Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Fun in Melbourne

We have just returned from a short 5 day holiday to Melbourne, a wonderful city on the east coast of Australia. It has the most beautiful old buildings and a rickety old tram system running through the city streets. We went with four of our friends (one who was celebrating her divorce!!!) and enjoyed lovely weather to take in some sight seeing, shopping, dining out and watching a couple of games of footy. We bought some great clothes at the Factory Direct Outlets and ate and drank far too much!
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This is the view from our balcony. That is the football stadium directly across the water.
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Melbourne’s famous city trams. These trams continually travel around the main city blocks and it’s just so easy to jump on and off when you want.
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My mouth was watering just looking in this shop window. This shop was situated down the cutest little arcade.
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Gorgeous flowers at the Queen Victoria Markets. I just love kale – I’ve been too busy this year to plant any!!
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This is our table at the footy stadium. We were able to watch the game while we dined or we could wander outside and come back in when we wanted another drink or half time desserts. I could get used to this life!! Thanks to our son-in-law who was able to organise this for us!!
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Melbourne is well know for having 4 seasons in one day but as you can see we had wonderful weather. The days were a little cool but without any heavy winds so just perfect for wandering around. On Friday night we were treated to a wonderful fireworks display above the dock and Sunday night nature provided some more fireworks with a thunderstorm.
This weekend was such a lovely time for us to share with our friends.
Tomorrow I am heading off to the city again to join my son, his fiance and Ann (Mother of the Bride) to attend a night of food and drink sampling in preparation for their wedding in March.
Suzy

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Sunday, July 21, 2013

Update in the kitchen

Twelve months ago we bought an old home in the city with our son. This was his first step into the world of real estate. He had us travel to the city on many occasions to look at houses, most of which were too expensive, too ugly or just not right for him. Finally we found this cute (he hates me calling it that!!) little house in our price range. We leased it out for 6 months so he was able to get used to mortgage repayments etc then he and his fiance moved in in March. You may have read my post on our first afternoon in the house here.  Well, finally I had a few days spare so we painted the kitchen cupboards. My son had already painted the walls in three rooms. We would love a new kitchen but at the moment that is out of the question so paint was the next best thing.We scrubbed, primed and painted like our life depended on it!! After two days we were finished and we were exhausted.  The difference is amazing. We had plans to cover the old cream tiles with bead boarding but we have just found out that it is not available in Australia! EEk! That has really upset our plans. As this makeover is just for a couple of years until we can put in a new kitchen we didn’t want to spend too much money but it now looks as though we will have to replace the tiles. Not what we had planned but I guess you have to do what you have to do!!
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As you can see, the cupboards were in very good condition but very dated. 
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Layers and layers of crisp white paint!
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We are all so in love with this new look but now need to decide whether to paint the existing tiles along the sink side and add some to the opposite side or rip off those on the sink side and replace the whole lot. We haven’t done any tiling before but this might be the time to start!! Next on the list is to replace the tile floor with flating floorboards. What a difference that will make!
                               Suzy

FOOTNOTE: I have been asked if I removed the doors to the cupboards.....we cheated and left them on. We had three days to complete them and the first was a right off because my son came down with gastro (he is a paramedic and this is sometimes part of the job!!!) so we did nothing the first day as I was not game to go near. For two days we painted flat out - two coats of primer and one coat of low sheen but this wasn't 'finished' enough so we gave them all a coat of semi-gloss! We started off painting over the hinges but after the primer decided they looked tacky so we chipped them all off - time consuming but really worth it as it looks so much better. We sent my son's fiancé to buy the handles on her way home from work the first day. At 5.30 on the second day my son fitted the new hardware while I had a major cleanup...job done!!


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Monday, July 8, 2013

A day at the gift shop

We have just returned from the beach house where the weather was fabulous…..but I can’t say that to Mr FH as we are desperate for rain on the farm. As well as needing rain we have suddenly hit a cold patch today (guess that’s expected in winter lol). The sun was shining but boy was it cold… frost everywhere this morning at the farm. I have spent part of the day fiddling around in my sister’s gift shop. Life has been busy so I haven’t been there so much lately but today I really enjoyed myself. Lots of new giftware has arrived since I was last there. It is just so hard not to take things home with me all the time.  My sister laughs because I have this addiction to scarves (I have 7 crates full at the farm!!) so I can often be seen walking around in my work uniform with a scarf (not matching!!) draped around my neck to see if it needs to come home with me!!! So far I have resisted today but I’m back there tomorrow so we’ll see what happens.
Here are a few quick snaps of some of the gorgeous giftware she has for sale. Some great cushions too….oranges and browns. Not really my colours but very cute, just the same.
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Sorry the pictures aren’t too flash but I took them quickly just as I was finishing up and it was starting to get dark. Hopefully I’ll get some a bit earlier in the day tomorrow. I’m finishing early tomorrow and having a massage after work…how nice will that be!!

Suzy
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Monday, July 1, 2013

New bakers stand

I have been looking at this gorgeous wire plate rack at my sister’s shop for ages. I knew I wanted to put it somewhere in the beach house. My first thought was on the wall in the dining area but I found my fabulous clock which was just right for there. I finally decided to try it in the patio area and I LOVE it!!! First off I gave it a really good scrub as it had been around for a while (a bit like yours truly!!) then I laid it out in  the winter sun to dry.
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The pool fence was a perfect drying spot!!
Next I attacked it with some spray paint. I just realised I don’t have photos of this which is probably lucky as I set up a ‘spray booth’ in the garage and started spraying away happily. What I didn’t realise was that I was so carried away with the spraying that I was changing direction and didn’t realise until I finished that I had sprayed the garage floor!!! Great fun scrubbing that late on Sunday afternoon when all I wanted to be doing was fluffing up my new shelf!! Anyway, finally I have it done. Well, nearly,…..I think I can add a little more colour to the top shelf. You will notice in some of the photos I was shifting things around and didn’t put them all back  correctly so I had to take a couple of quick shots this morning.
I think my new display shelf is just gorgeous!
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I still need to find just the right things to display in the lower shelf. You can see I have tried a few different bits and pieces from around the house. Most of the cute black and white and red and white china was from Kmart for $2 per piece. What a bargain.

Suzy
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