 Renovation Posted by Christina Brooke Jul 11 2012, 12:11 am
It’s finished!!! Well, except the landscaping and surfacing and filling the pool, but the actual house itself is finished. We could move in tomorrow were it not for the EVOL gas company who won’t reconnect us for three weeks. But that is another story. What we did was lift a one level house up a storey and build a second storey underneath. We also reconfigured the rooms we already had. The outside still looks pretty messy but I’m very happy with the interior. I can’t wait to move back in! How about a tour chez Brooke? I know it’s empty of furniture but it’s never going to look this good again so I have to show you now before it is filled with all our junk:) Above, we have formal living & dining room. I love the blue and white patchwork tile on the wood burner surround, suggested by my gorgeous interior designer Anna Spiro. The lovely light came from her shop, too. The living/dining room is traditionally used during the winter months because we always eat on the deck (above right) in spring, summer and most of autumn, too. The pavillion now has a ceiling fan, which will not only cool us down but hopefully ward off flies in the summer.
The main reason we wanted to do the renovation was so our boys would have somewhere indoors to play that wasn’t also our only living room. The rumpus was still being cleaned and the paint touched up while we were there but you get the idea. A certain little person just had to get in the photo! He can’t wait to move in, either.
I was delighted I could keep the colourful leadlight windows that were original to the house. It’s details like this that give a house character, I think. I insisted on keeping both my front door and my bathroom door which also have pretty leadlight panels–even though I believe it gave the carpenters a headache. We also had to re-set this window, which was taken off an internal wall, but it paid off. I deliberately kept the colour scheme on the walls fairly neutral, just using whites and a bit of grey in the kitchen and bathrooms where the white appliances and cabinetry needed a bit of contrast. I love colour, but that will come in with highlights of blue in the stained glass and the wood burner tiles and more colour with soft furnishings, drapes and blinds. They can be changed around more easily if I get bored with a certain pattern or shade.
It needs blinds and stools for the breakfast bar. So many more things to buy to furnish the house–that’s going to be the fun part for me. There are so very many choices to make almost every day when you renovate. At the start, I was such a Libran when it came to making decisions! My eyes would glaze over every time yet another paint colour or placement of a light switch had to be discussed. But after 14 months of this, I’ve become quite impressively decisive! Deciding quickly leaves time for more important things, like writing. I haven’t regretted too many of my decisions (although it’s early days yet!) Boy, but I am looking forward to moving in and taking a break from decisions for a while. What about you? Do you like a neutral house or do you prefer colour? Warm colours or cool? Feature walls or all painted the same? What is the one room in the house you’d love to renovate and how would you do it? Are you decisive or a ditherer when it comes to making decisions? One lucky commenter will win a signed copy of A DUCHESS TO REMEMBER! TweetPosted in A Duchess to Remember, Bandit Booty, Christina Brooke, colours, Giveaway, house renovation Comments100 thoughts on “Renovation” |
   
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That looks AMAZING, Christina! Congrats on getting to the end of the renovations! What a huge blessing now! We did some less extensive stuff a few years ago, and yowza! It’s hard!
I like a mix when it comes to colors–mostly neutrals with some splashes of warm color. A lot of browns and deep reds for us
We’re pretty happy with things are they are now–would love a bigger dedicated library
And I tend to be a bit of a ditherer, but DH is decisive, so generally it works out
Fedora – You beat me to the rooster! You’ll need to redecorate after he’s come for a visit.
Ah, Donna, what a shame!
And oops, I forgot to say congrats on the feathered one, Fedora:)
Fedora, congrats in the bird!
Yes, renovations are a pain. I’m glad you’re happy with yours.
Thank you so much, Fedora. Lovely of you to say. Looking through magazines I love how peaceful and inviting neutrals look. Congrats on surviving the renovation! Ahhh a dedicated library still remains the stuff of dreams for me, but I would like to install a few wall to ceiling bookshelves in a couple of rooms. I’ll see how I go persuading DH of that one! Mine is decisive but he says he has too many decisions to make at work so he left almost everything up to me.
Gorgeous! The lead windows give the house character. Love the kitchen, the white cabinets and the floor. Wood floors are much easier on the feet than tile, especially when you’re working in the kitchen.
