Going for gold!

It's been far too long between projects. I can blame the busy end of year for my lack of inspiration to try a new DIY project, but now I'm well and truly settled back into the new year I'm feeling my crafty-juices flowing once more.

I've been keeping a list of craft projects I've wanted to try in my Pinterest board for a rainy day. With the Australia Day long weekend upon us, what better time to try out something from my board.

I spotted these cute golden succulent pots and wanted to give them a try. I had some mini pots left over from some trial cupcakes I created for my sister's wedding.

So I headed off for a trip to Bunnings- one of the only stores open on a public holiday! I grabbed a selection of succulents and a can of the all important metallic gold spray paint.

It was a fairly quick process to spray paint the mini-pots. After many spray painting over spray incidents I made a makeshift studio from an old box we had left over from Christmas and it worked a treat. As they are only small pots it only took about 5 minutes to spray all three. 

A little potting mix and gravel to assist in drainage and voila! Three gold succulents all in a row!

Let there be light!

Well the title says it all really. Last weekend, with the help of Steve, we built a lamp! I'd been wanting to DIY a lamp since seeing a post on Pinterest where a lady had constructed her own lamp from a water jug. I have been scouring ebay and antique stores for something similar and it was at Paddington's Antique warehouse where I spotted this amazing vintage soda stream. 

For a tidy $30 I purchased the heavy soda vessel. I really liked the industrial feel of the steel criss-cross effect on the outside but my favourite part was the attachment at the top. 

I'd done a little research to find a DIY lamp kit and found Bunnings sold pendant light kits but I not the simple lamp kits. By a happy coincidence I stumbled across a Beacon Lighting store and it was a case of ask and yee shall find! For about $30 a got a clear lamp cord, bulb kit, bulb and lamp shade. 

I needed Steve's help with the assembly of the lamp as we decided to cut into the top to affix the lamp shade.

Cue the power tools....

Now Steve will find just about any excuse to use power tools. If you were making a lamp out of a water jug or vessel with an easier opening there would be no need for power tools at all. 

Once he grinded away the top disk, it was just a matter of cleaning out the inside mechanisms with a drill to make room for the lamp cord. 

The next fun part- drilling into the glass bottle to make a hole to pull the cord back out to plug into the wall. This is not an essential step if you have a vessel with a wide opening. You can simply fold the cord back out the top and hide it behind the jug, especially if you have purchased a clear cord kit.

Of course this step was reason enough for Steve to go out and purchase a glass drill bit. Determined not smash the glass he practiced on a wine bottle. 

Drilling into glass is best done at a low speed, and by low I mean really low! Patience is definitely needed at this point. 

We may have been a little over-paranoid but this step still took a good 25 minutes as the bottle was deceivingly thick- about 15mm thick!

Once the hole was complete it was very simple. Thread the lamp cord through the bottom hole and up towards the top. With a little help from a coat hanger the cord was through. With our lamp base it was a matter of loosening two screws to place the copper electrical ends into the base and then tightening them. Then place the lamp shade over the base, plug in the light bulb and voila! 

LIGHT!

I'm not ashamed to say I did a happy dance when it all came together! It looked so great! 

We'll admit it was slightly over-engineered with drilling into the top soda stream fastening but I'm so glad we did. The industrial look gives it a really masculine, chic feel. Which is perfect, as Steve has laid claim on the lamp as his bedside light!

Without the power tools steps this project would actually take no longer than 10 minutes. If you have a water jug, demijohn, or a great vessel that you want to up cycle - DIY a lamp! You won't regret it!

I now pronounce Mr and Mrs Holtam!

It's been a little too long between posts on our blog, but we've been very busy in the lead up to my older sister Sarah's wedding.

She and her fiance Ben flew home from London to be married at Banglow Guesthouse in the small town of Banglow, nearby Byron Bay. It was a picturesque setting alongside a creek, with the ceremony taking place under a mulberry tree.

