Happy Easter!

A cozy little recap of the past two weeks

Happy Easter, honeys!

This is another dispatch, down to the wire because once again, I got so caught up in life that I just did not manage to find the time to sit and type this out! But I missed last week and I am just brimming with projects and things to share so I am determined to get this one out for you!

My (self-imposed) book ban continues, which means the renovation continues at a rapid pace. I flew through the jobs this week and even managed to squeeze in an extra project - the guest room! But I will get to that later. For now, we craft!

I think I have shared these before, but for anyone new, these pieces of art are by my step-mum. She let me choose some when we visited her on the way down here and I was so smitten by her charcoal drawings I asked if I could have two please, and the photo of the poppy is just pure perfection. I do love the frames that they were in, but once I started painting the walls here a warm white, that stark white mat stood out too much.

Inspired by Pinterest we took a little trip to Spotlight and I picked out these fabrics.

Gotta tell you, this is one of my favourite craft projects I have done lately. How FUN are they now! If I had any more pieces that I could fabric wrap, I would!

I got the handles on the kitchen cabinets, finally. Gosh it felt so nice to have handles again. I have only ever put on single knobs before, which is easy - find the centre, drill a hole. Doing handles with two drill points was a bit more challenging. Maths and number is not my strong suit, so I essentially did the whole thing with my heart in my mouth, just waiting for when I made a mistake and catastrophically ruined my kitchen. Thankfully it tipped me over into pedantic, so there was only one tiny little mistake, which thankfully I could hide.

Moving on though, because this is a rapid fire week. I managed to paint our bathroom this week as well. One day we will redo this bathroom properly, so the focus of this refresh was low cost, high impact. I feel like when the before is blue, you are always going to have a high impact after, simply because almost anything is better than that blue. The colour that I went with is actually really hard to photograph. But I used Mousey by Taubmans. I did a full strength gloss on the bottom, and a half strength flat on the walls and ceiling. Stepping into the bathroom is really soft and cozy now. I love it.

I decided to keep the vanity, because again, low cost. I did remove it and strip the weird white wash they had put on it, then I gave it a hard wax coat and the colour of the timber is much nicer now. I did a simple swap of the basin to something a little smaller and far more practical. I have ordered a shaving cabinet mirror for the wall because the bathroom is shockingly low on storage.

Then it was time to repaint this monstrosity of a bedroom. I’m not sure if you would have noticed, but this room, the ensuite and the sitting room off it are all DIFFERENT shades of blue. Like, why. Just pick one blue, if you must, and stick with that. Not three, just slightly different shades.

Obsessed. The power of paint is unmatched! My main colour for the house is Antique White USA by Dulux. It’s a very warm white and I am in love with it. The house that we lived in for the past two years was all super cool grey tones, which was just not me. I noticed it every single day and I swear it affected me living in a cool toned house. So here, with all the light and greenery and timber trim, I am leaning into the warm and it’s so so soft and lovely.

We are putting in new floors up here and they were booked for the Monday just passed, but a couple days before I got a call saying it was delayed and they pushed it back a couple more weeks. Which was slightly devastating. But oh well. It’ll be well worth the wait once they are in. I can’t wait to move back in!

The temperatures are dropping rapidly. We had our first frost this week! Or at least, a little puddle on the verandah had ice on it. I had to physically put my finger into the puddle to check because I was having trouble accepting what was in front of my eyes. Ice. In March. Welcome to Tasmania.

Actually. So far, I have adored the weather. You know this. I am not a hot weather gal. I like the cold. I like the cozy. My fingers are currently very cold as I type this, but I am in a dressing gown, socks and uggs with a blanket on my knees. Gorgeous. Perfection.

Part of the reno is putting in a fireplace, which honesty cannot happen soon enough. That will be ultimate cool weather living. It is the only thing this house was missing to make it both of our ‘dream house.’

And now, my extra project I managed to squeeze in. We have some people staying this weekend for Easter, and I woke up on Wednesday morning and decided that I simply must get the guest room ready for them.

True to form, I completely forgot to take a before photo so this is the best that I have. The walls were a very very soft purple, but worse than the colour of the room was the quality of the paint job. I can almost guarantee they did not use any kind of tape, which means that the tops of the skirting and all around the trims had overpaint all over it. The walls were also filthy and had many many holes from wall plugs and hooks. So I spent almost a whole day just prepping the room. I taped. I removed the skirting and scraped off all the overpaint - truly, I was scraping off at least three different colours of paint so literally no one before me has done a proper job. I scraped off the old paint, pulled out plugs and patched the holes. I took down the curtains. I removed the awful light shade.