I picked out colors for the bedrooms and bought the window treatments, but now I’m not so happy with my choices. The painters will be here in a couple weeks so I’ve got to make my mind up. I usually prefer neutrals, grays, taupes or cool colors like linen white or pale blue. I’m the decisive one. My husband the ditherer. Makes me crazy.
Congrats on the GR, Fedora!
Jennifer, would you believe we still don’t have window treatments in the bedroom we added on 12 years ago? We’re still using the blinds we thought were temporary. That’s partly because of inertia and partly because the color is brighter than had been fashionable in home accessories. The grayed hues that are stylish clash with it.
I totally understand! It wouldn’t bother me unless I spent a lot of time in that room. We do need to paint, though. One bedroom has three yellow walls and one pink one, courtesy of the previous owners.
Hmm, yellow and pink? That’s just wrong.
We have a lot of french doors but probably will only get window treatments in the bedrooms and bathrooms. They’re soooo ‘spensive, too, aren’t they? I’m still reeling with shock at the quote I had for drapes!
Thanks Jen! Hmm, I think I could have picked that you were the decisive one. LOL The colours you’ve listed sound divine. Isn’t it terrible when you start second-guessing yourself on things like fabric choice. Paint colours are the worst! I thought the painters were going to show me a few shades of white (of which there are seventy billion) and the next thing I knew, the entire downstairs was painted Chalk USA! Luckily, I’ve come to like it but it was creamier than I’d envisaged. Good luck with your decision. I’m sure it will all be gorgeous.
Christina – The house looks lovely. I can understand your desire to settle into your home. Love the leadlight windows. You’re right. They do add a lot of character.
I like color but then that’s not what’s “in” at the moment. We’re in the midst of little renovations. Just changed out a door and windows to the screened porch with a beautiful huge French sliding door. The kitchen will be next. I’d love to reconfigure it, but I doubt that’s possible. We’ll probably just change the formica counter to granite, strip the wallpaper (which is peeling in spots already),redo some of the woodwork, paint and debate whether to buy new cabinets.
Donna, that doesn’t sound like a “little” renovation, changing out countertops, stripping wallpaper. I think of new curtains as some paint as “little.” Good luck with it!
Donna, who cares what’s ‘in’? You should have what you like in your own house. Every designer everywhere I looked said marble countertops were a must for kitchens. They look divine but so impractical! I loved the look of them but I knew I don’t have what it takes to keep them pristine. Best of luck with your renovation. I’m sure it will be lovely.
OH I WOULD LOVE TOO REDO MY KITCHEN I WOULD GO TO THE EXTREME LOVE TO DECORATE THANKS FOR THE CHANCE SOUND LIKE A GOOD READ
Tammy, I hope you get to redo your kitchen.
Hey Tammy, good luck with your kitchen if you decide to go ahead.
Christina, congrats on finishing the major work! It’s gorgeous. You must be eager to move in.
I like colors on the walls, generally pastels. I would redo my study, the only room in the house we haven’t touched, but the living room floor urgently needs refinishing and some repair, so I suspect that will come first.
Nancy, thanks so much. I’m very relieved to have hit this stage finally. I hope you get to re-do your study. I’m so excited to actually have a study in this house. It’s been a long-standing dream of mine… along with a library but you can’t have everything, can you?
No, alas, we can’t have everything, Christina. If we could, I would have my study AND a library AND a master bath.
I’m reading A Duchess to Remember now and enjoying it a lot!
What a lovely house, Christina. Like Nancy, I like pastels. I’m thinking light blue and yellow. I’ll think things over and then when I make a decision I usually stick with it.
Thanks Jane! Yes I love yellow and blue together too.
Add me to the fans of this color combo. It’s not actually in our house anywhere, but we have both colors. Just not together.
Wow, Christina, that looks absolutely fantastic. I can’t wait to see it in real life. And I know how much hard work you’ve put into all this. Yay, you! Place looks wonderful! I bet you just can’t wait to move in! I wish you many happy years in your gorgeous house.
Can’t wait to have you to stay, Foanna! Thank you so much, what a lovely thing to say. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d said, thank God, now we won’t have to hear Brooke complaining all the time!
