Sooooo pleased and excited with my new floor boards!

Well the saying 'no gain without pain' is true when it comes to my new floors! They are all finished and look amazingly beautiful. Took me a day to get everything back together, but that is all over with now. My duplex is four levels with six stairs up to the second level, then about 12 up to the third and seven up to the forth! It is a fun place to live in and great for work.

Stairs leading up to the lounge

This is the floors taken from the kitchen

The stairs took the most time, as the installers were so meticulous but the finished job was just perfect.

I also changed the mirror - always had the mirror table, but the new mirror is framed with bevelled scrolls, looking very chic at the top of the stairs.



Here are a couple of other views of the room. Of course I had to change things around and did another big clean up! De cluttered more, which always make me feel good. Somethings I got rid of from cupboards, I have never used in over 40 years, so why keep them!!

Close up of mirror and birdcage with light in it. 

This is the view  from the dining room

Trust you are enjoying being a voyeur having a glimpse at the renovations to my house.

I was just talking to Robbie and she is doing up her bedroom and has redone her kitchen last year. So change is in the air - remember change means growth so I hope I can continue to grow. with that in mind, here is my thought for the week:

I am continuing to turn my cant's into cans and my dreams into plans while celebrating my goals!

Mess before Beauty - new timber floors

Well after much time and deliberation, I decided to pull up my carpet in the lounge/dining room area of my house and replace it with timber floors - limed American Oak. OMG I perhaps did not think of the process! Firstly everything had to be removed from my beautiful French cabinet. The treasures have sat on my kitchen bench for a week now, due to the fact the timber was not in stock. Then all the furniture had to be removed (with the exception of the cabinet which was too much trouble to move!

Carpet and underlay all pulled up revealing the concrete suspended slab!

 

The two very thin Chinese lads have worked so hard - so much work. All the 'smooth edge' had to be removed around the edge of the skirting boards. This held the carpet down. Then the insulation underlay and then the boards!

The boards are layered in stepped lengths so the joins are variable.

The lounge area is nearly finished - yahoo, maybe I will make it to the movies tonight after all! The steps are not finished yet, they were the first done and took a lot of time. The boys were very fussy. Once this section of the room is finished, we will move the cabinet back into the room so the dining room can be done. My next post will show the finished floor - am back and forth taking photos. You all know what my week-end will be about - you guessed it getting everything back!

Getting there and starting to look fabulous, just love it!

 

My Fitness Day!!

Well today has been busy, with one thing an another - firstly walk with my Honey, met several 'walking friends' on the way, which is lovely, except when you are on a mission and today is my personal trainer day. So it was rush rush to be at the gym by 10:30 - 'inner peace' was a little evasive!

I am working on my triceps (muscles at the back of the upper arm), which are the hardest to train in woman, but when working well, do prevent the sag and bag one tends to get at the bottom of their arms when getting older, so train these muscles I will!!!

Did my prep workout, triceps, biceps and abs with weights and then relaxation and breathing prior to my work out - which I certainly did. David said I was not concentrating, I said my concentration was on just trying to breath so I did not collapse! Never mind I got through all he dished out for me and am hear to tell about it.

To night is Yoga, although I am tired, I can never miss my two Yoga classes each week. I must be getting better as I can now do poses that were my goals such as the ones below, so that means I must be getting better! I do love Yoga, it always challenges me, Pauline, our teacher, always comes up with a new challenging pose. I do have some poses, my body refuses to accept, but most I can do with some degree of expertise. I can do all the ones below, so that is a start I guess. So I put the challenge out to all my readers, 'If I can do it so can you!' Do it for your mind, body and soul - and if all that fails, then 'do it to keep in an upright position and if you don't use it you loose it'. Let me know what you think!!

Webinars and Decorating

Well I feel I am in recovery mode. Three webinars in three days, but all worth it, just wonderful catching up with everyone and showing them how to make our Black and White Designer Pillows, and Toowoon Bay Morning Glories. Everyone loved our first download directions and designs, with customers being thrilled to get instant access to something they wanted to do yesterday, as we all do.

I have had a few suggestions as to what people want us to do next, however in the meantime, please make sure you view our videos and the last webinar, which we have on our website. They will answer a lot of your questions and suggestions.

I am in a redecorating mood at present!! I have rearranged the family room, and it looks great, so much more room, so just love this!

So next I decided to have a mirror in my bedroom! Did I measure from the top of the Federation bedhead (the bed is over a meter of the ground so the bedhead is another meter higher), not I did not! Mistake No 1, then I did not ask how heavy the mirror was - mistake No 2! Well I found this wonderful mirror, just fell in love with it. Bevelled plain mirror with a mercury mirror frame, size of which is 1.03m x 1.29m. Well it did not fit above the bed, but as I have a vaulted ceiling it looked great on the opposite very high wall, Then I had to get it not only up stairs but on the wall! Well if someone had a camera to take pictures of not only my daughter getting the packaged mirror out of her large four wheel drive, let alone, Laurie and I getting it up two flights of stairs, and then hanging it, you would have had a good laugh. However it was all worth it, and it looks fabulous. Moved 'Cherry Ripe' and original Pears print - 1879 and my roses, I am really thrilled with the end result. What do you think? And by the way the beautiful mirror came from Freedom Furniture!

