

I'd done a lot of reading (maybe too much) before arriving and I'd scared myself with horror stories of rabies-carrrying monkeys and incessant touts.  But it wasn't like that.  Sure there were offers of 'transportation' and 'massage' regularly.  A polite 'no' was all that was needed.

 Our hotel, Alam Indah, was gorgeous. It was situated on the other side of the Monkey Forest from Ubud making it very quiet as the road was a dead end.

Breakfast

We stayed in the Gardenia Suite overlooking the swimming pool.  We met some other Australian families and the boys loved Mali, their Bali friend.

We had dates down at the swimming pool in the afternoons and the boys swam while the adults had afternoon tea.

The Gardenia Suite

We walked through the Monkey Forest the first morning. 

Like I mentioned I was nervous about being scratched or bitten but we were very careful and were fine.  The monkeys were very amusing except for a scraggly looking, twitching one that followed us around for a bit.  I was sure that one had rabies.

Nasi Campur in Ubud

A long, hot walk through Ubud followed.  It was bigger than we expected so we quickly exhausted the boys energy and patience.

I'm tired AND bored.

 That evening we went across the road to Laka Leke Restaurant where we had a lovely dinner while watching Balinese dancing.  The last dance included audience participation so up went Ralph. I also have video of this but I don't think the world is ready for it yet.
 

All Balinese dancing needed was some 'Jazz Hands' to improve it.

The next morning we'd booked to canoeing on Lake Batur with C-Bali.com. Lake Batur is a holy lake in the crater of an active volcano (!).  We canoed around the lake for two hours visiting a temple on its banks.  It was a great morning out and was great to do something slightly adventurous with the kids.
 

Alex squished between the C-Bali folks.

On our last morning in Ubud we went shopping and picked up a couple of paintings at an enormous art gallery.

I then bought a little handwoven basket that was repurposed by the boys.  I'm not quite sure what they are supposed to be, but we thought it was amusing.

So that was the first few days of our holiday.  Our time at Villa Raja will have to be a seperate post!

T
xxx

Dining room done!

Well the dining room is finally finished.  I must admit that it took longer than I thought.  Mainly due to my procrastinating when it came to painting.

I'm pretty happy with the way it came together and as well as the more expensive items I managed to get some bargains and even some freebies.

 

Lovely Belgian vintage table from Collectors Corner.

 

 Pine dresser found in shed and painted Chalk Blue.

 

Japanese fabric bought on our honeymoon at Kinkakuji temple, Kyoto.  It's taken me 11 years to find a place to put it!

 

My beautiful new sofa prize from Contempo furniture. So comfy - thanks Contempo!  The ready-to-hang curtains were purchased online from Pret-a-Portiere.  It was a bit on a gamble buying them unseen but they turned out perfect.

 

Our lovely bookcases were made by Maytain Cabinets.  Not cheap but definitely worth it and it definitely "makes" the room.

 

The jute rug, french oak dining table and cafe chairs were all puchased through Porchlight Interiors.

Dining room light from Pottery Barn.

Book case lights from Emac & Lawnton.

 

And finally we carpeted the stairs with jute that (almost) matches the rug.  This wasn't so much a design thing but more practically to stop the boys from slipping down the stairs when running around in their socks.  Must say though that I'm happy with it now.

So the dining room is all done.  I've taken a few weeks off and recovered.  Now it's onto the boys room....

T

xxx