Willow's room update.

Ready to see the progression of Willow's room? All the photos combined into one glorious post? I dithered a bit, because I wasn't sure if I should include the photos from the room Willow has been sleeping in for the past two months. In the end I decided to, but how that room was used- the furniture etc- influenced how the final room was shaped.

One week in. 

One week in. 

One month in.

One month in, except in her original room. 

One month in, except in her original room. 

Two months in. 

Two months in. 

Two months in. 

Two months, one week in.

Two months, one week in.

And now, two months and two weeks later....

Rainbow curtains! It's hard to tell, but there is a light filtering blind across the window, for privacy and to filter some of that harsh sun out. In front of the window we did double rods- one rod has some plain white blockout curtains, to block out all the light, and the front are Willow's beloved rainbow curtains. I added two rows of purple thick rick rack to the bottom for interest. They're just a fun little detail. Willow specifically asked for curtains to block out all the light "so I can sleep longer." This girl loves her sleep.

Willow's "new" bed. It's a trundle bed. I've been tossing up on dying that white valence rainbow, since Willow wants a "rainbow" bed, but I'm not sure if a dyed doona cover, flat sheet or valence would look better. The side bumpers and the "head" board are actually the mattress from her old bed. Yeah, I'll get around to covering them all... eventually. 

Willow height hooks. We're yet to re-install door stoppers behind the doors, so I've covered the door knobs with cloths, so they don't damage the walls if you open them with too much force. 

Willow's play kitchen and brand new wardrobe. The kitchen doesn't quite fit- you can't open the door fully- but oh well. It was a hand me down, so I can't complain. Planning on a large plastic tub to sit on top of the wardrobe, but not sure if it should hold out of season clothing or Willow's bedlinen. There's only room for one....

Inside the wardrobe. When Willow gets older/ taller we will take that lower rod out, and replace it with drawers.  Right now it holds her shirts. The cubby has skirts in the tub down the bottom, and pants above. Except the pant tub has been borrowed somewhere else for now... Above it are Willow's underwear, singlets and socks. She actually asked to move her socks into her new wardrobe- they used to live next to her shoes- which I thought was interesting. Right now her pjs are folded up beneath the lower rail of shirts. They'll move into the cube bookcase at the foot her her bed later, when I get organised. Top rail is mostly for dresses and guest's clothes, when they come to stay.

Willow's bed is actually a trundle bed- there is a another single bed that fits quite nicely under here. We took it out for a sleepover, and M decided to hide underneath and wait for Willow. We've left the trundle out for now because Willow loves her secret spot under the bed. 

So, that's Willow's room. Her room is closest to completion- now we just need to do some finishing touches. Things like pictures and photos and her flamingo wall stickers. I'm thinking a floating shelf beside her bed in lieu of a bedside table- since having a surface beside a bed won't ever go astray, and being floating means you won't have to move it to get the trundle out. Or maybe a floating shelf above her bed? I also saw at Kmart these little decorative shelves shaped like a house- they're tiny, so you wouldn't put a lot on them, but I thought they'd be perfect for Willow's plastic toys/ rocks/ collections.

M and I have been spending a lot of time in Willow's room- mostly just chilling or lying on her bed, since her room is the nicest in the house right now.

Aroma Festival.

The Maitland Aroma Festival was on last weekend, and this photo pretty much sums it up:

It's a festival of cheese, coffee and chocolate, but there were loads of other things. It was heavenly. I think L and I were like Pacman, constantly eating our way around the Festival.
First we started with some chocolate. Willow wanted a cup of chocolate mousse. I was rather hoping she would pick a cup of strawberries with hot chocolate drizzled all over it, but the mousse was cheaper, so whatever. I told her she was going to have to share.
Next stall sold chilli liqueurs. L and I had a little sample. That little sample was enough to... thoroughly warm us up. Willow looked disgusted as we quickly shovelled some of her chocolate mousse down to take away the burn.
Then Willow and Ethan scored some balloons. They spent the rest of the day getting them tangled around each other and getting annoyed. Meanwhile, we tried some heavenly dark chocolate and vowed to return for more. (We forgot. I nearly cried). Then we shared a cup of thick Italian hot chocolate- so thick that as it cooled, it formed a skin on top. I love Italian hot chocolate.

After that, we decided we really needed something savoury, so we got a cheese platter for lunch. Willow loved the cheese. Afterwards, we ate a lemon curd meringue. I wasn't heartbroken that Willow said she didn't like the lemon, so yay! More for us! All of this was washed down with a locally made ginger beer.

After that we tried out several stalls worth of amazing condiments. I ended up getting a tomato sambal, tahini and preserved lemon sauce, melon, lemon and mustard seed sauce and a mandarin and lime sauce. The melon, lemon and mustard seed is really interesting- you can taste the melon. Very light and summery.

Anyways. We will be back soon with more updates on the house! (So much chaos. So much mess).

Living room- a rug!

Doesn't that rug look so much better? Perhaps you would recognise it as our old living room rug from our old house? Doesn't it seem like a better fit in here? Doesn't it seem so nice with our freshly painted walls?