Hey, Brooke buys me chocolate. Brooke can complain a whole river if Brooke so desires!
Christina, it’s GORGEOUS! I love the details and the lightness. You did good!! Love the blue on the outside too!
My fave room that I created myself out of virtually nothing is my kitchen by painting the walls a color I never thought I’d use on walls (a mustard yellow) then I used a top color (pumpkin orange) to dabble the walls until it resembled Italian stucco and when it worked, I was blown away! I’d love to redo the cabinets, counters and put Italian tile on the floor but since I can’t even really afford enough paint to finish two other rooms, all will have to wait. I’d like a deck built in the back too.
I love your windows, btw!! Enjoy, enjoy and congratulations on a beautiful new home.
Thanks Amy, that’s so lovely of you. We kept the colour the same as it was when we bought it. Everyone knows it as the blue house so it seemed a shame to change it.
Wow on your paint job. You’d feel like cooking Italian every night. I think yellow is such a warm, welcoming colour. You can’t go wrong. I hope you realize your other dreams for your house. Good luck!
Your home is gorgeous.
My home is small so the interior is painted the same throughout. It has fresh blue walls, a bright teal picture rail through all the rooms & then white above to the ceilings & trims.
The outside is beige, with all the verticals raspberry & the horizontals bright blue. It’s so sweet.
Thank you Mary! Your home sounds soo pretty. I love it when people mix an unusual colour combination and it works. Thanks for commenting!
That arrangement with the picture rails sounds very pretty, Mary.
Wow, that is just beautiful, I am in great envy over your kitchen especially. Could you box that up for me? I don’t even have room to renovate even if I could afford it. The only way I could expand would be out the back. If I could expand it would be the kitchen for sure, two people can’t be in there comfortably and while I was at it there would be a laundry room upstairs added.
Dianna, we have a galley kitchen. It’s 6 x 13 before the counters go in. If you open the dishwasher, it has 2 inches of clearance from the cabinet across from it. The dh prefers to have it to himself, though at one time he became adept at stepping over 2 golden retrievers sprawled in the floor while he cooked.
Nancy, I LOVE a man who cooks. And co-ordinated too, with all that dog stepping. You are so lucky!
Thank you Helen! Now that I have my dream kitchen, I will have to throw more dinner parties. No more excuses!
But what really makes a home is the people in it, don’t you think? I’m sure you have a very happy home.
Ack, I’m so sorry I got confused, Dianna. Meant to address you, not Helen!
Christina
The house is just beautiful and I can imagine how everyone must be looking forward to moving back in and adding those personal touches to the rooms.
I like fairly neutral colours and then add bright colours with knick knacks etc. We did an extension a few years back and had a new ktichen and bathroom put in and that was fantastic at the moment I would really like to redo the kitchen and somehow make it bigger although I don’t like my chances LOL.
Have fun moving in and getting all the little things done. I am really looking forward to reading your new book as soon as I can get my hands on a copy still not availabe to me here as an e book yet soon I hope.
Have Fun
Helen
Helen, we would love to have a new kitchen, but we would have to add on. I don’t think that will ever be in the budget.
Helen, my author copies were late arriving this time but I will send you one, of course. What is with the whole e-book thing?? We authors feel so helpless when it comes to availability and price of e-books.
Glad you’re happy with the renovation. I would ideally have loved a big kitchen with a big farmhouse style table in it, too. I adore big kitchens! But the configuration of the house just wouldn’t let me do it. Still, very happy with the one I have!
I want your kitchen. If I could I would remodel my kitchen to fit to my needs. I like a house with a neutral color on the outside. Nothing that will be an eye sore on the block. I love my walls to have some kind of color, and I really don’t care what. As long as it’s not white, white walls drives me nuts.
Melody, one of our neighbors once painted his house to look like a political campaign sign. I guess it takes all kinds, but the re-paint job had to be pricey!
Thanks Melody. The kitchen is custom-built but in sort of an awkward space so I was glad to get what I wanted, pretty much. Our house has been known in the street as ‘the blue house’ forever and a day and we didn’t feel we wanted to change it. Hope to get more interest on the walls with art and so forth. Goodness knows how we’ll ever afford it, but that’s the long-term plan, anyway!
