One of my most favourite things to do is decorate my home. I am constantly looking for new ways to bring life, colour and character to the furniture, walls and all the rooms and living spaces. I get asked all the time by friends and family where I get my inspiration and ideas, where I purchased pieces from and ways in which to keep things clutter free and organised. However on one of my many hundred daily trips up and down our steep flight of stairs I stopped and had a really good look at our lounge room. I was saddened by its appearance. At one point it was my most favourite place next to my bed in the whole house. It was once a warm and inviting room, the heart of the home, lots of scatter cushions thrown on our red leather lounge, flowers I had picked out every Saturday morning at 6am from Flemington flower markets sat next to the TV and on the coffee table lined up in matching vases, books on the glass side table and a scratch free, mark free, pristine shiny lacquered coffee table.
Fastforward a few years and the room was now bare. The cushions had been removed as I couldn't be bothered trying to soak off finger prints and snot smears from dirty little fingers and noses that had used them in a similar fashion as one would a wet wipe or old tea towel, the coffee table was probably more aptly used as fire wood, it had the deepest of gouges in its surface, every edge had been scratched from the dogs nails as it jumped up and down on it hunting for food, every corner had a kiddie bumper on it to prevent the corner from gouging out a childs eye or making an indent in their forehead. Every corner of the 8 sharp square wood handles on the draws also too had a rubber corner. This one coffee table was covered in a total of 20 soft kiddie safe bumper rubber corner thingies and I'm not exagerating. It looked atrocious not to mention the top 4 corners had been glued, reglued and then glued down again with brown liquid nails and then screwed into the wood to keep them in place. I should also make mention that the glass side table I touched on above, it found a new home out the front of the house on the grass medium strip with a "free take me" sign. Within minutes it was gone. It was only a few weeks later that I realised that it too was actually a replica (at least I bloody hope it was) of a quite expensive moulded glass side table. I pray that it wasn't an original as it was a present/hand me down. Oops!
That same day I set out to bring my house back to life. My son was now at the age that we could have a discussion about the use of cushions as snot rags so I went forth to the internet and bought a whole heap of new ones and two big poufs to bring colour back to the room. I picked out browns and reds and blues and pulled out a few old cushion covers from my large stash to mix it up. I got a black permanent texta and went around and coloured in all the gouges and little paw/nail marks in the coffee table so that they weren't as obvious (don't! I know!) and added a new mat under the table too. As much as I toyed with the idea of throwing the thing from a cliff it was the perfect height for my son to use to put toys on so I just sucked it up and told myself that maybe in 20 years time when the kids had moved out I would buy myself a new coffee table.
Over the next 6 months the updates spread through the house. We had made it through the stage where crawling and first walking toddlers pull down everything in sight and must inspect, chew, ingest and destroy every single one of your precious possessions and even though baby would eventually start on her own path of destruction I was tired of the appearance of my home. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't about to go and put a whole array of glass votive candles and vases back on the coffee table or my crystal Royal Doulton matching photo frames that were a wedding gift from my maid of honour in arms reach, but what I did do was invest in a few child friendly pieces.
First was the mother of all toy wardrobe/chest/combo's that would house the growing plethora of toys we had accumulated and gave them the respect they deserved by grouping like toys and sets together. I proped colourful childrens books ontop of the tiers along with additional buckets to house the big chunky toys that didn't fit in the toy bins. I made a soft area for bean bags, poufs and pillows in front of the TV that would separate the open plan lounge area into sections along with large foam mats and rearranged the lounge room a little to accomodate the changes. With just a few dollars and a few hours down the lounge room was already looking better and I started to like it even more than I did pre-children. It resembled the home of a family now and that bought warmth to my heart.
Below are these updates in photo form as well as where to find most of the items you see. I hope they inspire you to make cheap and cheerful updates to your home if and when needed.
These cushions would have to be my most favourite from my collection. I am cushion obessed. Cushions can change the whole feel of a room and every few months I mix up the colours and patterns or go out and buy some more to keep up with cushion trends and welcome in new seasons- neutrals for Winter and bold striking patterns for Summer. I never spend more than about $20 on each. First of all the material required to make a cushion is less than a half a meter for a standard 40cmx40xm cushion and unless you're buying cushions made from French silk then paying $100 just for the cover is daylight robbery. This doesn't necessarily mean that I make cushion covers often, though I should and I could, it just means that with material costs and labour no cushion cover should really cost you more than $20-$40.
