Our new dining room.

I have mentioned here many times that we are renovating. We have been doing it for seven years now. We started by building an extension to our three bedroom home. (Yes, there were ten of us when we moved in!) Then we began renovating the spaces in the original house. Our ideas evolve every other week. This room was originally the master bedroom. It is near the front door. Initially I thought that we would use this room as a lounge room or sitting room, but it just never really worked. We moved the doorway and put in double glass doors togive it a 'living room' vibe rather than a bedroom vibe. Bradley built some book storage, because this room is also our library. Just recently we began thinking about having a dining room rather than an eat-in kitchen and decided that this room would work quite well as a dining room. So we emptied it of all the junk and put our HUGE table in there. We bought the table at a secondhand shop. I loved the size of it and put it on lay-by immediately. It wasn't until we picked it up a couple of months later that we measured it and realised that it was way too big for our kitchen. ( It is 1.25M X 2.4M and extends to 3M) We sighed and put it outside in the shed thinking that it could go on our deck one day. (The deck comes after the house.) The new dining room works beautifully so I thought I would sort through all of our books and tidy up the bookshelves. (There are books behind the doors too.)

They look much better in this photo! This room was named 'The Semaphore Municipal Library', which worked when it was a sitting room. The kids think it's really funny having such a long name for a room. Of course, you can just call it the library, but where's the fun in that? Now that it's a dining room I think it should be called 'The Semaphore Municipal Library and Cafe', but there's a little resistance to that! Do you have names for your rooms? Crazy or otherwise?

A long weekend

This is what Bradley spent his time doing today. On Saturday he made shelves for Misses 17 and 16 and a change table for Mrs 23. Today he made a new doorway into my laundry. The old doorway has yet to be closed in, but Brad will be working on it in his spare time this week. Don't you just love a handyman? I have been sewing. I have sewn tiny little nighties for the new grandchild, but haven't taken any photos yet. Soon.

Printing and lights!

Yesterday I spent ALL day at home. I love being home. I didn't actually make anything, but I did touch a lot of fabric. (Tidying up!) It was a wonderful day! I did have to go out at 7pm to pick Miss 10 up from basketball training, but that was fun too. It's so nice to spend time with the kids when I taxi them! AND, it was the"last" training till next year!!! WooHoo!!!!!


The kids have been doing some printing. Mrs 23 made some of the stamps they used in her textile course this year. These two pieces of fabric were printed by Mr 13. He made the flower stamp himself from a black custard tart tray from our local bakery. They used an acrylic paint/textile medium mixture to print on some calico. I really love the stuff that Kirsty does with her kids. You should pop over to her blog and have a look! They don't just end up with pieces of fabric, they have finished items! We have yet to get to that point. It's something we have to work on.

Another important development this week (well, according to the two youngest members of our family) was the puting up of the icicle lights. Bradley and the kids put the lights up on Monday night and then we went for a drive to look at lights in our neighbourhood. Fortunately, there are quite a few really impressive displays nearby. Ours is kind of mediocre, but the little kids are easily impressed! (young kids are such good value for money!) It was quite windy when I took this photo. Our front yard looks like we are renovating (Well!!! We are!!!) so I'm hesitant to call any attention to it, but as long as we only turn them on after twilight it's all good!

Tomorrow I'm hoping to fill, sand and paint. Well, I have to fill and sand. I'm hoping to paint! We're working on the "big couch room" at the moment. (That's REALLY how we refer to it! We so have to "name" our rooms as soon as we finish them! Do any of you name your rooms???????????)

New Look Rosemary Hill

I have been very busy of late and have not been able to think straight let alone blog. Things are now starting to calm down and I have decided to get back into the swing of things. I thought my first move would be to revamp my blogspot. When I first started this I didn't know how to do anything on the computer! Fortunately my children are much more computer literate than I and have taught me all sorts of things. I now can do this unaided. Pretty impressive, huh?

I want this site to be a view of all the things that are important to me and a record of all the things that are important in my life. I love sewing. I have loved it since I was small and spent hours watching my mother sew clothing for her family. Eventually I began sewing myself when I was about ten. My mother also knitted for us and taught me to knit when I was five. When I was eight she taught me to crotchet. I enjoy knitting and crotcheting, but I'm not quite so passionate about them! I love to paint too. That's something else that my mother did while I was young. There's nothing like putting paint onto canvas! Except possibly putting paint onto walls! I love to design spaces and decorate them too.

Over the past two months I have been busy sending my daughter off on a mission. She is daughter no. 2 and the first of our children to serve a mission. It has been a wonderful experience watching her prepare to serve and then seeing her go. All of her letters have been so positive and upbeat. I know this is a very happy time for her and that she is really enjoying herself. She is now out in the mission field and is working hard! We are so happy for her and proud of her.

Currently we are working on our home (a renovators work is never done!!!) and I am sewing clothes for some of my kids. This past weekend has seen me preparing walls for painting. Our home is old and the walls and ceilings are in less than wonderful condition! Normally I really hate filling, sanding and washing walls, but I have really enjoyed it this weekend. I started off very grumpy and didn't want to do it. I kept finding other things to do and didn't get into the room until after 12 noon. But once I started I got into a rhythm and as the walls became smoother I began to enjoy myself. Now that the walls are so improved I am glad that I took the time to do the job properly (don't worry - they're not that smooth!).