How GORGEOUS, Christina! I wish we were coming out to Oz again so I could see it in person and have a glass of bubbly with you to celebrate!
When we came back from the US, we kept the walls a neutral magnolia because we were more excited about having stuff up. We’d deliberately not hung pics etc in NJ because we didn’t want to damage them and lose our deposit. Over the past couple of years, we’ve started adding colour. We’re both into bold colours, so have enjoyed changing the look and feel of the house.
I miss our Victorian, though, and wish we could have kept our stained glass front door and the Victorian fireplaces and features. At least we’ve been able to add in wood floors!
I’d love to redo our kitchen layout and cabinets – though the decor is lovely! It’s butter yellow with stencilled red and organge gerbera daisies.
Anna, I wanted a yellow kitchen, but the dh convinced me to go with blue. I like it, but yours sounds very pretty and reminded me of my one-time plan for yellow.
Thanks VA, it was rotten timing that you were here when the place was barely framed! I hope you’ll return one day and we can enjoy that bubbly!
I love the sound of your old Victorian house, but the lovely magnolia and yellow sounds beautiful. Art really personalizes a space, doesn’t it? It makes it your own. The gerbra daisies sound like a lovely whimsical touch. My kitchen is pretty soulless–looking at the moment but this will improve once I can get some colour and texture into it!
Hi Christina
Your house looks great …. love the colours
Our house needs repainting … hate renovations… we had a new kitchen, bathroom and toilet a couple of years ago so at least painting won’t be as bad lol
Thank you Barb! I’m laughing a bit at myself because I doubt anyone will say to me “oh, yuck! I hate what you’ve done with the house!” But anyway, renovations are hard work, as I’m sure you know if you’ve gone through changing the bathroom, toilet and kitchen. They’re the toughest things to do!
Congrats, Christina! It’s gorgeous! What an accomplishment!
As for my house, 1984 is waiting impatiently for me to redo one of our bathrooms! It wants its room back. I’ve been saying I’ll do it for years, but never find the time!
LOL! Our bathroom dates to 1992 and it needs some serious perking up.
Thank you sister dearest! Lovely to see you here. Snorking about 1984 wanting its room back. But it’s vintage now, m’dear. That’s all the rage, didn’t you know?
I like colour; my husband likes neutral. I like warm colours; my husband likes cool. I like feature walls; my husband likes them painted all the same. Needless to say, we basically have my husband’s tastes with my decorations to bring in colour.
I am looking forward to renovating/decorating our rec room once my son moves out. Right now, his computer parts take over the place.
I wouldn’t say I’m decisive OR a ditherer when it comes to making decisions. I hope to go with my gut (decisive), but I weigh the pros and cons before making the decisions. Case in point: I had been dating my now husband 4 months when he proposed. I was 21 and he was 31. I said I’d think about it, as it was too soon. I wrote a list of why I wanted to be married, why I didn’t want to be married, why I wanted to marry him, and why I didn’t want to marry him. Even though there were three times more reasons NOT to marry him, I chose to marry him because the quality of the reasons TO marry him outweighed the reasons not to (IMHO). Two days later, I accepted, and seven months after that (when his plant had a shutdown for two weeks), we got married. Today is our 31st wedding anniversary.
Laney, Happy 31st to you and your husband! I’ve made lists like that, and I always find myself weighting them one way or another.
Laney, you are amazing! I think you should be a CEO or something with your powers of decision-making. Congratulations on achieving 31 years. I hope you have a marvellous day in celebration.
What about you? Do you like a neutral house or do you prefer colour? Warm colours or cool? Feature walls or all painted the same?
I live in a rented townhouse and when I first inspected in almost 10 years ago, I walked in and found the place very welcoming! The colour of my house is a warm Apricot/beige colour… so in Summer there’s a glow about it and in Winter, it kinda warms you up. Dad doesn’t like it because it’s not white, white and … um… white! Which, by the way, is the colour of their house – inside and out! Yuk!
What is the one room in the house you’d love to renovate and how would you do it? Are you decisive or a ditherer when it comes to making decisions?
