Decimated

Although it's good to have some established trees and gardens, sometimes we think it would be a hell of a lot easier to have nothing.Undoing the gardening sins of owners past (overgrown and poorly planned) is a thankless task.

And what we have started with the garden won't look great for quite a while. Doubly thankless.

Our big goal was to clear the 15 metres of front garden bed. On the weekend, we pulled out the last of the old plants we had earmarked for removal while the ground was nice and soft from all the rain. Our rubbish pile is getting mountainous.

We also pulled out the feature garden (which was more an eye-sore than a feature) that was plonked in the middle of the lawn. We are happy just to let the grass grow over that patch.

Now we have our eyes peeled for some plants - preferably free plants.

I'm going to visit one of my brothers who won't notice that a few of his plants are missing. I'll keep you posted and show you what we come up with.

Happy New Year.

Organisation

Organisation. Home organisation. Or should I say ikea?

Much to Jason's dread we trekked to never never land where ikea is the shining beacon. I read in the newspaper recently that people don't actually go there to buy furniture; they go there to eat. They pack up the family and breakfast, lunch or dine there and perhaps they may even stay overnight...

It's cheap and cheerful. We probably wouldn't make a visit expressly for the food but we certainly didn't rebuff the $1 hot dog or 50 cents ice-cream cone when it came our way...

Our main reason for the visit was to find a way to organise the boys' rooms. Jason went off the idea of building shelves in their built-in wardrobes -  it would limit the hanging space they would need when they are older. A stand-alone solution would be better and easier.

So on our rather limited post-Christmas budget we bought two storage units to shove into their wardrobes. Cheap and cheerful (much like those hotdogs), but more importantly - organised. It's okay that they are utilitarian because they are behind closed doors anyway.

We also bought two Lack  floating shelves for the children's room - a place for their treasures. My favourite thing about these shelves is that they don't need visible brackets; they appear to float from the wall. Again, it is simple and affordable.

an eight year old's vignette on ikea lack shelf

affordable antonious wire storage from ikea for inside a child's built-in wardrobe

The boys' rooms are more organised since the ikea trip. I'd like them to start the New Year the way I want them to finish it. Wish me luck.

The Homies 2009

I've been enjoying discovering new blogs from The Homies 2009 awards hosted by Apartment Therapy. There are some very cool blogs out there.

I've put in my two cents worth. You can check out who made my list. Being stylish on a not too outlandish budget was a particular criteria for me since that is my holy grail with our house renovations...

What amuses me most are the people who nominate themselves for the award and then mobilise their friends to vote for them as well. Hmmm...reminds me too much of school...

The awards are a really good idea regardless of the outcome. There are lots of creative and interesting people writing about their experiences which always makes for a good story.

Salvage or bin

I threw a pair of 70 + year-old steel barrel bolts in the bin last night. They were from the French doors, leading out to the front entry, that we are painting.

Removing old barrel bolts from French doors

We never painted the other side of these doors when we painted the entry

Romantic notions of salvaging them entered my head. I've read in other renovation blogs that you can remove the years of paint on hardware by placing it in a slow cooker overnight - it softens the paint and you are able to peel the paint. Ingenious.

Good-bye little pieces of hardware history

Jason put paid to that and said I have hoarder's disease but I know that he is trying to build up his brass empire.

He is probably right (about hoarding) and one bolt was badly twisted...but I still feel guilty about binning them.

The best gift of all...

rain.

Brisbane rain - taken from the landing of our back deck

The front lawn is the greenest it has ever been

This afternoon I will fertilise the lawn without fear of it being scorched. We don't have the most fantastic lawn (mixture of buffalo and blue couch) but if I can encourage it while it's raining it should be more respectable and less povo.