Backyard blitz

 Despite the atrocious weather over the weekend, we resolved to start and finish a gardening blitz on our backyard. This time last year I must have considered myself a much better gardener than I really am. Despite being notoriously hard to grow, I thought it a wonderful idea to fill my newly dug bed with some beautiful mature camellia's. Three dead and two very sick plants later I've decided that cottage gardening really isn't my forte, and it's time I turned to the much more realistic genre of native gardening.

Time for a trip back to the nursery, where we chose some beautiful grevillea and diosma plants to resurrect our country garden. The surviving camellia's have made their way into wine barrels and I hope for my dignities sake they don't also join their friends in plant heaven!

Did I mention that even my potted daisies succumbed to my 

dismal gardening skills ? We decided strawberries might  
be a little simpler to keep alive..... at least I hope! 


Another task for the weekend was painting our rather unattractive sunshine yellow shed a nice deep grey to match the roofing of our newly erected patio. Our patio is the pride and joy of my husband, and deserved of a blog post all on its own! 

Our shed with its new lease on life, and our newly planted grevilleas 

 Yes, there are some diosma hiding in there somewhere!

Lastly, with our golden retrievers no longer as agile as they used to be, we decided to paint and lower our side fence. How nice it is to now be able to see beyond our backyard and down to where all the hustle and bustle of our farm takes place. Lets just hope Oscar's legs don't grow long enough for him to scale the fence anytime soon! I have enough trouble keeping an eye on him as it is!



There's such a feeling of satisfaction that comes from finishing a big job. We couldn't possibly have done it all without our little helper though, whose job was to quality control every single sprinkler his dada installed and keep the water up on our newly established plants. Bless his little blue boots!

Hoot hoot

 

I am an owlover. I adore them; their quiet hoot and their big brown eyes.

I came across an adorable blog last night. My Owl Barn features everything an owl lover needs to satisfy their love of feathered friends.

Etsy (of course) is my other treasure trove for owl inspired softies, wall decorations and paper products. I have chosen these delightful friends to decorate Mathilda's new room.

 

wall art by ModernDecals

  

owl clock by decoylab

 little felt owl by Katia from Plushka Craft

 

 And these adorable wall prints for Oscar's room

 

Oh decorating, how I love thee!

Creating the perfect nursery

With Mathilda's nursery now decluttered and painted, we are ready to decorate! We had a break in harvest on Tuesday, so hubby jumped into the ute and headed to Perth to purchase all our new furniture. 

First on the list was Oscar's bed, we chose the Willow King Single bed from Freedom. Yup, the time has come for my little boy to move from his cot and into a big bed. Am I ready? Well I guess that's an entirely new post! 

For Mathilda, we chose the Hemnes Chest of 8 drawers, Hensvik Changing Table and Poang Rocking Chair from Ikea to match the antique white cupboard we already have for her room. 

 

Once the furniture is assembled, I'll be able to start decorating with pretty wall decals, trinkets for the chest of drawers and photo frames of precious memories. I can't wait.

Let the renovations begin!

 

Funny the difference between first and second children. Amidst the excitement of preparing for Oscar's birth we had his nursery painted, furnished and decorated three months before he was born. We had similar intentions for Mathilda's nursery, but sadly the time flew by and the room remained unpainted, the furniture still on the wishlist and the junkpile still untackled.

As we headed to Perth to countdown the days to her delivery day we thought to ourselves "no problem, we'll paint and decorate as soon as we get home". Fast forward three months and Mathilda is still camped out in our bedroom *sheepish smile*. We say it's because she is such a good sleeper that we barely notice she's there...

With the risk of her still sharing with us when she's eighteen we decided this weekend was the one, declutter and paint or die trying! So on went the painting clothes and out came the paintbrushes. With her room now freshly painted I'm very excited about the next step, shopping for furniture and beautiful things to decorate with.