All Things Lovely

Handcrafted Espresso Cups

My friend Shaun is one of those fabulous people who loves food and coffee. I mean L O V E S it. He's an incredible cook and I'm pretty lucky that he cooks for me fairly often. When his birthday came around late last year I wanted to find him the perfect gift. Cue...Kylie spending hours spent on Etsy.

Well, Artet Manufacture came to the party. I finally stumbled upon these divine handcrafted ceramic espresso cups. BINGO. I kept looking around as they're not cheap - but they were one of those things I just could not get out of my mind. You know that feeling? Nothing else will live up to what you've found. I was so happy when they finally arrived. They really were everything I'd hoped for and more.

Photos copyright Shaun Mowrey

DIY Herringbone Rug

Like everyone on Pinterest it seems, I decided to also paint my own IKEA Egeby rug. It amazes me that for a $40 rug and a bit of time you can have something that is totally custom.

I did a lot of serching on blogs to work out what kind of paint to use. Everyone seemed to suggest latex paint, but it's not really known by that name here in Australia. I ended up settling on plain old interior low sheen wall paint and just used sample pots I had at home. Bargain! This rug is for my kitchen, so I decided on a colour scheme of grey, white and a pop of mustard yellow.

First step was to tape up the edge of my rug and paint it yellow. I just used a cheap paintbrush, and absolutely massacred it. Rather than paint straight over the rug, I kind of dabbed the paint on so it really got into the little holes. It takes a while!

Woah, that's a lot of yellow going on! Never fear. Next comes The.Slowest.Job.In.The.World. Taping out the pattern, I'm sure I could have used a vinyl template, but I find this works well, and I can just paint over the tape and not have to be exceptionally careful.

I love the herringbone pattern. I didn't want a very deep 'V' so after dividng the rug into 4 accross ways, I used 2cm wide painters tape, and measured up 8cm then taped. Each gap was then 8cm high.

Then comes the fun part. More paint! I used grey and white paint, and obviously just painted every second gap.

And voila! After the grey goes on and the tape comes off. I love it!

I was going to leave the border au natural, but a) I got a few paint marks on it (oops) and b) I don't think it looks as good with this colour scheme. So, unfortunately there was more taping as I taped the inside of the rug, and just used the same paint to cover the edge. Much better, yes?

Here it is in it's new home. I love it!

Have you guys painted a rug yourselves? I can't get over how easy it is, for so much impact.

The Kitchen Renovation - Part One

I've finally started doing some renovations to my kitchen which I'm pretty dam excited about! I really have done nothing to it since I moved in except change the handles from very ugly wooden ones to silver ones. Here's an idea of the before.

You may remember a while ago the lovely Nicole from Making It Lovely kindly did a photoshop mockup for me to have a look at what it would be like with new benchtops and a few other little changes.

 
So, with that in mind I looked at my options. New benchtops in Australia aren't cheap, but another option for the interim was White Knight Laminate Paint. I'd never really heard of anyone using it on benchtops but I did some research and found people who had used it along with another product by White Knight, Bench Top Clear. I thought I couldn't stuff it up too badly, so I'd give it a shot.

So, preparation is key! First of all, everything needs to be well and truly cleaned and sanded lightly. Taping up is one of my least favourite jobs!

Then, a laminate primer is applied. This just goes on with a brush and is dead easy.

 
Once primed you're ready for the first of two coats of laminate paint. I chose the colour Spicey Pepper, but they have heaps of colours. The can says to apply this paint with a brush, which I did for the first coat. The paint is very forgiving so brushmarks aren't a huge problem, but after a light sand in between coats I chose to do the second coat with a gloss roller. I was much happier with that finish.

 
It almost looks like a granite bench...if only! Once it's all dried for about 24 hours, the Bench Top Clear is applied. This is all done with a roller and gives a nice protection to the paintwork. This needs about 7 days to really harden up, and it also takes away the glossy look.

So, here it is!  
 
 
I could almost leave the cupoards grey, but I won't. I've started painting them all white so hopefully I can get that finished soon. I'm pretty happy with it. For under $200 on paint, it's a pretty dramatic change for the time being. I can't see it lasting more than a few years, but when I have new benchtops put in, I also want a new oven and sink so it's a big expense.

So, there we go. Part One of the renovation done!

To Dry For

Happy Monday! Hope you all had a lovely weekend. Mine was filled with lots of time with friends which just makes everything better.

Thought I'd start this week with some lovely tea towels. I found out about To Dry For via Holly at Decor8, and now I want to go shopping mad. I really love tea towels, especially since I don't have a dishwasher and so I actually need them. I probably don't need as many as I'd likle to go and buy though, so perhaps all my friends are now about to get hit with tea towels for Christmas presents! And the bonus....they ship worldwide!

Pretty Little Kitchen Things

I made the mistake of checking out the Anthropolgie website tonight. Big mistake since they don't ship to Australia, and our dollar is woeful so everything is quite pricey now. But, oh goodness, how cute are these?!

Measuring Spoons

Matryoshka Measuring Cups

Salt & Pepper Shakers

Kitchen Mock Up

The ever lovely Nicole from Making It Lovely kindly offered to do a mock up of my kitchen with some new bench tops. I was amazed at just how much of a difference a change of bench tops made to the whole look.

Nicole says 'all I did was take away some stuff, add an inexpensive rug from IKEA, three birch tree prints (also from IKEA), swap out the counter, and paint behind the open shelves.' Wow, all sounds so easy, but it makes such a huge difference!

I definitely have something to think about now. Thanks again Nicole.

Kitchen Renovations

My kitchen is really starting to annoy me. It's pink and grey. So 80's, even though this house was built in the 90's! I am guilty of also adding a lot of pink in the way of accessories, but still.

You can see how utterly lovely it is....not. I don't really have much money to spend on it, and with house prices here in Sydney really going everywhere, I really don't want to spend much on it.

When I moved in 3 years ago, it was filthy and had delightful wooden door handles. All I've done in that time is change the handles, actually changing them was the very first thing I did. It made a little bit of difference, but now it's time for more.

My thought now is to paint the cupboard with laminate paint in a kind of off-white colour. That still leaves me with the pink and delightful wood trim bench top. I vaguely recall seeing in Bunnings last week laminate paint with a special bench top hardener that you can paint over the top. I need to head back there and see if I was dreaming. If I wasn't dreaming, I'd love to paint the bench and the trim in a charcoal colour. I love the contrast of those two colours.

What do you think? Had anyone used laminate paint with success? Has anyone heard of a paint for benchtops. One day I will actually replace the benchtop, but then I will want a new stove and oven so I'm holding off for a bit.

These are some examples of colours I like, I have no idea where these pictures are from so my apologies.