Back on the style file

Although I am very proud of my trenches, slab and wintry quagmire, the interior style file has not been forgotten. No sir-ree! Tile discussions have continued unabated since those lazy days of the Labour Day long weekend, albeit forced underground by the eldest daughter's pure frustration with our ability to drag this out.

We snuck in a bit more chit-chit while she was in the shower last night. I love the vintage-style tiles in this pic below. Happily, Captain Laird and I agree on that for the Homemade Girls' bathroom. Up for grabs is whether we do it with the hexagonal shown, or with the similar but $20 per square metre cheaper penny rounds?

Also in the pic you can just see the white-painted timber dado that we will use to give their bathroom a less formal feel.

Meanwhile, back in our master bathroom we continue to celebrate the success of the leadlight window with deep and meaningful discussions about just the right tone of white for the wall tiles, and the perfect width of those wall tiles. 

Down in the butler's pantry and laundry it's all about black and white checkerboard style on the floor but which size? And in the kitchen I am torn between a simple white square tile design set on the diagonal for the splash back (backsplash if you are American!) and wondering if I am missing an opportunity to do something more interesting.

Hmmm. Maybe eldest daughter is right to be a little fed-up with us.

PS a big shout-out to Russia, from whence there have been over a hundred views of this blog.  Most views come in from Australia and the US, understandably. but Russia? I don't know why or how, but welcome friends!

One window - complete!

Time for a leadlight progress inspection today. As I got out of the car at the workshop, I pondered my feeling of trepidation this time, compared to the excitement of when I first went there. The leadlight has required such a leap of faith and vision, not to mention funds. If we muck it up, it's high visibility and will disappoint us for ever after.

Very quickly, however, my worries were sent packing when Rick the leadlighter brought out the works in progress. I've pictured here a completed pane. This is one of an identical pair that make up the master bathroom window. With the bathroom colour scheme being very white and light grey, this will inject some warmth and colour, and hopefully be a beautiful feature, with a white, traditional style free-standing bath centred underneath.

The second photo is one of the panes that will go into the top section of the box bay windows in the dining room and our master bedroom.

The windows have come up really well, and look very authentic. They will be just about the last thing to be installed in the house - lovely.

One small step for me, a giant step for the Homemade House

See this photo below? No prizes for guessing where I am standing.

Today I got to be the first member of the family to walk on the floor of our house. Despite having been on site for an hour or so on the weekend, Captain Laird somehow resisted the temptation and saved that sweet honour for me.

Don't mess with the MOB

I have so much on my plate at the moment that the only sensible thing to do seemed to be sitting down to write a blog post in order to waste a little more of my precious time. Anyhow...I was reflecting on all that occupies me as Mummy Owner-Builder (MOB). So it's 9.25 am now and this is how my day has gone so far:

5.40 am wake up with Baby Bee presented to me as a parting gift from Captain Laird as he dashes off to work, kid breakfasts, lunch-making, hair brushing, showering (woohoo!) while at the same time pondering the fact that I'm fairly sure our plumber can't just randomly dig up the neighbour's yard in order to run the storm water drains to the connection point, Googling the council website to try and find that info, pondering the left over dirt from the footings excavation and my need to get on with finding someone with a truck and dog, plus bobcat (yeah, I don't know either) to get it out of the way before frame day arrives, reminding myself to call the termite barrier guy, the building surveyor, and one of the school mums about a sleepover here Saturday night, fretting about WHEN I am going to get the house shipshape for the property advisor coming to House Number 1 on Saturday, and then finally loading everyone in the car for the 45 minute school run. Home to to convince Baby Bee to sneak in an early nap before playgroup, whack on a load of washing left over from the weekend away, a quick call back to a potential Dirt Dude, a quick call to identify myself and establish rapport and trust with the school mum, find out she is very familiar with the Lovely Building Company so get distracted by that, hand chop fresh chicken for the cat who has developed champagne tastes since her teeth were removed, prepare to clear breakfast dishes and let out a big sigh when I realise eldest daughter has skipped out on dish washer unpacking duties. ....

Yesterday was a similar mad dash, with a four hour window where Bee was being babysat. So I ran around in the rain buying a second oven which will go in the butler's pantry, kettle for building site "office", sample pot of paint to help choose cabinet colour for laundry, checked out handles, checked out tiles, got overwhelmed in a lighting store, re-filled car running its own fuel economy challenge, dodged road-raging pedestrians brandishing umbrellas, sloshed around through mud and rain to drop some stuff off on the building site, bought party decorations for the birthday Saturday night, pit stop at supermarket, late school pick up, washed all children, banged out dinner for 5 then off to book group. Home again to finish off the day with a peruse of the home building forums before fade to black.

Then spent the night dreaming about being COMPLETELY unprepared for a new client I am seeing next week.


I think I am going to develop Acquired Attention Deficit Disorder with all these clashing roles!

Today

Heart of Glass

Captain Laird and I had a lovely outing together, just the two of us, last weekend. Doesn't happen often these days. Our destination? Baywater again- that's where just about everything for this house comes from!

This time we were into the lair of our leadlight master, Rick. Rick led us through into his workshop, strangely reminiscent of Year 7 Woodwork but no pine pencil boxes here. This is the heart of glass.

The walls are lined with rack upon rack of coloured, clear and textured glasses waiting to be hand selected for new windows and restoration projects. Works in progress are dotted around, along with great scrolls of hand drawn designs.

Our challenge on this day was to review our actual-size drawings and begin the process of choosing every little piece of colour destined to go into our Victorian-style lead light.

First lesson: what looks good small can end up looking like twin alien heads at full-size.

Having solved that little faux pas, we spent the next hour or so working on our best mental visualisation skills. It was hard for my little worn out brain to hold the image in my mind and then add in colours and try to imagine how it would look in different lights and at different times of the day. There were three of us working on it, and it certainly did take that much brain power to work it through, adjusting the design in places as we went.

The photo below shows the general tones going into our design. It's not a great photo - doesn't really show the colours that well and the shaky shot was taken late in the consultation when I clearly was on the brink of mental collapse (not to mention hungry). Tones are a mix of deep royal blue, violets, light lavenders, and textured clear glass.

I think it will be beautiful.