Home Inspiration and then some!

Oh, if only I could find a similar sofa to this, doesn't it look comfortable?

beautiful details on armrest!

I love these cushions (crowns!)

images above from http://houseofwhiteinteriors.blogspot.com/

image from http://savvyhome.blogspot.com

our occasional chair & ottoman

my very own occasional chair

  

my very own ottoman

Do you like these as much as I do?

Georgia ♥

xo

Pursuing my Dream

I'm excited to share with you my other passion besides decorating.  For many years now, I have been reshaping brows.  As a result, I decided in the latter half of this year to register a business name and get on with building my business.  The name of my new business is Brow Perfect - the brow shaping experts and with the help of my sister-in-law whom is a graphic designer, we have been able to come up with a design for my logo.

Here is a picture of my logo design on my business card. It has not yet gone to print as we may do some final adjustments to it, so feel free to provide me with some feedback.

front of business card

back of business card

I reshape and customise brows to suit and complement ones features and face. No waxing is involved in this customised and very individual service.

I hope my business takes off, this is something I've been dreaming about for a very long time!

Georgia ♥ 
XO

A Happy Holiday Season to All - Merry Christmas 2011

image from Ticking and Toile

Wishing you all a Wonderful and a Very Merry Christmas.

This year Christmas has been very special - we've celebrated with relatives whom we've met for the very first time. They have travelled from overseas so that we could be together during this holiday season. It's been absolutely wonderful getting to know them!

I hope you've all had a wonderful day shared with loved ones and your homes and hearts have been filled with love, joy & laughter!

Georgia xo

Colours

The colours chosen for the lounge/dining room and entry hallway are:

Walls - Wattyl Snowdownia (3/4 strength)
Skirtings - Dulux Vivid White semi-gloss (aquanamel)
Ceilings - Dulux Once Ceiling White (flat white)

Here is a picture of the Wattyl Snowdownia as used by Josh and Jenna in their house on The Block 2011.

And here is the colour as it translates on my very own lounge room wall! What do you think? Do you like this colour or have I made a big mistake? Time will tell and only when the rooms fully 'come together.'

Before pictures of lounge/dining/entry hallway

It's been a while since I've written on my blog, sorry for neglecting to post but I have been extremely busy with home life and trying to finish our painting of the lounge/dining/hallway space.  I can report that basically the walls and ceilings are done in these rooms (touch ups required though ) and I have started painting our skirtings in the lounge/hallway. 

Here are some BEFORE pics of the lounge/dining room and hallway.

Lounge room: New lighting was installed in our home roughly 2-3yrs ago. An old box airconditioner was removed left of fireplace (see white patch on the wall) and a single wall sconce was also removed from the right.  Beyond the squared off arch is the dining room.

Lounge room: beyond the square archway is the dining room.

Lounge room: opposite end of the room. Our small entry hallway is just off this room.

Lounge room: different angle - you can see the front door and small entry hallway.

Hallway: just opposite the front door (pic taken Xmas 2010)

This is going to be a very very slow makeover!

It's been weeks since I've been able to sit down and write another entry.  When we began our home beautiful makeover, the plan was to work on one room of the house at a time before we moved onto the next. We soon realised this was not a viable option and not very smart.

The amount of dust on the walls and floors just from working on the lounge room alone was incredible and found that it quickly spread through the rest of the house. We loathe the idea of having dust covering our newly wallpapered feature wall. Working on our adjoining rooms - entry hall/dining room would most certainly create more dust and we don't want to ruin our paintwork or wallpaper nor create more work for ourselves - cleaning dust from freshly painted walls and wallpaper! So the decision was made to prepare and paint all the ceilings and wall surfaces of these rooms before proceeding with hanging the wallpaper.

So I bet you are wondering where we are at? We have managed to prepare and sand back all the walls/ceilings of our other rooms. We have painted the ceiling in the lounge room, have applied one coat of ceiling paint in the hall way and painted the architraves in the dining room.  So we still have a fair bit of painting to do before the ceilings in both the dining room and entry hall are ready.

Then it's onto painting the walls.  But finding the right shade for these walls is proving difficult. I've bought numerous sample pots of paint and each time the colour has not been right - I'm still searching for that elusive colour, an amazing grey colour, not too dark and not too light, but just right - I sound like Goldilocks don't I?  The grey in the walls will be complimented by the white ceilings and the white gloss to be applied to the skirting boards. Paired with the wallpaper and our black pendant shade chandeliers and black silk covered wall sconces, I think this room will look amazing.

The accent colour to be used in the decor will be teal and one other - yet to be chosen.

As you can tell, making over our home is going to be a very very slow process; afterall, the only 'free' time we have to work on the house is the weekend!

This sums it up for me.

Exactly what I am seeking to do..................

Lounge Room Mood Board - Thank you Pinterest

I recently joined Pinterest.

For those of you who haven't heard of it "Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard. Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things [images] you find on the web." It would be an understatement for me to say that I have taken to this site 'like a duck takes to water'. I must admit I'm addicted.  The best part of this addiction has been that it has allowed me to peruse many, many, beautiful images all from the one site which I probably would not have been able to see otherwise (and probably would have needed to spend hours upon countless hours trying to source such images from various websites).  As a result, I've been inspired to create a mood board for my lounge room makeover. I've worked out the colour palette and decided on window dressings.  Have a look at it here: http://pinterest.com/gstavrakis/lounge-room-mood-board/

I think I'm sorted - thank you Pinterest, my new obsession ♥.

Amazing Wallpaper

Just to 'wet your appetite' & because I can't wait to share this amazing wallpaper. Here is a picture of the wallpaper I will be using in my lounge room. What do you think?

Day One - my home beautiful journey begins - wish me luck!

We have lived in our home since June 2002 and have done very little to it. We moved in and didn't even paint it! As a newly married couple, we didn't have extra money for such an extravagance! So we moved in and settled into 'married life'. We started our little family in 2003 when our beautiful twin daughters arrived. Boy, did life change with those 'two bundles of joy' - keeping us busy at every turn.  Two years later in 2005 we had another precious baby girl.  So as you can imagine, life has been a very busy one for us indeed.

It's only now, that we have time to devote to making over and perhaps somewhere down the road, renovating our first home. I truly believe that a home is what you make it, it's all about decor for me and not whether the home you have is 'old' or 'brand spanking new'.  Through this blog, I will try to show you that you don't have to spend a lot of money to get a wonderful look. I like to buy inexpensive items as well as the more expensive things as well - as long as the budget can stretch that far.

So, my husband and I (complete novices at home makeovers) are going to give it a go. Yesterday, we went out to our local hardware store and bought some essentials. Sanding machines x 2, one for him and a smaller one for me. Also sanding blocks that we could use 'free hand' which would allow us to get into difficult spots. We also bought putty for plasterboard as we will definitely be needing that! - oh and a flexible spatula so that we can apply the putty to the walls.

Today we set about preparing our lounge room, the room my kids love to live in. We covered up the furniture with spare sheets and moved the various pieces into the centre of the room. And off we went! We sanded skirting boards, just so that they were smooth - not to remove the existing paintwork, as we plan on painting over them. I think we will use a high gloss for the skirting board and doors in the house. We also smoothed over any bumps in the walls/plasterboard and any paint imperfections, ie drips of paint left on the wall by the previous owners.  Before we knew it there was lots of dust on our beautiful old hardwood floors. Oh and lots of dust in my hair!!!!

Finally, we were done and it was almost late afternoon. Now to next week, where we will putty up walls and leave them to dry, resand and then paint!