From L-R
- Ikea Sanela Grey floor cushion cover $16
- Ikea Kajsa Trad Black & White floor cushion cover $15
- Old Ikea cover- not available anymore
- eBay Bird Cage cushion cover $14.99
- Old Ikea cover- not available anymore though they have loads of the same size small rectangular cushion covers in stock that are just as funky.
I get asked about this masterpiece here all the time. We have toys in every single room of our house including the bathroom and the laundry. If you're not careful they will take over your life let alone your house. Prior to the addition of this toy wardrobe we had all the toys in the green plastic tubs you can see here. Small toys in one bin, medium in another, large toys in a box under the stairs but come Christmas those bins were as useless as tits on a bull.We started off with the the three tiered section on the right and added the two other single upright sets as the collection grew. Altogether it cost approx $440 and is worth its weight in gold. It is pretty pricey but buying the three individual sections over about 12 months meant that the $440 didn't have to be dished out straight away. Beyond housing the toys in an orderly fashion- duplo with duplo, tool set with tool set pieces, car and trucks altogether it has helped my son play with one toy at a time rather than pulling everything out at once and making a right mess. He has learnt to put things back where they came from and knows where a particular toys is rather than rumaging through trying to find a needle in a lego haystack. I have used chalkboard labels on the front of each box which I bought from Bright Star Kids online. You use a soft chinagraph pencil which wipes off with a wet wipe when you need to change the label info.
(prices for unit with boxes shown in link minus lids)
- Trofast combo $181
- Trofast single combo 91cm $107
- Trofast single combo 145cm $152
On the left are my poufs. At first the idea was a purely decorative one but they have since come in handy as additional seating for when we have lots of friends and family over and are currently propping up my feet while sitting on the lounge. The jigsaw mats are from Bunnings and have saved the floor boards more than I know from being more scratched than they already are, more scatter cushions and some bean bags for chillin out on infront of the TV.1. Poufs- Ezibuy.com.au
2. Mats- Bunnings- Polytuf Foam Mat with holes set of 4- $14.90 though last time I bought these they were on special for $9.
3. Cushions- Ezibuy.com.au
4. Left beanbag- kmart (looked way better in the picture on the packet than it does in real life but you get what you pay for right?)
5. Right beanbag- Mojo kids beanbag from eBay which cost about 3 times the price of the large beanbag on the left but this is the real deal in kids beanbags and could most likely withstand a nuclear bomb it is so well made. They are currently being sold for $47.90 which is a right deal and a lot less than what I paid a year ago.
Cute little tent from Ikea- Cirkustalt $29.99
I love, love, love my green apples in a vase. I look at them every day and smile. They have bought new life to my kitchen. I stole this idea from Dan and Danni off The Block. It seemed that once they did it everyone else on the show did too and therefore I had to follow suit. The apples aren't looking their finest here, I need to update with some fresher of the Granny Smith variety, but if you don't dig green you could do any fruit that lasts a few weeks like lemons, red apples, oranges or even fill it with some old school match boxes- my mum and dad did this a long long time ago and had match boxes from nearly every corner of the globe back when smoking was cool or coloured rubber bands or anything colourful that catches the eye.2. Apples $3/kg
No boring kettle and toaster here, these are my red Morphy Richards toaster and kettle from way back. Morphy Richards now have a new range of colours but me personally, I'm not a fan. I'd much prefer to hold out for the Breville lime kettle and toaster combo below to hit our shores.
My photo wall is the focal point of our house. I have friends and family who have visited our place a hundred times over that still stand and stare at the wall for hours. I regularly change the photos with both recent and old prints and then even I stand there for hours looking over them all.To do this properly I strongly suggest laying out all the frames onto the floor in the design you want and taking a photo of what you decide on. For this job we went with Wall Mates from Bunnings that drill into the gyprock, I just don't trust those 3M sticky tabs to hold anything other than feathers. This does mean that there are about 300000 holes in the wall as there was a few misalignments along the way but you can patch, sand and paint later on. I bought most of the frames from Hot Dollar. The 4x6 were between $3-$7 and the larger ones ranged from $9-$15. I reused a lot of old ones and have swapped them over and updated them over the past few years. To fill in the gaps I have put up trinkets, some of my sons art pieces and the shell body of some sea urchins I collected down at La Perouse many moons ago.
