The finished product!

I can't believe it's done, but man it's exciting. I still have empty draws - amazing!!






It's a pantry! Complete with amazing door thingys that Steve put in. :) Hooray!

Apologies for taking so long to post. Steve and I tiled on Tuesday of this week with stunning results. :D




We grouted on Wednesday (before bible study) and Steve finished everything up last night while I was stuck at school til 8:50pm. It looks AMAZING now, but I'm yet to take pictures. Exciting!!

Nearly finished!!

The kitchen after 1 day.




We've got a completely new circuit board as well. Thank you to the sparky guy for giving us our power back. The plumbing all works, just waiting on the oven being installed and the cupboard doors being put on. Hooray!

Our Kitchen

Looked like this when we first moved in:


After ripping up the lino and getting the floors polished, it began to look much better. However, the cupboards didn't go all the way to the wall, there was no continuous bench and no pantry. I guess I lived it with for a remarkably long time before I got really fed up with it.

Now, a year after we have moved in, our kitchen looks like this:


Yesterday we pulled all the cupboards out, ripped of the rangehood and cleaned down the walls. I've painted the parts of the walls that will show when the new kitchen is installed, but meh about everything else (it still looks gross, but we have cleaned those walls a number of times now. There is no saving them.)





Meanwhile, the contents of the kitchen are boxed up and occupying precious dining room space. The fridge almost looks like it belongs next to the piano there.

Photos, Updates and Jeans Quilt

The moment has finally arrived! After leaving the camera at school during the holidays, i've been unable to share with the wonderful world wide web the exciting things i've been doing recently... until now!


Firstly, this is my Jeans Quilt. I cut up 2 pairs of old work pants (black and camel), 2 pairs of Jeans (Steve's and mine), the suit pants that Steve wore at our wedding (the zip broke) and a pair of cargo shorts (Steve's). Then, I sewed them all together. :D


The back is a big peice of fuzzy warm blue fleece material that I bought with my Spotlight christmas voucher (thank you Maria!). All in all, it fits a king single bed beautifully and is an excellent quilt for the couch in winter. The pockets are all still usable and are super fun!


This is my tuba! It is the tuba that I am borrowing for the Brisbane Arts Theatre 75th anniversary Gala Concert. It is a Eb, which has been challenging to learn and my breath control is not what it once was, but is very fun to play. :)



And finally....


Curtains! During the holidays I was constructive and sewed the fun material that we got at IKEA into some super fun curtains. Our room has the blue stripes (pretty basic, so we don't detract from the awesome purple wall).



The spare room has the same stripes but multi colours! (sorry for the bad photo :P)



And we were going to do the other room (currently where Sammie lives) the same, but they ran out of material, so we got ....



Spots! I was really practical and even used the cordless drill to put holes in the window frames and screwed the hooks in for the ties. The bedrooms all got their own special ties, but I was a bit over sewing by the end of the curtains and I didn't want to cut more material, so the curtains in the dining room got some recycled David Jones ribbon. :D Also, I did some fancy stuff in the kitchen. Fun curtains!



After I had finished all that, I still had some material left so I made some covers for the boxes that go under our bed for extra storage. I really like the boxes under the bed now. They look so funky! I've put all my kimono stuff in there. :D




And that is all.

The wall is finished!


This is just the overview for you all - It's kind of the thing that you have to look at for a long time and some of it you are never going to get anyway. I have to say that I was very influenced by Jimmy Needham's amazing lyrics while I did this. Also, sorry about the spelling mistake (if you can find it). It's very Paula to have it there though. Colour choice was simply because that's the paint we had lying around. I think it's funky and cool. :D Glad it's done.

Here are some close ups -


My tribute to the long hours spent playing Plants Vs Zombies this holidays. :) Good times. Great Zen Garden.


Oddly enough, this is a Viking ship with a Zerg emblem on the sail....


Rapunzel's Tower... Tangled... Do I need to say more?


Doctor Who... If only the TARDIS would park in our living room....

In the last 4 weeks, our bathroom has gone from this:

to this:

Still waiting on putting in the shower screen and the toilet, but everything works and it's all very shiny. Renovating a bathroom however, is a very complicated task. Part of me still can't believe that this is the result of our labour. That we have done it. Then I remember the things we botched slightly and I know it was us.

The thing is, the bathroom is not square, straight or plumb at all. Walls are not at 90 Degrees to the floor, the floor is not perfectly horizontal, etc. So when you try to measure things, put things in, put things on, things don't work out exactly as they should. What you end up with is something that looks ok on the surface but actually wouldn't pass a quality inspection.

God says a few times in the bible that he is going to measure us with a plumb line. A line that is perfectly straight and set. A line that we don't measure up to. We are not a straight people. Often I feel like I am like our bathroom, not straight or plumb, but close enough that on the surface you will see something that is ok.

But it's not ok. God looks closer, at my heart and he measures me with a plumb line and knows I don't measure up.

Amos 7:7-9