Coral pendant light installed

I guess the old adage 'pictures speak a thousand words' applies to this post.

Carlo the electrician installed our David Trubridge Coral Pendant in the lounge room yesterday. Yay!

It looks great and today we are sore from craning our necks to admire the new light.

Unfortunately the Star Wars buffs in the family have dubbed our funky light the Death Star.  I tell you, I'm surrounded by philistines!

image courtesy of wikipedia

Art gallery wall

Inspired by the various art gallery walls seen in Blogtopia, we decided it was time to hang some of the pieces we had on the floor leaning against the wall in the study and our bedroom.

Jason is most helpful when it comes to matters of de-cluttering our floors, so with hammer and hooks in hand he proceeded to transform our bedroom wall. Our walls in this room are yet to be painted and will be a project for the latter part of this year.

It is very much an eclectic mix but each piece has a personal resonance. The large one on the top right is a poster I purchased when bumming around Papeete in the early 90s - it is a souvenir of when I was young and carefree.

The bird of paradise canvas is one I painted during a brief botanical phase I went through - the bird of paradise was from the garden at our last home.

The graphite drawing on the bottom left is of Number One and Two sons when I went through a portraiture phase and did not forsee Son # Three. He is too young to have a complex just yet.

Above that is abstract calligraphy on reclaimed wood which I received recently from the talented Ange. It is a Vincent Van Gogh quote: "I tell you, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people." I'm a fan of French Impressionism and like works which draw inspiration from artists who pioneered this style of painting.

Lastly, the small canvas at the top is of the view from the window of a very humble pensione Jason and I stayed in when we visited Florence. Our little room had a breathtaking view of the Duomo. I painted it during my landscape phase.

These pieces have instantly made our bedroom warmer...and happier.

Window Putty

After work in the evenings, Jason has been going under the house to work on the new (but old) casement windows for our bedroom. He is way more motivated than me!

The window putty had deteriorated and was crumbling away on the exterior facing side. It was a very easy fix though. Jason scraped the old loose stuff out and then smoothed some new window putty around the edges to seal in the glass. Very simple.

He also used the heat gun to scrape off the worst of the thick gunky paint before he starts sanding them. When they are cleaned up and painted, they will look really good.

Vintage Tea Cosy

I was automatically drawn to this tea cosy which was sitting like a pariah on the shelves of the Annerley Lifeline shop. Looking for love.

When I walked into the store, I knew I had at last found the tea cosy of my dreams. This is the first tea cosy I have ever owned. Luckily, it was not an outrageous purchase to cater for my inner-granny.

After a quick soak with eucalyptus wool wash and some unceremonious tea cosy hat wearing by Son #3,  it is fit for our bland little tea pot.

Doesn't it look like a mutant pineapple? I should add a green crown of leaves. I can't fight my Queensland origins - I love it.

Casement Windows Hopscotch Style

Doors and windows are an expensive yet necessary part of any renovation.

Down the track we plan to replace the windows in the master bedroom where we have a bay window. The windows we have currently are clear single-pane timber casement windows. They are the only windows on the left-hand side of the house which do not match the hopscotch profile that is consistent throughout.

No doubt they were a later addition when modifications were done to that room some years ago.

Yesterday afternoon, while it was raining I picked up the classified section of the newspaper to browse for retro furniture (as you do) and stumbled upon the "building materials for sale" column. I never really look in that section but I thought I'd see what was on offer in terms of casement windows.

Bingo! Right quantity, right size, right profile and when Jason called, they were still available.

A boot load of timber casement windows

The couple selling the windows were modernising their Queenslander...and the windows were no longer required. (I shudder when I hear modernise and Queenslander uttered in the same breath, which is ironic really since I have modernist leanings....)

To purchase 10 new custom built casements for our bedroom, we had a conservative estimate of $3,500. For a very tiny fraction of that, we are now in the window replacement business.

The windows are in good condition. The glass pattern is not a perfect match but we are not that concerned because our bay window is not original to the house anyway. It will give us more privacy than the clear glass we have at the moment and in the long run, it will be more sympathetic to the house.

Jason will sand and re-paint the windows before he fits them into our bedroom - it won't happen overnight, but it will happen. It's always good to have a project.

Jason's work never ends