This is one of the walls I have been working on. The paint is Wattyl "seductress" and my son (no. 6) doesn't think it's the right colour for his new room. It's a very strong colour so my first layer of paint tomorrow will be an undercoat. I have more sway with him than I did with the rooms former occupant and the new colour will be Wattyl "orchid". In other words "white". I love white! Of course the new room will not just be white. He's keen to have orange and blue as well. I already have the blue - Dulux "maximus" - but the orange is yet to be chosen and purchased. We want a fairly strong and clean orange colour and haven't seen one yet. By clean I mean not dirty or dusty. You know what I mean. Maybe. This week the search will begin in earnest. Paint charts are some of my favourite things ( why can I not say that without hearing Julie Andrews in the background?) but they seem to have fewer colours on them these days. They seem to be more about showing you how to fashionably use a few fashionable colours rather than advising you on what colours they have available.
'Til next time!

A Busy Week

Isn't every week a busy week? This week saw some more of that renovation stuff happening. I painted doors this week. Twenty-three of them! The doors in the photo are some of the ten doors I am working on at the moment. I utilise an unfinished hallway to paint doors for the storage George builds me. I love the look of painted MDF and George loves to build with it, therefore I love to paint it! My colour is Wattyl Orchid. (Hey! It's lucky I haven't finished the hallway, huh? It was a plan!!! Really!!!)
This is another room in my unpainted house. We call this the "big couch room" at the moment. It is the original lounge room in our early 1950's timber frame house. Some previous occupants opened this room up and it is now a large room with living area, dining and kitchen incoporated together. We have a corner couch in this room from Ikea's "as is" department, hence the name - big couch room! George has built toy cupboards either side of a large window and window seats inbetween. He still has a little building work to finish (really) before I can paint. This week I sewed the first cushion covers for the window seat. I'm very pleased with them because I think they look like someone else made them! I guess I was nervous about doing this job because I have never sewn anything like this before, but they fit and everything! I am now working on the remaining four sets of cushions. I guess the fact that the texile part of the job is more advanced than the painting part tells you where my passion lies!!! Although I do really enjoy painting too.

The same cushions again! I don't know why I put this one in. Perhaps just to show you that it is a sunny window seat. It's going to be a great place to read on a sunny winter's day! The fabric is not my favourite, but a $3 a metre special from spotlight a couple of years ago. It's 1.5 m wide upholstry fabric and a great bargain. I knew I wanted a window seat somewhere in this house so I snapped the fabric up. George always says it's not a bargain until you actually use it, so I'm really pleased to be using it! Renovating on a budget! Such fun!

This photo shows off my cushion yet again (must change the title of this post to BORING! or Guiness World Record Attempt-to talk about a cushion for the longest time in a blog!) and is proof of our homeschooling status. For those of you who don't homeschool I will explain. We in the homeschooling community know that to be serious about homeschooling you need to have a seriously large lego collection. All the drawers under our 2.9m long window seat contain lego of some description. Okay, maybe it's just the geeky homeschoolers who have lots of lego, and if you are considering homeschooling please don't think the first thing you have to do is buy lots of lego. Not unless you are a geek, anyway.

For mother's day Picklestick sent me a fabric postcard. She sent one to all the mothers in her life. It's so cool to receive a fabric postcard! I was discussing the joys of it with her this week and she said "Well, I wouldn't know. No-one's ever sent me a fabric postcard!" I was crushed. Here was proof that I had neglected my parental responsibilities. Imagine a mother who had never sent her child a fabric postcard! So this week I resolved to right this wrong. I have made a stack of postcards and the first one is going off to Picklestick as we speak. You can see it above, along with the back of the one she sent to me.(On my Ikea bedspread. I love that fabric!) I'm off to sew more cushion covers, to save more money, and to right more wrongs! (This post feels so superhero at this end! Can you tell I haven't been well and feel a little outta touch with reality? Here I come, to save the day!!!!!)

I'm here! Finally! Sort of!

I am very new to this - hence the lack of visuals - but felt after reading many other's blogs that I had something to say and show you! (Ooops! That visual thing again) Life at Rosemary Hill is always busy. George (my best friend and the tall, dark and handsome stranger I hooked up with some twenty-five years ago) works here at RH (Rosemary Hill) and we homeschool some of the eight children we created together. The others are grown up and doing their own things!

Actually, there was great excitement today when #1 (Picklestick) discovered that her blog and etsy shop can now be googled. Of course it was remote excitement because Picklestick and Her Bloke live "off campus" at Picklestick Manor. #2 (Yellowone) and #3 (Giant Joe) are all but grown up. They still live at RH but go out to the world of work to support themselves. #4 (Lucy Lou) and #5 (Katie) are busy with high school at home, preparing themselves for the world of work and the other three (Xam, Murray and Dax) are our homeschoolers.

This week has seen us painting, quilting, stitching, designing, journaling and renovating. We are DIY through and through. Tomorrow I am off to a rag rug class so I'll have something else to show you. (umm..... when I get the visuals worked out. I'm sure some three year old child will be able to help me with that!)