I then moved the mirror I had above my bed to the top bedroom, and it looks great also! I love mirrors in rooms, as they reflect light and add another dimension to any room, try it you will see!!

Hope you enjoy these ideas, (by the way the photo in the frame on the left of the mirror is my grandson (Simon's son) - he is just so gorgeous! Maybe will inspire you to do a little rearranging.

I was supposed to get my carpet replaced with floor boards, today, but alas not till Friday - second level total disaster area, but the best is yet to come!

What a great week, so much happening!

This week has been very busy!! The week-end was beautiful with an amazing Mother's day with my two children Simon and Sam. Here we are pictured below at the beautiful Bather's Pavilion at Balmoral, a small cove beach on the Sydney Harbour with a view from the restaurant straight at to the heads! Just magic, I had such a lovely time.

On Monday and Tuesday, it is gym days, with work outs, Yoga and my personal trainer. Oh boy did he work me hard on Tuesday, nearly did not go to Yoga that night, but did, and of course felt better for it! I did however, sleep very well!!! I am getting really strong now however and am thrilled with my progress.

On another note, we had to have three webinars this week to accommodate everyone who wanted to join us. We showed how to make the Toowoon Bay Morning Glories quilt, and also the Black and White Designer Pillows, both of which are shown below. For the first time ever we had a download for the directions and designs to make the Black and White Designer Pillows, to see how it went - today it is going amazingly well! The TBMG is a design CD with an eBook with the directions to make the quilt. Sorry if you missed the webinar, but you can view it on our web site.

The 3D poppy pillow, such a great new technique to learn, (one of the two pillows) directions and designs are for two pillows

Close up of the center of the Toowoon Bay Morning Glories quilt, so many fabulous new techniques to learn

'Curly Hair', what do you think?

Just come back from the hair dressers, and as you all know my hair is straight, straight straight! Years ago I used to have my hair permed, as we all did - that was when I had black hair! So today Nat (of Verscarda Hair and Beauty) decided to curl my hair, what do you think, she did it in 5 minutes, mind you, inside an hour, it has gone straight again and she promised I would still have it curled tomorrow.

Never mind it has been fun and I thought I would share it with you. The girl next to me had glorious curly hair and was having it straightened - we are never happy with what we have.

                                                                         

 Am into change at present, am doing some interior decorating changes also, so will share them as I go, but that is another Blog.

Happy Mother's Day to all my beautiful friends, my wish for you all is below, know you all are this with class and style.

My Fabulous Easter

Well the 'greatest plans of mice and men' as usual for me have gone astray! I have been trying to write this blog for over a week now, and because Google has done something to combine accounts or whatever, I could not get into my Blog, but finally we have beat technology so now I get into my Blog!

I had the best time at Easter, up at Toowoon Bay, Simon's two children and mum Kirstin, came down (from Newcastle) and camped next to me - they wanted to camp!! I thought them crazy, but we had a ball! Harvey palled up with a new friend, (born four days after him) and they were inseparable! Such fun, playing up until 8:30 at night, then blissful sleep for 12 hours for Kirstin.

                               Harvey enjoying his traditional 'Hard Rock' chocolate ice cream

Baby Frankie enjoying her first ice cream, of course it was pink!

              
     Kirstin, Harvey and Frankie, have a romp at Toowoon Bay park with Mz Honey looking on.

Easter Sunday we were joined by dad Simon and poppa. Chocolate overload as a result of the Easter Bunny being over generous - talk about sugar high, but it only happens one day a year.

Robbie and I did some 'retail therapy at Erina Fair, and I finished off my redecorating. Below are some pictures so you see how it looks - color scheme is blue for the water and yellow for the sun! The weather was perfect, we could not believe we were on the beach and swimming in the middle of Autumn, but I do love the sun.

Left is the lounge/dining room. Through the beaded curtain (and yes their is a door) is the en suite.

Right is the bedroom. We turned the bed vertically for the photography in 'A Place in the Sun'. Yes I have my eyes on that quilt for my bed in the van.

Left is the veranda which is covered in with clear outdoor
plastic, with yellow and blue.
canvas blinds, the veranda is glorious in the afternoon sun, This is where most of our time is spent (when not at the beach)!

Stepping up to the
kitchen area - you may have noticed I have a Bali theme!





Below is the other end of the kitchen area, which gets the early morning sun.

Right leads into my dressing room.

Now when I talk about Toowoon Bay, or I am going up to the caravan, you will know exactly where I am heading. Enjoy being a voyeur.