Bathroom renovations

 Here comes our new bathroom, are you ready? Looking at the pictures of the old bathroom makes me wonder how on earth we were able to live with that bathroom and use it every day.

Can you count how many different types of tiles we used to have in the bathroom? I'm counting 4, some with flowers, some beige, some dark beige and then some thin border ones. Flattering wasn't it. So off they came. There was one light bulb and hence the lighting wasn't very good. We had big plans for this bathroom when we started with it, tiles on every wall and better lighting, and just like with the kitchen, we wanted to do it cheap but good quality.

We went to the salvage yard again and found these dark shiny tiles that had been left over from some spa renovations and there were just enough for two walls on our bathroom, perfect. And so that the bathroom wouldn't be too dark we used the same white tiles as we used in the kitchen and to soften it more we made a pine ceiling and put 4 lights in.

What do yo u think of the finished look? We kept the vanity and shower same as they were both in good condition, also the towel rack and the floor stayed the same. I am so loving all the light we now have there and how fresh it looks. The ceiling reminds me of Scandinavia a bit which puts a smile on my face. Thank you again to my dear brother who was the master mind behind all this and did most of the work with the help of his beautiful partner. I did learn some tiling too and how to put silicone (not my favorite thing at all). Loving our bathroom.

Kitchen mini renovation

This dear little house that we're living in is getting very small for us and for a while now we've been dreaming about selling it. Before selling it though, we've felt like some renovations needed to be done. As we want to sell it our budget was as small as possible, so we tried to find cheper options with still keeping the quality good. We were so lucky to have my brother and my sister-in-law over as they have a lot of experience in renovating and they did most of the work for us. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

Here's what we started with. Beautiful bright yellow bench top, I did grow to like it so I was a little sad to see it dissappear. Creamy colour cabinets with plastic handles and grey walls. I wanted to get new doors for the cupboard but as we started to search for new ones we realised that these ones were once custom made to fit here. It meant that there were no doors in any shops that would have been the same size to ours. With grinding teeth I had to let go of that vision and get use to the idea that these creamy doors would stay.

We then went to a salvage yard to see if we could find anything that would help us with the renovations. A salvage yard is a place that sells anything left over from someone's renovations and selling it very cheap. We found almost straight away the long white tiles for the wall and the grey floor tiles for the bench. We saved over 70% in cost by getting these tiles from salvage yard compared to getting them from a tile shop.

Because the yellow bench top was in such good condition we, and with we I mean my brother and my husband, started to lay the grey tiles down on top of it. And as the grey tiles were originally floor tiles, they are very strong and thick. I was very happy with that. Who would have thought to put tiles on the bench? Not me for sure, but my brother had done it twise and had been very happy with the result so I thought why not try it. Now I love it!

For a whole week, my kitchen was in our laundry as the real kitchen was construction site. It was so exciting to see and learn how to renovate this kitchen.

Here's the end result. In the end we changed the handles and the difference in huge compared to what we started with. The grey bench makes the creaminess of the cupboards so mild that I can totally stand it now. So with very little money spent our kitchen got a nice makeover.

Next, the bathroom makeover...

At 10.30pm, same day as before

 At 10.30 the other night

it was as light as at noon

we were so so tired, 

just look at those bags under our eyes 

saw more flowers

more green

more birch trees

the cows were still mooing

but the birds had gone to sleep.

We truly are in Finland.

At 5.30 am

 At 5.30 this morning

it was as light as at noon

we weren't tired at all

we went to pick flowers along the road

birch trees stole my heart

all the green got me overwhealmed

saw the lady next door drive off to work,

she said she would have wanted to stay in bed longer

heard the cows go moo and birds sing their songs.

We truly are in Finland.

Harvest

Your own vegetables taste the best in the world. 

Grow your own, come on.

We love.

Yes we do. Love. Suomi. Happy Independence day dear homeland.

p.s. I made THESE last night, midnight to be precise, and in the candle light. Just like being in Finland, only a bit warmer.

Something pinned

 
Anybody out there who loves Pinterest? Wohoo, I see most of you have your hands up. I've been collecting some inspiring things there and now it was finally time to try something. Yes, I made something I pinned on Pinterest!

You might have pinned it yourself, or seen it there anyway. If you haven't, go and check HERE. I've had heaps of old doilies in various boxes and now I finally felt like I had the time to put them together. I'm pleased.