My place isn’t a room… really it’s my back garden. I’d love to renovate the hell out of it. However, with a fence that’s rotten – and not mine to touch (as it’s a Body Corporate fence and there’s a whole lot of red tape and politics I’d rather not go into here where I have absolutely no power into getting it fixed) – I’m trying to fix up my garden so it’s a reader’s paradise and a nice place to escape to when I want to vanish from the outside world for a while.
And yeah, when I make up my mind, that’s it… it’s hard to sway me. Even when people think they have swayed me, they haven’t. And it really ticks me off when people make decisions for me without talking to me first.
Mozette, our back yard needs attention, too. We’re just not sure when we’ll ever get to it. In particular, the storage shed that’s about 60 years old needs to be replaced, and the bulb plants need to be changed out. We planted them the year we were first married, and the ones the squirrels haven’t dug up and consumed look pretty pitiful when they bloom.
Mozette, your place sounds lovely. The main thing is that the colour makes you happy, isn’t it? I was a bit unsure of the wall colour for most of the house but it’s got a slight yellowy tint to it that makes me happier than a pure blue-white. And the grey I chose for the kitchen is so soft and beautiful.
Oh, and the reader’s garden. How beautiful! Now I want one for my house!
Actually, I’m hoping to save up enough money to get a few park benches to paint up in bright colours and put around the garden with gorgeous potted plants sitting around their feet… the good thing is that I’ve got most of the plants, it’s just the small things that need looking into. I’d love to have an archway for the side gate so I can grow something on it… something that flowers (but not smells) and then put up a garden mirror so that place looks bigger or install an old gate with a few potted plants on either side so it looks like it goes somewhere when it doesn’t. These are two techniques to make your garden look bigger when they’re not… and to add mystery to the garden too.
But the one main thing I really need in my garden is a new outdoor setting… mine is about to fall down – literally – as it’s rotten.
Oh my gosh Christina, this is BEAUTIFUL. I’m so jealous and sort of in love with your rumpus room. And your kitchen! And that darling little stove with the tiled backsplash! Oh!
I live in a horrible 70s splitlevel that is so ugly it defeated me for years. I couldn’t even paint it I hated it so much. No chance of renovations either while we’re a single-income house hold. (I guess I could go back to work to finance my house hopes but the kids are little yet & I’m lazy. Plus my earning potential’s in the toilet after ten years raising kids.)
But I have serious house envy. I may be packing my bags & moving into your kitchen.
I’m still pouting over the apple crumble Anna C. made for Christina and did not share with me. Probably made it in a nice kitchen, too.
Ahhhhh, Foanna’s apple crumble makes me happy just thinking about it. She put flaked almonds into the crumble this time, too. Magnifique!
Oh, just rub it in, why don’tcha?! *g*
Thank you, Susan, you are welcome to stay any time. You and your family seem pretty happy the way things are now so that’s the most important thing. But when you’re earning as much as SEP with your wonderful books, you will laugh at the mere thought of going back to the coal mines.
How lovely! Christina, you’ve done a fabulous job! I love the big rooms, open, airy feeling and the colors. That blue is gorgeous! I think I’d be eating on that deck year-round. Who cares if it’s freezing? lol!
Those leaded windows are breathtaking. Good for you for sticking to your guns and saving them. Now that I’ve seen them, I can’t imagine the house without them.
I’ve done some minor remodeling over the past year (floors and counters) and am delighted every day by the change it’s made. I love color but confine it to furnishings and accents so I can change when I want. The walls are a light cream color.
PJ, you’re with Donna in putting counters under minor remodeling. To me, that’s huge work. I’m sure they’re beautiful, though.
PJ there’s a great sense of satisfaction in a job well done, isn’t there? I so agree on changing around the furnishings rather than the paint when you’re tired of a colour. So much easier.
Thank you for the compliments on the house. You’re a sweetheart.
That looks amazing!! Congrats!! I’d love to redo a bathroom… but there’s no way to add square footage..
Thanks Cate! You can probably take comfort that you’re saving yourself a lot of time and effort, NOT doing the renovation. More time for reading, right?
