There's a sea elephant in my kitchen

Dulux sea elephant that is. Our new splash back colour. Thank you Lauren (from Carlisle) for allowing us this final, and very last minute, change.

So here's a pic of our kitchen...

And here's our revised selections...

EDIT: As my fellow house tragics correctly pointed out, the image I posted was NOT of Osprey.  Hope I've got the right one now!  And I've added our floor selection.

From the display pic, where the darker laminate is, we're having Wenge.  White where it's white.  Sea Elephant on the splash back, which blends perfectly with the window and sliding door frames.  Adios oriental spice!!!

So that's it - no more changes - they're too expensive.  This change (and the increased door height to the theatre) cost us a $500 variation fee.  Exy I know, but better than having an orange splash back -apologies to anyone who DOES have an orange splash back ;)

Stacked stone - hot or wot?

We found a house on the weekend with pretty much the same colour scheme as we've planned - beige royal/surfmist, jasper and stacked stone in delhi bronze. But now I'm freaking out...
Is stacked stone still "in", or will people point and laugh at the funny lady's rock house?

I'll put a poll up on the sidebar so you can vote in private if you don't want to hurt our feelings. But we've got pretty thick skin, so feel free to comment too :)

Love is blind

I got the cutest little package in the mail today from Blinds Online with some fabric samples I had ordered.

Expecting to just get a few hastily & haphazardly cut bite sized pieces of cloth thrown in an envelope, I was really impressed with their presentation.

 

Which also came with little cards that take you through their 4 step process

As well as handy hints on the back to make sure you get what you actually want...

And then, nestled in their little envelope, came the moment of truth...

Sounds easy!  And the best bit - they're made locally in Narre Warren :)

De-kor-8-shun

These are my last 2 mood boards - I promise (Reinsey reserves the right to change her mind and create more and more mindless collages featuring borrowed images of house porn)

How many sleeps until our slab pour you ask?
Seventeen (17)

Oh blimey I'm getting excited about living in this brown, white and orange house of ours!!!

Pillow talk...

I've been doing a little pillow analysis of display homes and builder websites to find some ideas to dress the beds in readiness for the string of "open for inspections" we're about to undergo.

Of course, coz it's me, I've categorised them...

I might have to start working an afternoon shift coz it's going to take me all morning to pile these babies up.

And just thought I'd mention that our slab is being poured in 18 sleeps (in case you'd lost count).

What would the "karma fairy" think?

True to their word, today Carlisle delivered us final plans and a final version of our colour selections to sign off prior to construction.  But... I noticed a little something that shouldn't still be in the colour selections as we had to remove it (over-spend) from the tender.  I'm talking about my beautiful soft close pot drawers that were deleted begrudgingly, and now here they are, appearing on that selection.

So... to make sure I stay sweet with the "karma fairy" do I bring this up now, or sign and forever enjoy FREE soft closing drawers???

What would you do??

What's your colour?

I love a good online quiz, and today I've dragged up the definitive solution to home building colour choices that will put interior designers everywhere into an obsolescent panic...  click here to take the test


This is me (apparently)

Yellow is the colour of sunshine and energy. You are always on the go and love to meet many people. People love your enthusiasm and optimism. You like bright places and prefer to have an open and informal home environment.

 Putting this one in the dubious category, I searched on and found this little test, which is actually quite good with a whole palette to work with.

This time I'm "sun kissed" and I'm happy to see some shades of orange in there so I'll stop searching for silly quizzes now :)

Courtesy call from Carlisle

Our lovely colour consultant gave us a quick call today to make sure there's nothing else we want changed or want to discuss prior to our contract meeting on Thursday.

Totally unexpected and totally appreciated.  It gave us the chance to discuss the roof / window / garage door dillema of yesterday and now we feel fully settled on what was basically our original choice anyway.

So now having locked all of that away, it was time to give the blog a good spring clean and freshen up today!  Gotta find something to do to fill in all of this waiting...waiting...waiting!!

Cold feet with our colours

Please please please help us pick the finished look of our facade?
We know the colours we like, but there's so many different combinations;
(images from StudioM so it's not our exact facade but you get the idea!)

Mocha Choc roof
Jasper windows
Jasper garage door

 Mocha Choc roof
White windows
Jasper garage door

Mocha Choc roof
Jasper windows
Surfmist garage door

Mocha Choc roof
White windows
Surfmist garage door

Barramundi roof
Jasper windows
Jasper garage door

Barramundi roof
White windows
Jasper garage door

Barramundi roof
Jasper windows
Surfmist garage door

Barramundi roof
White windows
Surfmist garage door



So there you have it.  2 roof tiles, 2 windows and 2 garage doors gives 8 possibilities.  Please let us know what you think.

The colour scheme

After a really quick attempt on photoshop I've come up with this...

Monier traditional "Barramundi" roof tiles, Jasper render over garage with a Surfmist garage door.  Dulux "Orange Wood" render on the portico.  Jasper front door and windows.  Surfmist gutetrs and fascia + main render.  "Delhi Bronze" stacked stone to the front projection.

We've chosen the surfmist render to make the stacked stone feature POP rather than blend.  This is all $$ dependant of course.  If the stacked stone is too exxey, we may render the projection in orange wood, replace the surfmist render with jasper, the front door to surfmist and the windows to white.

Here's our kitchen colours...

Cupboards on island bench = Wenge.
Benchtops including waterfall edge to island = Osprey.
All overhead cupboards & far wall cupboards = white, including perspex feature overhead.
Splashback= Orange Wood
Walls = Lexicon 1/2
Floor = brushbox laminate boards



And bathrooms in varying themes of...

Powder room with bench in Espresso with the feature tile framing the mirror.
Bathroom with a Wenge cabinet, white tiles to all walls including the bath hob with one shower wall in the feature tile.
Ensuite with the benchtop in Espresso, cabinet in white, shower walls white, a feature strip behind the taps on the shower and continued as the splashback through to the spa.
The floor tiles for all wet areas is a dark chocolate (the image of it is yuk!) which wil be taken up the bath hob, so that room should look really lush.  Hopefully the dark colours won't dominate.  It does have a huge north facing window and the walls will be Dulux Lexicon 1/2 which is almost pure white.

We'll bring the orange through to this rooms with towels and accessories too.  Subtely though!!

Colours, colours, colours

Yep, you guessed it.  We're off to pick our third lot of colours on Thursday, but this time it's Carlisle style!

We've decided to go with one of the "freebie" facades and jazz it up a bit.  









And colour-wise we're thinking charcoal roof tiles (Monier Barramundi, traditional profile),  Austral "ash" bricks, stacked stone to the front projection in those nice warm rust tonings (I think it's called Delhi Bronze), Jasper windows and garage door, a burnt orange render or rust effect cladding on the portico and possibly a stained timber pivot door.  Gutters in "ironstone" to match the roof.  Fascia in Sufmist, mostly to give definition above portico and projection.  Downpipes either Jasper or Surfmist.

The big question... to render or not to render?  Although the bricks are light (with white and rust coloured flecks which you can't see on the image), would a solid, light colour provide a nice contrast against the stronger autumn tonings?

How can it be so difficult to combine two people's tastes into something that won't make people point and laugh (or gag) when they walk past???

One thing I do know for sure... our colour consultant is in for a pretty torrid day on Thursday.  Maybe I'll fake a sickie (and go to work) leaving Loz to do the selections?  Good plan???