FESTIVE SEASON

It's beginning to look (and smell) a lot like Christmas at House of Hayward! My їnnoscent Christmas candle has been non-stop burning all weekend long and with a 180 burn time it shall be burning for a long time to come. I love this time of year and it always helps to get me in the Christmas mood by having my house smell divine as well. Last weekend we had a Street party with the neighbours and closed off the street with a festive table running right down the middle of it. Each neighbour brought along their drinks, chair and plate of food. Such a great night and so great that we have such fantastic neighbours! On Sunday afternoon the Developer organised a Christmas party at the Rec Centre (we have a recreational centre in our estate that has a lap pool, kids pool, gym, tennis courts, conference room etc.) for the entire estate to join in and meet each other and seeing as though we know half of the neighbours already it made for a really fun night which led to one too many jugs of sangria!  

їnnoscent natural soy candle an absolute must for any household

Christmas movies played by the pool (while floating on a pool ring)

Mulch complete and view of curtains from the outside

Oiled // Fence

After weeks of talking about it we finally got around to oiling the fence (opposite side still needs to be done). The merbau had well and truly weathered so it was a matter of having to do it over the weekend or we risk ruining the wood and creating a whole lot more work for ourselves to bring it back <the oiling products that we used are listed in a previous post> It didn't take us all that long actually and in the beautiful sunshine it was quite nice however, I'm beginning to notice that I have a 3-4 hour limit of working in the hot sun before I start whinging - not a bad effort for an air-conditioned office worker that I am ha!

 

Before photo

after photo

 

after photo

C U R T A I N S

Yerp you know you're a home owner when things like curtains get you excited! I think I have every curtain rod, curtain track, 'stack back', curtain heading, spooling and all you need to know about curtains down pack. Took me a while but I eventually got there in the end with the help of a long-term family friend who worked with curtains and sewing her whole life (thanks Luda and good'ol Google!). Who knew there would be so much to learn about curtains?!

We went with a sheer (kinder) curtain for the alfresco doors and all of the bedrooms. To keep it feeling light and breezy in our master bedroom and the alfresco doors we went with white and for the bedrooms we went darker and they are in charcoal. The fabric we chose is Warwick Aesop which is a linen blend and looks beautiful and natural (slightly addicted to linen - bedsheets and curtains are both linen) and the curtain heading is an Inverted Pinch Pleat (or IPP). We chose to have the curtains rods with the curtains slightly spooling on the floor in the master bedroom and on the alfresco doors to give it a luxe feel. The bedroom curtains are on a curtain track with a pulley system and are level to the floor, the bedrooms will also have a roller block-out blind installed behind the curtain to give them extra coverage when needed.

Plantation shutters are yet to be installed in the bathrooms, master bedroom and media room. Hopefully we will have them and the roller blinds in soon.

Feels so great to finally have (some) coverage on the windows.

Next on the to do list - further shutters/blinds, upholstered bed head and frame, WIR fit-out and garden shed (and plenty more but we'll tick these off first)     

G A R D E N

We have one garden... isn't it beautiful?!

Long awaited progress on the gardens has finally begun, we spent almost a whole Saturday sourcing plants from the markets and local nurseries, ordering soil from the landscaping shop and a trip to Bunnings for the garden edging. We played around with the plants in their pots until we came up with a design that looked the best. Sunday was spent creating the garden beds, digging holes, planting and voila! Our first garden. We have a little bit to finish off still - mulch and river rocks along the house to separate the garden from the house for termite regulations. 

The garden bed along the entire length of the driveway was also prepped but didn't plant any plants in the end as we weren't entirely happy with the design so we'll keep playing around with that until we get it looking good.

We purchased our dining table and chairs! Just a little excited. Curtains will be ready and installed next Friday too! Hoorah!

 

Alfresco deck

This weekend was the alfresco deck's turn to get a scrubbin with the Flood PowerLift Tannin and Deck Sealer Remover - I have the blisters on my hands to go with it! I don't have any before and after pictures at this stage as I made a start late in the afternoon so the PowerLift cleaner wouldn't dry out (must be kept wet the whole time) and it was too dark by the time I finish to take a good picture.

We bought three pandanus trees for the front yard, but now that we have them we don't know where to plant them?! I'm finding landscaping design quite tricky and I'm scared to plant anything in case we mess it up and it looks crap ha! The trees have been planted in a makeshift posse until we can draw up a landscaping plan. I looked into having a professional draw up our plans BUT it is insanely expensive and I wasn't prepared to fork out $3k just to receive drawings and plant list. If you are landscaper and you create landscape plans for DIY at an affordable price then please comment below with your details,we would love to hear from you.

Landscaping can really make or break a property and I think it adds great amounts of value to your home. Doing it right the first time avoids costly mistakes of having to re-do it later down the track.

This weekend sees us starting the massive job of cleaning the fence to prep it for oiling. This job will be a killer!       

Portico deck + retaining wall extension

Here's a before and after shot of the portico deck after our cleaning efforts last week. The Intergrain Ultradeck Oil has come up really well. We may need to do another coat yet, which will make it a tiny bit darker. Alex also extended our retaining wall to the right of our block to support the driveway - another two sections had to go in. One bonus with all the construction happening around us at the moment is that a concrete truck happily came over and poured the holes with cement for free and dumped a heap of cut dirt to back-fill the wall saving us a bit of cash! Our retaining wall to the opposite side of the house also got a slight clean up with an extra length of hardwood added to the existing wall for more height (it runs approx 600mm off the fence line so we plan to fill it with soil and turn into a garden) so the stumps could finally be cut-off to height. They will also require another layer of oil, we used Linseed Oil for our retaining walls, before we back-fill with soil and prep for the garden to go in.    

 

 

 

Exciting things like... side gates & curtains

You know your life is sad you're building a house when certain things like side gates and curtains are exciting!

Alex and I conducted a little drive-by stalker-style survey of our estate to try and get inspiration on what style we wanted for our side gates (after finding a gate, jumping out the car taking photos and driving off again), we then set to finding all the pieces to build our design with. Direct Line Timbers were our go-to again and provided us with the steel frames, latches/locks and the merbau timber. Alex had a crack at putting it together and this is how is looks! I think he's done a fab job! It's not 100% complete yet but they are coming along well.

Our portico, alfresco and fence have finally started to get to the blonding stage (as you would know - fresh timber should ideally be left for two or three months before they're oiled or stained, to allow the sun and rain to help tannins leach out of them) and are ready to be oiled. We used Flood PowerLift Tannin and Deck Sealer Remover to clean the merbau to give it a nicer more consistent look before oiling but plan to only use a  high pressure hose for the fence before we oil it. We've chosen to use Intergrain Ultradeck oil as it's a good quality oil and retains the natural merbau colour, which we love.

I also finalised things to start the manufacture of our curtains! Hoorah, only took 3 months ha! (plus another 4-6 weeks for them to be made) Sheer curtains will go in all the bedrooms with a sun-blockout roller blind behind them and sheers for the stacker doors going out onto the alfresco area. Plantation shutters are planned (but not ordered yet) for the bathrooms, toilet and media room. Nudie runs no longer!

Not easily seen in the pic but the timber slats are different sizes

Sheer in charcoal for bed 2,3 and 4.
images from Block All Stars

Sheer in white for the stacker doors and master bedroom
image from the Block All Stars