The house looks wonderful. I can’t imagine the disruption to your life that such an extensive remodel entails. Someday I would like to remodel my kitchen and bathroom. Even simple remodeling is so costly these days.
Kim, it’s amazing what a supposedly minor job can run to, isn’t it?
Thanks Kim. Yes, it was cripplingly expensive. If I had to do it over again, I think I’d buy another house!
I wouldn’t mind if the flat I live in would have some color in the walls other than white.
All my apartments had white or eggshell walls, Minna. I think that may be why I’m so insistent on color now.
Minna, I’m sorry you’re not happy with the white, but if you look in magazines, they do some amazing things furnishing houses and apartments that have white walls. Maybe there’s a way you could cheer them up?
Oh, Christina, your house is gorgeous! The light, the open rooms, the color—-love it all!
We have done some minor upgrades to our house, but right now we are at the end of a bathroom upgrade for our kids. The master bath is next year. lol
I love color, but I tend to use it in accents. That being said, my kitchen walls are a sage green and the office is a teal. A little color is a good thing.
Thank you so much, Gannon! Your splashes of colour sound lovely. I think an office lends itself to something unusual. I just couldn’t figure out exactly what, so mine is a magnolia white but hopefully the drapes and furnishings will bring in lots of colour.
WOW! This is an amazingly beautiful home!
We have neutral colors–ha, white!–on all of the walls because my husband and I dislike painting. Our daughter’s room is an eggplant purple and pretty–but don’t look too closely at the splotches on the ceiling.
My ideal color for a bathroom would be peach/apricot walls with a french blue or pine green border. My ideal kitchen would either be butter yellow walls or white walls with green or red accents to go along with my apple theme.
Deb, thank you! I’m so with you on not liking to paint. Our painter said this job should last us 20 years and that’s fine by me!
The house looks great! I love all the outside sitting areas. I like color in my rooms. I used to like cool colors but my tastes have changed over the years to the warmer colors.
Hi Maureen, our tastes do change, don’t they? Having lived in a very depressing house that had grey-blue wallpaper I had vowed never to use grey on the walls and yet I have! Thanks for the compliment on the house:)
Your house looks amazing! I am a color person, my husband is a white/off white person…We compromise and we have yellows, rose, green, light blue and light green…yes, that is a compromise because if it was all up to me it would be vibrant colors like purple, pink, sunglasses needed yellow, navy blue… If I could renovate one room, I would re-do my sunroom and make it twice as big and instead of vinyl I would go with hardwood. Had I known then how much we would use the room when we originally built it I could have had what I wanted then…
Hi Wendy, wow on those colours! Bright neon colours are in at the moment, did you know? Maybe you can show hubby a few magazines:)
It is hard to gauge how much you’ll use certain rooms, isn’t it? We hardly used our sunroom because the chairs weren’t that comfortable. Such a simple thing to change and yet we never did.
Your place is just amazing.. I love that blue and white theme.. and those decks.. I am so evevious.. I love them…
Your kitchen is beautiful and I am sure it will get lots of attention…
I have been working on my living room.. I have painted and am getting new furnishings. I always say i have eclectic taste and I don’t always have matching this and matching that.. I like to blend different woods together. My new sofa is Sage Green and everything is working around this….
I also painted the dining area of my kitchen.. It is called Japense Walnut and is a deep deep magenta colour.. I love it and I am slowly co-ordianted accent pieces with this colour…
My next thing will be the bathroom.. It needs some work, but bathroom reno’s are so so expensive..
I wish you many happy hours in your new updated home…
Thank you very much, Kathleen! Wow, you sound like a pro. I love ‘eclectic’ but I probably don’t have the confidence to go that way as much as I’d like. Not keen on the matchy-matchy either. Best of luck with your renovation. Yes, bathrooms are hideously expensive! I went with neutrals there so I wouldn’t have to do them again any time soon.
Congrats on the renovation being finished, Christina! Your home is beautiful and I’m wishing you many happy years there with your family
Right now I’m focusing on outdoor renovations. I’d love a stone patio out front but have yet to find the right stone – or been able to talk my husband into taking on a new project (I’m always giving the poor man something to do *g*)
Thank you, Beth, that’s lovely!
