Makeup in the bedroom.

I tend to be a bit of a dreamer and can't stop thinking about ways to make the house more liveable for minimal cost. As our home only has only bathroom, I decided I wanted to create a little vanity area in the bedroom for holding makeup and a place to get ready in the morning. I had gotten a little ikea stool for free recently and thought it would be good to sit on and already had a mirror hanging on the wall. 

After thinking about it for a while, I decided under the mirror would be a great little non invasive spot for a vanity shelf. In this way the space would be used well and the room shouldn't feel any more crowded.

before

I am thankful that my Grandpa is an extremely talented carpenter and offered to make my dream shelf vanity. I drew up some designs and made measurements for him to create me the little vanity shelf. The main requirements were curved edges so future little heads didn't bang themselves and a shelf to hide everything away. I choose to paint it the same white I have painted other furniture in our house as it tends to pop against the grey blue walls.

custom made shelf with drawer photobombed by maisy :)

I have a beautiful collection of extra drawer handles that has grown a little over the years and had a pretty blue one that I'd been waiting to find a place for. The lovely blue marbled knob with gold really suits the colour scheme I'm going for in our room. I knew I'd start working through my collection one day.

The brilliant thing too is that the shelf could double as a changing mat holder for the first few months when bubs sleeps in our room. You can already see the little baby area set up reflected in the mirror with a second hand bassinet, bunting, mini hot air balloon and a few ikea wall stickers I sourced at a garage sale the other day. My Dad helped me to put up the vanity shelf as at 38 weeks pregnant, I really don't have the energy/ability to hold up a shelf for long. I really just ended up handing him tools and using the spirit level as he did all the drilling in place. With a bit of dreaming, designing and help I now have a lovely little nook in our bedroom to use.

While taking up no extra room, the space now has a function.

Having a drawer is really useful for stashing away the makeup and keeping the area looking clean. The drawers pretty packed full at the moment though so some organisation is going to be needed...one thing at a time :)

It's lovely to have this little makeup/getting ready area in our bedroom though down the track I'd like to add some extra lighting so I can make sure my makeup looks right :)

Lisa x

White kitchen shelves.

We are in full swing in our house trying to get to as many rooms as possible painted before the bubs arrived. There's still over 2 months but high on the list is the kitchen/lounge area and main bedroom. We can always paint the craft room, guest room and library later on but these rooms are used so much and really need some painting. Our kitchen is pretty average. It's not so awful that it needed to be gutted but it wasn't really my style. We also bought a kitchen dresser as we needed more storage. The kitchen layout actually functions well, especially as the kitchen, lounge and dining room as all one very large room. When we moved in we also installed a dishwasher, a knife holder and removed a hanging wooden shelf above the bar.
However for the last four months we haven't added any paint to the walls (as I add that up I'm like wow have we been here four months already!) and I just felt that some white might brighten the kitchen up for the time being and make it feel a little fresher and cleaner.

Before. In this photo husband is removing the final part of a wooden bar shelf.

Time and money means that we aren't really able to tackle other things we'd like to do in the kitchen but they will happen over time once we save a bit.

-We like the existing design but would like to extend the kitchen island.

-New grey, wooden or white benchtops. 

-A new stove

-Paint the cupboards (white or possibility grey)

-Add some subway tiles.

-Replace existing fans with something a bit more modern.

Back to the shelves. I needed to remove them to paint it was too awkward painting them while they were up. Once the shelves had been removed the walls were given an undercoat and two coats of antique white USA paint....goodbye peachy walls.
The shelves were painted outside with two coats of an aqua enamel (so they shouldn't chip easily before being placed back. Once they were up, the whole kitchen just looked more open and fresh.
It was time to replace some of the items. While in the above photo you can see many brightly coloured utensils and cooking items, I decided to restrict my colour scheme to yellow, black and white and see how this would work in the space. I could have chosen any other colour apart from yellow but it's just such a bright happy colour and I own a bit of yellow kitchen gear. The other kitchen items were just packed away into the cupboards and no longer on display.

We also moved the kitchen dresser (pictured next to the fridge in the before photo) to another wall. I kept the same white, black, yellow colour scheme going with the dresser and have decided to turn the area next to the fridge into a little office nook (more info to come). I love having the restricted colour palette for display items but may need to thrift/buy a few more items to finish off the shelves and give them a slightly fuller look. There are a few other small inexpensive changes happening in the kitchen too which I'll share soon which should make the room even nicer as we save for a one day phase 2 makeover.
Now just to wait a few more hours for my slow cooker lamb stew to be ready :)

Lisa x

Pinspiration making -part 1.

I've been pinning lots of great ideas and thought it was about time I tried to recreate some (with help from my handy Grandpa of course). Grandpa is amazing and together we created our own versions of some crafts I'd been eyeing off.  I've decided to divide these projects into a series called Pinspiration making so for the next few days I'll be sharing how I (and my handy Grandpa) have been inspired to create our own beautiful objects.

Project 1: A baby gym with hanging toys.

here

I saw this gorgeous simple baby gym and realised it would be easy as to recreate, although I still have to wait another few months before I can too have a cutie lying underneath it, starring up at their little toys. Finding a quilt was easy as I'd already made my own quilt. I chose to paint the frame white as every other piece of furniture in the room is white. I don't really have any baby toys yet so I've just attached a few things I found in the second hand goodies some friends gave as hand me downs since they've already had their babies. My baby gym is a little bit different to the original too as it was made so the pieces can be taken apart easily and put away when not in use.

Got to love pinterest for all the fantastic inspiration! I've got plenty more ideas planned...check out my pinterest board for many more ideas that are inspiring me at the moment.

Lisa x
P.S I'm linking up with
 Nifty Thrifty Things,Flamingo Toes,DIY Show Off,USS Crafty,Life on Lakeshore Drive ,Titi Crafty,Momnivore's Dilemma

Self built shelf.

This is the story of an old bed head which I was considering just giving away but suddenly had a fabulous idea of how I could use it. It just happened to be the perfect size!

First I unscrewed the top shelf from the rest. For this project I was only using the shelf.

Then I cleaned it off and found that it was the most perfect fit under the window. The window already looked fine but there is not much storage in our laundry and I'm always a lover of more storage.

before

The end of the shelf needed to be cut ever so slightly to fit around the door pane.

We lined up the shelf so it was exactly under the window and used brackets and drilled holes at the top to hold it in place. Once the screws were put in, it was reasonably held up but we choose to also add brackets to both the door panes to add extra strength- which is very important to us as we knew maisy would lie underneath it.

Once attached it was time for the fun part, decorating!

So for $7.50 (the cost of the brackets) we had a new shelf and finally somewhere to keep extra toilet paper and laundry things!

I'm linking up with  The Taylor House,At The Picket Fence,Live Laugh Rowe,A Glimpse Inside,Seven Alive,52 Mantles,Fireflies and Jellybeans,Bloom Designs,House of Hepworths,Momnivores Dilemma

Lisa x