Home & Decor

single happy moment: garden joy

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Jun 30, 2011 in Happiness, Home & Decor | 0 comments

I’ve always been a bit useless at gardening, but since we moved into our house-with-scary-garden 8 months ago, I’ve really taken a shine to it. I’ve been experimenting, with varying results, with flowers, annuals, perennials, fruit and vegetables, creepers, herbs, hanging baskets, mulches and fertilisers – all terms and things I’d previously had zero knowledge of.

Mostly though, I was just a little bit tentative about my foray into gardening, and so for the most part, tried to leave it as the old owners had left it to us.

I did make one huge change though – my ultimate pride in the garden for the first summer I had with it, was harvesting some delicious tomatos from my 2 plants I bought as soon as I moved in and found a sunny spot.

They were just regular tomatoes from the nursery, Burkes Backyard ones I think, but they were the single successful thing I grew that then gave me the confidence to tackle other plants, and even a bit of a landscape makeover (which is still in progress!)

Delicious, and inspiring. What helped you gain confidence as a gardener when you first started out?

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the chaise chase

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Jun 23, 2011 in Home & Decor | 0 comments

Since moving into our house 8 months ago, we’ve done pretty well to settle in the way we have. We’ve done several stages of backyard blitzes (1, 2, 3, 4), made-over an outdoor furniture setting, done an incredible amount of landscaping (which I haven’t blogged about), bought almost all our furniture, and found good storage for most things. We DO still have 1 last room which is a bit junky (shh don’t tell), but mostly, it’s pretty good.

I have, however, been insisting to S that we need one last piece of furniture in the loungeroom. I just think it would complete it so. See, we have the world’s LARGEST L-shaped couch, and it’s just a huge monstrosity, albeit a comfortable one. So i think to CLOSE the U-shape so that we can sit AROUND the TV and worship it appropriately, a lounging chaise (and a good-looking one at that) would fit the bill nicely.

S isn’t so sure. He thinks we don’t need ANOTHER piece of furniture, and thinks my penchant for buying things I don’t strictly need is a disease.

To which I reply, maybe so, BUT THIS CHAISE WILL COMPLETE THE ROOM!

Anyways, here’s some inspiration I’ve been looking at for chaises. And maybe one day, S will come around and I’ll have my cleopatra lounging area.

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Can’t you see it? A lovely cushioned space for me to lounge about on so S can feed me grapes and bring me cups of tea. Ahhhhhh….

Oh wait. I see why he doesn’t want one now.

DAMN.

Anyway, in the interest of err research, does someone want to recommend me places in Melbourne to look for some of these beauties?

xx

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proud parents

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Apr 22, 2011 in Home & Decor | 2 comments

ok, hold up, relax. This isn’t what you think. Yesterday, S and I became the proud parents of…

an eggplant.

Yes, the very first eggplant we have harvested off our tree and grown from flower! Whoo hoo!

Back story: 3 months ago, when we were at the height of our gardening frenzy, I sighted this eggplant tree at Direct Plants, my favourite nursery. Chantal, the owner, assured me that they were easy to grow and would bear wonderful deep purple orbs of goodness.

Me, being a total garden newbie, decided WHY NOT, after all, I like eggplants, and I like useful plants even more. I also knew I had the perfect spot for it by the side of the house where S would NEVER notice it. Why was this important? Well, when we started clearing the jungle that was our garden for proper planting, I started getting superbly excited about veggie patches and growing my own fruit, but S disallowed it, citing veggie patches as ugly, and homegrown veggies and fruit as over-rated.

Of course, ME being ME, this made me crave the growing of the edibles EVEN MORE, after all when you tell me specifically NOT to do something, I want it even more. Ask my parents – my dad begged me for years not to take up that dancing rubbish even as a hobby, and now I own a dance school! HAHAHAHA!

So I started planting little pots of herbs – basil, coriander, thyme, and spring onions. And then gradually the pot collection in the sunny spot of the yard started growing, with tomatoes and a chilli plant, then a lemon and lime tree.

And he didn’t even notice at ALL except to note I was giving some weird EXTRA care to certain parts of the garden. When I first handed him a freshly plucked tomato, he was INCREDULOUS that I had managed to do this all right in front of him. Sometimes I get frustrated that S doesn’t notice new haircuts or dramatic changes in my look but this was one time I ADORED his lack of observation skills.

Slowly I added the eggplant tree, even successfully getting him to PLANT it for me in the ground without him realising its err, EDIBLE attributes! Ahh, the joy of feminine wiles!

Fast forward a couple of months and yesterday I harvested, exceedingly happily, our first eggplant from the tree, and it is huge, glossy deep purple, and almost perfect.

For size reference, here it is next to our TV remote controls!

When S saw my facebook post about our eggplant, he proclaimed himself its proud father – so I guess that little quip has stuck, and I now can tell you all on the interwebz that we are proud parents, to our eggplant.

BOOYA, and hooray for novice gardeners!!!

