Monday, November 26, 2012

Christmas Decorating...


Wow how hot was it yesterday...38 degrees out my way and they say it could be 42 degrees next Saturday...I have a kids birthday party to go to, so it is going to be a very warm day. Since it was so hot yesterday I took photos of my Christmas decorations....I hope you don't get too bored as there are a few photos!!
 
First off is one my new trees.  I decided I wanted to put a tree on my front porch this year, I put up Christmas light on the front of the porch and the garage every year so I thought I would add an extra touch this year. I have put the tree in an old rusty hat box that I got at a market for $15.  I also found this great Letters to Santa mailbox...I love it!
 
This is a close up of the ornaments on the tree...so cute!
 
I also purchased this year a reindeer and sleigh that lights up which I have placed on the porch railing.
 
Wreath on the front door.
 
Ok...lets move inside to the hallway.

 
In the main bedroom. Santa's nightgown and small silver tree.
 
Other front bedroom.
 
This is the main tree in the sitting room.
 
For a change this year I decided to put the white lights on it instead of the multicolour.
 
These are some of the decorations on this tree.


 

  
 
The fireplace mantle.
 
Cookies for Santa and food for the Reindeers!
 
 Another of Santa's nightgown....I wish he would not leave them lying all around the house!
 
Dining room table.
 
Side cupboard behind dining table.
 
 
I love the little mittens and horses on this tree.
 
This is the other new tree (same as the front porch), I got them both for a bargain the in the sales after last xmas.  They are both slim trees. This one I have a top hat as the tree topper...I seen a photo of one and it looked really good...I think I need to adjust mine and add more ornaments. I have decided that next year this will be the snowman tree and will have all snowman ornaments on it...since it has the top hat that snowmen wear.
 
Kitchen bench.
 
Blackboard countdown...out by a few days!
 
Loungeroom coffee table. 
 
I think the rusty balls look good on the garland on the TV cabinet.
 
This tree I call my vintage decoration tree.
 
A close up of the vintage decorations.


 
 This is the wreath on the back door.
 
 That's it for the Christmas decorations....I hope I didn't bore you!
 
I picked some of my tomatoes on the weekend as I didn't want the pests to get them.
 
My beans are starting to grow....these are the purple beans.
 
 
 Enjoy your day!
xx
 

Monday, November 19, 2012

What's Been Happening....

 
A couple of weeks ago I had 2 weeks holidays off work, but it wasn't a relaxing holiday.
 
I had to get my laundry and main bathroom floors pulled up which had water damage, which caused parts of the floor to swell and floor tiles to crack. I was able to claim it through my insurance so I didn't have to pay for it. A word of warning if you have metal hoses that connect from your basin tap to the water pipe, make sure keep checking them, as mine corroded and consequently the water went everywhere.  Luckily it was on a weekend and I was only out for a couple of hours.  When i returned the bathroom and the laundry had a couple of inches of water over it, ready to come into the kitchen wooden floors.  Anyhow, all that over with and a couple of months of waiting on a date, it is all finished and I am very happy with it.  It was so hard trying to find country look tiles as they are all the modern look now. I am still not sure if I am completely happy with the feature tile on the floor, but I love the terracotta floor tile and the topper tile in the bathroom just finishes it off.  I also had all the ceiling, walls and window frames repainted.
 
Looking into the main bathroom (before).

 
This is the laundry (before).  You walk through the laundry to get into the main bathroom.

 
This is looking from the laundry to the bathroom, yes, my fridge is in the laundry as it doesn't fit in the kitchen, they didn't allow room for a big fridge in the kitchen!
 
 
 This is what the old floor was like, a ply particle board, not what should be on a bathroom floor and there wasn't even any waterproofing on the floor, so that is why I had humps in the floor!
 
New floor, cement fibre, what a bathroom floor should be.
 
It's all finished, new floor, new paint colour on walls, and I got rid of the yucky green window and door trims. It has made it so much brighter.  They decided to put waterproofing up the bottom of the wall so we put a floor tile as a boarder. 
 
In the bathroom I already had tiles on the wall so I decided to buy a topper tile to go at the top of the tiles on the wall to finish it off.
 
This is close up of the feature tile, which I am still not sure of.  It is the closest country style looking I could get to match the floor tile without going back to the federation style which I didn't want again.
 
While I was at home for the 2 weeks, I made some more bread, practice makes perfect.
 
The first week I was home I caught up with my neighbour friends for lunch one day.  We just grabbed some stuff that was in our fridges and put it altogether and it turned into a lovely Ploughman's Lunch!
 
We enjoyed the lunch so much we decided to do it again the second week but we thought we would have breakfast this time...bacon, poached eggs, mushrooms, tomato, spinach, freshly squeezed orange juice and fresh home baked bread....delicious. I tell you what, I could handle not going to work anymore and doing this every week.
 
At the beginning of the year I planted a couple of Canterbury Bell plants, it took them a while to get going and I thought they were going to die, but they look great now.  I have never had this plant before but I think I will be buying some more to put through the garden.
 
The flower is stunning and it is quite big too.  I think it looks like a teacup and saucer.
 
 
My tomatoes, are growing like crazy. I have mini roma (which are more like normal size roma), gold cherry tomato, and red cherry tomato.
 
 
 
The beans are growing better now that they get more sun.  I had some lovely friends visit for morning tea one day and had relatives come for lunch another day, so I off loaded the spinach to them so I could pull the plants out to let the beans get more sun.
 
 What's this.....is that a christmas tree!!!!  Yep, you guessed it...I put up my christmas decorations last weekend. I have to take photos of them so stay tuned for my next post.
 
 Enjoy your day!
xx