It's been a really long time since I last wrote here.
Plenty has been happening.
Christmas and St Valentines Day kicked my butt at work, but check out the ah-mazing creations I see on a daily basis:
It's a pretty amazing thing to see such extravagant beauty on a daily basis. It almost takes the edge off those 6am starts!
We moved out of our modern condo-type apartment and into a smaller, 70s block near the beach for cheaper rent to save some moolah...and then in the last fortnight we've moved again into a truly amazing two story apartment in a boutique block in the city fringe suburb of Glebe. This place is an actual dream come true, and a total blank canvas. It's still almost entirely unfurnished - think a lounge, a mattress on some slats...and the TV and that's about it. Stay tuned for some projects and updates as we work on making it a home...mostly on strict budget and with very little free time!
Here's the photos from the original real estate listing:
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| Living space and kitchen. Behind those...interesting...blue blinds is a decent sized balcony. One of the first things we did was rip out those blinds! |
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| The place has two bathrooms. This is the upstairs one, and the downstairs one is the same in miniature. We love the white tiles, don't mind the blueish floor tiles...the sinks and toilets could use an update and I don't much like the woodgrain in the cabinets...but re-doing a bathroom is waaaay out of our budget. And really, they're pretty inoffensive to live with for now |
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| The upstairs bedroom - not our furniture, and the lighting in this photo makes the walls like white...which they were not! |
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| Annnd this is the rooftop. It's unfurnished, but look at those MFing views! That's Sydney's CBD you can see under bright blue skies. On that garden ledge is where we made the decision we wanted it...and emailed the agent on the spot before the inspection had even ended! |
The apartment also has a sort of spare room/study that looks out over the sunken living area, underneath the stairs and the upper bedroom. It was full of ugly built ins and weirdly a left behind ultrasound of someone's ovaries.
So the first thing we've done is remove the dated, damaged blinds from each room, ripped out the ugly orange built in desk and bought a lovely big L-shaped lounge in charcoal grey from Ikea (possibly my favorite place on earth right now - it's a Karlstad corner sofa if you wanted to know. Available at my local ikea here in the colour called Sivik Dark Grey). We then hired a painter to tackle the grimy, damaged off-white walls. As much as I would have loved to paint myself, one of the nicest features of the apartment is amazing soaring ceilings...some of which soared over the twisted staircase and made it pretty impossible for an inexperienced painter like myself. I can't really say it's a shame though, the finish is immaculate and they had it done in two days, ready for us to move in.
Here are some in-progress shots so far. Not much life in it yet, but there's something kind of exciting about such a blank canvas no?
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| The kitchen remains totally unchanged, but every wall has been coating in Dulux Vivid White paint. We had originally picked a British Paint colour called 'Love Note" but the painter we chose didn't use their brand. I took the love note swatch into Bunnings and found the perfect dulux match...I heard bad reviews about Taubmans which is the other brand he said he'd use. Theres message boards everywhere claiming that the bright, cool white they'd chosen looked off white and creamy when they began painting. I would have HATED that. The apartment has so much warm wood in it that is desperately needed a cool white to not look so cottage-y |
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| Hallway, looking from the sunken loungeroom towards the door (to the left of the back wall) and the stairs up to the bedroom (to the right) |
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| No more weird headboard height scratches on the walls! Even the mirrored built ins don't look so bad. |
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| some of our Ikea finds...and a temporary LACK coffee table from the bargain corner until we can decide on what to *actually* put there. |
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| Kittenface's new hiding spot, lowest shelf in the upstairs bathroom cabinet. |
And lastly, I went back to Uni!
I got early acceptance last year and am about to start my second semester. I've stayed working full time thus far (hence the lack of posting) but I'm cutting back (hopefully) on work for the next few months to focus on classes.
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| The sometimes very pretty Mac campus. One of the perks of working all day and going to uni late afternoon is no crowds and very pretty dusk light. |
So that's about it for now!
I'll be keeping you posted as I try to inject some life into this apartment of ours, we've got travel on the cards later this year if all goes well, and I'll be trying out some recipes from Not Eating Out in New York and long time fave Closet Cooking (seriously, Kevin is the king of imaginative grilled cheese sandwiches).
Bye for now!
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