Homeware lemmings part 1

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.

Funky chair hunt part 2

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!

Funky chair hunt part 1

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 😉

We’re still here!

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 😀

F1 on the big screen

No words required really…

Short break – cookbook stand and figurines

Today was a big shopping day for us. First, J bought some 3M hooks so we can hang up our wedding canvas print tomorrow, then we went to Cass Brothers to buy a new toilet seat (the one from the previous owner was a bit worn out, I don’t even want to know how they managed that).

The big purchase today was a set of new speakers, to complement our new-ish AV receiver and HD set-top box/PVR. They look pretty cool but it’s really J’s domain, so I’ll let him blog about it in his own time.

As the title suggests, this post is about a cookbook stand. I’m pretty happy with this one because it protects the cookbook from oil splashes and other accidential spillage.

Also, we took the figurines from our wedding out of the freezer (don’t ask why it was in there in the first place). We thought they were going to melt but they were OK. Now we need to figure out what to do with them.

“Hidden treasure”

It’s hard to believe that it is only Wednesday, I’m completely knackered after:

(1) Working 12+ hours in the last 2 days (thankfully I could leave work at a civilised hour today)

(2) Poor quality of sleep (had a long and strange dream about House the TV show…)

(3) Personal training session today

I’m SOOO ready for bed but I have to read an annual report tonight! Yikes 😕 Thought I’ll write up a post tonight before I delve into it.

This discovery was actually made when we were packing up for the move. J has some old pots and pans and whilst they function properly, some of the handles have fallen off and we were going to throw them out. Then I came across this booklet.

This is the first paragraph of this very interesting booklet:

The book is written for you who have the responsibility of keeping your families healthy and strong. Good cooking promotes good health. It is our sincere desire to make good cooking one of your most pleasant tasks. Rena-Ware dedicates this book to you, our client.

It proceeds with a bunch of recipes (Yorkshire pudding, corned beef, oyster stew??? … people’s diet have changed a bit since this book was published), and tips on how to use the cookware featuring “Mrs Spatterpot”.

Here are a few more pictures of the booklet.

I think we have most if not all of the parts!

All recipes in this book have been prepared in Rena Ware’s Home Economics Department.

J searched the internet on Renaware and they’re still around. The styles haven’t changed much, and there is a lifetime guarantee on handles. We ended up keeping them all, and once day we’ll get around to replacing the broken handles!

Our Earth Hour

Yesterday (29 March 2008) was Earth Hour, it was fantastic for so many countries to participate this year. You can check out photos around the world here.

J and I spent Earth Hour enjoying a candlelight dinner, using our new placemats and candle holder. The meal was pretty good too!

The cushion covers have arrived!

First of all, I know I haven’t been posting as frequently as I used to. I guess there are not as many new things to talk about. Also, I’ve been working 12-hour days last week so I wasn’t up to writing blog entries by the time I got home.

Earlier this week, we ordered the buffet from the same furntiure store that made the dining table. It should arrive in another 4 – 6 weeks.

Also, the cushion covers that we ordered from estaki were delivered yesterday. We took no time in using them (in fact, I’m leaning on one cushion and the laptop is sitting on another as I type). They are fantastic and we’re really happy with them.

Have a look for yourself!

The last cushion is for the study, but the room is still too messy for photos.

Thank you so much estaki! You have done such a great job and we are very grateful 😀

And here’s a photo of the magazine rack we bought from Ozdesign, the very same one that liddylu have in her photoshopped pictures of the living room. It’s sitting in the same spot too!

Last but not least, we ordered a canvas print of a photo from our wedding (lovely gift from my brother, thanks B!). It’s at Mr Curious’ office right now and we’ll pick it up tomorrow.

Things are slowly coming together. We just have to start on unpacking the boxes in the study …

A little DIY

I hope you had a wonderful Easter break.

J and I took it easy this long weekend – we visited family and friends, and finished the LOTR trilogy on DVD (using our “mini cinema” of course!).

We got around to some housework today, I folded what felt like mountains of clothes, and J had fun with a little DIY.

The previous owner had timber blinds in all rooms except the study and the spare room, where they had holland blinds + chiffon curtains. Regular readers of this blog would know that is NOT our style. To refresh your memory, this was what they had.

The curtains were removed during the paint job but the holland blinds were still there when we moved in.

We were planning to buy dark-coloured timber blinds to match the ones in the other rooms, but ended up buying white timber blinds. J thought it was a better idea as both rooms have a light colour scheme.

After a lot of sweat and a cut on the finger, the new blinds are up.

I’d love to post more photos of the study. Unfortunately it is still in a mess. I hope we will get around to tidying that up soon.

J is actually thinking about replacing the timber blinds in the living room and master bedroom with white ones. What do you think?

P.S. J also bought an AV receiver and HD PVR during the weekend and is hooking them all up at the moment. Maybe he’ll write another blokey post soon.