Bunnings | stay.at.home.life

As part of the never-ending garden makeovers going on around here, I wanted 2 large barrels. I needed something off the ground so that my darling chooks and dogs would not dig them up, and the plants in them would have some chance of becoming established. But then I saw how much barrels were and the idea went wayyyyyy down the list of priorities. I mean who is going to spend $200 to save some $3 petunias?

The blank canvas.

I happened to be at Bunnings just a few days after Christmas, and their pallet recycling pile was massive, presumably from all the extra Christmas stock. I grabbed a long pallet for another project then inspiration struck! I called Mr. SAHL and he was on board. What better reason to pull out all those power tools I buy him.

Unfortunately, heaps of the photos of the progress have gone missing, so what was going to be a step by step guide cannot be. But hopefully, this blog can be inspiration enough anyway. I was aiming for pots at least 70cm tall to deter the chooks. But you can make them any size you like really.

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I was originally planning on painting them, but now I kind of like the rustic finish, even with the random chunks of blue. 🙂

And we have progress. The temporary fence is in place to keep the dogs and chooks out while the groundcover, lychee, and pomegranate trees get established. The middle section is where we will be building an aviary in a few months time. Stay tuned!

The ‘baby’s’ room. Ok ok, he is not a ‘baaaabeeee’ anymore, but he is MY baby, dag nabbit! So he will be a baby for ever more… until there is another baby. I am after all, still ‘the baby’ to my parents, even as I head into my very very late… 20s.

So, along my life journey I met the wonderful Krystal . When I say ‘met’ I mean, well, we became mutual internet stalkers of each other… or something like that. Anyway, that’s not really relevant. What IS important is that she introduced me to green. Not just any green, because lets be honest, everyone loves green. But Kermit, ZOMG, holy shizit that is bright GREEN green. At first I was like ‘whhhhhhaaat you talking bout Willis?’ and then it hit me. For months I dreamed of it, how much I wanted it, how it was totally going to work… I HAD to have it.

So, when we moved into our new house, where every child had their own room, I decided to start my bedroom decorating adventure with the Eli’s room. The only child that could verbalise no preference. *Evil grin*.

Elis room is actually a study, so has no built in cupboards. Thankfully he is impartial to hanging his clothes up, so its not a huge problem. His window is set within an alcove at the entrance, so the room does not receive a lot of natural light, especially in the afternoon when the sun is on the other side of the house. Another reason I think the super bright colour is great.

This is a before photo taken in the morning.

We already had most of the furniture for his room, including a big bed. So part of this project was also to see that he progressed out of the cot by the end.

We had already put the dragon light up – because I am impatient like that.

So, a morning of cleaning walls and with the help of my parents, we had the room painted in a day. By the way, I am THE worst painter in the world according to my father. Am I? Or was that all part of my evil plan to get him to take over? Maybe we will never know, mwahahhahhaa. Unfortunately due to a iPhoto malfunction, I have lost all progression photos. Hopefully I will be able to recover them some day and add. Anyway, the finished product;

Crocodile mirror from Ikea

To complete the room I need to replace the fan with something more modern and sleek. Once all kids rooms are done, we will be replacing all carpet. It really feels ‘unfinished’ without the carpet done, but there is no point doing one room at a time, nor is there any point replacing carpet before we have finished painting. Hopefully it will be done within the next 6 or so months though, then I will update! Oh, and I am still looking for the perfect rug for the floor. I want something that contains the right colours, but apparently it does not exists. So for now, he is just using a red one we already head.

*For where everything was purchased, see individual photos.

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