BEFORE + AFTER ...

Reading through Lauren's 'Pure Style Home' blog tonight .. and in there she has put in oodles amounts of images of before and after. It was actually fun to view the befores and then scroll down and see what magic she had mastered and what her vision was. I guess it has gotten me thinking that perhaps I too should do a before & after. I mean, it is fun to look at great pictures and find new products from around the globe that we can all share. But maybe, just maybe, it is also fun to see what the 'blogger' style actually is. I must admit, our usual 'style' is 70's - in that the last 2 houses we have done have been that era. This one is more 80's which is rather non-descript. We are having too add quite alot of additional elements to give what is really a 3br 80's brick crap dump into a (what I like to call) hamptoms meet's Wallington look. Our garage is now our bedroom. We have built a new garage. We have done 2 ends of the house and still have the middle to go - but I am sure that if I find some 'before' images and then take 'afters' you will be able to see where I am at in regards to style. Leave this little project with me and hopefully I will get to post this w/e on this very exciting post. Cheers (-:

Oh, I forgot to say - the images here are of her kitchen. Aren't they cool. Basic change in regards to structural elements - but HUGE impact. stunning!!!

MY NEW RESORT DREAM FOR OEKE ..

This week I am sending off a parcel of goodies to Sonu Shivdasani at the Six Senses Resorts & Spas. Six Senses is a resort and spa management and development company, established in 1995, which manages resorts in beautiful destinations like the Maldives, Spain, Thailand, Vietnam .. do I need to say more. I really love the designs of these resorts and wish, wish, wish I was there right now. Anyway, back to the parcel. As I am a graphic designer it is easy for me to manipulate images to include my OEKE umbrellas. I did this with various Six Senses images and will be printing, mounting and sending them (along with fabric swatches etc) to Sonu and hopefully he may like? Crossing my fingers!!!

A GRAND ENTRANCE ...

Every home needs a great entrance. Be it a coloured door, a fancy set of stairs or even just a nice handle. Our home is entrance-less at the moment and, apart from freezing as there is just plywood to keep out the chill, we are keen to finish it. Was browsing through the Houzz website. They have the most amount of piccies I have ever seen, on any topic and from all around the globe. Quite worth a visit. Here are some entrances that caught my attention ..

ARMADILLO & CO ..

Recently I bought a new rug. An oversized carpet rug that I had made up. I'm sure I posted about it previously. And I am sure I loved it previously. But now I don't. Why? Because now I have found these. Jodie Fried & Sally Pottharst have now joined forces and have launched their new venture Armadillo & Co. They sent me some lovely images and I am in LOVE completely with the natural colours, simple graphic patterns and stripes .. I am going inside to spill some toxic chemical on my new (but now unloved) rug so I can go get myself one (or 3) of these.

ONLINE SHOPPING ..

As I sit here still in my pj's contemplating the days workload, I decided to do some w-w-window shopping first. Jodie Fried - who is one of the creative minds behind Armadillo & Co (will post about them a little later) also has her Bholu range of homewares. I originally thought I would just quickly check the site and see what is new but, alas, I found these too good to resist. Perhaps my 2 boys will like the cushions and I can have the throws (one for the lounge while sitting in front of the fire and one for my bedroom while reading at night). Best not tell the Mr about my early morning spendup. Ssshhhhhh

MY FIRST PASTEL LINK .

I'm guessing by now that you can tell that pastels aren't really my 'thing'. Well, tonight I have found a new colour - PINK! OK, well, I didn't find it .. it has been around a while - but this is the first pink thing I have seen that I would actually put in my house. I found it on Julie's Belle Maison blog amongst a gazillion other lamps she posted. This one won me over !!

BRIGHT WHITE DELIGHT for the NIGHT

I started this blog with delicately chosen words that portrayed my thoughts on the above house .. but then deleted them and came up 'would ya hava look at this'. so bright. so white. so delight-ful. I found this via the ultra cool Alain Rouschmeyer architect blog. His selection of houses etc on his blog is so cool and his actual website is great (although my french teacher would be most upset that I could not read anything!!).

