Before & After

So sadly, there was no need to celebrate all weekend, although faltering at the semi- finals is not to be ashamed of, ensuring we'll have a high ranking next year!

Our first winter weekend was another lovely quiet one. I spent 3 hours cleaning, sorting & tidying the loft storage space.

Yesterday afternoon we tackled something we'd been putting off for 3 months. Pulling apart and reassembling the myrtle wardrobe. It has sat accusingly in the breezeway. While we got up the bravery to do it. The guy at lifestyle furniture doubted it could be done. He said it would be glued. It would crack if we tried to pull it apart. He recommended a furniture maker tackle it.
But I couldn't sell it. Or even give it away. We debated it. But neither of us were very enthusiastic. Until yesterday. We started unscrewing. Removed the doors. Then pulled the boards off the back. Then prised the frame off the bottom then sliced through the glue holding the top on. We actually cut through several dowels before we realized so then went more carefully. We removed the top (not without a few what are we doing moments). We then tried to move the U shaped frame in. But nope. Then I accidentally flexed my end the wrong way and it came off cleanly with all the dowels in tact. A miracle. So we took the other end off. It took us just over 4 hours to pull it apart.
This morning we put it back together in the spare room, in just a little over 2 hours. It looks magnificent. We do feel a little guilty for ruining the original workmanship, but I desperately wanted to keep it. The spare room looks very posh now. Best of all the breezeway has returned to it's original spartan state. A good weekend after all.

Friday...wardrobe

Sorry no flowers this week.
A quiet week for me.
A little baking; Rob's favourite carrot cake recipe (Vogue Living from 1978) with, of course, cream cheese frosting. Our friend came to stay last night, so we ate soy baked almonds and huge fresh oysters with chilli, lime zest and juice and salt whilst Rob prepared a seafood paella. (We're still getting through the 5 kilos of Spanish paella rice I bought last year!) Throw in a bottle of bubbly and a Spanish Albarino and we had a very nice evening thank you very much.
Yesterday the builder delivered a myrtle wardrobe we bought well over a year ago. He has been storing it in his shed, and we've never gotten around to picking it up. I'd forgotten how stunning it is. It is a beautiful piece of furniture, although not mid-century like the rest of our collection. It has a bit of a story behind it, and I love that. When we went to look at it, we realized the man was speaking in the past tense about his wife, "my wife loved Tasmanian timber furniture", sadly he told us that she had passed away a few months before from cancer. They had only just moved into a brand new house when she was diagnosed, so he was selling off the large pieces as he wanted to downsize to a smaller home. That was it for me, I wanted to look after this wardrobe and appreciate it just as much as his wife. It was a well travelled robe too, made by Lifestyle furniture in Salamanca, it was then shipped to the United States and back as they moved around because of his work.
There is only one little problem, and this is partly why we have been reluctant to pick it up. We envisage it in our spare room, and deliberately didn't have a built-in installed. But it is too big to move into the room! So we are going to attempt to take it apart and then rebuild it in the room. A little crazy maybe. Stay tuned, I hope it works out ok!
Happy weekend, I'll try to get back into a blogging groove again.

Mid-century collecting

I mentioned a few weeks ago we bought another myrtle sideboard. It was delivered on Monday while I was away.
We now have 7 pieces in this series designed by Fred Ward for the Myer Heritage collection manufactured in Melbourne in the 1950's.
We swapped the two sideboards and I moved all our glasses into the new one. It looks so nice and sparkly. Apart from a bed for the spare room, we now have all our furniture. I do love the age in these pieces we've collected, the patina of the timber is beautiful. I'm so glad we persevered and got the windows and skirting done in myrtle to match. It's a very beautiful timber.
We had friends over for lunch, slow roasted lamb, couscous, potato bread, beans, beetroot salad, and cucumber yoghurt salad. We then nibbled on cheese before having dessert. Rob made a beautiful fruit mince tart, and our friend brought a platter of berries.
We all headed down with coffees to watch Rob give a scything demonstration.
I'm currently lying on the windowseat, listening to the tennis, considering a little snooze. Hope you enjoyed your holiday if you're in Australia.

Friday Flowers is back for 2012

Sorry for the break in transmission.
The aftermath of the party combined with our return to work has meant this has been a pretty busy week for me.

For my first Friday of 2012: some daisies growing in the grass at the block. I am so looking forward to the grass being cut for hay. The snake thing still freaks me out at times.

Thanks for your comments on my last post, our diet has been a bit better this week, and not being near the pantry is a good thing too! We headed to the gym on Monday and Tuesday, I had a visitor at work on Wednesday and Thursday so missed a few days, but I went to a Body Balance class today at lunch.

I did a really good job of switching my brain off in regards to work, I couldn't even remember how to use Microsoft Outlook to send emails on Monday! As I said I had a visitor (seemed like a good idea before I went on holiday) so it was a bit manic as we worked together on a document ahead of a deadline.

Today I've been shaping my new to do list for work tasks (just quietly some of them are ones I didn't' complete from last years!)

Been so busy I haven't been able to mention that we bought another myrtle sideboard that matches our ever growing collection, this one has glass doors, so hopefully that will turn up next week. We'll shuffle one of the others into the spare bedroom, and probably take the odd one out to the Antiques Warehouse in town. We haven't visited them in a long time, so am looking forward to that, I wouldn't be surprised if we came away with something else!

Lastly we have salvaged some timber cupboards from a room at work, they would just trash them so we're going to install them in the shed and laundry, we're both looking forward to making those rooms look a little more organised. I'll take some before and afters.
Yeah it's the weekend. We're having the builder and his family over for lunch on Sunday, something I've been meaning to do for 6 months. Oh well, we got there in the end!

Just quickly...

Oh dear- now I'm being tempted via email (directly) with Fred Ward pieces before they're auctioned.

I weakened. Couldn't resist this myrtle buffet/dresser and two bedside tables that match our previous purchases.




Gosh I just realised I didn't show you the myrtle dresser with the mirror we won a little while ago.



Soon to be on their way across the Strait. Hopefully we can move into the hut soon- cause our flat is starting to look like a furniture warehouse!

Timber

Last week was fairly quiet at the hut, a few things were meant to arrive, but they didn't. Which is something we get used to. We did get to see the start of the window seat, the only piece of bespoke furniture we're having made, (sorry I had to use bespoke, so very Kevin McCloud of me). It was nice to see the our timber dressed and being put to good use. The window seat will be made of celery top and myrtle, to match all our retro furniture finds. You may have noticed that Rob and I are a tad obsessed with timber. A couple of years ago we went to an auction in huonville, we ended up with 2 ute loads of timber, and I only left him for a moment! So it's nice to see some of it now being used in the window seat and the kitchen cabinets and bench tops.

Today we headed down to the hut to check on progress. I could see the two water tanks from the top of the drive, and the septic came into view as we got to the hut. Both dogs had to bark at them. I wandered over to the hut, and noticed the workhorses had been moved and there were tyre marks. Now this got me interested, we have learned that builders don't tidy up after themselves unless it's in the way of something else. So I looked in the door, to see timber. At this point I may have gotten a little excited, and squealed for Rob to come and open the door. Inside sat a neatly stacked pile of myrtle for the skirting and trim inside, and the promised half of the celery top cladding for the outside. We've been waiting for it for awhile now. The builder and Rob were hoping for it in December, sadly the sawmiller had lost the order in his ute. Then there was Christmas, then there were issues with the cutting blades for creating the shiplap joins. So he kept promising next week.

Today was that week.


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P.S. Sorry the photos we took were a bit sad (silly little camera and quite dark) so we'll head down for some photos tonight.