Kerb house numbers

We ended up with some fluoro orange kerb numbers just before Christmas. It symbolises my complete lack of backbone when it comes to hawkers.

I was at home one afternoon with the boys when we answered the door to a guy who was hawking his kerb painting services.

Painting services equals spray painting a stencil of your house number on the kerb in reflective paint...to make it is easy to identify your house at night.

The kerb number guy rattled off his well-rehearsed spiel about how kerb numbers saved his son's life when the kid had a life-threatening illness and emergency services nearly missed their home. It was a rather melodramatic tale where he promised himself that no child should ever be in his son's situation.

And then we got the 'down-on-my-luck' story about how hard it was to make a living in these hard financial times...needless to say the sob stories were coming thick and fast...and he wasn't going to take no for an answer. He was determined to make a sale.

My standard excuse of not having cash on me didn't work either (and it was actually true in this situation). He told me that I could go to the nearest ATM to get the money out, as he was prepared to wait. I really wanted to tell him to bugger off at this stage because he was so freakin' Pushy. With a capital P.

He needed to go to Charm School...cute and charming is always a winner.

In the end it was just easier to scrounge $30 change from our coin jar to get rid of him...hence the lack of backbone.

Moral of the story: if you knock on my door with a sob story, I'll probably give you coins from my small change jar!

At least the numbers are in my favourite fluoro colour...

Birthday booty

I just wanted to thank everyone for all their Birthday wishes. I've had the most fabulous Birthday week and have had great fun.

This turning 40 business is also a lucrative gig. To say I have been spoilt is a complete understatement. If I knew that the blow of aging was cushioned by the coolest gifts, I would've turned 40 a long time ago!

There were plenty of bottles of champagne, lots of vouchers for pedicures and beauty treatments, art supplies for sketching and also a voucher for the Paddington Antiques Centre. Yay!

As requested by some of my readers, here are some of the more house/design related gifts which were so gratefully received:

I received the most delicious hard cover design books from some lovely friends. They are just brilliant and there will be many hours of pleasure derived from them.

Design books

The California Design Book will be a great way to whet my appetite for the upcoming exhibition scheduled for GOMA in November 2013.

The Iconic Interior book is pure room porn. Gorgeous in every respect.

The Florence Broadhurst book has been on my wish list for a few years, so I was delighted to get a copy. Dear old Florence was a complete character, but her textile and wallpaper designs are truly exquisite. Love this book.

Florence Broadhurst for Kate Spade plates. The design is Japanese Floral and is one of the most popular of her designs. Again, just exquisite.

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And dear old Jason...Not only is he an ace renovator, he is also the selector of great Birthday gifts.

He gave me just the most divine Georg Jensen cutlery set. Designed by one of Sweden's best silversmiths Vivianna Torun Bulow-Hube in 1990, this Vivianna design is my all time favourite. I cannot wait to use them for our next dinner  party.

I also got some new art glass, but I'll save that to show you in another post. Very spoilt by everyone.

Barbie Dream Home search with Realestate.com.au

Sponsored by Nuffnang and realestate.com.au

Most people know I am a frustrated Modernist living in a 1928 Queenslander house.  So it will come to no surprise that my eyes are always peeled for a mid-century Barbie Dream Home. Always.

Poor Jason. He loves the Sow’s Ear and has worked so hard on it and here I am trying to sell it mid-renovation. Fear not, it’s not going to happen in a big hurry as we still have things to do on the Sow’s Ear and also the thought of another move is a major put-off.

But it doesn’t stop me from looking. We will move for the Barbie Dream Home if we ever find it and can afford it. The Sow’s Ear is just a lovely little adventure for us in the meantime.

I have realestate.com.au’s free mobile app on my smart phone and I check it regularly. This mobile app is excellent and I would say that regardless of this post being sponsored or not.

I’ve been using the app for a few months and there is nothing better than having full real estate listings at your finger tips when you hear about a new property. It is an essential app for any house voyeur.

The app allows you to see details of every home to buy and to rent. And if you are seriously looking for a home, you can save open for inspection and auction times straight to your phone's calendar.

