Main Bedroom Revamp

Winter is here and with more time spent indoors I was eager to renovate our main bedroom.
The whole house was painted about 7 years ago when we purchased it, but I was getting tired of the green feature wall and wanted a more contemporary and warmer colour.








I visited Bunnings (one of our hardware warehouses) to pick a few colour cards and get inspiration for the makeover.
I love blues, and most of my house has either a feature wall with Turquoise on it or has some sort of turquoise decorative elements!
This time I wanted something else that would complement with turquoise, so I settled on "Renewed Timber"  from British Paints - a light brown colour.

Last weekend, I moved the furniture to the middle of the room and started painting the walls. Two coats later the room looked cozy and warmer.

Another addition was a curtain rod and champagne blackout curtains running the length of the window wall. I have two windows that aren't centered on that wall, but because I also changed the bed to the window wall I thought it would look neater to cover the whole wall with curtains. 
My son helped out with drilling the holes to put up the rod and hung the curtains while I went to the airport to get my husband and surprised him with the makeover. 
He liked it and was pleased with the curtains as he hated waking up with the light coming trough the blinds.

The photo frame was spray painted in white and the lamp bases in turquoise

I also added small mirrors to 2 of the 4 doors that make up on of the walls of the room - the one to the right is the bedroom door, then 2 are cupboard doors  with a narrower door in between them into the en-suite. 
All those doors on one wall have always nagged me, and I found the best way to beautify them was to glue mirrors to them. 
Of course I had to paint them with a gloss water based paint. I still have to finish them off with some beading, which I intended doing this weekend, only I got a cold and don't have the energy to work!

The doors before the makeover

The doors with the mirrors on (minus the beading)

And remember the post from February, about these little glass dishes I got from Salvos to put my jewellery in?

Well, they have now been spray painted in a turquoise colour to contrast with the brown walls.

Before

After 

 Also in the same post I showed my green necklace hanging frame. It was getting too small, so I used a spare frame, spray painted it white and put all those hooks and necklaces back. 

I still have to put something strong to hang it from on the back of the frame, and then it will be hung above the chest of drawers.

Before

After

I still have to put the beading on the doors and then repaint the shoe box (you can see it in the first pictures at the foot of the bed, or now under the mirror in the renovated bedroom) with a light shade of turquoise...

To finish it off I still need an electrician to install electrical plugs on the window wall, so that I don't have to run ugly cables from the side-tables to the plug by the right side of the chest of drawers, a long way away...
Oh well, old houses like mine, only had one plug in each room!!

I leave you with 2 photos of the bedroom as it was when we came to see the house for the first time.
Scary, I know but we still bought it, as it had good bones and the we managed to negotiate the price too! I think there were 4 different wallpapers, 7 different tiles, and that hideous brown and orange carpet...
Now you can see the difference!!

Bedroom when we saw the house before our offer and below our bedroom afterwards with bed in the same position

Before purchase and below our bedroom with the chest of drawers in the same position

More recent renovation where the bed was moved to the windows wall

Happy First Wedding Anniversary

On this day last year we were in Sydney celebrating our son's wedding.

It was a wet day, but as the Italians say "Sposa bagnata, sposa fortunata" - or "Wet bride, lucky bride" - so the rain is a good omen. 
Unfortunately due to the weather they didn't get to take the pictures on the beach, which was right next to the lovely reception room...

So a few months ago, some friends of ours, Cassie and Andrew, who are professional wedding photographers offered to do a "Rock your frock photo shoot" so they could have some lovely photos. 
Check some of the photos taken by Andrew of Michael and Sara in Fremantle:    http://www.andrewcraner.com/sara-mikey-rock-your-frock/

These two photos taken by Andrew are my favourites! Aren't they so different from the usual wedding photos?

http://www.andrewcraner.com/

On my post about Mother's Day in Fremantle I have a couple of photos of the above mural, done by the Portuguese artist VHILS. It's a great mural and a wonderful background for wedding photos...

http://www.andrewcraner.com/

For their first wedding anniversary I offered them a canvas printed out with their first dance photo and added their first dance song to it (an idea I saw on Pintrest, where else?).
What do you think?

Happy First Wedding Anniversary!

CEO sleepout in Perth

We are 17 days into winter and today it really felt like winter!

Rain, rain and more rain, cold and storms in certain areas of our Western Australian state with winds up to 100km/hour. Luckily I think Perth will be spared the winds!

This Thursday 19th of June, various CEO's of high profile companies  all around Australia will be sleeping on the streets, to raise awareness to the plight of the homeless and to raise funds for this cause at the same time.