Now, to get some curtains up, and rods up, and more seating in here.... I kinda wish M and I would just... win money or something. A nice lump sum of, say, $5k from the tooth fairy for taking good care of my teeth would be nice. M and I have been thinking that a sectional would be a better seating option for our living room- but hey, we just got this couch two years ago when we moved in together, and it wasn't THAT long ago.... But we do need more seating. Office chairs don't count.

Also, for everyone who thinks M is a saint for living with me- I think he just enjoys pain. While I'm content to paint the entire house in the same colour, M keeps talking about feature walls. I keep asking him if he's insane sure, and he's all totally, it will brighten up the room/ look really cool/ make an impact/ add some colour/ it's a kid's room, it needs to be cheery. He's brought home swatches to paint the living room wall, and swatches to paint the spare room's wardrobe door- none of which are white. He's also been talking about wallpapered feature walls.

Sucker for punishment, that one is.

Carpet.

Wednesday, with 24 hours to go for our carpet instal: all I could think was that we had bitten off more than we could chew. Actually, I started thinking that the night before, but whatever. It's not that ripping up carpet is especially difficult (not easy or fun) but... We've spent two months unpacking and settling things into place, and then we had to haul it all out again. Little things- like we had to empty out my fabric cupboard, full of neatly folded and organised fabric, arranged just so. Everything in Willows room had to be washed or sunned to make sure no fleas hung around.

So I guess it kinda sucked for the morale. 

Anyways. Wednesday night, m was supposed to finish a 12 hour shift, then we were going to move our heavy ensemble bed, rip up the carpet in our room and he was going to finish the trim in the spare room, before carpet went down. Brutal. 

Just after lunch on Wednesday, we got a phone call to say that when they rolled out our carpet to cut it into room sizes, they found it was covered in grease or oil.  I asked how salvageable it was- like, if they knocked the price down, it wouldn't be so bad if the grease spots were under a bed or something, right? But the majority of the marks were 60cm-100cm from the edge- so they would have been towards the middle of the rooms. This place doesn't keep carpet instore normally- they order it as they need it. Which makes sense for several reasons, but it made things rather tricky for us. The lovely carpet people promised to see what they could do and call me back.

Left, our original choice. Right, the substitute.

They offered us a similar carpet- it was about $10pm more (but they would absorb that cost). They has enough of the darker carpet to do all three rooms, but they were unsure of the lighter one. Since two of the three rooms don't get a lot of natural light, I decided to go lighter. (Now I'm kicking myself. One should always pick the darker options for flooring, shouldn't they...) It turns out they had enough for two rooms, and would have to order in some more for one more room... 

Little sample is our original colour, background is the lighter substitute.

... Which actually ended up working out really well for us. It meant that m didn't have to come home after 12 hours to rip out carpet. It meant I wasn't getting up early on Thursday to remove all the staple and tacks from the floorboard, before cleaning it, before the installers arrived.  All m had to do was paint the skirting board in the spare room, and we had two freshly painted rooms, utterly perfect and ready for new carpet. The extra week while we wait on some more carpet meant we now have time to paint our master bedroom and replace the manky skirting boards, rather than trying to do it later, around the new carpet.

And so, this afternoon.... 

Willow in her former bedroom, absolutely psychotic with glee. 

Willow's new room.

More of Willow's new room, complete with bits of fluff on the carpet still.

Left over carpet (yessssssssssssss). We have 4 in total so far. Now to get a quote on getting them overlocked to be turned into hall runners.

When Willow gets excited, she likes to pretend she's a dog.

Then Willow went and drew on the carpet this afternoon. So, you win some, you loose some. 

A house tour (by willow).

Recently, I was sick sick sick. (This was before we started ripping up the carpet). Lie in bed or on the couch for several days type sick. If I was upright I was dizzy, if I was horizontal I was asleep. (I managed to sleep through M's hammering and sanding in the room next door). Willow was sick first, and after vomiting everywhere for a day, she slowly began to get better. It took me a bit longer. M had night shifts, so unfortunately, for several days.... Willow got really good at fending for herself. (To his credit, M offered to not go to work, but then we would have had no money). Sometimes I'd wake and I'd lurch to the toilet and Willow would be all Oh mummy, are you awake? Can you look after me now? YAY! Other times I'd crawl into the kitchen to refill my water bottle and see she'd been making herself sandwiches. Sometimes I asked her what she had been doing for the past few hours, and she'd shrug and be all Oh, just playing in my room quietly. Sometimes I'd wake to find her beside me, playing games on my phone. Thank you Duplo, we owe you one.
On the upside, Willow was still pretty crook the whole time I was sick, so she wasn't eating much or very active, which was a god send in a way. She also ended up getting jelly for breakfast. Part of it was me feeling bad, another part was me figuring she'd enjoy making it and it was easy to clean up.

After a few days I emerged from the haze and found Willow had spent one morning taking photos on my phone. I actually find it fascinating to see the world from her perspective- what she values, what she sees. So, here we are.

Obligatory selfie.

