Mid-spring in my garden

I just got my new Panasonic Lumix on Tuesday and since then have been having fun (when I've had a few mins here and there) to grab some outdoor shots. I wanted to share my in progress courtyard/garden with you:



This is a selection of pickings from my rose garden. (The previous owner left me about 15 gorgeous different-coloured rose bushes. YAY! I've always wanted to have heaps and heaps of rose bushes.)

When we moved in back in July, they were pruned right back. Now they are bushy with plenty of foliage and buds aplenty! Both my mum and mother in law would absolutely love it.

The red one you see above, is as large as my hand and pulsates with a heavy perfume. This is from a very slim rose bush from outside our bathroom window.



Yay, can you see that one red rose bud at the top? I'll be getting another rose from that for my desk soon!!

I love being at my desk these few days, what smell, what freshness, what headiness... mmmmmmmmmm!

The orange one is from our driveway and it’s got a lighter, more citrusy scent. The pink one at the back is an old rose without much scent.

This is a shot of the second rose this spring, taken a week ago! (First one was mangled.. bleh)



We’ve had a blackbird with orange eyes and beak peck at our guest bedroom window for weeks everydayfrom dawn till dusk. (Luckily we've had no guests recently.)

Thwack thwack thwack all day. At first I thought it was rabid heheheh. Then Google yielded up information: it was attacking the other bird in the window reflection. But still didn’t know why until this past Monday:



It’s a small nest! It’s now mid-spring so the eggs have gone... And I only spotted it because the bush is thinning out.... I love the nest! If it gets used next spring I might do a daily shot of it... (if I remember).

I also discovered that I have a - very young - OLIVE TREE! (I think.)



This is at the back of the house, next to my olive tree... My mum-in-law identified it as a chinese lantern plant. I have 4-5 of these next to each other in different colours :) These delicate whisper-thin flowers only look good on the plant. Once you pluck the flowers, they close up immediately and wilt and turn brown!



I have also been looking for a birdbath for a while now but unwilling to pay much for it... Finally got a simple ceramic one on eBay for only $16!



That is Hannah trying to feed my cast iron sparrow with leaves and flower petals heheheh. She’s convinced that the bird needs to eat after showering in the cool water.



My dismal looking potted garden (dismal because I have sooo few). It’s actually my pride and joy since I bascially multiplied them myself ... Hahahaha I just realised... Out of the 8 pots, only 2 are NOT the same plant hehehe



You can just see tiny bursts of pale pink in that Bitossi planter (which usually sits in my kitchen sill but enjoys sun now and then). It was a cutting from its mother, flowering succulent:



This is the view from my kitchen window:



Isn’t that pretty? I mean the fence is horrible, but the burst of flowers! My neighbour's rambling rose swings onto my side and is heavy with roses... Such a great colour for my ugly fence.



This is where we sometimes enjoy Saturday morning breakfast. Husband makes sunnysideups with thick toast, ham and mushrooms with good coffee (and babycinos). The cast aluminium Victorian table and chair set was a OMG-stop-the-car-right-now-freebie from a house in the area we used to live before we bought. In great condition but for its paint chipping...



Going to paint that fence white.
Plant heaps of poppies lining the fence.
Paint the cast aluminium set either hot pink or bright yellow.
Looking at getting some cane furniture...
Hopefully get more birds onto our birdbath...
Considering installing some water-ponds-in-giant-pots with waterlilies and goldfish!

Hope you enjoyed the tour of our very modest, small in-progress courtyard/garden. (I did not want to show the ugly parts like limb poking, finger bleeding, joy-sucking palms overgrown birds of paradise, and rubbish pile... also soon to be bob-cat-ed out...)

But I did uproot a dead plant today:

Ensuite eye candy

N.B. I am not a fan (however gorgeously designed) of the ensuite in the master bedroom divided by half a wall or a tall bedhead. I don't get how economical that kind of living is.

I thought I'd start with the above statement. Our ensuite needs a renovation when we can afford it since the toilet leaks, the shower stall leaks because the builder neglected to properly seal the stall and the sink is outside the bathroom. (So we don't use it.)

I am Malaysian now living in Australia. Most bathrooms in South East Asian homes do not have a dry/wet area. Firstly, because of the extreme humidity, floorboards in your bathroom is basically a total waste of money. It is far more practical financially and housekeeping-ly to tile most surfaces. (So I grew up spraying the entire bathroom with water, soaping the entire bathroom and then spraying it again.)

Now that I have the chance to re-design and dream for an achievable (small and narrow) ensuite within budget and space, allow me to meander through my thoughts.

I'd thought about having pretty special tiles everywhere, but they are rather expensive!


So maybe pebbled walls?

Carlos Domenech

I've always wanted a chair in my bathrooms but it won't have space for that luxury.

Sherrill Canet

Maybe a stool within the shower area?


While pedestal basins are so elegant and sleek

Ashley Roi Jenkins

I do kinda like the thought of having storage to hide what doesn't need to be on display


I want a pretty unique mirror(s)

Gunkelman Flesher

Philippe Starck

Two sinks means cleaning two sinks and we're rarely at one at the same time


A floating sink/storage means there's more floor space (illusions are important in small spaces!)


I love the idea of an armoire or built in for towels, pretty supplies and cotton balls in a pretty glass jar.


We're not bath people (very conscious of water usage)...

Oak Management

... and prefer a quick in and out of a shower

Philippe Starck

I only want a glass/plexiglas wall dividing the shower "stall" from the rest of the ensuite. This takes up way less space than an actual stall and door and keeps things rather simple.

