Walk among the homes

Elizabeth from Walk Among the Homes blog has just published a house tour of the Sow's Ear. Yay! You can read the feature article here.

The old pig is looking very silken purse through Elizabeth's camera lens. Jason and I were completely chuffed with the lovely words and amazing photographs. A lot of hard work (ie Jason) has gone into the Sow's Ear and it is so satisfying to see her shine so beautifully.

Thank-you Elizabeth for featuring the Sow's Ear and appreciating its special qualities.

Image courtesy of Elizabeth Santillan
Walk among the homes

Rewind Mid-century

Well, we had a very quiet weekend where we barely  lifted a finger around the Sow's Ear. So, no bathroom tile painting as we had planned, which is completely fine. Jason's been extra tired...and the weather has been awfully wet and showery that we've just mooched around this old piggy...It's good to have a break.

This post is about a cool  mid-century furniture place in Brisbane. Last week in my travels I finally stopped in to see Collette from Rewind Mid-century in Yeronga. Collete is a purveyor of restored 50s, 60s, 70s furniture and has a fabulous shed/shop which would make most mid-century aficionados weep with joy.

I've known Collette for a number of years and we bought our Parker dining suite from her back in the day when she was based on the Gold Coast. She's also re-webbed our lounge chairs and they are still going strong many years later.

Anyway, Rewind is a must see if you like your furniture cool and mod. Collette told me that a lot of her stock never makes it to the floor as she has customers on waiting lists for things like sideboards, four seater sofas and bedside tables. How interesting is that.

Check out the fabulous wares she has in her store at the moment. The 'tealy' blue Parker is just glorious.

teal Parker

FLER Tessa and timber and metal shelves

Lots of mid-century goodness to be seen 

While at Rewind, I chose a Zepel fabric as a contender to cover our old vinyl lounge chairs. The vinyl has held up well but a number of seat cushions have begun to split unceremoniously. It's time for a revamp.

Zepel fabric samples. I'm looking at the green citrus colour which is actually darker than what it looks in this image.

The new fabric will match the existing colour and has a similar faux weave to the original vinyl covers. It'll be a hard-wearing fabric which will be ideal  for our house full of kids. I love having a nice decorator project to look forward to.

P.S If you are on Facebook you can check out Rewind's page here.  And if you are in Brisbane, the shop is located at 96 School Road, Yeronga (opp the school) if you wanted to have a squizz.

Painting tiles in the bathroom

The beige tiles are not working for us in the bathroom. Painting the walls crisp white just accentuates the 'beigeness' of the existing tiles. So, we are going to paint the wall tiles white to make it appear more seamless.

beige wall tiles and off-white floor tiles
This is a picture of our bathroom at floor level. See how the floor has been built up...we think there might be a couple of layers of tile under here...but we'll wait and see when we do a full bathroom reno later down the track.

I ducked into the local (sadly, not the pub) yesterday afternoon and picked up a couple of tins of tile primer and white tile paint. It wasn't a cheap purchase either, considering the tins are only one litre. Yikes. It's a fairly big bathroom, so double yikes!

Tile paint and primer

It should be an interesting experiment. I'm curious to see whether it will pass the test and look good or whether it just looks like sh*t....

As this is just a mini makeover to bide our time until we can afford to undertake the full-blown bathroom reno, it is a risk worth taking.

Has anyone out there painted tile? Any regrets?

We hope to get started on the weekend. One wall at a time. 

Same mother, same father and The Australian article

The other week in my travels I found a sweet light fitting that would work in the Sow's Ear's bathroom. It was also remarkably similar to the vintage Murano chandelier that we have in the sunroom/dining room...hence the same mother, same father analogy...

It wasn't terribly expensive and was a  DIY light that would slip onto the existing bayonet fitting.  A full blown chandelier in there wouldn't have suited the space as the ceiling is not high enough. This compact chandy works well and is just a bit of fun bling.

DIY chandelier fitting means no electrician needed. Yay.

Bling in the bathroom

Also, thanks so much for the nice comments from my last post. That article in The Australian was published yesterday and thankfully I don't sound like a complete idiot! There is a link here but unfortunately only subscribers can access the full article...

Screen shot image. Link to article from here

Although when I searched for the article on Google, I could access the full article...and I'm too much of a cheap-arse to subscribe. Go figure. I typed in Fun and VJs and scrolled down to the second page where I found the article link called Before and after: a digital journey. You might be lucky too.

Happy Little Queenslander which was also featured in the article wrote a blog post which contains the article Here. Just click on her article images to read the article. It's very small type though.

Anyway, we're chuffed. It's really cool to be in The Australian. Who'd have thought?

Pimping out the blog

Today was fun. The Sow's Ear was photographed within an inch of its life by my newest best buddy Elizabeth.

Elizabeth who curates the very new blog called Walk among the homes visited me at home to photograph our dear little piggy. Her blog gives readers a voyeuristic peek inside some of Brisbane's more interesting homes - a virtual house tour, if you like. She's on a winning formula because I for one love reading about local homes.

Elizabeth's camera

I was thrilled and flattered when she asked us to use the Sow's Ear on her blog...Vogue Living have never been as forthcoming. Ha!

Photograph of the photographer photographing

It's funny when someone new comes to the Sow's Ear and sees it for the first time. What we take for granted, in terms of the heritage features or even day-to-day living, is viewed with a great deal of appreciation and enthusiasm. It makes you feel good, particularly when you're constantly renovating.

The Sunroom.
I found a new mustard tablecloth yesterday at the op-shop. And a new green art glass vase.

Elizabeth's shots looked great and you could barely see the layer of dust on all the furniture! I'm not sure when the blog post will be up but I will let you know as soon as I find out.

Another interesting thing which occurred recently was a journalist from The Australian newspaper interviewed me for a story about blogging our Queenslander house renovation progress - it's supposed to be published tomorrow. Yikes! I'm a bit nervous and I'm crossing my stubby fingers that my quotes come out sounding worldly and sage, as opposed to dumb and vacuous. What have I done??? If there is a link to the article, I'll post it for your amusement.

One final thing, I'm thinking of self-nominating for Best Australian Blog 2013... again. None of you slack asses have ever nominated me...Go on give me a break this year.