My Treasured Terrarium

Pondering on my post MY BENEFICIAL PEACE LILY I thought it would be a great idea to introduce some other indoor plant ideas into the home.  Enter the idea to DIY a terrarium.  It has been something I've been wanting to try for a while and when Jayden woke up one morning and said "lets do it", I thought why not.

Off we went to the local k-mart and $2 store to pick up a couple of glass vases, to showcase them in.  A few miniature cacti from bunnings and some succulents from my garden, some stones (both new and those that I bought back from Wanaka), soil, dried moss and some small pieces of drift wood from Wanaka which I blogged all about in DIY DRIFT WOOD.  We were all set to go.

This is mine that I completed.

I started with my stones from lake wanaka to ensure my plants don't have wet roots.  I followed with a layer of dried moss, succulent mix, then my plants.  Finally I finished with a few pieces of drift wood.

Jayden's finished product

Jayden enjoyed making them so much, she made one to sit on our dining table using my trifle bowl & a small one using an old jar

3 of them now sit on Jayden's drawer in her room

I have to say that both Jayden and I were pretty happy with our work that day and they look absolutely fabulous in the home.

Happy learning peeps!!

Ducted Heat Transfer Kit

You would think that when you live in a house with three fireplaces, it would be a little excessive, but still lovely and warm.  But not when it's a 100+ year old villa.  Believe it or not, the three fireplaces isn't enough, especially in the winter time.

We've been doing a bit of work around the homestead making sure that we insulate underneath the house, seal all the draughty bits in the rooms as we renovate and even replaced an old wood burner with a new one when it "shat" itself so to speak last year.  I blogged about this in REVAMPED FIREPLACE.

The new wood burner we installed was awesome last winter and it's fair to say the back living area was lovely and warm.  The problem we were faced with was that all the heat stayed down the back of the house and it took forever to heat the entire home, even when we used the other original fireplaces. 

During the year we had people from various companies come through the home and give us some great advise about their great products that would be far more superior to any other product on the  market transferring heat from one part of the home to everywhere else .. bla, bla, bla, bla .. leaving your home warm and dry ... all for a cool price of anything between $3,000 to $6,000 and without any additional steak knife offers.

Surely there had to be something else out there for a fraction of the price?  All we really wanted was to take the heat from where the wood burner was and transfer it to the other rooms. 

Bunnings offered a heat transfer kit for 2 or 3 rooms for a couple of hundred dollars, but we needed it for at least 4 rooms.  Nothing at Bunnings or Mitre 10 was on offer. 

Enter a trustworthy and helpful electrical supplier who was willing to go out and have a look at what he could find for us.  Viola, he found one, so a couple of weekends back my husband decided to put it in when the weather was cool and raining - with my assistance of course.

Installation was pretty easy and stressless and I had a chance to get into our roof and see just how much space there is up there (enter some fabulous attic ideas).  Now our 3.5 metre stud home is lovely, warm and dry and although we didn't get any steak knives with our purchase I can assure you it did cost a fraction of what we were originally offered.

Happy living peeps

My Beneficial Peace Lily

I've never really been a person who keeps indoor plants, but decided I needed to look at adding some to the indoor decor.  I immediately jumped straight on  the internet to see whether there were more beneficial indoor plants than others.   I mean, if I'm going to enter into the life of indoor plants, then I might as well have ones that actually do something for our wellbeing.

I was pretty amazed with what I found and finally decided on a Peace Lily. Not only does it purify the air from toxins such as trichloroethylene, xylene, toluene and ammonia, which are commonly found in our environment such as building materials to nail polish to cleaning products. The peace lily also helps clean the air of acetone which is a chemical released by electronics.  

My peace lily sits in my lounge and I think it looks wonderful.

Some will say I might have taken the indoor plant research and little too far, but in this day and age, I'm happy to try anything that's going to help us.

Happy living peeps!!

The Lounge - Before

We've been at the Ponderosa for nearly 3 years now and it's time to renovate our lounge room. 