The son of a good friend of ours - Jose Granado, will be one of the Perth CEO's participating, and he started with a target of getting $5.000 in donations, and this kept on increasing and he is now just short of $10.000 at this moment...
Even Malcolm Turnbull, one Australia's members of Parliament is participating!

With the help of these influential leaders of our communities and the help of the public, we can fight homelessness together!

More than 100 thousand Australians are homeless, just short of half of them are women and a quarter are under 18. 

If you would like to find out more go to this link - http://www.ceosleepout.org.au/ and you can check out who is participating in all of the States.









In Perth, the CEO's sleep at one of the sports Stadiums. 
The weather prediction for Thursday is max. 23C and min. 13C (not too bad!) and 50% chance of rain.
Hope they raise loads of money and that eventually homelessness is wiped out, not only in Australia, but all over the world!!
How great would that be?
Good luck to all the participants.

Her Serene Highness in Subiaco

I was offered a double movie ticket at the clinic where I work, for the preview of the film "Grace of Monaco" that was being released to the public on Thursday 5th.

So on Wednesday, my daughter in law and I went to Subiaco, a suburb just 4km north of Perth's CBD to watch the movie being shown at ACE Cinema in Hay street. 

The movie portrays  1 year of Princess Grace's life in Monaco, when she debated whether to accept another Hollywood movie roll or to stay in Monaco where she didn't feel integrated and where she wasn't exactly accepted by the Monaguesque people. 
It was a turbulent year when there was a dispute between Prince Rainier III and France's President Charles de Gaulle over tax laws and the fact that French businesses were moving their headquarters to Monaco to avoid paying tax.

Prince Rainier III wasn't keen on Grace going back to Hollywood and she turned her life around by learning French, building up her confidence, mixing with the locals and by becoming patron of the Red Cross and organizing the yearly ball to raise funds.

Nicole Kidman even looked very regal and quite similar to Grace Kelly, her wardrobe was spectacular, but I was a bit disappointed with Tim Roth's performance as the Prince -  he looked a bit vague and powerless.
I had first come across the actor Tim Roth when he played Dr Cal Lightman in the TV series "Lie to Me" where he played quite a spirited character, so his calm role was a bit of a disappointment.


We went early to Subiaco to be able to walk around Rokeby Road and do some window-shopping before going to watch the movie. There are some lovely but pricey boutique shops in the area.
Just before going to the movie were stopped for a quick bite at a lovely cafe around the corner - "1982 Expresso" where we both had a cup of hot chocolate and a slice of almond and orange cake. The coffee shop is small but very quaint with mismatched cosy sofas , tables and chairs, antique dressers, mirrors and dark walls.
The order was delivered quickly and both tasted good.

As we handed in our voucher at the cinema we were given 2 $5 vouchers for the candy bar, where we managed to get 2 small containers of popcorn without having to pay any extra. Even though I was already full, I still managed to eat all the popcorn of course!

1982 Expresso on Hay Street, Subiaco

Hot chocolate and Almond and Orange Cake

I  leave you with a taste of Subiaco, so you can get an idea of the suburb from these photos.

The newer apartment buildings of Subiaco

Lovingly restored Victorian buildings

The elegant "Subiaco Hotel"on the corner of Hay Street and Rokeby Road (pub, restaurant, function rooms)  is undergoing a revamp to attract new patrons.

This old-timer looked right at home in Subiaco!

Enjoy your weekend!

Western Australia DAY

Last year I went into the city to watch the WA Day (or Foundation day) celebrations, which you can read by clicking on the link.

This year, I chose to go the local celebrations organized by my local city council of Canning,  held at the Kent Street Weir park in Wilson.

In Western Australia, Foundation Day is celebrated on the first Monday of June, but from Saturday to Monday there are a lot of other activities from concerts to the awarding of "The Western Australian of the Year" medals to WA born or WA residents that made the highest level of contribution to Western Australia.

The day was sunny and warm although some dark clouds loomed far away, but luckily it didn't rain.
The Park was full of young and old enjoying the outdoors. The Mucky Duck Bush Band played in the background and some people danced to the country music songs.

Dancing to the country songs played by the Mucky Duck band

People queued at the food stalls, but as I had lunch at home before going, I went straight to the "Wicked" waffles van - delicious....

Australian Model Ship Society

A blacksmith demonstrated his craft

Sheepdog demonstration

The brave could climb this wall...

Castledare Miniature Railway

Learning to milk a cow

Kids traditional games

Jumping castle

A few people came to the river with their canoes and rowed away down the Canning River.
Watching the TV news I noticed that the city's festivities were grander that my local ones of course, but I still had a lovely day out.