(and yes, I have some idea of how annoying we will be as parents of young kids because I’m shoving our EGGPLANT news in your face. don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

 

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visit from the royal family

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Apr 21, 2011 in Home & Decor, Lifestyle | 1 comment

Well, almost. This last week, my parents visited us in Melbourne. Mum came for a whirlwind 4 days, and my, what a whirlwind it was! I have written about my mum before, and she is just  the most amazing, energetic, exuberant and vibrant woman I know (really, and truly, this comes verified from many other sources)! Whilst she was here, we ran around crazily cramming superhuman amounts of errand running, shopping, dining, giggling and catching up in each day to maximise her stay.

This is the first time Mum and Pa have seen our forever home since we moved in barely 6 months ago now (it feels like it’s been a year, at least!) and before they arrived, we cleaned and modeled the house in excitement, as though staging it for a sale viewing. Despite being a full grown adult, my parents are still a huge influence in my life, and I wanted them to see for themselves how happy me and S are, and for them to be proud of our new home and life together.

I was pleased when Mum said she loved how beautiful it was, pleased that my Dad thought it has a beautiful interior and ultra beaming with joy when they commented on how well we had done the decor. My parents are shockingly stylish and brought us up in beautiful homes, and it was important to me that they liked our home too!

We also managed to have a truly lovely dinner at home for S’s family as well as mine – so they could all meet. Happily, everyone got along like a house on fire and it made for a wonderfully warm evening filled with laughter and merry story-telling.

Mum spoiled me CONSIDERABLY in the short time she was here – she needed to buy clothes and an array of things, and rather wonderfully, bought me some gorgeous pieces too (since I’ve been oh so good about shopping lately due to my self imposed, but not very well kept spending ban).

She also decided it was her mission to help us make our house more of a home, with a few well-placed purchases that we were lacking. Like insisting on replacing our tea towels, stocking up our pantry and fridge with the biggest supermarket shop I have ever witnessed,  and buying us a couple of lamps like this incredible gorgeous one below:

My dad is staying on for a total of 3 weeks, whilst I help him with lots of rehab and feed him like a king, as he so deserves. Last night I even made a gourmet restaurant style meal of fresh shucked oysters, herbed salmon, black pepper crusted seared tuna, kumara mash, grilled zucchini, and prawns cooked in butter and wine. He ate so much I thought he was going to explode! YAYY FOR EXPLODING DADS!

I’ve so far made him tell me that I’m his favourite daughter only 17 times in a week (ha to Sheila!), which I think is pretty restrained of me. We have had lots of laughter and it’s just been lovely to spend such oodles of quality time with him one-on-one, something I’ve missed in the last 3-4 years that he hasn’t travelled here.

So whilst it’s been a tiring, whirlwind week so far (and 2 more to go!) – it’s been just filled with so much warmth and love that it’s hard to think of it as “tiring”, more like “an adventure”, really. And as with all adventures, it’s fun, exciting and even a little bit tingly with family time.

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have thy tools ready.

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Apr 6, 2011 in Home & Decor | 0 comments

Even though S and I moved into this house 5 months ago, there are still, embarrassingly, whole areas (which is my euphemism for “rooms”), that are cluttered and not really well put away. Whilst we had unpacked our thousands of boxes within the first week of moving in, we didn’t always unpack them well, telling ourselves we would slowly work through the house and sort it all out.

Famous last words.

Somehow, life just got the better of us – Christmas and New Years wiped us out, then there was the Sydney Salsa Congress in January, then my trip to Singapore. There’s been plenty of dance events to keep us busy, as well as all the work we’ve been doing outdoors with every spare weekend moment we get. Then finally, there’s the bit where I’m a horrendous homemaker and truly bad at understanding how a house is meant to run.

Ok fine, the above are all excuses. Except the last bit – that is all true.

Last weekend, I finally got some time to do some tidying of some problem areas. Problem area number 1: tools. S and I had lots of tools between us, but we weren’t quite sure of WHAT we had, and no system to storing them. For the last few months, our tools had been scattered all around the laundry counters, stashed in a couple of containers, and lingering in odd places around the deck (where we’d used them). I decided to do a bit of an audit on what we had, and oh my…

People.

For 2 lovely humans who have previously had little to no experience in DIY, man, we had a lotta tools.

 

I mean, does anybody really need 3 hammers, 3 pairs of pliers, 4 measuring tapes, and a thousand spanners? Oh and don’t even get me started on the screwdrivers – that collection above is IN ADDITION to the brief-case sized black case enclosed Stanley set (I think it’s what is known as a COMPENDIUM) that Stephen has. Or the variety and range of drill bits we own (when both of us learnt to use a drill for the first time less than a fortnight ago).

Plus, we had an assortment of nails, screws, bolts and all kinds of little metal whizoos – it was like we had become a family of carpenters overnight. Half the things in there, we didn’t even know what to do with.

I was in a “sorting” mood, so I divided everything up into categories, then put them all neatly away:

And then I got started on the tidy up of the laundry room, which was a bit of a mammoth task that left me lying in bed and moaning and groaning for hours after. But that’s for another post. Really, I kid you not, that laundry room was pretty chaotic.

