in my studio | category

Mar
27
2013

Shaynna Blaze judged my room and I won!

A few weeks ago (thanks for a friend who mentioned it to me), I entered a competition run by The Interiors Addict blog, “Impress Shaynna and win a course at the International Institute of Home Staging worth $500”. Yes, Shaynna Blaze from The Block on channel 9 is judging, who am I kidding?!

So the nature of competitions are… that there will probably be hundreds or thousands of entries and what would the chances of winning be? But this morning as I scrolled down Facebook on my phone in bed, I saw my photo posted by Interiors Addict! I was shocked. Surprised. Happy – 0f course! I’m very happy to announce that I was chosen as the winner for this amazing competition. As part of this win from Interiors Addict, I am posting this makeover on my blog to show you more photos of my toddler room transformation and how you can achieve amazing results with a minimum budget using recycled materials, found objects with lots of research, passion and determination!

This is a typical 60’s house. Very retro, lots of patterns. It can sometimes be a bit overwhelming to the eye. When I was pregnant with my second, I told myself I needed to finish off the spare room. At the time, it was being used as an ironing room, a computer room, a storage room and what not! So when my morning sickness slowly faded away, I got myself together and started planning for this room. My first borns’ room was a very girlish room. This time I wanted something different. I opted for a unisex look incase I was expecting a boy.

The room is a work of art in itself. All decorations are DIY from salvaged items and recycled materials. From the wall art down to the cushion details & baby mobile, all are handmade! It took me a few months to research, gather and create these beautiful items.

This baby mobile was created with paint chip samples. I have a box of them in the shed so all I had to do was cut probably about 30 of them using a heart template I made. These are then sewn using a needle and a thread, attached onto tree branches that I cut off a tree in our backyard. They are finished with a small bead at the end just to give each string-piece some added weight.

What is a room without cushion? They are ridiculously overpriced in stores, $30-$60! I have made these adorable cushions for only a few dollars!

I have most of the fabrics at home so it was just a matter of buying some felt.

The bottom cushion was made from an old granny jumper! I will put some photos up in another post of how I made this cushion. The table was an old IKEA table that I repainted. The timber tray was bought from a second hand store for $3, again repainted in the same colour as the feature wall. The lamp was bought from Salvos (second hand store) for $10, it even has a chip at the bottom, yes, and I love that it has a chip to show imperfection! Another IKEA product which is the rug, RRP is $49 but I got it for $25 from Gumtree :)

This is a digital artwork that I have created and now am selling in my Etsy store.

The picture below is a breakdown of what in the room is second hand and DIY.

Side view of the room. The bed belonged to my sister in law, 15 years ago. My in laws managed to keep it well in their garage. Its now time for my children to benefit from it!

My hand painted ‘bird silhouette’ oversized canvas.

I am absolutely in love with this no 14 chair! Its an original chair (still has the stamp on it!) Its by Thonet and made in Czechoslovakia! I was pretty lucky to have found this chair after months of searching. The owner didn’t know it was an antique, so she was happy to give it away.

2 lovely comments
Category: architecture/interior, baby, bedroom, before + after, décor, do-it-yourself, house 101, in my home, in my studio, nursery

Feb
19
2013

DIY Wall art for living room nook

When the husband wants something, he just has to say the word and then I’ll take care of the rest. This time he wanted an armchair, for more comfort.

I wasn’t exactly sure where else I could put this extra armchair seeing that our living room isn’t a big room, so I had to compromise some things and move around. The photo below was the old living room decor nook, where the floor lamp is. And this is where the new armchair will go.

So when we put the new armchair there and moved the floor lamp to the opposite nook (gotten rid of the magazine rack), the walls behind the armchair looked rather plain. I decided to DIY some art from the stuff we already had and picked up a couple of things from the junk yard. I got this timber tray for $2.50 each.

Above: Sanded timber tray (before)

Below: During the process of painting

The picture below are the 3 DIY wall art.

1- Exsiting Ikea MALMA mirror that I stencil and painted with a quatrefoil design.

2. Junk yard timber tray turned wall art – digital design print.

3. Junk yard timber tray turned wall art – hand painted.

For the quatrefoil mirror, I cut out a stencil and traced it all around the mirror with a pencil.