The entire event was dreamed up by the couple, from the invitations to table settings, decorations and menu. The reception was held at the same venue in a marque under the stars. The food was provided by award winning restaurant Harvest. The day couldn't have gone as smoothly without the dedicated work by her wedding co-ordinator and friend Elizabeth Stirling White.

Despite the nerves before making her way down the aisle, the wedding went off without a hitch. The guests were in high spirits with everyone in the mood for celebration.

I'm so happy for Sarah and Benny but I'll be sad when they return to London for their life as newlyweds.

I couldn't have imagined a more perfect day standing beside my sister as her bridesmaid to see her marry the man of her dreams.

Deck be Done!

It's taken four full weekends, but we can now proudly say we have built a deck! We can't say it's been easy and not back breakingly difficult at times, but we can certainly say we've enjoyed the challenge and are just a little bit chuffed with our very first serious renovation project.

Last weekend we put in some seriously hard yards to finish laying all 54 rows of timber- pre-drilling more than 1500 holes before individually screwing them all into place.




It wasn't without hiccoughs! One of the timber bearers was slightly bowed so when we tried to lay down the pattern of the timber there was a very large bump in the middle. Thankfully Steve was able to "borrow" a planer from his work which saved us several hours of sanding (we probably wasted about an hour trying that option)


And then of course, we had the inevitable situation of getting down to the final few rows and realising they wouldn't fit without halving the width of one of the rows. We had to get all McGuyver and create a means of cutting it without a table saw and without a table. The result was nothing short of genius! (if we may say so ourselves). We screwed a circular saw onto a pallet! Simple but effective.

But probably the greatest little invention was Steve's spacer device. We needed a way to create a spacer between the timber rows. Turns out all we needed was a piece of wood and a nail!

All in all we're pretty happy with the result. While there are still some other things we want to add - like a step at the end leading into the garden, a bar ledge kind of like this, some screening to match the rest of the house, add some lighting like this and then of course we have to furnish it!

Check out the before and after pics!



Progress for the sake of progress

Weekend two of the deck build has come along brilliantly. We set ourselves the goal of finishing all the structural work by the end of Sunday and .... success! It was a team effort with Mum, David, Steve and myself. But as with all renovation work- I am quickly learning - there are many speed bumps along the way.

Steve managed to finish all the steel bearers, and I had them painted and ready to go. What we hadn't planned on was the freak storm that ruined the fresh paint job, and left lovely rain drop marks for me.  I was so disappointed! But Steve assured me that we could still install them and re-paint after the fact.

And speaking of water- when drilling in the holes into the steel poles to install the steel,  we were quickly reminded that Mum's home was inundated with water during the 2011 floods. When we pierced through them spouts of water came flooding out, lovely stagnant 2 year old flood water - mmhmmm!

And due to the floods we came across more problems with uneven ground. The rush of water had pushed so much soil and rocks which had settled in the strangest place. It caused endless problems when trying to place the hardwood bearers level. We ended up having to dig out massive trenches - complete with rocks, concrete and solidified clay.

So with all of that we were pretty pleased to see the hardwood bearers finally installed by Saturday afternoon. Steve and I stole away to meet some friends on Saturday night to watch the Bledisloe Cup. A great game for Steve who barracks for the All Blacks, not such a great night for me as the lone Wallabies supporter!

With a couple of sore heads on Sunday morning we pushed on to complete the installation of the trimmers which went between the bearers. I was lucky enough to use tools to drill, screw and tightened the bolts into place. It was my first real time at using tools on my own- a very proud moment.

We hit a snag at the end of Sunday afternoon. There are currently stairs in place that we want to keep but we need to shorten in order to put the decking planks in. Needless to say it involved a fair bit of work and welding to get the staircase back together, especially as it wasn't properly installed in the first place. Steve spent a lot of time and effort working them into submission and I think we just might be finished.

We're heading to Sydney next weekend and Mum and Dave are away competing in a half marathon so we won't be progressing much further for a couple of weekends. It's bittersweet as we would love to finally finish the deck and start decorating but it may be good for sore joints to rest up and start a fresh in a couple of weekends.