The Bargain Hunter...

Yep you guessed it....I'm the 'Queen' of eBay!

Over the last few weeks I've been searching everywhere hoping to find something nice to put in the entry. Given that it couldn't be too big (the entry although wide, was fairly open), I finally found the perfect item, on eBay...woohoo!

I happened to stumble across them last tuesday night when I was (still) searching for a timber desk, but that's another story that I'll fill you in on later.

Anyway, here they were just begging for me to give them a new home. They were in 2 separate listings 1 large, 1 small and both had starting prices of $50 each.
I knew they were worth a lot more than that retail, so since no one had started the bid off, I sent a message to the seller and asked if she/he had a 'buy it now' price for the both of them.
Thinking that she would say some ridiculous amount, or that someone would start bidding if she didn't get back to me, a message came through a little later saying that I could have them both for $50....what, hell yeah!

I didn't hesitate and wrote back straight away and told her that I'd take them and would pick them up (I wanted to jump in the car there and then), at her convenience.

She said that I could pick them up on Saturday (today)

Check 'em out...

Gold Class...

Another project that keeps dragging along is our home cinema.

Way back in February, I found the ideal colour that I wanted to paint both walls and ceiling in called, 'Raku' by 'Dulux'. Painting with such a dark colour, called for me to also paint (low sheen), the white skirtings and architraves in the same colour. It only took a day to do however, when I stepped back to look at my work...everthing looked perfect bar the ceiling, it looked bloody awful.

Roller marks were seen and spots were the plaster hadn't been sanded back properly, looked patchy and dark.

So Geoff gave it a shot (just to see if he could fix it), rolling another coat on and waiting until it was dry. We both looked at it at every angle and still weren't happy with it....grrrr.

Then Geoff found this brilliant 'how to' video on youtube  here  and got all the information we needed on how to do it properly.

Rolling another 3 coats...yes 3 (6 coats all up), we were finally satisfied.

I do recall Brian (SS) saying at hand over, that we will find all the imperfections of the plasterwork when using dark coloured paint. He was definitely right about that, as I saw it when I did the feature walls too, especially in the corners if only doing the back wall and not bringing it around to the front (think alcove or picture recess)..see this post here for a quick reminder.

So as the months keep flying by, we finally pulled our finger out and organised the set up of the screen and audio last month.

We had the same guys that installed everything in our last house, come back to hook the projector up, set up the IR audio equipment (hidden in the linen cupboard), see the layout here and had a 120cm screen installed complete with a flocked frame (stops light reflection), around the edge.

We totally love our new PUSH integrated system too which allows us to have full control of the entertainment system and lighting via our iPad and iPhone, see the interactive demo here 

Now we can have our 'Movie' nights again...woohoo (sorry for the noise lovely neighbours), but pop that corn, lay the seats back and...play tha movie, yah play!

Now that brings me to this dilemma...grrr! Opting not to have shutters or blinds on the slimline window, I've found that sometimes it's not worth having high ceilings (ours are just under 9'), because you can't find any damn curtains that are long enough, especially if you want them above the window (right under bulkhead), like I do.

Having them this way, makes the ceiling look higher and the room look bigger so they say.

Given that the normal drop of curtains are usually around 210cm-230cm, which is fine for the platform end, but I need at least a 250cm drop for the rest of the wall which you can't find anywhere, until now!

So rather than paying a fortune to have them made, I've sourced some online here reasonably priced which will be perfect for what I want to do. 

Now all I have to do, is work out what colour I want...black, red/plum...oh the decisions one has to make.

Here's a look at our home 'Cinema'...keep watching to see what we add next to create the perfect Cinema look

Laundry Today or...

Naked Tomorrow!

I put my skills to the test and put a twist to the everyday modern wash room - The 'Laundry'

I've been putting it off for some time now, and with not much else to do outside, well it was just screaming for 'help'.

Sure I've said many times now, 'I'll do it over the weekend when I have a spare hour', but there's never enough hours in a day and there's never enough days in a weekend! 

So while I was 'doing the washing' the other day, the last straw was when I couldn't find where I had put the stain remover that I knew I brought home from shopping last week. 

It turns out that the more you look for something, the more often that something is right in front of your eyes. 

Let there be light...

Ah, finally I wait no longer to have some lights in my garden thanks to my wonderful husband who gave up his well earned rest last Sunday. I’ve been hounding him for ages to put in the old garden lights that we had from our last build only to be told “I’ll do it next weekend, when I’ve got time”. I think he’s finally learnt not to keep ignoring me and my demands and in the end gave up so to speak just for peace.

this would have to be my all time favourite spot to relax in now...I loooove it!