With the tools though, is anyone else like this? Are we the only household with an array of tools so magnificent we could host DIY workshops? Re-assure me here, and let me know we’re not the only crazies who seem to have a collecting hobby we didn’t know about! Or should we be getting rid of some of it?

Ps, when I had laid all the tools out on the carpet, I made S come and look at the ridiculous scale of it. He didn’t think it was ridiculous at all. His eyes lit up with pride, and he gave me the biggest grin, and declared, “IT’S AWESOME ISN’T IT!” – I think I see where the problem lies…

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backyard blitz, cont’d

Posted by Sharon Pakir on Feb 19, 2011 in Home & Decor | 2 comments

Well, it’s been a busy couple of months here at casa de backyard blitz. I mean, we embarked, just before Christmas last year, on backyard blitz: the deck parts 1, 2, and 3. We gave an old, tired outdoor furniture setting a bit of a makeover. And in the proceeding weeks, it’s been quiet blogwise, but let me assure you, we’ve been hard at work on the next phase of operation improve-backyard.

To start with, this is what the backyard beyond-the-deck looked like. Even without the clutter that got a bit wild (from the other projects going on), everything was a bit of a garish mashup colour-wise. The pergola was still just raw wood beams, and the whole area was a little dark and well, decidedly NOT airy. The area had so much potential, especially for entertaining, but seemed a bit closed in.

This was the view of the same area, from the side of the house and deck.

First up, I figured the colours needed work. That bright orange wall cast a weird glow inside the pergola, and frankly, I prefer my landscapes to feature colours that are a bit more nature-inspired! So off we went to Bunnings to find some colour matches. We decided to stick with Wattyl, given our good experiences with it, and chose the colour “Hessian”. See how we got all matchy matchy with the colours we chose for the deck?

Of course, as usual, we started with prepping everything. We used our handy high pressure water cleaner, and blasted the walls. Shock and horror ensued, when we saw HOW MUCH DIRT came off.

The walls got so clean we even toyed with the idea of NOT painting them, but by this stage, we were pretty committed.

Then S poly-filled the crap out of every crack, hole, and uneven bit out of the wall, and the hedge box along the side pathway.

And then the painting began! <Insert gratuitous photo of handsome painting man>

Here’s an idea of how different the colour we chose was. Doesn’t seem huge, but we went from a brightish yellow to a muted earthy colour.

And then, we got started on that orange wall. Oh man, I was excited about THAT! Almost as soon as S started painting it, a huge sense of relief flooded over me. My eyes no longer were hit with the glare of the entire sun as soon as I stepped outside, and my eyeballs no longer had to be sore from its garishness. Hyperbole? Maybe. Whatever.

This was a huge job, and 3 coats and very porous wall = took a couple of weekends and many nights after long days of work, to get to THIS wonderful result!

We were mighty pleased – amazing what a lick of paint can do to improve a space dramatically! Next, we got started on the pergola. Note: I use the term “we” pretty loosely because this was pretty much all S, and me standing around cheering him on with pompoms.

He started with polyfilling all the cracks in the wood.

Actually, one of the most gorgeous things about watching S work in the yard is that he actually smiles whilst he works. Seriously. This shot isn’t posed – he didn’t even know I was taking it! And those rays of sunshine behind him? IT’S AN ANGEL HALO. I SWEAR.

And then my magical man sanded it all down to make it smooth and nice to touch.

Yup, HAND-sanded. *swoon*

Yes, in his moccasins. Who am I to argue with comfortable workwear?

Next step – priming the whole damn thing. This was near as painful as when we were priming the raw wood beams of the deck, and it kept drinking the paint, but not AS painful because there wasn’t any careful edging off to do. It was “get happy with a paintbrush and slap it on”, as far as technique went.

Here’s how it looked primed. You can already see the VAST improvement it makes over raw wood.

Then we got serious with Mr Pergola, and started slapping the Hessian paint onto it.

This photo was shot around coat number 2. Look at the broken pot plant. S had a bit of a nasty accident with falling off the ladder, and smashed the entire pot and also hurt his foot. And then, the darling man KEPT PAINTING. Sometimes I wonder how me (Ms Injury) could have found Mr Made Of Steel.

So folks, after what seemed like eternity (3-4 weeks) of painting, talking about painting, washing paint gear, clearing paint gear, more painting, and then some, here’s the end result!

Oh wait. Wrong picture. (This was actually what I found one day lying on our kitchen floor, in between coats, worn out from the end NOT BEING NEAR AT ALL).

So, take 2.

HERE’S the end result!

Reminder of the before picture:

And TA-DA!!!

It’s still a bit messy, I know, and we haven’t staged the area for USE just yet, but it’s already a huge improvement. We are trying to decide if we want to pop the barbeque and the outdoor setting in there since it’s so nice, and we need to tackle putting a ROOF on the area to make it a great lounge space.

Having a few vestibules of other ongoing projects lying around doesn’t take away from the joy though that firstly, it’s OVER, and secondly, IT LOOKS AWESOME! I can’t wait to show you more pictures of its completion, and how we decide to use the space!

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