Tag Archives: DIY

Homemade Laundry Detergent

by Katie on May 23, 2013 in Daily Life, DIY, Home, Simple Living, Sponsorship

A few years ago, if someone had told me that one day I would make my own laundry detergent I would have thought they were totally insane, but as you know, things change. I’ve changed. And last Sunday afternoon I found myself standing by the stove as the winter sunshine streamed though the kitchen window, stirring a pot full of lux flakes, borax, washing soda and water. Making laundry liquid.

I’d actually been considering this little project ever since I got my hands on Rhonda’s wonderful book last March, but had always managed to put it off. Even though the directions looked simple enough, making my own seemed so much more difficult than just grabbing some detergent at the supermarket. And to be very honest, I don’t think I was ready for that level of, well, hippyishness. I realise now that was silly and I needn’t have put it off. I used this recipe and the whole process was ridiculously quick and easy. I added some lavender oil and the finished liquid smells lovely. We’re still finishing off our last bottle of store bought detergent, so I’m yet to put my homemade stuff to the test, but I’m looking forward to giving it a go!

I didn’t do the sums but according to Rhonda’s math, it costs just $1.75 to make 10L of this laundry liquid, while 10L of a leading Australian laundry detergent would cost around $80. That’s a pretty incredible saving! It’s also really comforting to know we won’t be using anything nasty to wash our clothes. I shudder at the thought of all the chemicals most of us put on our skin and wash down the drain every day. Though there is some debate concerning the healthfulness of borax, in my mind it is a big step up from the string of unpronounceable ingredients in commercial products.

Do you have any great recipes, tips or secrets, for green, chemical free, cleaning? If so, I’d love to hear them!

Katie x

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Finished Floors!

by Katie on February 14, 2013 in Decorating, DIY, Home, Renovating

Finally, our floors are done! And I have to say, if I ever strip and seal another floor again, it will be too soon. Though I don’t regret taking on this task, I would be lying if I said there weren’t moments when Reuben and I seriousy questioned our decision. Me especially…

As Reubs has been at work since the initial drum sanding, most of the detail sanding and all of the sealing was up to me. (Oh my!) I have zero renovating experience and really had no idea what I was doing so, unsurprisingly, was very worried about ruining our floors. But somehow (thankfully!) I managed it. I’m actually quite pleased with how the floors came up!

There are two different kinds of wood in our floors – lovely Tasmanian Oak in the living room and entryway, and pine in the bedrooms and hallway. We realised we’d never be able to make the different woods look the same, but we hoped to make them a similar colour and tone so that the change in flooring where our two hallways meet wouldn’t be so jarring. To seal the floors I used Feast Watson Floorseal Oil, which I tinted with “Oak” coloured stain. I added 5% tint and did three coats of this, gradually building the depth of colour with each application. Then I did a final coat without tint. The great thing about using oil is that when our floors start to look a bit tired, we can refresh them by adding a fresh coat, without having to sand them back.

So, here’s our living room, before and after:

Before

After

And here’s the main bedroom:

Before

After

I won’t bombard you with pictures of the other two bedrooms just now because they look much the same, and I’m sure you get the idea.

The floors are not perfect. At all. So if you are a perfectionist type who needs things to be just so, I wouldn’t recommend stripping and sealing your own floors. If however, you’re not too worried about perfection (like us), with time and patience it is a do-able job. Not fun, but do-able. And much cheaper than hiring someone else to do it. We’re just calling the lumps and bumps “rustic”.

I think rustic is much cozier than perfect anyway!

Katie x

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Hello Wood Frames!

by Katie on January 28, 2013 in Daily Life, Decorating, DIY, Home, Renovating

In our first week as homeowners we began the arduous task of stripping back our blistering door frames and skirting boards, only to discover that hiding under all that bubbly paint there was beautiful wood! In a previous life this wood was exposed and varnished. Before we realised what was underneath we intended to paint all our door frames, skirting boards and windows, but now that we have discovered all this lovely wood, it seems like a terrible shame to cover it up. So it looks like the wood is here to stay! Now we just need to strip the old varnish back, sand it all, and refinish it with a different tint. (And scrape the rest of the skirting boards, door frames and windows in the house…) It’s quite an intimadating amount of work, but we know it’ll be worth it in the end.

You might also have noticed that in the last picture up there, the carpet in our hallway is gone! Over the weekend we began the rather hellish experience of stripping our own floors. But I’ll save that story for another day.

Katie x

PS I hope you don’t mind being inundated with renovating posts for a little while. At the moment our every spare moment is spent working on our house, so there isn’t much else going on!

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Our Home: Before

by Katie on January 21, 2013 in Daily Life, Decorating, DIY, Home, Renovating

As promised, here are the “before” pictures of our new home! Yesterday we bought supplies and slowly started work, scraping back the chipped and blistering paint on some of the skirting boards and door frames. We’ve got lots of stripping, sanding, smoothing and filling to do on these old walls before we begin painting. We’re going to be painting the same colour all the way throughout and have chosen Taubmans’ “Ocean Pearl”. It’s a lovely, warm, soft white. But for now, here’s a little tour of our new home, before the transformation…

This picture was taken from the front door. You enter the house into a nice wide hallway. The previous owner has already ripped up the carpet here, revealing the lovely old floorboards underneath, but the wood has not been sanded back or treated, so is in desperate need of some TLC. We can’t wait to make them shine again! I’m also thinking about creating either a gallery wall or a display of pretty vintage plates here.

