Hallway is complete!

The hallway walls have been painted and the trims all finished for a few weeks but because it is a hallway and is rather boring to look at I have been waiting til it has something in it to make it more interesting before I show you!

There have always been 3 holes in the wall at the same distance apart and on a slope and because someone took the time to measure them and get them lined up I figure I'll take advantage of that and keep them where they are! So thank you previous house owners, you've made hanging things a little bit easier. There used to be 3 little wall hangings in the hall but they were a bit not beachy and a little bit daggy (I can say that as I made 2 of them).

I wanted to hang some different things after painting and decided to do one frame and two other things (not that I knew what the other things were when I decided this - details, details)

The framed picture is one we were given last xmas from Sand (little fish calls her that so she shall now be known as Sand, plus it fits with the beachy theme!) It is a very nice photo of us (the Fishes) at her wedding and as we don't have that many photos with all of us in (someones got to take the picture!) it is nice to have on display. It is also a good reminder that we scrub up alright when we bother to get dressed up, despite Mr Fish being the only one to have any shoes on, well it was rather muddy! The frame was a standard 8 by 10 that I painted with a brown paint then one called shell white which was rubbed back giving it a distressed old timber kind of look.

The other 2 things turned out to be a lovely "shells hanging in a net" type of thing that I found at a shop called Inner Labrynth (I was nearby at the bank doing some Kindy banking and it kind of beckoned me over to look at it). It clearly wanted to come home with me as I had to take the two little fishes into a store that should only be ventured into alone (lots of lovely but breaky items that little fishes should not stand close to, or even breathe on). They managed not to break anything, though there was some touching of some items and I held my breath for the duration of time we were in the shop.

And the other thing that was to hang in my hallway thus making it interesting again was a driftwood hanging made on the front lawn with Poppy's drill (or a driftwood xylophone as little fish proclaimed) which was very easy to make. I'm still not sure what I am going to do with the wheelbarrow load of sticks left over so I forsee some more projects (maybe another mirror?) to use them all up. The little hanging is made from some short sticks and is hanging off a curtain rod bracket in the kitchen (the curtain was taken down for painting and I kind of like not having one there now, though the brackets can stay as they make good hanging spots.

So there you go, now I just have to figure out if I can make a toilet look interesting enough to show you! (that's the other room that has been painted recently)

Winter? What Winter?

Apart from a chilly breeze that had us looking for a jumper this morning it has not been very cold here yet. We're still waiting for our winter to turn up and give us a chill. The beach has been lovely lately and there is still a bit of driftwood left that hasn't been washed away after the cyclone left us a giant stack to sift through. So we'll keep enjoying the mild weather and hope all you folks down south can manage to keep warm somehow! (some driftwood creations are in the making and will be posted soon!)

painting update and some driftwood letters

Remember my kinda recent post about our bedroom transformation? Well I finally got around to taking a pic of the other wall in there. There are four 8 by 10 prints hanging up (one set either side of the big window, the other set either side of the mirror) that are all handmade. The two prints by the window are shots taken on the beach (blogged about earlier, one is a heart drawn in the sand, the other a heart made with cowrie shells on the sand). The other two are simply word prints done in paint shop of things that are relevant to us (one is a humerous quote about our family and the other is a list of the places we have lived).

We already had the mirror sitting on the drawers but it seemed a little dark after our nice calming makeover so a friend suggested I dry brush a little silver paint over the frame to lighten it up. It worked so well I dry brushed all the black metal draw pulls as well! And the silver works well with the soft blues and greens. So that's our bedroom transformation complete now!

Onto some other random stuff now, Here's what you can do when there is a huge stack of driftwood on the nearby beach. I managed to find some funny shaped pieces to form a word (okay I cheated with the 'E' and had to use a bit of glue) The possibilities are endless once the glue comes into play but I wanted to try and make something as 'natural' as I could.

And finally, this is what has been keeping me busy of late. It's called shorewood and is a lovely grey/brown/driftwoody sort of colour. The main living areas are going to be painted this colour as I continue on my tranformation efforts. So to recap for anyone who is interested (that's you family and friends!) The bedrooms are all some similar shade of pale green/blue now (biggest fish didn't get a paintover yet cause her room was done fairly recently). The rest of the house will be shorewood and the kitchen is white and pacifica (turquoisey green blue) for a pop of colour.

The room out the back is being worked on (slowly) but I'm hoping to get most of it done in the next 2 months as I don't have to work weekends as much for a bit. Will show you some pics when there is a bit more progress made.

That's all for now! Happy painting/crafting/blogging!