Looking up from her bed.

Our shoe basket and laundry. 

Oh yeah, we finally got a rug to go by the front door.

The carpet. This... is a flattering photo of it. 

Sitting by our bedroom door and looking into the bathroom area. Yeah, obviously when I'm sick I don't pick any clothes off the floor.

Many selfies.

And another.

Scratched up kitchen floorboards.

M has been replacing our switches. It's nice to know Willow appreciated that small detail. Also, it appears Willow has swtiched to square photos now. 

Dining table. There were actually heaps of photos of this- she's obviously been posting the shiny stones and wooden puzzle piece just so. 

Willow loves sitting in the sun in the kitchen.

Sitting in her favourite spot on the floor.

Oh yeah. Our kitchen drawers don't quite sit flush. It's very annoying. 

Kitchen floorboards. Rustic.

We have lots of sun catchers in our kitchen window. Willow loves the rainbows and bits of light that they throw around the room. We make them ourselves.

Our floorboards could deal with a re polish. 

See our exhaust fan? How it's kinda red? Yeah. That's from when we were sanding the terracotta suede walls. Told you it went everywhere.

So that's a bit of our house, from Willow's perspective.

Ghosts and fleas.

We went to Sydney. Or, more accurately, we went to Ikea Rhodes on a Saturday in Sydney, and it was one of the worst decisions we have ever made. The crowds, oh god, the crowds. Poor Willow. All she wanted was to play on a playground somewhere (preferably at Smaland, Ikea's free kid minding service) but neither Mark or I had to patience to line up for over an hour just so we could get an hour of Willow free time, so she got dragged along with us.

Before cheerfully going along to Ikea to join the lunchtime crowd, we went to the Waverley Cemetery. Which seems an odd choice for a family day outing, but it's really quite fascinating. It's where the rich of Sydney have been buried for the better part of a century and a half- with million dollar views. Lots of fancy head stones, lots of fancy mausoleums. Naturally, I took a heap of photos of said fancy mausoleums and head stones... And my phone never worked again.

Truly. 

Of course, a few days after this willow started waking up with the three marks on her body every two days, which could be a coincidence. Or it could be fleas. Or we could be haunted. We've also had a lot more roaches around the house. Which could be because now the carpet is gone, they're coming up from between the sieve-like floorboards. But creepy crawlies have long been a sign of supernatural happenings- just ask Hollywood. 

M says my phone doesn't work any more because I dropped it one too many times and it finally gave up, and we probably have fleas left over from the previous owner. They've been dormant for several weeks, and now with a warm body in the room (Willow) and slightly warmer weather, they've woken up. Maybe.

All I know is, last night I woke to a thump in the ceiling, then a thump from the hallway, and I swear our bedroom door started to swing open. I started kicking M, trying to wake him, with no luck. I lay there wide eyed for a bit, before climbing out of bed and inching down the hallway, ready to do battle. Then I stepped on a wriggly, juicy, gooey cockroach, and I don't think I'll be the same again.

Right now, Willow's room looks like this:

No carpet! New skirting boards down! Rusty sharp nails and staples everywhere that I'm still pulling up!

Random DIY plug. No idea where it's from. We've been cutting these away. 

Since taking these photos, everything has been removed from those walls and the blind has come down, ready for painting.

I don't know, do you really need to see more photos of Willow's stripped bedroom?

Watch this space. There's likely to be a new fan in here, once we figure out the DIY instructions. 

Meanwhile our spare room looks like this:

Freshly painted walls! New skirting boards! New power point!

Look at all that sunshine!

The wall colour is painted Montpelier. Same as the living room. Looks different in here, doesn't it? 

It's really echoey. During the daylight hours willow likes going in there to yell. At night it is also echoey, but not so nice. Our creaking bedroom door and put creaking floor boards take on a whole new sound when they have a haunted echo to it.

Just to make things more confusing, Willow's room is going to become the spare room, and the spare room is going to be Willow's room. The reason for this is, the former spare room gets loads of sunshine, while Willow's former room was quite chilly and damp. (Because it was south facing and in the middle of the house? Or haunted?) The only reason we put Willow in that room was because it had a wardrobe, but now we have purchased a wardrobe for that room... so voila! Willow gets an upgrade.

This is what the upgraded view looks like.

All three of our bedrooms are getting new carpet in this week, which is really, really exciting- I don't think anyone knows how exciting this is. No fleas! No musty dog smell! The bedrooms will smell like us/ scented candles, rather than smelling like 30 years worth of dust and dirt. The house will be a little more us, a little more ours, and a heck of a lot cleaner. (We're also flea bombing under the house. I've also been washing/ sunning EVERYTHING from Willow's room to make sure no fleas think they are welcome here).

Today we will rip up the carpet in our bedroom, and live in the living room until Friday. Thursday is new carpet day. It's like Christmas, except Christmas where you have to bring your presents down from the north pole yourself- we just have to remove all the old carpet, which means removing everything from the bedrooms. Which is a pain. But, we will get there, and soon we will have glorious new carpet. Glorious.