Clare Cousins Architects

Adding colour to that glass gives it feel of luxury..

Karim Rashid

So... get me?

On the Street Where I Live

This is dedicated to the spray-paint graffiti artist whose work, pictured below, is on Gardner Street in Allston.

I have often walked down my street before;
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.
All at once am I several stories high.
Seeing obscene words on the street where I live:


Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?
Can you hear a lark in any other part of town?
Does enchantment pour out of ev'ry door?
No, it's just on the street where I live!


People stop and stare. They don't bother me.
For there's no where else on earth that I would rather be.
Let the time go by, I won't care if I
Can see porn on the street where I live.

My score this weekend

We had a lazy Saturday and I visited the two charity shops here (try to visit about every 1.5 weeks)...

Here's what I scored:



Bargello (Yay Kim, yes another one!) for $4.75

Opaline jar (no lid): $0.50

Marie Claire grey ramekins x 6: $1.00

I kinda do like the zany-ness of the Bargellos and I already have one pillow which I lovelovelove, see below:



You know how you might be casually and reasonably browsing/reading a book or magazine... then your heartbeat quickens, adrenaline pumps through your body and suddenly your mind is salivating clamouring over an image/idea: I MUST HAVE/DO THAT?

Image scanned from The Shabby Chic Home, Rachel Ashwell.

Well. I do (regularly)... but one such moment was when I saw Rachel Ashwell's blue opaline jar collection in The Shabby Chic Home, pg 36, 46.

Image scanned from The Shabby Chic Home, Rachel Ashwell.

Now I have the first! (Not as great quality)

I also saw a GORGEOUS birch maple art deco dining table and chair set similar to this for (only) $800 and really really want to replace our dining table/chairs with it but the husband thinks it's the ugliest thing in the world. (I would have too, 2 years ago... before I realised that "style" had nothing to do with "trends" and "trends" had nothing to do with "good style".)

(Despite the other besotted lady (she sat at the dining table with me for 15 mins) informing the ignoramus husband that similar ones were seen at the Art Deco Exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.) *sigh*

I guess I have my Bargello and Opaline ...

Happy Week Ahead!

Although it was a little hot, I had a good Saturday... here are some of my blooms to share with you cut on Saturday.

Hope you have a great week ahead!
I have some great goodies to share!!

I can has M.F.A. now pls?

I is good writer. Srsly.

Kthxbye

Art in my bedroom

I aluded to an unfinished project on the blue wall behind our bed.

It's growing and I just wanted to share with you the updates :)



I love quotes and have collected them since my teens... So I printed some of my favourites and a few Etsy buys. Painted some vintage frames white from charity shops for $1-3 each. I either mounted them plain or with some of my pretty paper. Also included some pretty special bits and pieces.



My husband got me that pretty pink French cafe setting card for my birthday one year and it's remained my favourite card from him. I bought some quotes letterpress from Etsy seller letterarypress and mounted the SUCCESS one with a pretty paper doily.



I got the tiniest and sweetest ACEO of a bird in its nest from Etsy seller CafeBaudelaire it's such a pretty artwork with a French saying A chaque oiseau son nid est (to each bird its own nest is beautiful).

I love the quote from where "there's no place like home" comes from:



'Course, this project never REALLY ends...

Have a good weekend!

PIP Studio

I am in love and desperately want a set of Pip's porcelain tea set of PIP Studio.



Available for purchase here in the Netherlands. I"d imagine shipping to Australia is going to be horrendous.

Overheard in Allston

So I was working on my laptop in my favorite neighborhood punk-rock coffee/ice cream shop, Herrell's Cafe, when I began eavesdropping on a tragic conversation happening at the table next to me. This guy was detailing some trauma to the chick sitting across from him, and I overheard him say something about an accident wherein he got burned. Intrigued, I began to listen more closely.

Burn-victim guy mentioned something about accidentally inhaling fuel and deciding that day to "quit." Wow, I thought, this guy must have been some sort of heroic firefighter before he got injured. The girl listening to his tale of woe was nodding sympathetically and holding his hand across the table. It was all very emotional and made me feel guilty about my chosen profession, which will never put me in harm's way or involve any life-saving.

Then I hear the guy say, "Yeah, well, fire-eating is definitely the most dangerous thing I've ever done."

Ok, never mind. Dude, you make the choice to stick a flaming baton down your throat, you deal with the consequences.

Giant Bookshop in colour

"I was thinking a lot about places I've been inside dreams, where I'm familiar with a building or a room, or like when I'm in a house in a dream and there are combinations of things in the house that don't exist in reality" Chris Cobbs



You know the recent trend of interior designers and inspired ones among us of arranging our books according to colour on our one or two bookshelves?

Chris Cobb, back in 2004, did this ... in a scale that defies all our meagre attempts. He took over a friend's giant bookshop (Adobe Bookshop, San Francisco, CA) for a week. With 20 people, he organised the books according to mind-bogging colour, instead of the normal, sensible way, topically.

"to change the entire space into something that you would see in a dream"



He and his team did this, just in a night. Imagine the surprise of the patrons! I hope they had plenty of computers directing poor book-buying folk to the right bookcase and row!


This of course, comes as a boot-up-the-bum for me to get a project done on my way-overdue to-do-list... reorganise our books by colour. (I have plans to one day paint the bookcase -left by previous owners- white gloss and the walls some other colour too, but that's for another day.)

The before:


The after:

Quotes taken from an interview with Chris Cobbs.
Images taken from Conversational Reading