Then using acrylic paint, painted it with love and care.

Here is a close up of the timber trays, they are painted to make it look a bit rustic

As for art #2, Its a digital design art that I made in illustator and printed it out. I’m also selling it in my Etsy store.

The cushion was purchased online from eBay.

3 lovely comments
Category: architecture/interior, before + after, décor, do-it-yourself, house 101, in my home, in my studio, living/lounge

Jun
01
2012

a sneak peak…

Of our grey and mustard DIY bedroom. Is it a nursery, toddler’s room or guest room? Well, thats what I’m trying to figure out myself too! For now, its all of the above. Stay tuned for more pictures. I am waiting for the sun to come up so I can take nice photos…at the moment, its dull and gloomy in wintery Melbourne. Lets hope for some sunshine soon xx

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Category: architecture/interior, baby, bedroom, décor, do-it-yourself, house 101, in my home, in my studio, nursery

Mar
30
2012

living 101

So I finally managed to finish off our living room. I kept changing my mind and the decor along the way but I knew I’ve always wanted a bright, serene room hence no wallpaper or paint was used. The furniture and decor speak for themselves. The reason why I changed it 101 times is because going from a newborn who pretty much doesn’t touch anything to having a super energetic toddler, I had to remove/reposition many decor items. They either were given away, stored in the garage or placed at a higher level. I also had to be careful to not over-do or under-do in terms of decoration. And also because most items are not brand-new-straight-from-the-stores-costing-me-a-bomb, it took me a while to source them. I did quite a bit of research and looked around second hand shops/ebay/gumtree and even managed to scavenge things found on the street. This is me and I am proud of it, I simply love recyclable materials!

Our living room is not the best shaped room for a living/lounge… very rectangular and long, which makes furniture positioning a bit tricky. If you see the before photo, two pieces of bulky furniture were placed in front of each other making the room feel tight and crowded. Of course when you have guests, that’s probably the way to go however this wasn’t our concern. We (the family) spend more time in this house so we had to make it a functional space for us to live in. We wanted the TV right in front of our comfy couch. Yes! That dark brown couch is super comfy. And sorry, I wasn’t able to fit a picture of the TV in the photo, but just imagine it sitting opposite the brown couch. Considering the living room is pretty small, we could fit 7 sitting people without it looking crowded. Woohoo, problem solved!

The old wall gas heater is not fully working and it would cost us an arm and a leg to get it replaced, so we decided to scrap that and position a light beige couch in front of it. More space saving for us! We also installed a split system heating/cooling above the fireplace and are now looking to get underfloor ducted heating throughout the house. Melbourne can get very cold in winter and one heater isn’t going to heat up a whole house!

You can find the post for this hand sewn ‘love’ cushion here. Note: I did not make the cushion cover, it came with one of the couches we bought from Gumtree.

For the mantel piece decor, I made this lovely frame with chalk writing and the post can be found here. Its very easy, just pick up a frame from a second hand store or a timber yard.

I am yet to make a post about this gorgeous timber scrap “Bismillah” art, which translates to ” In the name of Allah” in Arabic. I hope you’ve been thoroughly inspired. Its nothing glamorous, just a simple and functional space as I like to call it.

1 lovely comment
Category: architecture/interior, before + after, décor, house 101, in my home, living/lounge

Nov
21
2011

back entry 101

back of house

Welcome. This is the back entry to our home aka the shoe room. Yes, we go in and out through the back door. Its much easier as this is where we store all our shoes. The front entrance has not been touched yet as we still need to figure out what we want to do with it. We’ll come to that soon…the joys of renovating are never ending!

photo before

This picture was taken just after my husband started ripping out the 40 year old wallpaper (that was glued on the brick masonry wall). Sorry for the poor quality photo, it was taken with an iPhone (of course). I am pretty dissapointed that I didn’t get a photo of the wallpaper while it was still attached. This shoe room/entry reno was a spur of the moment thing. I walked out one day and realised he started ripping it off. No time to get the camera out!

back entrance

A bit of scavenging from the garage and we have ourselves a wooden welcome rustic sign. Now this area has definitely brightened up 10 times more than what it was before.

Catch more glimpses of our home renovation with before and after photos, here.