Playroom progress: Real Life edition

Let's just start with how the office looked when we moved in:

[Yellow glare and all...]
Which is basically the way it has looked the whole time we've been living in this house:
[Better lighting, nothing much different]
Until we realised one day that we never, ever used the desk, and it was literally just a storage room for keeping paper files and books. We went on a purging spree (which FYI we do all the time, but we always seem to have way too much stuff and it drives me nuts! Also, our house seems to be always cluttered and messy inspite of us both being clutterophobes. :( )... and on our purging spree we managed to clear out enough stuff that we didn't even need our filing cabinet anymore. So we sold it for a whopping $40 on Trademe, and the desk, and moved the bookcase into the lounge.

Then I quickly painted the room to a less orangey-bisque shade of neutral, by mixing together some cans of paint we had lying around which were Resene Alabaster (almost pure white) and Resene Parchment. So it's now quite close to 'Quarter Parchment'.

It was one of those spur of the moment jobs while I had the energy, and if I had been willing to buy new paint I probably would have gone with a slightly deeper neutral that had some grey tones. I think that would look beautiful with the old wooden dresser in there, and crisp white curtains would look amazing too. But as it happens, this room gets a severely yellow glow inside from the grass/dirt outside, that affects the whole hue inside the room and makes it look more yellowy than it is. Crisp white + yellowish neutrals aren't really the best combo so I'm now stumped as to what colour curtains we'll do in here. But seeing as curtains cost a RIDICULOUS FORTUNE around here we probably won't be getting any anyway. Ever.
And does it really matter when a) I don't know how long we'll be living here and b) I'd probably make the wrong decision anyway and never be satisfied and I can't make decor decisions for myself to save my life and c) my head hurts and I'm just tired of trying to make an old brown 70's house with green carpet look fabulous enough to blog about.


So I did what anyone would do and plonked down a rug that was sitting in the bottom of our linen cupboard and slightly tones down the carpet, but not enough. And then plonked down the play kitchen I made for my daughter's Christmas present which I nearly tore my hair out over as the curtain doesn't look how I wanted it to look... and either the coral or the bright mustard colour is clashing with something. Is it the green tones in the mustard that clash with the beige undertones of the walls? Because I'm picking up those vibes... not that I have colour OCD or anything.

On this wall, we have the piece de resistance that I call "Mummy hung the little blackboards too early and can't be bothered moving them, but lucky they double as apron hooks"... together with "old dresser drawers that I purchased 10 years ago and stripped 10 layers of paint and sticker off of, and have now cluttered up with things that I don't know what to do with" ....... oh and in the far right, can you spot my daughter's artwork on the wall? I mean actually on the wall, in brown crayon. Fresh this morning.

Cosy, completely undesignery, knobless.
Just 4 words that sum up how I feel about this view.

Did I say knobless?

... I meant knobless.

Mummy's attempt at stringing fairy lights up with little stuffed felt clouds and childish artworks on a rustic twine ... hanging system. I can feel the ambiance.
[Oh the precision]

 My husband has a hidden talent for art:
['Self Portrait' by daddy MacLeod]

I'm not mocking this room (kinda) because actually I like it. It feels fresh and bright and fun, and so much less depressing than the office was.  Even if most of it is haphazard and thrown together, and keeps me awake at night dreaming of new carpet, the truth is it's a lovely room. It's where I read for hours on the cushions with my wee girl (who is terribly, delightfully adorable these days) and it's where she instructs me to sit so she can bring me 'cockee and bikkits' (coffee and biscuits, fyi) which she pre-dunks for me. She knows how I like coffee, I guess?!

And also, maybe I'm kind of saving all my gorgeous and expensive design ideas for a 'dream home' one day. And obviously, that concept is pretty vague and not guaranteed to happen, but I'm (trying to be) content at the moment with this old 70's place and it's weird orangey spiced christmas cake smell that leeches out of the ceiling or something because I swear I've cleaned every nook of every cupboard and I still get greeted with eau de orange peel whenever it's warm and the house has been closed up for more than a day. Not that I have smell OCD or anything.

