Bedtime

(at bedtime)

P (five year old): can I stay in this house forever?

Me:  Of course, how long did you have in mind?

P:    Until I am all grown up and me and Immy (big sister) have fallen in love with different people and we all live here together.  Me, Immy, the person I love and the person she loves.

Me:  What about mummy and daddy?

P:     You'll be dead won't you?

Me:   I bloody hope not.  (Note: bloody is not a swear word in our house as it is authentic Australian slang).

P:     (looks puzzled)

Me:   For example - look at Heddy, your grandmother. She is my mummy and she is still alive and I am grown up aren't I?

P:     Yes.

Me:   So there you go, when you are grown up, I should be alive too.

P:     Why do people die?

Me:  All living creatures have to die sometime. Sometimes they get sick, sometimes they just get old. The trick is to make sure you fit lots of life into the space between being born and dying.

P:    When will the Queen die?

Me:  I don't know for sure.  She is pretty old though. Over 80.

P:     Why isn't the Queen in the Lympics?  It's in her country.

Me:  I think she might be a bit old for running and swimming.

P:     It will be good when she dies.  There will be no one to boss us around anymore.

Me:   Not sure about that.  Prince Charles will become King Charles and unless we become a republic he will be our head of state.  Last time I looked he was pretty bossy.  About organic things. And architecture.  And the youth of today.

P:   What's a head of state?

Me: Never mind. (Note to self: need to better explain way constitutional monarchy works to children).

P:    I don't want you to die.  Or go to work tomorrow. Or leave me.  Ever.

Ever since I was diagnosed with cancer, something has been worrying P.   I know that this is an obvious thing to say, but I am constantly looking for signs that the fear he must have had to begin with is going away, at least a little.  After all, it has been almost two years now. 

In my lawyerly way I tried to pin his worry down to something specific, which I would then try to minimise or alleviate.  Was it losing my hair, vanishing to hospital for days on end, talking about my sore shoulder, being tired, being a bit sick or being unable to lift him properly anymore?   I have never lied to him about my diagnosis, and used my best efforts to explain bad cells and good cells and chemo to him.  I was always pretty vague about the surgery I had, simply because it was such an assault to my body that I really don't think he should be exposed to that at such a young age.

Of course that was just way too complicated an approach. 

He is five.  He doesn't care about any of that stuff.  He couldn't care less about my hair or my surgery or my blood counts or my bone scans or my fear of recurrence.

He just wants me to be alive.   Sometimes the simple obvious answer is in fact the correct answer. 

I understand clearly now that he is in contact with a visceral fear of abandonment or loss in a way that I certainly was not at his age.  I don't think I even thought about death once until I was a moody 12 year old listening to A Forest by the Cure (thank you Robert Smith for giving me some great black clothes wearing/goth/moping around teenage years. You were just the backdrop I needed).  Here's another one to mope to:

On a lighter note, we have been building up quite a collection of ecologically sound bedtime reading, ranging from this classic:

I love the Lorax still, complete with the Truffala trees and Thneeds.   It is compulsory reading for all children.  And I know a new Lorax was released last year, but you can also watch the original animated film on YouTube, here it is below.

To this:

Wouldn't this make great wallpaper?  Just as I knew nothing of death at 5, I also new nothing of climate change\recycling\ endangered animals, all topics my children are Full Bottle on.

This book is about a forest which was chopped down and a city which smothers everything with its smoke,  but has a happy ending.  

Don't you just love a happy ending? I do.   Although I now have a major hankering for the Cure. Time to get Faith out again. 

Tweet

Bunkroom Redo

I finally got round to taking photos of our bunk room.  It takes a long time to fix up these rooms when you are only doing it on the weekends, with lots of breaks for rest.   It also took weeks for this wallpaper to arrive from the UK, as they had to do a new print run *. 