Let me share with you some of the Barbie Dream Homes I found recently via the app:

Modernist home found via realestate.com.au app

Yeah Baby! This first house we seriously considered buying to the extent that Jason went along to the auction. Apart from the fact we did not have the $1.92 million (let alone the $0.92 million the bidding started at) it went up to; I seriously thought we had a chance. Ha!  Anyhow, it did not sell at auction, so until it is sold I am still stalking my dream home via the app.

The mobile app also allows you to refine your search by price, property types, features and surrounding suburbs like in the full web version. Knowing that a lot of mid-century homes are located in the western and southern suburbs, I can just tap in the postcode to get up a listing of homes in those areas.

List of my favourite search suburbs

Look at this sumptuous mid-century beauty in Toowong. The words “I want” escape my lips. If we had the cash I’d snap this one up in a jiffy.

Interior of Toowong mid-century home via app

Toowong real estate listing on the mobile app

I found another 60s Barbie Dream Home near the Brisbane River in Yeronga. It’s been fully renovated but it wouldn’t take much to get back the mid-century character it once had with the right furnishings and décor.

Yeronga 60s house

So that’s how I dream and scheme. More dreaming considering the prices of these properties…ha!

If you want to dream and scheme with me, why not download the realestate.com.au app for your phone or tablet? It gets 9 out of 10 for being very easy to download and use. It is the perfect app for house and interiors addicts.

Birthday week

It's my 40th birthday this week and we have been partying hard chez Fun and VJs.

I've been told 40 is the new 30, but that's from people who are much older than me. No one in their 20s or 30s has told me that, they just look at me pityingly...

Fresh pineapples are the new decor item of the moment. I predict the coconut to be next summer's icon of the moment.

On the weekend we gave the Sow's Ear's kitchen and deck it's first real party test. Deck parties are fraught with danger with the many news stories you hear about deck collapses in Australia...but it was all good fortunately. Our public liability insurance was left unscathed.

We had about 40 good friends come over to help me celebrate reaching the milestone. It was a casual island themed party. Think palm fronds, pineapples and cheesy Polynesian ukulele music and that was the Sow's Ear on Saturday night.

Deck decorated with Golden Cane palm leaves from our garden.

We hired mobile Brisbane caterer Standing Room Only to prepare the finger food for the night, while my lovely handy-in-the-kitchen friends made some killer desserts. It was seriously great food and I would recommend Andrew from Standing Room Only in an instant to anyone hosting a cocktail function in Brisbane. Not only was he super-professional, he was the nicest person. And we like nice.

Andrew finalising the most delicious lamb koftas skewers to be circulated to the hungry crowd

The long island bench in our kitchen worked a treat for food prep.

My lovely friend N made these fresh raspberry and chocolate cheese cakes. To die for. Profiteroles in the background.

I wore a navy hibiscus dress and the highest red heels to the party. When the last of the guests had left after one o'clock in the morning, I was never happier to kick off those shoes. My poor aching 40 year old feet.

Waiting for our mates to arrive...

Party lights and tropical shirts on the deck

It was a great weekend.

Now I have to pick up the boys from my Mum's place. Her birthday gift was babysitting - a couple of child-free days has been very nice and relaxing...and I kind of feel young again...

Grubs

Lawn grubs.

Our freshly laid turf is being menaced by the dreaded lawn grub. The hungry little blighters are leaving their calling card of browned patches of grass. It's not pretty.

I've consulted the oracle that is Google to find a way to decimate them. It seems there are a lot of natural ways to get rid of lawn grub, like encouraging birds to peck at them or getting chickens to roam about...

Since chickens don't reside here at the Sow's Ear, that seems like a pretty useless solution for us...besides the infestation has gone beyond the help of a couple of chooks.

Insecticide seemed like a quicker and more efficient death for the grubs. So I hot footed it to my local garden place and bought lawn grub killer granules that you shake over the turf and then water it in.

Normally, we'd be pretty devastated about something like this...but we are just so grateful to have any lawn that a grub would find remotely appetising! And grass always grows back.

So that's the start of our New Year. How's yours coming along?