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!

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!



Under the Hammer

It was auction day last weekend and in the interest of more home research I headed into the city to see whether the home we've been admiring in Bardon would sell within our price range. As I've said in previous posts we're certainly not ready to buy but believe the more information we have, especially on the types of areas we are interested, the better.

I've never been to an auction before and this was certainly something to behold. It was an auction day on steroids. It was Realtor Ray White's "Urban Living" bulk auction, 30 properties - 30 auctions back to back! Now my knowledge of auctions pretty much consists of watching The Block and repeat episodes of Selling Houses Australia. 

There were more than a couple of things different between tv shows vs reality (go figure!)

• only registered bidders can bid (my fear of accidentally scratching my nose only to discover I'd just purchased a mansion was unnecessary)
• there are a LOT of sticky beakers like me - majority of people present were not there to buy
• auctions can be put on pause - unlike the fast paced world of tv, auctions can be put on hold if there is a need to discuss with the interested buyer. Almost 10 of the 30 auctions were put on hold with many bidders on the phone needing to be consulted before the bidding could get any higher.
• houses in Brisbane are expensive - If I was selling a house I think auction would be the way to go with the bidders dictating the starting price and the home owners able to control the bidding with their desired reserve price
• real estate agents are aggressive - when going to an auction know your limit because the real estate agents (yes, plural) can be very forceful in trying to up your bid to secure you are the highest bidder
•  sometimes it's just not ment to be - one house that was in shocking state and the definition of renovate / demolish was in the sort after location of Bulimba. I had hopes it would fall within our price range. The opening bid was $1,000,000. That's right count the zeros - $1million big ones! 

In the end the Bardon property never reached the reserve price. It's now back on the market and the new asking price is just out of reach by about $40,000 but due to result of the auction there might be a deal to be had. Well, a deal to be had for those who can actually buy it...... sigh! 

Who said homework isn't fun...

Over the last few weekends Steve and I have been doing a little research at open houses. We are trying to hone in on the suburbs we want to buy in and hopefully the types of properties and the size of renovation job we are willing to undertake. It's been really exciting to see what's out there and one property that really took our fancy was this sweet little cottage home in Bardon, a suburb within 10km of the city (one of our major priorities).

Bardon property

Now, this one was up for auction so we're very keen to see what it actually ends up going for on the big day. When we went through the open house there were a range of couples along with us. A couple who looked like first time buyers, a young couple with kids and then an older couple who looked like they were keen for a renovation project. We loved the polished timber floors and the curb appeal. It had two bedrooms, one in the front and one in the back. It was very light and airy and had definite renovation appeal in the kitchen and out the back.

The back of the house backed onto a creek so there was no neighbours overlooking the property.

There was, however, no garage and very little room to build a double garage, let alone a single one.

When we got home we got out the sketch pad to jot down some ideas.

Bardon as a suburb is normally a fairly expensive suburb with large properties with grand homes and it's proximity to the city and the coverted Paddington suburb. It makes me think this property may go for a little higher than we had hoped. I did a little investigating for 'like' properties and discovered this lovely home which has been beautifully renovated. It actually has constructed a lot of the renovation ideas we had for the Bardon place. We think it's lovely, as is the price tag upwards of $675,000 asking price?! Ouchy! It has two bedrooms as well, similar proportions and finish but has the lovely extension at the back which we envisioned.

Google is a wonderful thing...

I often wonder what my life would be like if there was no such thing as google. I would never have discovered why the sky is blue, how cameras work (but seriously I still think it's magic), the ever-addictive Facebook, my ultimate time waster Pinterest and the dozens of blogs that I read from authors around the world.

It was during my daily morning blog read that I discovered an interesting article about a design workshop that's coming to Brisbane. The School with Megan Morton  offers tuition from the best-of-the-best craftspeople inside the industry and gives an insight into the coveted worlds of craft, styling and design. Crafternoons and make-it-yourself lessons from specially selected teachers are structered with all levels of experience in mind.

One of the clases I was particularly interested in was a screen printing class by Rachel Castle. A little googling helped me to discover a little more about her and quickly I entered the wonderful world of Castle and Things.

Sadly for me, the class is only being offered in their Hobart Roadshow, but I'm going to keep my eyes peeled in the blogger world for more upcoming dates in the hopes I may learn how to create some of these pieces myself.

 

**I've created a link to my favourite blogs on the right hand side of the page. Check them out and you might find something you like! **

Meeting Milestones

Payday is a great day in anyone's book, but I get particularly excited every fortnight these days because it means I'm putting another chunk into our joint savings account and slowing chipping away at the end goal- a home deposit.
Recently Steve and I discussed what we should do to celebrate as we reached the big savings milestones. And while the idea of going away for the weekend or buying ourselves something nice all sounded like great ideas, we must admit it sounded a bit counter-intuitive celebrating saving by spending. But Steve being the genius that he is decided perhaps we make a small investment in a case of wine from a winery we visited during our Christmas road trip through the Barossa Valley to Melbourne.
This week the case of Langmeil Orphan Bank Shiraz arrived!

And mark the milestones with a couple of simple labels!

Every ten thousand dollars we get to drink! It's like a really fun drinking game!

We are approximately 3 weeks off from popping the cork on the first bottle!