 (Ralph Lauren Great Harbour from the Family Places Collection) 

Remember when we bought the house this room looked like this:

Because I don't know what I am doing I didn't use a proper undercoat so ended up painting the walls about 5 times.   But that was good because it gave me enough time to spot the gaps where the insects and spiders come in (there are many cracks unfortunately, and because it is kind of a basement room the creepies love to come in and sleep.  Not mentioning that to the children.) 

You may recall the many problems this room has: very low ceiling, funny shape, structural pole in middle of one side, and that triangle window.

They had painted the wall around it to look like Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon cover, so I felt a bit bad painting over it but needs must. 

I got some great advice for this window, including a square blind and plantation shutters.  Here is what I have done.

(Curtains come from Pottery Barn, they are a lovely sage green) 

That's right, nothing.   The reason for this decision is that once I had painted the room and wallpapered this wall I thought it would just be better to leave it as is, with clean lines.  It is not a room which gets used all the time, and the light is not an issue. 

There was also a financial reason.  Because of the shape the plantation shutter would need to be custom made (the window is 1 metre each side).  The quote I got was $1650.   For one shutter.  (I sent it to my husband to give him a nice fright and he emailed me back 'No.  For the avoidance of doubt, no.'  I love that expression.)


So it is just going to be a nudie window for now. 

(this rug is from Freedom Furniture) 

Here is a detail of one corner, note gaps, and corrugated iron ceiling which I love, it is very Australian). 

At the other end of the room I have put in a 'low line' 3 bed bunk.   Here is my son demonstrating the top level.   The bunks work pretty well, although you can see it is a slightly awkward fit.  I found some green ticking linen from Provincial Home. 

Here is the other end of the room.  So far no furniture, I need a side table or something here.  

The chairs are temporary. 

And in case you are wondering, this is the view from triangle window.  The driveway, some gumtrees, and a bit of ocean.   

This is actually the very first room I have painted and redecorated from scratch!  It felt good.  

Happy Australia Day!


* if you live in Australia you will know that a lot of websites will say 'Cannot be shipped to Australia' or some such, because the supplier has some tie up with a business in Australia.  This wallpaper had the same prohibition but I thought I would order it anyway.  And it must have slipped through their systems because it did eventually arrive!

Tweet

Bunk

We bought a beach house a couple of months back. (Kept that quiet, didn't I?).

I will post some pictures at some point. 

The house is at Fairhaven, on the west coast of Victoria.  An English friend described this area to me as like Cornwall, and the northern beaches of Sydney as like the Mediterranean. I think this is quite apt.  We have certainly had some blustery grey blue weekends down there.     

The house doesn't need really any renovation, which was one of my pre-conditions.  I have hung some new curtains and that is it.

However there is one room which needed a lot of work. It is the downstairs bunk room, which was used by the old owners as storage.  We need it as occasional accommodation so that we have enough room for the children plus guests. 

I mentioned in a previous post that I love the Scandinavian grey and white and wood beach shack style.  Of course not all of that is really suited to the Australian summer, which does get hot, even down here.  And I think pure white walls are can be an issue when you have lots of sun glare. 

So, here is the plan for the bunk room. If I could do a mood board then I would, but I can't, so I am laying it out old style. 

One wall to be wallpapered in this:

(Ralph Lauren from the Family Places range) 

Other walls painted in Chalk USA:

(thanks A-M - I found this on your blog!)

Bunks along one wall maybe like this:

Curtains like this:

(from Pottery Barn)

Floor coverings like this:

(from Freedom Furniture) 

Other furniture is completely undecided.  Although I have bought this lamp from Ikea because I liked the colour:

And I would like some ticking stripe linen like this:

(via Toast) 

I love stripes in children's rooms. 

Oh, and here is a shot of the room itself just before we bought the house.   This room has a Few Issues.  It has a very very low ceiling, less than 190 cm.  And a triangle window!   And a strangely positioned woodenly pole.  And the tiled floor is not ideal but I can cover that.  Arrggh...

So far it has taken me four coats to paint out that blue stripe. I am by no means an expert painter so that might be why. 