A stone patio sounds like a great addition to the home. Your poor husband but how cool that he could take on a project like that! I wish my man was handy but I guess he’s good for other things *G*.
The house looks lovely. I don’t mind some color.
Thanks bn!
Hey Christina! I love the look of your house, especially all the wood floors!! I would love some wood floors but the guys who evaluated our cement slab for them when we were renovating the dining room said it was too wet. So carpeting it was.
I’ve done the dining room and foyer, my office and the guest bedroom since we moved in. I’d love to redo the two bathrooms and kitchen, but I don’t have that kind of cash right now.
IF I could do the kitchen I’d get cherry wood cabinets and granite countertops for sure!
Thanks, Suz! I’m sort of dreading moving in and all the marks and scratches on the floor once we start living there. At the moment, it’s pretty pristine!
Sounds like you’ve worked hard on your house so far. Kitchens and bathrooms are the most inconvenient and expensive so I’d recommend putting them off as long as you can!
OMG, Christine, I love, love, love your house renovations. They’re so beautiful, open and full of light. I think building a story BENEATH the original first floor is a very clever idea.
We should have a Bandita Conference there! Yay! And invite all the BB’s. That would give your house a lived-in flavor LOL.
I love redecorating, but I’m very very indecisive, about colors and patterns, hangings and pictures, so it takes me a very long time just to do one room — a long time like A YEAR!!
Jo thank you so much! Glad you like the house. Wouldn’t that be the coolest to have everyone downunder for a huge bandit party? I’m hoping to throw lots of parties once we’re settled in (and have some furniture!
Meant to say, yes I’m indecisive too, particularly as I know I have to live with these furnishings forever. THat’s why I”m putting a lot of it in the hands of an interior designer whose work I absolutely love. Makes it so much easier and not having to go hunting for all these things myself is worth the expense, to me.
Hi Christina,
I love the renovations u have done to your place. It looks do bright, open and airy.
I have been meaning to change the color of my feature wall for ages now but havn’t got around to doing it yet. Maybe i will get motivated soon.
Hi Sonali, thank you! Good luck with the new look for your feature wall. A new thing they’re doing now is a wallpaper on a feature wall. I have to say, some of the wallpapers around now look fantastic!
Christina, it all looks wonderful. Love the natural light, and I adore the blue exterior. It makes me think of houses I see at the beach. I love how at the beach you can have basically any color house you want, and no one cares. Pretty sure that wouldn’t fly in my subdivision. One of my neighbors might have an apoplectic fit.
Hi Trish! Thanks so much, we love the colour too. They’re pretty laid back about colour where I live, unless you’re in a heritage-listed house and then you have a limited range of colours to choose from. Not sure what my neighbours think but it’s been this colour since before we moved in so they must be ok with it!
Stopping by late to say how much I LOVE the renovated house, Christina! It really is gorgeous. Classy, elegant, open – just like you! I wish you and your family many, many years of many, many happy memories there.
I love light, warm shades. I am still working on my writing studio and I’ve decided to do the walls in pale lavender. I am trying to talk my brother into putting another window in for me. I want more light in the room. I tend to do rooms in themes and each theme has a color scheme. My kitchen is done in the colors of Van Gogh’s painting Irises. I have the huge museum poster from the Van Gogh exhibit in Amsterdam framed in the kitchen.
Louisa, you’re too kind to me. Thank you so much!
Oh, I adore the colours in Van Gogh’s Irises. Beautiful! It sounds like your home is a reflection of you as well:)
Congrats on seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for your renovation.
If I could renovate a room, it would be my kitchen. Although I have new cabinets and a decent countertop, I’d love to do a tile backsplash. I have textured walls I don’t care for and some plain gray tile on two walls I’d like to take down or replace with some pretty tiles at the very least. So it definitely needs work that hasn’t been done yet.
Thanks Barbara! There are some gorgeous splashback tile options around and clever ways to lay the tiles, too. Mind boggling! Good luck if you decide to go ahead!
is the pic posted from your house? that’s great house, love it
honestly i dont like renovasion maybe because have no idea to decorate anything. arghh :/. but i love to see any design probably i’m only an art enthusiasts and not a maker lol