Isn’t she CUTE. I could squeal. I feel like for the past five or so years, this is what I have been working towards with all the decor I have been collecting. It was never quite right for the house I was in at the time, but I knew that one day I would be in the right house for it. The bed linens have all been collected piece by piece over the last few years and how perfect do they all look together. Mis-matched sheet sets forever please.

Then it was time for art! Many texts back and forth with my Interior Design Queen friend and we decided on a gallery wall. Swap these two, have you got a different shape for here, take that blue one out. Etc, back and forth until we landed on….

I am quite actually worried I will love this guest room more than my own bedroom! Isn’t she gorgeous. So many special pieces here. The quilt that my dear friend made for me. The velvet chair from my grandparents. The art by my step-mother. The birds are all native to Minjerribah, which is where we got engaged.

Moving on. Quickly. Or as quickly as I can. I feel like this has been anything but a quick dispatch so far. Too much to share! But look at the light. Autumn light in this house is so divine.

What I’ve Been Reading

I just had to share this Substack from this week. It’s what I’ve been saying for years and years, she just put it so much more eloquently than me! Love. Go and read it. It’s your homework for the week.

You don't need new clothes. You need better jewelry.

What I’ve Been Eating

Shocking low photos of food from the past two weeks. I think because I am still so tunnel vision on the house. And also my lack of a proper stove continues to kill me and sap my kitchen creativity!

I had two major food fails this week. This one wasn’t major, I just had to bin the crackling (which is MAJOR for me). This dang easy bake oven is good in a pinch but she is not a real oven and I am still learning to adapt. This was a three hour slow cook pork belly and the crackling burnt beyond eating in the last ten minutes of the cook. Devastating.

The other failure of the week was so major that the dinner was totally inedible. It was pasta and I usually throw a small handful of salt in the water and it’s perfect. But for some reason this week, while I was topping up my salt jar I just free poured the salt into the water from the bag. Inedible. So much salt. I wasn’t paying attention and sort of remember thinking ‘surely there is a limit to how much salt the pasta can absorb.’ But no. There is no limit. It will absorb all the salt. So, three whole plates of food went in the bin and we had cereal and toast for dinner.

Tasmania continues to provide me with GF options that I have never seen before. So this week we tried honey soy wings with a rice crumb crust. Perfect. And salvaged just before we tipped over into burnt. What the photo doesn’t show you is that they were a little dry. So I will adjust my cooking times and temps just a bit next time and they should be good. I feel like I am going to finally get the hang of the easy bake oven and it will be time to install my proper one.

French toast is having a moment in this house. We like it plain, cooked (drowned?) in brown butter. Yum. The taste of my childhood. I am going through yoghurt and muesli, and chai, like it’s going out of fashion. The cold yoghurt for breakfast feels like it has a rapidly approaching end date, but the warm chai feels synonymous with Tasmanian Winter so I made a double batch of it yesterday.

Protein balls for Blake. Made without a single taste test because halfway through I realised they were not GF so it was a but of cross my fingers and hope they taste good. No complaints, so all is well.

What I’ve Been Buying

Buckle up babes, I’ve been cleaning up at the local op shops lately.

Wait, this one wasn’t an op shop find. My old instax finally gave up on me, after 10 years of sustained and constant use, it was time to give up the ghost. I might let Monkey have the old one for his play room to mess around with.

THIS gorgeous coffee table! 1960’s! $45!

These fun clothes! The turquoise ones are vintage and I’m obsessed. The green is Assembly Label and is 100% merino wool.

Speaking of Merino. Blake is really coming into his own down here. In the past two weeks I think he has found 6 Merino and/or Cashmere jumpers. Couple of turtlenecks, a gorgeous vintage cardigan and a really really nice maroon long sleeve polo. For those who are as well acquainted with New Girl as me, think Mr Fancy Pant’s wardrobe. He is Nick sitting behind the desk.

Can’t stop, won’t stop buying art. You are looking at a grand total of $24 worth of op shop art! $24!!!!! Hand made tapestries, an oil and a pastel. For $24. Unheard of.

And a cute little holder for our records. Tasmanian op shops! They weren’t lying!

And! To finish, an apple slinky maker. I saw one of of these at an op shop years ago and for some reason didn’t get it. I went back the next day but it was gone, and I have been looking since. Finally, found one. So fun.

What I’ve Been Wearing

This is all I have from the past two whole weeks. WOEFUL. But, it is 9:01am currently, which makes me late by both daylight savings time and normal time. So I will wrap this up and hit send!

Mwah! Thanks for sticking with me on this rapid fire week. I adore each one of you endlessly. I can’t believe so many of you read my weekly yaps. I am thankful, grateful and humbled!

Have a fabulous Easter weekend my darlings!

Love,

Your Fairy Goldmother xx