Thanks for everyone who came and check out the blog even though it hasn’t been updated for a long time.

Something else has been capturing our attention … J and I are expecting our first baby!  The bub is due late January 2009.   I was preoccupied with “anytime sickness” (morning sickness is a BIG misnomer), and unfortunately I have been suffering from a cold once or twice as well.  The good news is that all is well with the baby

Well, I guess you’re looking for an update about our place as well.

The buffet that we ordered a while ago arrived just before my overseas trip.  Here’s the design sketch to refresh your memory.

Have to admit - I cleaned up the junk that usually sit on top of the buffet before taking the photo.  The only “permanent features” on the buffet should be a portable phone and our letter storer, but other things managed to make their way on top and it takes a while to clean them up.

There are 6 drawers and 2 shelves.  One of the drawers is used to store keys, walllets etc, so we have less chance of misplacing them (that being said we still don’t know where the spare keys are!).  The other drawers are used for CD and DVD storage.  The shelves in the middle are great for storing things that don’t fit anywhere else.

And this is what it looks like as part of the dining room.

When it was delivered, I was a bit disappointed that the orange fabric print on the buffet is not in the same shade as the wall, but on second thought, that will be too “matchy-matchy”.

We’re very happy with it.  What do you think?

We still plan to put a mirror on top of the buffet - will get around to it one day …

Just to let you know that this blog will be on a hiatus whilst I travel overseas for work in the next month.  I’ll be back in July so please check back in then!

After blogging about things that we don’t have, it’s nice to write a post about things we own

Thanks to our generous friends, we’re now proud owners of these homewares and plants.

Free trade salad fork and spoon

Crabtree and Evelyn Winter Birch crystals and burner

Guess what’s in this box?

OK OK it is printed on the box …

It’ll be great for an outdoor picnic!

Maxwell and Williams spice rack

Pretty handy, don’t you think?

And now for the plants.

Lilies

I can’t wait until it flowers!

Cacti

I think this is beautiful - love it.

Thanks again to everyone for your lovely gifts!

There was a post in my favourite forum (most of you know what that is) asking whether there is a more accessible version of the Eva Solo smiley bowl - no one knows of any yet, but it reminded me to blog more about my homeware lemmings.

For some strange reason I’m interested in fruit bowls, even though we already have one. These two are from different designers but they’re in the same vein.

Zack Stiletto fruit bowl

PO: Quadrat Table Fruit Bowl

And these easel-like trays are really stylish!

Majamoo Tray

We’re going to store our CDs and DVDs in the buffet we ordered (which should arrive in the next week, yay!), but these CD holders are excellent options.

PO: Snake CD holder

PO: Groove CD holder

This looks good even without the CDs.

I really like this Mondrian-inspired vase.

PO: Mondri Vase

I think I may just buy this.

n.o.l shake light

This is another great energy efficient lighting idea.

Description from their website:

It lights [up to] 5 minutes after being shaken for 30 seconds, and fades out slowly.
With [electricity] generating equipment built-in, there is no need to replace the batteries.
It provides both gentle light which is like one of those candles, and safety.
Please enjoy the last moment of a day before you fall asleep.

black+blum turn me on

Last but not least, I’d love these lamps for our bedside tables, but they’re only available overseas

Do you have any homeware lemmings to share with this blog’s readers?

I know, it’s been 2 weeks since the last post … realistically I think 1 post a week is as much as I can manage now.  Promise I’ll try my best.

We had our first housewarming party yesterday and it was a lot of fun.  Thanks to everyone for coming and for your lovely gifts.

For the broader readership, here’s a photo of our dining room with a canvas print of one of our wedding photos. We love the Harbour Bridge and panoramic photos in general (see the header of this blog), and of course it was a special day for both of us.

Our first attempt to hang it up didn’t work, the 3M hook came off because the wall was too tough.  We managed to find a smoother patch on the wall and it worked the second time around.

I may be biased but I think it looks great

P.S. We ordered the print from Bigprints - they were really helpful and we’re very happy with the result.  Thanks Rob!

Wow, has it been a week and a half already? We’re so used to the swivel chair by now, I can’t believe it was delivered only 2 week ago!