Wallington Primary School MARKET NIGHT ..

Morning everyone. For those who live a) in Australia .. b) in Victoria .. and c) near Wallington (you know who you are) the Wallington Primary School is having a MARKET NIGHT on Friday 7th May from 6.30pm. There will be lots to see, do and enjoy - including something called zumba dancing (hmmm, might have to have a few of the free-on-entry champers to even contemplate that!!). I offered to do the graphic design of the promotional flyers and posters and as the parent committee wanted something vintage I came up with this .. do you like? Anyway, if you fit into either a)b)orc) category above, are looking for a fun night out and want to support a great little primary school, please come. We would all love it!!

FANTASTIC ARTIST ...

It has taken me about 2 hours to find this site again. My computer crashed, the internet was down again .. and I hadn't bookmarked this info. Phew. Lucky I did because I am sure you will love these stunning paintings as much as me. These are by Georgia. She is from Victoria and a 50 yo school teacher. From her blog I have downloaded these images and I am sure she has more which are just as nice. I have no idea how much they are, what size they are or even if they are for sale. But I will be sending her an email on Tuesday to get some more info. If/when I hear back I will let you know.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG ..

Before I started this blog, I used to just find great things, bookmark them and then forget them. I love doing this blog and keeping a track of everything I find. My last entry was from page 2 of the Age, this one is from page 4. Firstly I admire the adverts (being a graphic designer and my specialty being architect & developers - my main clients) then I go visit the site. This one was 'See' in Sth Yarra (which I didn't like) BUT I checked the developers page, ICON Construction, and found a new development HARPER LANE completed by them and Neometro. I couldn't imagine living in an apartment again but these ones look nice and bright with big windows, high ceilings and the biggest, brightest orange door I have ever seen ..

HAMPTOM PENTHOUSE .. noice!!

Morning everyone. I LOVE SATURDAY'S. The newspaper always brings about new things to find and check out and this morning has found me looking at an apartment, as part of a bigger development, in Hamptom. Edgecliff On The Beach has some lovely images to look (OK, perve) at. I particular like the couch/lounge shot. Not my usual style of couch but it looks so pretty here - and the side table is pretty groovy. Enjoy your long weekend and I will let you know if I find anything else (considering I am only on page 2 of the Domain section I think I am pretty likely too).

TSK TSK ..

Looking up Stephs BONDVILLE blog tonight (how she finds the great things she does I will never know) I found a link to the Udessi Online Gallery Shop. Well priced, original Australian art, craft & design can easily be found here .. and one such artists/illustration is Tiel Seivl-Keevers (aka TSK of TSK TSK). I have included a small selection of her artwork that is available on the Udessi site but go have a look as she has quite a varied style of work available. Thanks Steph for finding such a great site - can't say I have seen them on my www travels before!

DO I GIVE MY BOYS A CHOICE IN THEIR BEDDING ... ?

These 2 images are from Cottonbox, where I am searching tonight for bed linen for our bed. Whilst on this site I thought I would quickly see what they had in the way of kids linen. They have LOTS of stuff - some good, some bad and some just perfect. I would like to get the boys nice, peaceful and lovley linen like the first 5 images .. BUT .. (if I showed them) they would definately want me to get the last. Joe, my eldest boy who is 6, has told me when we get to doing up their rooms, that he wants army theme with black roof, army green walls, army bed linen and the likes. Whilst I admire his designing skills in co-ordinating colours at this young age I would definately NEVER do that scheme. Unfortunately as he is in grade 1 now he can read so I hope he never finds this blog. Please don't tell him OK.

POT-ENTIALLY PRETTY ..

In the last post, I mentioned how I liked a nice cup of tea. Well, I became all fidgety and thought I might hunt down some nice cups. Well, I did find some nice cups - although these are so beautiful I really can't describe them that way. Let's call them vessels. Samantha Robinson must be so talented and have such a great eye for colour and form to produce these. I really admire her work. I thought I best let you all in on these too. (I found these via Lori @ Automatism - great find Lori).