New wall art + a familiar story

Some of you may remember the lovely hand-stencilled wall button (on the left) I had hanging in my studio

  (boy, it was tidier back then). It's by local Tassie textile artist, Penny Malone. Well, the other day I finally added another to my collection. There is it below :)

The design is based on a building at 80 Collins Street, Melbourne. It's funny as I'm not a huge fan of the colour orange, but I just love it in combination with pink and red.

I decided to hang them in the lounge room as we have a couple of big bare walls.

Bit of a quirky combo but I like it.

I'm not sure if I'll leave them there, or even together, as I like the idea of the geometric one by itself or even hung with a pink/red graphic print or two. I suppose that's the beauty of picture rails, you can move art around and not have to patch walls :)

And my familiar story?

 Well, you know the old story about the plumber's house without decent plumbing, or the builder's house that is never fully built? Same goes for electrician's homes. We have been here for almost 3 and a half years and I had a power point in the kitchen that had only one switch that worked. I have been juggling appliances, constantly unplugging and plugging in again. The other night I was cooking on "George" the grill and wanted the rice cooker going at the same time. Lyndon decided on that moment to fix the power point.

Would you believe after 3.5 years it only took him 5 minutes to fix that darn thing?!!

I was so excited. Now if I could only get him to replace the power points in the lounge room...

xx

Quirks of old homes (and a hot pink ensemble)

I suppose one of the downsides of owning an old home is that things all start wearing out.
The other night while I was cooking dinner I noticed the lights dim when I turned on the oven. Lyn came in from his shower to say he felt tingles off the taps and shower head. Hmm, a bit of a problem.
We went through the house and check the earth connections, the fuses and behind the panels in the switchboard (the benefit of being an electrician) and discovered a problem with the earth.
We decided if I was going to have a shower the next morning I would have to wear thongs so off I went to Kmart to buy some lovely hot pink thongs (flip flops for those of you outside Aus). Now, if I was going to shower as safely as I could that would also mean rubber gloves, and being the fashionista I am, luckily they were also hot pink. I like to be co-ordinated, even in a potentially dangerous shower situation. Can you imagine it?? What an hilarious picture.
Anyway, Lyn rang the power supplier who came around and discovered we had a broken neutral where the power enters the house - so they fixed it! No need for my hot pink showering ensemble after all :(

While we were checking the earth on the hot water cylinder (which is in our ceiling and is ancient - please don't leak!!) I thought I'd stick my head up there for the first time. WOW! There's so much room, in fact room enough for a large master bedroom and tonnes of extra storage. I had to take some pics but they don't really give an idea of the height and space.

Ours is probably the highest pitched roof in the street. I've been daydreaming ever since about a gorgeous attic room with dormer windows (the view would be great), maybe a cute little juliet balcony?

A girl can dream.

This pic (though not great) shows the light streaming in through the holes and gaps in the roof :) Amazingly, it doesn't leak in downpours (knock on wood).

Ah, the joys of an old home  :) I love it!

ps macaron recipe coming up in next post!