Our previous DIYs

Sometimes I get overexcited. I do, especially about house DIY projects on my favourite blogs & Pinterest. When I see something amazing my brain kinda shuts down and I forget that I am a novice with power tools (except jigsaws, holla @ dad for trying to make me into the son he never had).
I think to myself that it looks simple, so so simple and easy and oh wow I can just go to Masters and buy those bits and make that and my house will look better than anyone's ever!!!.

No, Jessica...No.

We have had some great DIY successes and some not so great ones too; but that's ok, because everyone is a little bit shit at the start (& the middle &, spoiler, there is no end so you may always be a little shit).

However I am in a fabulous mood because I have the day off work and I have just finished a rigorous round of online Halo followed by doing absolutely nothing - so let's focus on the DIY successes shall we?

First up, our matching TV unit & dresser. 
Although these weren't originally a matching pair, my gorgeous controlfreak of a boyfriend needs a little matchymatchy in his life. Alas these two twins were born.

Originally crappy gumtree purchases, Tim & littlebro Mike stripped the crappy laminate off these cupboards, painted the shells a gloss white; and cut & stained a plywood sheet to make new 'laminate' drawer fronts. I have the name of the wood stain around here somewhere, promise I'll find it one day. I was allowed to assist with the stripping (not as fun as it sounds) and measuring out drawer fronts.

Dresser (unfortunately I don't have a before for this one)

TV Cabinet before

BAM secret door. Bet you didn't see that coming. 

The boys joined 3 drawer fronts together to allow our Xbox 360 to fit. They're smart boys I tell ya

Next, the ombre dresser.
Tim's old dresser was in need of a little love, with scratched drawers and missing knobs. I purchased a few small sample paint tins from Bunnings and went to work. I love how it turned out and we have used it for a few months now. Unfortunately there is no real place for it in the new house so it may be sold soon.

Our amazing dining table
Tim purchased some old wood that used to form part of the Pimpama Wharf and, with the help of Mike, built us a 6 person dining table. He used new wood to frame the reclaimed timber and added metal legs from a desk kit (Officeworks). It weighs an absolute ton and I love it even if it attacks me with splinters once in a while

Next, Tim's office coffee table (now living in our loungeroom)
I built this coffee table for Tim for one of our anniversaries from stained Timber and angled metal pieces from Bunnings. Due to our old coffee table shitting itself, we have now relocated this one to our new house and will re-stain the top a less-red colour

The infamous tub chair
I can't express how much Tim disliked the broken, cream tub chair I bought off ebay for $15. I printed out a hexagon clipart image and used it as a template; utilising painters tape to tape up the entire chair (yeah I totally regretted it halfway through) and mixed fabric medium & yellow paint. Result - success? Unknown. We have lived with this chair for months now and it is a bit bright for our new place - hopefully I can find a new loving home for it, in someone else's house.

My hell.... gardening stage 2

So here we are, at the weekend again and what does it bring? Gardening! Yayyy.....ok I can't even fake that enthusiasm; but at least today we got to actually put in some plants!

Tim & my lil bro in law Michael used sleepers to build planter boxes in that previously discussed crackerdust area and also down the side of the driveway.

Firstly let's look at the new garden bed at bottom of driveway (& in front of our new fence!)
The plants at the back are Cordyline Rubras from a nursery at Mudgeeraba for $11 each and I feel something akin to love for them. The yuccas in front are 'thrifted' from Tim's nanna and his mum's place (thank ladies). The Xanadu plants came from one big Xanadu plant from the other side of the garden which ended up splitting into a ton of plants. We are still deciding what to put in the front, maybe mondo grass?

The side garden you can kinda see in the above pic runs all along the driveway. We have planted a Port Wine Magnolia in that far corner and placed yuccas and Xanadus along the side garden bed to flank the driveway. 

We have a small rock garden on the opposite side of the driveway at the front of the property. It had a horrible little retaining wall so we put those boulders we dug out of the other garden to good use and replanted the garden. Still heaps to go (like pulling out all the ferns and the flowering plants) but it's a very good start

Garden before

& Garden after

They also used to park their caravan just on the left of this pic, between the rock retaining wall and the house. It was a dirt area with random pavers however it now leads to the other gate into the backyard on our new fence. As we don't have a caravan we have decided to grass this area. 

The next area to tackle will be the old steps leading to the gate next to the new garden bed. Tim & Mike ripped out the old mismatched pavers and we will be putting in two long grassed steps.

And lastly I will leave you with a few pics of some new pots/plants we've accumulated since moving in. 

Wilfred #2 - Peace Lily in Ikea pot with Ikea wheeled plant stand living next to the TV in the loungeroom

A new pot for the front door. A lillypilly just chilling in there for now while he waits for his new home in the backyard. No ideas what plant we might put in here yet.

& finally my Mother In Laws Tongue plant was a bit sad after spending 4 years in a tiny pot so slightly upgraded into a $4 matt grey dice-looking pot in the loungeroom

My hell....gardening stage 1

Have you ever lived in a house where the garden was almost entirely made of pot plants? Like literal pot plants just sitting in the garden? Me either, until we moved here.

I am the first to say it, I HATE gardening. I am useless, I have no idea what I'm doing and I enjoy whinging about gardening far more than I enjoy spending a ton of money on plants and getting dirty. However our garden clearly needed some attention. We have a fairly large backyard but no back fence or front fence. The week we moved in, we found a lovely fencing man to construct a new fence for our dogs (Ian Parbery Fencing on the Gold Coast if anyone needs a recommendation) which was perfect.

However we still have a weird crackerdust filled area at the bottom of the driveway that we thought would be easy to dig out and plant. Yeah I know what you're thinking, Jess you sweet, over-positive moron.

So it turns out our house is built on giant boulders. Boulders that weigh a ton and needed 4 trailer loads to the tip to clear enough to put down some soil. I can't even look at this without having sore hamstrings.

HUGE thanks to my MIL & her partner for coming to help us :)