DIY kind of weekend

I bought some white rice paper lantern shades for some lights in our house when we moved in here in January, but didn't really consider that our teeny house is actually not the one with the vaulted ceilings I imagine and the previous owners for some reason put pendulum lights underneath the fans in various rooms and lo! you have yo watch yourself underneath them when the fans are on and you are more than 6' tall.

So these huge lanterns were just not going to work on the bare lights around the place. I bought some paper punch shapes - pond leaves and butterflies apparently - and glued them on with PVA.

So much fun.

Barf

Today has not been a great day. I took a multivitamin on an empty stomach. This is almost guaranteed to make me throw up. And I fought the nausea for a good two hours, while feeding and tending my sweet babe. Yurk.

Then we went out to work to sort out a few things and buy some screen doors for the retarded back glass ones we have. I don't think I've shared my frustration about these doors.

They are double doors.
They are recessed into a frame from the inside, but flush with the outside.
But - there are bricks on the outside frame. So you can't open them outwards more than about 120 degrees.
There is a good 5" drop down to the ground from the houes to the patio, so you have to have something tall and heavy to peg said doors back.
But because of the bricks, you can't open them all the way.
They open outwards, so there is no screen on the outside.
Which means we have no screen on the doors, and that is frustrating as all get up.
Oh and we have no screen on the front door, which means (a) we can't get a breeze through the house and (b) we have to open the door to see who's there. And they are practically inside the house before I open the door.

So the owner of our house got a quote (or 5) for doors on the back of the house. Drama drama drama. All of the companies said "Nope, too hard - we will charge you like a wounded bull to put something Ugleh in". And so the owner said it was too hard.

I went into work, found some DIY screen doors that were $38 instead of $200 (because they were taken out of stock in 2008 and we've been trying to get rid of them for 2 years!), bought 2 and am going to have a look at the instructions in a second. So we might have screen doors tonight!

So ANYWAY - I went to work and Sally was in the sling with Osk (here's a photo of a baby wearing dad. Not from today but a great pic all the same! He gets hit on something shocking with her in a sling!).

And still people were able to touch her enough to leave her STINKING of crap nasty aftershave. Which meant when I went to sniff her on coming home, she didn't smell like my baby and it gave me a migraine. Erk. I'd forgotten how sensitive I can be to things like that.

What I want to recycle next

I have a tshirt and 4 placemats that I need to do something with. Suggestions? I also have a lot of mdf and ply wood etc to play with.

I warn you - I have a staple gun, and a hot glue gun, and a sewing machine, and I'm not afraid to use them.

I'm going to use the placemats in something, and I have a heap of cork rounds that I want to decorate for the walls that are blank, cream, dull and ENDLESS in this house.

I also have wall plugs so I can hang some of the heavier items. Three have had the glass in them broken after falling off the wall, so I need to replace that glass as well. I used one frame for my FIL's 60th birthday gift:

Table conversion - "before" and "during"

I took this table:



Applied this:



And painted on some of this:

More photos later as it's not quite finished!

The garden that I built

Isn't it pretty? A few weeks ago I went along to a local childcare cente and built some garden beds. These are two sleepers high and I had SO much fun setting them up, screwing them together (I got to use POWERTOOLS people!) and then banging nail plates on, filling with soil and cow poo, installing irrigition and planting with small children. It was surprisingly easy to build but it took all day to sort out the rest of the renovation and build two of these... So if you have some space go to your local Bunnings store and get them to cut some sleepers for you, then get some help with picking some 90degree angles and various bits and pieces and build! Plant! Grow! Eat. Have a look at more photos here as well.

It did get me thinking though - that I am comfortable with powertools and getting grotty and building things. I love it. I have fond memories of childhood painting days with my dad Ray and building things with him, and I am the proud owner of a power drill, hot glue gun and staple gun and I'm not afraid to use them.

Cube stools

So I am in need of some foot poofs and I was thinking of buying them because Ikea has such a firm hold over my thought processes when I think "house".

- As an aside, is anyone else curious as to how much Ikea is influencing Australia's way of seeing and celebrating Christmas? I love the orange and red decorations that are there but am still not moved to celebrate Christmas...

Anyway, in Ikea there are foot poofs that I like but are actually too large for the spot that I have on my loungeroom floor. So I was thinking like this:



as seen at Chez Larsson. I could get the timber cut at the House of Bun, I have a glue gun and a staple gun (and am not afraid to use them!) and I have a week or two to spare post exams so maybe I will...