The room itself is bright and relaxing and has lovely views of the northern & western side of the Ponderosa, but the finishings of the previous owners wasn't the best and it needed some personal influence that suits me and my whanau.

In saying this, the renovation won't be too big, just a simple cosmetic change.

 



I think that the lounge itself looks great in the photo's but I believe it will look even better once we have finished the cosmestic changes in this renovation so watch this space.

Happy living people!

 

 

Turn Old Bottles Into New - Upcycled

I am getting into up cycling at the moment.  Well if I'm to be honest with myself, I have been into up cycling for a while.  It's just a matter of getting it done.  Enter a renovation project that required a quick and inexpensive decor fix.

I'm searching around my home to find bits and pieces I could use and stumble across the bottles I up cycled back in my blog TURN OLD BOTTLES INTO NEW.  In that blog, I used white and coloured the inside, but the bottles lacked personality.  

This time I decided I needed colour to make a statement.  I dug out the test pot of Curious Cove that I purchased from Bunnings and used on my outside pots.  I blogged about this colour in JUST ADD POTTED COLOUR.  Its a dulux colour which is just lovely!!  I painted the outside of the bottles and for added personality I gave them a slight shabby chic look.  PLUS because these bottles are for staging a home, I added some awesome artificial roses.  The difference was quite astounding.

Original up cycled Bottles

Up cycled version of the same bottles

Bottles displayed in the bedroom

I love the final result and they really do look lovely displayed in the room.  So if you are stuck for ideas for a quick and cheap fix for colour to add to your decor or for a special party, try painting some old bottles, jars or cans.  You won't be disappointed.

Happy living people

Revamped Fireplace

When you purchase a 100 year old villa in New Zealand, you do it because you like the character of that style of home.  Their high ceilings, enormous hallways, large rooms, structural detailing, fireplaces, native timber  .... the list goes on.   You definitely don't do it because of the warmth .. (of the heating kind).

The homestead on the Ponderosa still has it's two original open fireplaces, however previous owners had replaced the old coal range (gggrrrrr!!!!) with a wood burner which had seen better days.

During the first winter we got to experience how the fires worked in conjunction with each other and although I like an open fire, they really aren't as effective for a 3.5 metre stud house.  The result was we spent most of our winter living down by the wood burner.  The ceilings in that space are slightly lower and the fire was more efficient in heating the space .. along with us. 

During the second winter we were more prepared with firewood and got to understand the timing of lighting the wood burner and the open fire in the lounge so that by nightfall the house was comfortable.  By the end of that winter, devastation happened.  Our poor wood burner "shat" itself so to speak which meant a replacement needed to be made and an opportunity to give the "fireplace" a new lease of life.

Out with the old wood burner, tiles and mantle and in with the new .. finished off with a nice couple of coats of paint.

Ole faithful with her lovely terracotta tiles and wooden surround

The new fireplace with a revamped surround and new tiles

The first fire for 2014

You may be horrified to see that the surround has been painted and that the terracotta tiles have been replaced with black painted, fire resistant lining, but after two years of pondering over the homestead on the Ponderosa, I decided that I had to let the wood look go if I was to achieve the result I wanted. 

I envisaged a black wood burner to blend into a black backdrop so there was more emphasis on the flames themselves when the fire was lit.  The fresh, crisp, white surround was simply to match the rest of the room once it has been completed.  A clear white canvas to compliment the rest of the decor that will be in that space.  The cork floor will be replaced with light ceramic tiles that have a wooden floorboard effect. 

Well that's what I saw in my head and the biggest task was convincing my husband of my vision.  He will be the first person to admit that he couldn't see it and wasn't a fan of painting over the wood, but after seeing the finished product he was more than impressed - as was I.

There is an even bigger plan for the actual space this fireplace lives in, as it entails an extension that will push the entire eastern wall 5 metres to create an open plan living, dining and kitchen area with a deck overlooking the paddocks of the Ponderosa.  The fireplace will remain as is of course, but that extension isn't the priority yet.  The lounge room is :-)

Have a great day people!!