The wall to be wallpapered is the black one.   And what oh what could I do to cover that triangle window? The best I have come up with is a plantation shutter, but it would have to be custom made. 

This is where I have got to. 

Wish me luck! 


(Images (1) and (5) from My Scandinavian Retreat (3), (10) and (11) Pinterest.)

Tweet

Accidental Bedhead

Apparently mattresses only last 10 years... so this week we bought another, as ours was 13 years old.

And something odd happened yesterday when it was delivered.  We received a lovely mattress which is truly like sleeping in a very fluffy cloud.  But in addition, we received a large bed base, made of deep mocha suede, which is made to fit with the mattress.  

The invoice is confusing, our order is confusing, the extremely surly delivery man didn't want to talk about it, and the website of the multinational 6 star hotel which also sells beds did not explain exactly what it is we ordered or didn't order.    

So we truly cannot work out whether our new bed base is a mistake, or a kind gift.   I am inclined to the latter, as I sort of deserve a kind gift.   (And it is nice to know there are people out there looking out for me even if it is a global corporation) 

What it does mean is that we need to decommission our bed, and find a bed head.   

As much as I like the drama of the padding, or the shaping, the truth is that I will end up with something plain and simple and dark blue, just like the rest of the room: 

Now I know you can DIY headboards, there are a million little step by steps out there on this.  But I have a confession.  My DIY stuff looks like crap.   So I think I will get a professional to do it.  I have found this place who makes them up to order.    Does anyone know of anywhere else which can do bedheads?   

Weird Chemo Side Effect No 3 - as if I didn't have enough ethico-legal dilemmas to deal with along the lines of should we return the accidentally delivered bed base, I have now discovered that my hair is falling out again, after a short respite where it grew a bit.   There is only one response to this: arrgggghhhh.  My new approach is to not look at my hair at all until this ludicrous and ocassionally surreal experience is over (on 20 June). 

(Images: (1) Pinterest (2) Pinterest (3) Elle Decor (4) Samantha Pymm (5) Canadian House and Home) 

Tweet

Our Bedroom in the Style of Miu Miu

For all the happy chat of pink and dreamy bedrooms, I have a husband who will not put up with a girly bedroom.  I don't think I mind that much, I rather like our austere blue and white bedroom but it does mean that it can be hard to redecorate.     I decided recently that I am rather taken with the combination of blue or grey and yellow in a bedroom.  

Like this:

Or this:

Or this:

So, I thought I would have a lampshade made up to match the mustard yellow shade which is on his side.  It is not that easy to find a large drum lampshade.  I have literally looked everywhere, and there was hardly a drum shape to be found. And when I did find one it was too small.  I eventually found out by chance that the local Chinese reproduction junk shop (called Chinatique) will custom make lampshades. 

So I provided them with a crisp mustard coloured linen, and two weeks later, my economically priced lampshade was ready.   Richard from Chinatique is my friend now.  And he does business the old fashioned way, and likes to seal the deal with a cup of jasmine tea.

Whilst my shade was being made up I had second thoughts.  And I was still not 100% sold on my blue and yellow idea when I came across this Miu Miu ad in the September US Vogue.   Apart from the wierd-a-rama green and purple eye makeup \ no eyebrows look and completely impractical breast exposing yellow bow dress, don't these colours look amazing together?

Am I so shallow that I need a fashion ad to justify my colour choices?   No, not at all.  But isn't it funny when you have an idea and see it reflected back at you in some other place?   

It means I am either the Zeitgeist Lady or just very unoriginal. 

Anyway, this is the new lampshade:

And here is a poor quality image with the old 1950s shade on the left.   Am still pretty unthrilled with elements of this room mainly the bedside tables.   But that as they say is a work in progress. 

I have never ever decorated with yellow before. I have to admit, it makes me happy.  

Tweet

Friday Pretty

I bought the August \ September copy of Vogue Living yesterday.

Of course whilst I am not buying any magazines for a year, I make an exception for this one because I post it to Raina in Colorado.   So it is not really for me.    Incidentally, I had a real magazine buying urge on the weekend and I sated it by looking at the Vanity Fair website.   Easy.    

