Easter present to us: the Garden!

My in laws came down for a much-awaited visit during the Easter break last week. After doing the sightseeing thing for 2 days we got down to business. One of the sore-thumbs of the house is my garden courtyard right outside the living room, which means blinds are always drawn. I never liked it even when we bought the place. The previous owner really chose stupid plants which had sharp and cutting leaves and trunk. Not children-friendly in the slightest.

We spent 2-3 days on this and the result is mind-blowing and quite emotional for me.

When we bought:


Just before we took our mattocks to the garden:
(keep in mind I always wanted to just clear this area so nothing was purposely watered when we have this drought. I'd rather water my roses out the front!)


See how deep the overgrowth and rubbish is?


We decided to prune back the dying blossom tree and give it new lease of life in the front.

The remains of an overgrowing birds-or-paradise, two dead palm trees, 1 overgrown lemon myrtle, 40000000 overgrown dietes grandiflora...



Lunch break:


And then finally... after 8 bags of cow manure, clay breaker, top soil, Seasol....



And the cherry blossom, pruned and replanted out the front...


Waiting for the weed-seeds to sprout and then pluck out... need to wait 2 weeks. Then I'll sow the grass seeds (turf was too expensive)... And plant to star jasmine climbers up the lattice (getting more).

Flickr user: jacquiscloset

I'd love to put a wrought iron swing like the one my mum had while we were growing up...

Flickr: nat choo

Or a fountain/water feature...

Update: there's one on eBay I'm watching!! OOOH! :)

Colour box homes

How was your weekend? We prayed that the Victorian fires wouldn't come near us... and thank God, it didn't. Sunday was a a cool, slightly wet day which was so nice. We went to the Camberwell Markets... I scored a new yellow art glass vase to add to my slowly growing collection lining the mantlepiece, 2 Polly Pockets for Hannah, a little sweet picture and a large picture for my wall.



But I had a rather freaky incident on Friday night while surfing a website I stumbled on, Found Shit.
No kidding I almost fell off my chair when I saw this pic.



I had a recurrent dream living in one of these places almost a year ago!!! I still remember the layout of this home, except this wasn't on a busy street in Japan! It was in an English countryside... with bulbous but large, high, bright rooms inside.

The weird thing is... until Saturday, I'd never seen/heard of this Japanese concept living before!

This is the Reversible Destiny lofts in Mitaka, Japan built in memory of Helen Keller. This is the excerpt from their website:



The nine-unit multiple dwelling... [is the] first completed example of procedural architecture... [which is] an architecture of precision and unending invention. Works of procedural architecture function as well-tooled pieces of equipment that help the body organize its thoughts and actions to a greater degree than had previously been thought possible. These lofts address and reframe, right in the midst of the workaday world, what have thus-far been intractable philosophical problems, even at times giving rise to possible solutions. Set up to put fruitfully into question all that goes on within them, they steer residents to examine minutely the actions they take and to reconsider and, as it were, recalibrate their equanimity and self-possession, causing them to doubt themselves long enough to find a way to reinvent themselves. These tactically posed architectural volumes put human organisms on the track of why they are as they are. To be sure, every loft comes with a set of directions for use.

Via Found Shit
Pics from Reversible Destiny

Yellow and white happiness in my courtyard

I shared my dreams/plans for my dismal courtyard/garden in September 2008. In October 2008 I showed you a cast aluminum Coalbrookdale outdoor setting the MIL and I scored from someone's here-take-it-pile mid last year just before moving to our first/current house.



We have enjoyed a few breakfasts and morning work on that setting despite chipping paint.



Now the grass/lawn is dead, the bushes are dead... just not enough water/rain and we have very high restrictions for watering atm. So the dismal courtyard is looking worse... sigh!

But I have been rather busy!!! After a very difficult time of getting rid of old paint with expensive but ineffective products from Bunnings, I finally called it quits and took the setting to a sandblaster. After a coat of galvanise protection to protect the cast aluminium, I sprayed two coats of sunny, happy yellow.





One of my favourite furniture pieces is the white cane settee I scored off Ebay.

So although the garden is dismal, I think it is now one of my favourite areas to relax, read and hang out.

Planning on gathering more white cane pieces and maybe a few more of those cast chairs... perhaps a large table for outdoor dinners...

I would love to paint over those ugly terracotta tiles white gloss as well (unsure if this is possible/practical) as the dismal fencing (soon!)...

Of course, still no super large shady trees for my French settee on a swing!

Hope you have a great weekend!!!!!

yellow and white on the outside

been dreaming of a sunny warm yellow house with white trim, or a white house with bright warm sunny yellow door and black trim.

Country Home Ideas

Skeppsholmen

The famed Monkey Cottage

Country Living

Country Living

Taken from Flickr user: lumierefl

Have a great weekend! We're hidden away in our home due to the 45 degree heatwave here in Melbourne, Australia!

What are you dreaming of today?

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:

Outdoor organiser for my wee courtyard

(more on the wrought iron set later)

The small narrow courtyard we have outside the study/kitchen windows is a great place to have intimate outdoor summer gatherings, prepare/store my pots and plants and seedlings and outdoor linen/tableware. I want to fill this space with various comfortable wicker/cane furniture, pot plants and paint the fence an exterior pale green.

Pic from Stacey Brandford

I am now looking for a solution to store and organise these needs.



I've had this image in my mind since I've seen in Martha Stewart and I've been trying to think of ways to repurpose a linen press or a kitchen dresser with a small workbench space...



For some stupid inane reason, previous owners planted some very lethal, spiky, ugly palm trees, and left some Birds of Paradise and Kangaroo Paw to overgrow (now they look like monster weeds) in the far corner of the courtyard just outside my living room window.

About four weeks ago we took the long-knifed secatuers to the palms and some other long unruly grass growth. We broke the cheap $2.49 hand saw trying to cut down the 2 thick stumps. (It was only really meant for pruning rose bushes...)





Then last weekend, we broke a spade, a rake and a garden fork trying to dig out those ugly palms. A piece of advice to you out there: Never buy cheap! Buy the best you can afford... it will save you petrol to replace said cheap stuff.

We only got ONE palm stump out. I think the mother in law will need to help :P

I want this for Summer 2008/2009

Inspiration comes from everywhere, doesn't it?

I was so caught by this photo in one of the small Crabtree & Evelyn catalogues.



Totally impractical (nice expensive piece of furniture, cloth upholstery, cushions, great indoor wood, utterly too-elegant for the garden)... and we don't have a tree like that in our little courtyards....

But oh what a dream. Now THIS is my kinda swing!

Image scanned from Crabtree & Evelyn catalogues, #PR10271.