This did take a bit of balls to do. I was concerned about what the wall would look like when the frames came down and what happened if I got bored with it? Well, the wall will look terrible after but like I said, it can be patched and sanded and painted and although it will never look new again and a little bumpy and a little dodgy this wall was always calling for something pretty full on, just look at it, it is huge. It is a big undertaking and best done slowly, making sure all frames have those little hooks in the back will really help, something we learnt the hard way and had to remedy with small hooks and picture wire which was nothing short of a pain in the arse and only tripled the time it took to do this. The frames tip and wobble a bit and after a few weeks with vibrations from walking upstairs they do need to be pushed back in place with the broom for the high ones but I never regret doing this and have no intention of taking it down AT ALL! It is pretty hard to get bored with something like this as it can so easily be changed with new photos, new frames and new bits and bobs in between.
This is our "kitchen catch-all" from Ikea. I am not sure it was ever going to stand a chance to be used for chopping on. As you can see here it is being used for anything but that job, instead houses more junk but that in itself is a handy job in this house. We used it once or twice to wheel out and pop coffee cups and the kettle, milk, sugar etc on top when we had parties but that job too has been retired. None-the-less I love it and it fills the little void in the kitchen as well holding all the oily pots and pans and our white board and baby bottles and sippy cups and tissues and water bottles and you name it. I plan on painting it sometime in the near future as I am not the worlds greatest fan of birch and it does lend itself to some paint as it is totally unfinished and pretty raw when up close.- Bekvam Kitchen Trolley (Ikea) Birch $79.00
So, I have been really slack in doing this and was at a friends house on the weekend and noticed she had her little girls height up on a sticky chart on the wall. Aside from the record of height in my kids Blue Books I hadn't recorded it anywhere else and coming from me that was really slack as I record everything. It didn't worry me drawing on the walls and I was going to do that until I saw some giant rulers on Etsy as well as the pull down height chart that the boys- Mike and Andrew had in their guest bedroom on The Block. I ended up getting this one from Domayne.
1. Domayne 2 meter Guage Wood Depth Ruler $79.95
Like I always say, art needn't be expensive. This is a poster that I bought when I was at uni doing my under-grad. I can't exactly remember why posters were being sold at uni out on the playing field as random as that was but when this one caught my eye I needed to have it. It's Green Turban (Le Vert Jade) by Tamara De Lempicka and was about $10 from Blue Dog Posters, a far cry from the $200,000 someone recently paid for the original artwork. The poster size was pretty standard so the frame could be purchased ready made from a framer and way way back in 2003 it was only $20. Framing has now become a lot more expensive but don't settle for the little place that only does "custom" work. A lot of posters are standard large frame sizes so shop around and find someone that already has the frame ready made. You can even mount it yourself and save yourself even more money.Sydney Art and Framing Supplies at Silverwater sell loads of ready made frames. They are grossly cheaper than getting a custom job. http://www.artandframing.com.au/
This lithograph was a 21st present from my brother. It's Salute to Five Bells by John Olsen with the poem Five Bells by Kenneth Slessor below which inspired the art work itself. 
If you prefer to make your own art pieces for the house then a material covered canvas could be a good alternative to poster art. This is a large canvas from Bunnings covered in some Ikea fabric. The fabric choices are endless and Ikea are always updating their prints and patterns but don't be limited to Ikea. I discovered a while back that Spotlight have stepped up their game and have some great fabric choices too. I found that in years past it was pretty dire but their range is much better now and you could even try some textured fabric if you didn't like patterns and prints.
I love this picture of New York City. It pictures the Flatiron Building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan NY and I could stare at it forever. It was originally hung in my brothers Newtown Cafe but now lives in my bedroom. It makes a great statement as it's huge. I'll let you guess where it's from...did you say Ikea? Bingo!- 1. Ikea Premiar Picture printed on polyester 200cmx140cm $249
Don't be fooled, all those draws weren't nearly enough storage for my bathroom. It really left me no option but to indulge in my other obsession which is woven baskets. I'm sick for sea grass and these little numbers from Kmart that fit perfectly under my bathroom sink and cupboards are great for keeping the curling wand and straightener and hairdryer and hair brushes and all sorts of bathroom junk. Sadly the S-Bend stands in my way of filling the underneath section with 5 perfectly positioned baskets hence the odd gap.
Do you hate chrome shower caddies? I do! They claim to be non-rust but by merely being in the presence of water they seem to disintegrate and the rust has not gone down well with the grout in my shower. As a result of one too many shitty shower caddies the grout is now this rusty brown colour which no amount of harsh chemical can remove and while the orange plastic isn't really my colour I wasn't left with two many other options when it came to plastic hanging baskets from Hot Dollar. It was these or pink sparkly numbers. These baskets are $2.50 and can hold about 1000 times their own weight, just look at the collection of products above. They don't rust, are well out of the way giving me more space in my shower and hardly get wet because they are up so high.