Oh and!!
Best part is, I actually painted the wardrobe doors.
It may have taken no less than a dozen coats (or 13?) to cover the shiny orange fake wood but we got there, and it's the first time in 2 years that there has been anything about this house that feels faintly modern.
I wish I had the energy and set-up to paint every door in our house, but that would involve more decisions (because most of our house is currently still an orangey-tinted bisque colour that looks bad with pure white doors... and I really really don't want to have to choose paint colours for our whole house when everything might change e.g. floor colours etc).... so maybe we'll just stick to doing a few of the wardrobes for now.




Could I possibly ramble my way through a blog post any more?

When this room gets changed again (dresser knobs, curtains, etc) I'll update again. It might become Ella's big girl room at some point and that will make it fun to decorate :)





Ways that life has been awesome (aka the last few months)

Ready for lots of pictures?

I never did a blog post about Christmas or any of that, but we we had a goody and kept things simple with gifts by making everything ourselves. And by ourselves, I mean myself. And by simple, I mean incredibly time-consuming and complicated. ;)
But I love it!
Ella's play kitchen could be more finished - I never got the new handles to put on and it could use a new tap... but overall it was a good makeover considering where it started:

Then we went to Aspen, Colorado and Jackson Hole Wyoming on a luxury ski trip, as you do. 'As you do' when your husband happens to work for a company that go overboard with their incentives and spoil everyone rotten that is. I'm so grateful for that time away even tho I missed my little poppet and even tho I barely ski and don't particularly enjoy the cold especially whilst missing out on our long-awaited Summer in New Zealand. Is it sad that the highlight for me was the hotels? I LOVE hotels and I loved the cosy winter style at the St Regis.
Looks very brown in this pic... but there was a giant marble bath tub opening onto the bedroom that could see out onto snowy mountains outside so I was happy.
Very professional selfies..
I tried to tell him to look down and pretend to sweep his hair out of his eyes 'like a blogger' but he wouldn't have it.
America is the only place in the world where we drink filter coffee and we like it. Maybe because the milk over there is not fresh (it's reconstituted from powder I'm pretty sure) but lattes and flat whites don't taste quite the same as in our lovely coffee-snob home of Wellington! But hey, if I'm being served refills by a waiter then I'm not complaining. Although I'm not sure how I feel about tipping... (actually I am sure, and that's that I hate it and I'm so glad we don't do that in NZ. Don't ever do it here. Don't let's ever do it!) 

So much white...
 
...and sparkles...

  

... and forests that are filled with only one type of tree as far as you can see.
  

Loved it.

Loved coming home to my valentine even more.
[JK, her dad bought me those. I was SO surprised because, well, it's not totally normal here]
 ...and her sweet little cutie pie bedroom.


[That needs to have the carpet and wardrobe doors cropped out to be remotely pretty]
 And then I was like, well, I don't think I made enough things before Christmas during all those days/weeks of making things without stopping to eat. Maybe I should make more things?

So I did.

[Don't have proper necklace string. May never have it. Been there done it what's next?]
And then I got mad at our 'office' that has always just been a stockpiling room for mountains of junk and so I biffed all the furniture out the back door (literally, as you can see) and painted the room a kind of off-white that was slightly more agreeable than the last off-white that was in there. Only slightly, because I had to use up what was in the paint buckets in our garage so mixed a few cans together. #poorpeopleproblems
JK, we aren't poor. Normal people do that. I'm pretty sure. Not bloggers - I mean real normal people like us who can't master the "sweep back fake hair" photos for anything. I dream of being a real blogger. You know, wearing stunning outfits that coordinate with the epic street art that I'm getting my "authentic street style that took 4 hours of prep" photo taken in front of whilst my modelesque children look sulky and beautiful beside me. You know? No? Whatevs. No real bloggers here. Just a mama who feels really proud for putting on clothes today - unfit for human eyes or not.


[Progress 1]

[Progress 2]
 Oh did I mention I turned it into a playroom? Actually it's been awesome for keeping Ella entertained for a few minutes longer than when contained to one area of the house.

 Now my little pumpkin pie is getting real mad at me for not getting her out of her cot after her nap so I must run... will edit later... or not