Guess there wasn’t much to report on the home front. Until now.

We dropped by top3 by design today and there were so many cool homeware! Most of them came with a pretty price tag but I think I’ll end up caving and buy at least some of them.

Here are a few:

Eva Solo Smiley Bowl

What a great design! You put nuts/lollies at the bottom and shells/wrappers at the top. Love the design but can I justify spending $178 on this?

Bowlboard

Another ingenious design, this time by an Australian. You can check out (and purchase) their designs here.

Carl Mertens balance coffee cups

Beautiful AND clever, the cups tilt on the side as you drink and straighten up when they are refilled. They also keep the drinks warm. I want them!

Eva Solo grater cup

I’m not a big fan of grating but with this tool I’ll complain less

Sun jar

What a great idea - you charge it up during the day by putting it under the sun (there is a solar cell and rechargeable battery) and it lights up at light!

Clocky (the runaway alarm clock)

Perfect for those who snooze once too many - the clock will run away if you don’t wake up after the alarm goes off!

As the title of this post suggests, there are more lemmings to be shared … I will write about them in the course of the week.

OK, hands up if you’re dying from suspense after yesterday’s post.

Yep, no-one as I expected

Without further ado, here’s the winning candidate. It fits our criteria - fun, comfy, and works well with the colour scheme.

I really like the side profile.

The cow patch cushion is a free gift from the store

I thought we could put it next to the blinds (where the box of magazines are in the background) but it’s too cramped there. The chair now divides the living room and the dining room, which is not ideal in my books, but I’m getting used to it.

What do you think?

P.S. If you like funky chairs but don’t have the room for it, check out this site!

I didn’t post last Wednesday because J and I were frantically packing for our Gold Coast trip. The weather wasn’t the best up there but we had a relaxing time, which was the important thing.

So, the long-awaited occasional chair has finally arrived! Before I post photos of the chair, I want to take you through our chair selection journey …

Soon after we purchased our sofa, we decided on buying a stand-alone chair.

I didn’t know about the term “occasional chair” until we started shopping. To this day I don’t know what makes a chair “occasional”. Is it because you sit on it occasionally (rather than all the time)? Or because you only sit on it on special occasions? If so, what are those occasions? I googled an answer at some point, but the reasoning was not convincing and I can’t remember what it was anymore.

Our furniture is fairly conventional in design - we wanted the chair to be in a bold style to contrast the clean lines of the lounge room. So began our hunt for a funky chair.

J and I saw Matt Blatt’s replica designer chairs in a home magazine and thought they were a lot of fun. Here are some of the chairs on offer.

The Egg Chair

The Ball Chair

The Garden Egg Chair - it closes to form an egg!

Eames Lounge Chair

Corona Chair

I went to the showroom one day. Unfortunately none of them were particularly comfortable and the fabric used to line the Ball Chair wasn’t up to standard. It was a shame.

There was also an interesting chair at Jimmy Possum:

Alas, the ~$3500 price tag wasn’t as attractive. Also, the colour of the chair didn’t work with our red feature wall.

So, what did we get? You’ll have to come back for part 2

You may be wondering … did V and J abandon the blog?

I can’t believe it’s been a week since the last update. It was another long week at work (by Friday night I was physically and mentall drained, I spent Saturday sleeping). I guess if we limit this blog to home-related topics, updates from now on will be less frequent because the major work are now done, and we will will take our time with decorations. The question is, will anyone be interested if we post random non-house ramblings?

Back on topic, here are some minor home updates:

• We finally fitted the rest of the square lights (our neighbour wanted his ladder back!);
• One of J’s friends (a carpenter by trade) came over for dinner, he’s investigating how to build my shoe-rack-to-be;
• In the meantime I put all my existing shoe boxes into J’s wardrobe (not sure if he’s happy about that);
• J fixed up the bookcase so we can start emptying the boxes in the study.

A little while ago, J played around decoration ideas in the study, and came up with this mock-up.

The idea is to stick photos on a large white canvas and hang it on the green wall.

You’ll notice the photo on the right is the same picture as the banner at the top of this blog. We really like the picture and we think the gold works well with the green wall.

The next post should be on Wednesday because we should receive our red occasional chair

No words required really…