Five star kiddies

One of my best friends announced she is pregnant this weekend. I was sitting on the computer last night and found myself looking at gorgeous children's rooms. I love the idea of a space for kiddies to call their own. Something they love just as much as we do...

I have a bit of an obsession with dark flooring at the moment. This is a perfect balance of light and dark. The natural fiber rug looks fantastic on the floors and against the white walls. I also love the exposed ceiling.

Another gorgeous boys room. The bed seems to be very very similar to the first, but it looks fantastic in the different setting. A-M over at the House that A-M built has bought wainscoting to my attention. This detail looks fantastic with the dark chocolate walls. LOVE!
Finally a girls room, although it has been expertly styled with all white books and odd rolls of white paper, the detail of the shelving with the coloured wall behind make my heart flutter...

So although kiddies aren't on the agenda for Ry and I, they definitely are for my besties... which is great! Not only can I get into some kiddie designing, but I can borrow them when they are happy, and give them back when they are sad!

** Once again, no idea where I found these images....

Office Love

I have had a lovely day gossiping, laughing, a little bit of working and some more gossiping with my dear friend Judy from Verandah House. We constantly struggled to stay on track, and started to just look at images we loved. These are some goodies I found in the archives of my computer... I have no idea where I got this one... sorry!

I truly believe an office should be an inspiring place. I have a small, poky little office in our shack... more of a nook, so I am constantly dragging all of my work to the dining table. If I had an office like this... I would be a very happy woman... the colours, the style what more could you want?? Even the bin is gorgeous!

I think Diane Bergeron is a clever clever woman... this image from her website is of her office space in her home. Such an inspiring shoot and a beautiful home. I am a little weak at the knees... Well worth a looksy!

The dream garden

For years I have watched my mum create fabulous gardens. She has looked after them with pride, cooked some scrummy dinners from them and then complained about them so much so that she wanted to rip everything out and start again...

I hope one day I will have a cute little garden like this. Somewhere to sit with a cup of tea (or glass of wine) and ponder...

(as I have been collecting these images over many years, I apologise for not knowing where I got this!)

I also would love to have an amazing herb garden and mini veggie patch! The herbs I think I can handle straight off the bat, but the veggies may have to wait a while!

The wholly s**t moment...

Ry and I had been working on the house for a couple of weeks, completely gutting the place. It would have been great to buy a house that we didn't have to gut, that said, I think that was one of my favourite parts of the journey. There was carpet throughout the house, living room, bedrooms AND toilet... EW. The kitchen cupboards were painted shut and there were dead rats in the oven...

I had taken to the kitchen with a sledge hammer by this stage.

Mum and I removed all of the carpet (love you mummy!), vinyl and termite eaten floorboards. Even some of the walls that were to mouldy to save... We decided that a lot of the work we were doing inside could be done at night, so we thought we had best tackle the backyard. Now, although the backyard was always there, and I had walked through it many MANY a time, it wasn't until I started to take photos of what was going on out there that I realised.... WHOLLY S**T! I don't like rats... I don't like insects... I don't like snakes... We had all of them... Hiding in this mess.

We had a small jungle down one side of the house. There was even a dog house in there.

The Beginning...

In April 2009, we had entered negotiations into purchasing a little 'gem' in Birkdale. It had water views, it was a 1920's chamfer board cottage AND it was in our price range!! This tiny 2 bedroom shack ticked nearly all our boxes for our first home, and we couldn't of been happier or more excited. So, in May it settled and the 'love shack' as my parents like to call it, became ours.

(scary I know)

Ryan and I saw this little baby and decided it was the one for us... despite all of the worried looks and constant questions of judgement...

This is really where our passion started. I had been studying interior design for 2 years, and working in it for about 4 years. Ryan had started his carpentry apprenticeship and we felt we were on to something.

This blog is really going to be about our journey, we know where we want to go, we generally know how to get there, we just have to do the hard yards. I hope that by sharing this journey, we will inspire others, make a few of you laugh, definitely cringe but show that even though we are young, we are very capable, passionate hard workers who love doing what we do. I would also personally like to show that although we all dream of the gorgeous designer house... it is possible on a beer budget...