Have you made anything you've pinned?

Spring, you beauty!

We felt like Emma didn't have enough toys outside. I whinged and hubby went to the internet and found us a second hand swing set. We set sail to get this swing set, and on our way to Perth we somehow managed to get another one too. And if that wasn't enough, we also got some grass for free.

That patch of grass looks like a beautiful and soft green quilt. It'll take a while before it roots itself, but hopefully it'll start spreading and take over our whole backyard. We also planted some capsicum, tomatos, cucumber, lettuce and snow peas.

Spring, you beauty! Time to start growing things, time to play outside and why not also eat outside. Emma's favorite at the moment, sushi.

There's nothing better than gardening with the family. Loving these moment.

Our COW party!

This year, Emma's birthday party's theme was COW! Yes, cows! Oh I had so many ideas, but only few of them came true. But I didn't stress. I had so much fun crafting and creating. There is lots to share so let's get going shall we.

 

Invites were cows, of course! The nose of the cow was felt which added that extra specialness in them. It was hubby's idea and I totally want to give him the credit as I thought it was awesome! Not many people have had cow themed birthday parties so as I was thinking of the text I searched a lot of cowboy parties and took some ideas from them.

Because of all last years presents were noisy and flashing plastic toys I had to step in somehow this year. Hense the text at the bottom. I absolutely hate all those type of toys and don't really want them at our house. But how do you tell that to your family and friends? Any ideas?

I admit that I did slip up a bit with her outfit. She looks more like a Grease girl than a cow girl. It's the skirt.. I thought it was very cowgirly when I got the material, but somehow it just doesn't work. I still love the material and the way it turned out, just a bit wrong theme. Oh well, I'm sure we can get many more uses out of it this summer. And it was so easy to make! Yes, easy was the way I went this year.

Couldn't find any boots, but her aunty did her hair which was so pretty and fitting for the occasion. Thank goodness for awesome aunties!

As the guests arrived they were greeted by a line of cowboy scarfs. Everyone got their own. I got 5 different patterns so that they didn't all have the same. All the kids looked so cute with them on and I think my own cowboy was pretty darn handsome too. I made a few bigger ones for us parents.

I also made some buntig to hang around the place. All made from old things like sheets, mens shirts, table cloths and so forth. So very well recycled and it didn't cost me much more than time used for sewing and cutting.

I didn't make it in time to get good shots of our food. That's ok, at least it means that people were enjoying it. I think the coolest thing we did this year, concerning food, was our milkshake bottles. And of course that's the one thing I didn't get any pictures of, so I'll explain. We had a white metal bucket (you can see it in the furtherest corner of the table) filled with ice and full of glass bottles that had milkshakes in them. Flavours were chocolate, strawberry and spearmint. Oh it looked so cool and tasted even cooler! It was a massive hit.

My favorite food was the frozen banana pops, so yummy! We are going to make them all summer long. I also made little custard jars for everyone, and instead of a one big cake we had lots of cupcakes. On top of Emma's cupcake there was a cow with two candles on it. One of those silly ideas of mine according to husband, but yet he kindly did what I asked and I think it was groovy.

Loved the food! I put the most effort in it and it was gooood. Three different types of vegetarian pizzas, quishes, coctail sticks, home made dips, milkshakes...

We didn't have many games since all the kids were aged 3months to 3 years, but I did want some sort of activity. Photo wall was the answer! It was a massive hit, so much fun and guess what, so easy to make! We just got a big cardboard box (this one used to have a washing mashine in it), I drew some cows on it and then painted over. Then hubby cut the holes for the heads and ta da!

Notice the chicken who wanted to be a cow. Or then it was just trying to get away from the dog. I kept the heads that were cut off so that when there were three or two people getting in the photo, the extra cows were made to look like cows. I love this picture of the three little cousins, all doing their own thing.

For a party favour, all the kids got this little bag that had a small chocolate milk and a set of farm animal stickers in it. I didn't want to give any candy to the little children so that's all I could come up with. And hey, they got their scarfs too!

Oh what a happy day it was! I felt so blessed that we have so many wonderful people in our lives who care about Emma. Many came from over 2 hours away just to celebrate with her and that means so much to us. She was the happiest little girl I have ever seen and she fell asleep in my arms at 5.30pm. It really took all her energy. I think it was a perfect day!