This is another one of my great storage finds. The gap between the bath on the left and the shower screen on the right was only 34cm wide. Trying to find something to house even more junk was hard because nothing really fit in between this space. Prior to finding this storage unit I had another large woven basket there. It got wet and I won't make you sick with what happened when I picked it up one day and realised it probably should never have gotten wet. I hunted high and low to find something narrow enough to fit in this space. I toyed with getting a tall narrow CD/DVD rack to hold all the items but this was the communal mummy/kid bathroom so unless I was going to nail the CD rack to the wall it wasn't the safest option. We had a CD rack in my husbands bathroom which was brilliant for holding creams and lotions and potions but was out of the way of the kids so it could easily be blocked off from little hands. I found this exact same storage unit which is chrome but funnily enough the non-rust chrome which they should probably have used in shower caddies and let me tell you it's been soaked to the core by little would-be bath swimmers and is still not yet rusted, on an online bathroom storage supplier for $90. I thought it was a bit steep so copy and pasted the product name into google and found the EXACT same one (picture above) at Office Works for $39.00. Bargain! It's a little rickety but for $39 who cares.
1. Office Works 5 Draw Chrome Trolley White $39.00
I am in love with Chevron and when I was trawling through the Target online store snapping up a bargin on their 1000 thread count sheets for 40% off I noticed they had this pillow on one of the beds in their pictures. I nearly fell off my chair. I had been tossing up whether to grab some chevron printed cushion covers from Etsy for a few weeks but when I found this available in Australia I was in chevron heaven. This cushion is only available instore and I was lucky enough to grab it for $9 also on sale. They have them in yellow, green, red and orange as well as a black and off-white chevron print too. Target actually had a pretty cool range of scatter cushions which I plan on keeping an eye on when next doing a cushion update.
When my bedside table touch lamp died a small part of me died too. Once you go touch lamp you won't want to go back to anything else. I hunted everywhere for the same touch lamp so we had matching ones, even sort of matching would do but I couldn't find anything in my budget or my taste. To Ikea I went. They didn't have touch lamps but they did have these cool work lamps. They were way out of my budget as well but when I saw them I couldn't resist. The tray underneath is a serving tray which helps to keep everything on the table and sticky fingers at bay.2. Ikea Klack tray $14.99
I'm always searching online before I make any purchase. As it was nearing the time when my little boy would graduate from the high chair to his own little table I went in search of something that would not only fit in with our furniture but that would stand the test of time. This doesn't actually fit in with our dining table and chairs at all but who cares, it's gorgeous and was really well priced and not much dearer than any of the other sets available. The table top is gloss 2pac MDF, I beg my children to try and dent this, it's heavy and super hard wearing. There are loads of online furniture stores that sell replica furniture both in adult and children size in various grades, some better than others. This set is from Glicks Furniture- http://www.glicksfurniture.com.au/.
My Tolix stool was one part ornamental one part impulse purchase but has come in such great use and gets used all day every day. This is another Glicks Furniture purchase.- Glicks Furniture- Xavier Pauchard Replica Stool
In addition to The Block, a lot of my inspiration for keeping my home bright and fresh and funky comes from the show Home by Novogratz and Nine By Design on Foxtel. It's my one home improvement TV program indulgence as all the others leave me totally uninspired. Both shows are centered around husband and wife design team Courtney and Bob Novogratz. These guys have 7 kids and have managed to build an amazing interior design empire. They are at the forefront of quirky home design and I love everything that they do. They mix old with new, luxe with less and are always unearthing an up and coming artist or showcasing some of the more left of centre artists that you rarely hear about. They will happily mix a $50 rug with a $40,000 desk but it's not about the $40,000 desk it's about a whole new look and approach to living that mixes prints and bold colours and modern design with antique pieces or pieces that you have bought back to life with a splash of colour DIY style. I love that! http://thenovogratz.com/
I should also credit Ikea given that half of what I own is an Ikea purchase and I love that the latest addition to the Ikea family in Tempe is about hmmm...15 minutes drive from here. I am always inspired and I have never ever left their store empty handed. They suck me in every time and I love it because I always come home with another few dollars worth of smiles plus a scatter cushion that I have to try and talk my way out or hide from my husband. I have never once had an issue with quality or with putting together an item or a missing bolt or screw or allen key. They will gladly exchange or refund which is a good thing in my books because sometimes things don't always look the way you planned them to look in your home and no one likes to be the owner of a thick shag pile poo brown rug with nowhere to put it.
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