the lounge and dining room continued…. Window shopping!

All of the windows in the house except one in the lounge were replaced at some point with aluminium sliders.  They’re awful!!  Slowly we’ve been able to source replacement casement windows and take the others to the dump!  We really like the chaps that run the Demolition Yard at Cavendish Road, Coorparoo.  They are very helpful and its very easy to look at their stock.  We are also on the lookout for a nice front door.

   

We replaced the windows in the lounge and dining room.  We took them to a place in Salisbury called Earth Safe Paint Removal  to  have the paint removed.  Many people would advise against this process as it dissolves the old  glue.  We did re-glue some of them that did need it.  The owner of this business John has an enormous amount of stock there too .  He is also a very nice man.

My mum made the blinds for us.  The fabric and the multi coloured pom-pom trim came from Brisbane Fabric Market on Stanley Street, East Brisbane.   They also have a shop at Wilston.  It was hard to take a photo to show you the blinds.  I will try to take a photo of them when the light is better.

Speaking of lights.  I have a thing for Lamps and have brought three this year.  This is Beryl.  She was brought from a shop in Bulimba called Just Plain Gorgeous.  I think she’s fantastic.

Here are some photos of how the lounge and dining room look at the moment.  If we do get to build, these two rooms will change.  As both the living room and the dining area will be down stairs.  These rooms will become a study and upstairs living area.  The black footstool has gone to live at my cousin’s  house and the red chair now lives in a bedroom.  Oh and the youngest boy broke the lamp in the corner.  I’ve saved the  turquoise velvet shade though and am looking for an old wooden base that I’d like to paint yellow.

The house…..

The house itself is quite compact.  When we came to look through the house for the first time the tenants were home and it was kind of awkward.  It was a very quick visit but we knew that it had potential.  It still had some original features like VJ walls and picture rails.

The block is ’16 Perches’, 405 sqm.  Yet the house is sitting quite close to the road which leaves quite a nice sized back garden.  Our first idea was  to push out from the kitchen and create a new living space.  After all the paperwork was done and we’d officially brought the house we contacted a building designer who had been recommended to us and he came to the house to help us work out what to do.

We told him that we needed to keep it under a certain price.  He explained to us that extending a house could get expensive and to use the footprint of the house would be cheaper.  So his idea was to raise it higher than it currently is and put the kitchen and living area downstairs.  Ok, we were cool with that.  He drew a rough sketch with us standing there.  It looked amazing and we got all excited.  The following day he sent us a better drawn ‘rough plan’ .

He seemed really motivated and we thought ‘this guy is young, fresh and eager, let’s go with his ideas.  So to cut a long story short.(its been a year, because the guy was growing a moustache.  So it was November)  He asked us to come into his office in Teneriffe.’Dahling’ and presented us with the plans.  The plans did look good and for the price of a trip for two to somewhere exotic they should have.

After throwing a few insults at us and showing more interest in the Friday night drinkies happening behind us we got up to leave.  His last remarks as we walked out of his office were  ‘ Yeah I think this is going to cost more than what you wanted to spend’. ….’Sorry??? Are you serious ?? did you listen to anything we had to say??.  We left and thought ‘well that was a waste of time and money.’ it was said with a lot more of #%!!*>these words though.  We left him to join the rest of the boys with their moustaches and Boutique beers.  What a jerk!!!!

As soon as the Christmas/New Year was over and everyone was back at work, we started getting quotes from builders.  The quotes were coming back $50 – $100K more than we could afford.  We just threw up our hands and walked away from the whole building ‘thing’ for a few months and focused on tidying up the house.  Mr F and the Older Mr F got stuck in and painted the lounge and dining area.

We have used Dulux – White on White in these rooms.  In the last house we used Dulux – Fair Bianca and it seemed too close to cream for us.  We are happier with this  new white.

The orginal ceilings in the house are really interesting.  Each room has a different design.  the lounge and dining room ceiling are quite Art Deco in style yet the kitchen, and bedrooms are classic and pretty.  They were in pretty bad shape but each night before we moved in, Mr F would get stuck in after work.  He’s done a beautiful job in the main bedroom, dining and lounge room.

The lights obviously needed replacing.  We went all over Brisbane looking for something suitable. Restoration Station on Waterworks Road, Ashgrove have a fantastic range at prices for all budgets.

The lights had to sympathetic to the age and style of the house and so we chose the lights (far right).  And here is what they look like installed.  We are happy with them.  Nice and simple.