This is our living room. It is absolutely flooded with natural light which makes my heart really happy. It looks like the last owner might have already started work on painting in here but has only done one thin coat. I’m not yet sure exactly what kind of furnishings to put on those wonderful big windows, but anything has to be better than the current blue vertical blinds! We also really need to replace those hospital-like fluorescent lights.

This is the living room from the other end. We’ll put our dining table and chairs just in front of that window to the kitchen. I’m so exited about pulling up the awful stained carpet and wrinkled brown lino! I think the room will look bigger once we’ve got the same flooring all the way through too.

Isn’t this moulded ceiling lovely?! Unfortunately some silly person in years gone by thought it was a good idea to paint around it with terrible textured paint, and now we have no idea how we’ll ever get rid of it. We might just have to live with a lumpy ceiling for a while…

This is our apricot kitchen. (Whoever previously decorated this house was obviously a big fan of apricot!) The kitchen cabinets are in pretty good condition and we can’t afford to replace them right now, so we are just planning to paint them and change the handles. That should freshen things up a bit.

This shot was taken looking out to the living room from the kitchen.

This is the main hall, leading to the bathroom and bedrooms. The skirting boards and door frames along here are very chipped and the paint is bubbly. I forsee many, many hours spent scraping and sanding paint here…

And this is our bathroom. It is small and very, very, very beige. And a little bit apricot! The bathroom shares a wall with the laundry which is about the same size and home to a second shower. One day we’d like to pull down that wall and create a bigger bathroom but we don’t have the budget for a bathroom redo so, for the moment, the small and beige is here to stay.

Next up is the guest bedroom. It’s the darkest room in the house but still quite light! It will be even brighter once we’ve ripped out the old brownish coloured carpet, painted over the apricot walls and pulled down those hideous blue vertical blinds.

This is the main bedroom. (More apricot!) It has not one but two lovely windows. Light, light, light!

And finally, this is the third bedroom, which we will use as a studio/craft room/study. This room is small, but beautifully sun drenched and bright, all day long. The previous owner had obviously started work in here, patching up cracks and prepping to paint, but unfortunately hasn’t done a very good job. There is putty everywhere. No really, everywhere.

This picture was taken from the studio/craft room/study, looking back up the hall.

And that’s it! Our house. Tired and grubby, but so full of potential. As I’m sure you can see, we have lots of work to do…

Katie x

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Home Inspiration

by Katie on January 10, 2013 in Decorating, DIY, Home, Renovating

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I’ve been collecting pictures of pretty homes on Pinterest since long before we were considering buying a house of our own. I’m so excited to finally have the chance to get to put some of that inspiration to use! The pictures above are just a few of my favourites. I’m really inspired by light, airy spaces, especially when they incorporate wood, handmade and vintage elements. I adore white walls, wood floods and pops of colour.

Our new house is quite a bit larger than any of our previous little homes, so we’ll have to get op-shopping and flea marketing for some new (to us) furniture to fill it, though I’m determined not to over fill it as I’d like to keep the space feeling open and bright. At the moment the house is full of horrible floor coverings (old carpet and lino), apricot walls and hideous vertical blinds but it has so much potential! The rooms are large and light-filled with lovely features like moulded ceilings and big windows. We’re both desperate to strip the floors back to the wood hiding underneath, but sadly I don’t think we’ll have the time or money to do that before we move in, so that will be a project for down the track. We will however, definitely be painting all the walls and tearing down the vertical blinds straight away. Though our renovating and decorating budget is pretty much nothing, so we’ll most likely be DIYing the new window furnishings!

There’s lots to do in the garden too. The house is situated on a funny triangular block so the garden is quite tiny, but there is a side yard (the wide end of the triangle) big enough for our veggie patch. We are thinking of building a couple of raised beds with “wicking bed” watering systems, like the ones featured in this fabulous book. The opposite corner of the garden (the skinny end of the triangle) has enough room for a couple of hens to scratch about, so we are planning to fence that corner off for the chooks to roam in during the day, and building or buying a little house to close them in at night. We also plan to plant a couple of fruit trees along the fence and put window boxes full of flowers on each window. At the moment the “garden” pretty much just consists of crunchy dead grass and one sad little apple tree, in desperate need of some TLC, but we can’t wait to make it a beautiful, productive space.

Have you done any DIY renovating? Or started a garden from scratch? Anyone out there ever stripped back wood floors? We’d so love any advice you could give us! And thank you all so much for your kind wishes on our last post. We feel so honoured to be part of such a lovely, supportive community.

Katie x

PS I tried to find and link to the original sources for these images but couldn’t find all of them. If one of these pictures belongs to you or someone you know, please let me know so I can give credit!

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