I don't know what has happened to Vogue Living but it is much improved.  Well I do know actually, they have relaunched it and have a relatively new editor.   It is thicker (over 1 centimetre - wow!) and mercifully not nearly as Sydneycentric as it has been in the past.

(Did you know my husband invented the term 'Sydneycentric'? Every time we hear it in the media or in conversation he says to me 'I invented that term 20 years ago.  And I get no credit for it at all'.  But I digress).

This Vogue Living has a feature on John Derian's two homes, and a special on Istanbul, including the home of a Turkish designer called Zeynep Fadillioglu.  This is a  bedroom in her house:

And then the south of France 'bolthole' of Jaqueline Morabito:

This bathroom..... I love the way the bath and basin are part of the walls and floor.

If I could have my way in my house all our walls would be rough plastered.  (Apologies for bluish pics, having tech problems today).

Even the entrance stairwell has the patina of age.

Happy weekend to you all.  Spring is coming to Melbourne and the sun is out and I have lots of little projects to do around the house this weekend.


And thanks for your thoughts and nice comments about my son's night terrors.  I have turned the heating off in his bedroom and it is making a huge difference.  He is cold, but happy.

Tweet

Winter in Melbourne - Bedrooms for Hibernation

This morning I got up at 5.30 am to do some running skipping jumping boxing and lunging in Fawkner Park.

It was 6 degrees and pitch black.   It takes a reasonable amount of willpower to drag one's body from a toasty warm bed in those circumstances, but I thought, as I usually do,  about early death, my obligation to live a long healthy life for my family, the need for toned thighs, better and clear skin, and how good I feel afterwards and I got through it.

For winter, I think a cave like bedroom is in order.    

Black used to be forbidden in the bedroom but no more.  In fact one could almost be forgiven for thinking that black bedrooms have taken over the world.  It is a pity black requires such a commitment, otherwise I could paint my bedroom black for winter, then white for summer.  

Black can be girly and feminine: 

Or masculine, simple and inexpensive.  These kinds of rooms bring back memories of degenerate university boyfriends.  Didn't they always have black bedrooms?
 

This is in a Parisian apartment:

In this London house by Neu Architects: 

I love this mid century style bedroom (this is for you Brismod):

And in Jules's home  - how amazing is this bedroom?

It could have gone so horribly wrong but instead it is superb.  Can I spend the winter here?  (Check out her blog by the way, I love it).

Here is another bedroom with pattern on the bed:

This is Jenna Lyons' bedroom featured in Domino and then on blogs globally, which has dark walls and floorboards: 

and here is another which is head to toe black:

Whilst this one uses parquetry to lighten the vampire lair feel.

And this one, a mirror:

Have you noticed that most of these rooms have lots of white highlights - in the linen, or side tables, or windows?    That is because too much black and we would indeed be chanelling Twilight.

Another common feature is to just paint one wall black.  Am not a fan of feature walls but I think it works in a bedroom in the area behind the bed. 

Or this approach in a Swedish hotel, which uses slatted boards on one wall:

And this one, just a circular panel:

But beware: go too far and you may turn into a character from Scarface and end up with a bedroom like this.  If you get to this point, you have taken the look way too seriously.   Or you are a gangster.  If the latter, sorry I offended you. 

(By the way I have had to introduce comment moderation as I was getting so much spam mainly from Taiwan.... How does spam get around the word id thing? I don't get it.)



(1) via Urbanstylevibes (2) Little Woodstock on Flickr  (3) Elizabeth 85 on Flickr (4) Domino (5) Apartment Therapy (6) Luis Mechiche via Remodelista (7) Living Etc (8) Flickr (9) The Diversion Project (10)(14) Lonny (11) Domino (12) Candian House and Home (13) Apartment Therapy  (14) Luis Alberquerque (15) Design Sponge (16) via Remodelista  (17) Ilse Crawford (18) modresdes 

Tweet