Category Archives: House

IKEA Rudsta Greenhouse Project

ikea_rudsta_wide_greenhouse_update
Just an update shot!

Everything is growing bonkers in there. Every single plant has been pushing out new leaves. It’s getting hard to try and stop them from touching each other!

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Translucent Roller Blinds

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I had Wonderful BFS over again today to install translucent roller blinds for all rooms of the apartment.

The apartment faces west, so I get the harsh afternoon sun full blast. It gets so hot in here that I can’t walk on the floorboards. I’ve legit had to use the air conditioning daily (I’m currently looking for some fans as I’d prefer not to use air conditioning), closing the blockout blinds was an option, but I’d prefer to still let natural light in so these translucent blinds were a no brainer.

I had them in Maroubra, but never used them (I always just had the full block-out blinds down at all times and only rolled them up for shoots). Funny how now that I’m in a better place (mentally). I MUCH prefer the blinds to be up!

It’s 5.30PM now. Damien (the installer) has been at it since 2PM. What was meant to be a pretty straight forward job has been a nightmare for him as he’s had to drill through steel beams as well as concrete to get the blinds installed (poor guy has been huffing and puffing all day!). I’m really happy with the blinds though, they look amazing and they block out so much heat (yet still let a decent amount of light through!). I doubt I’ll be using the full block-out blinds much anymore, but it’s good that I still have the option as they’re still installed (IE: double blinds on all sliding doors).

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Thoughts on Apartment vs House living

thebody
All black erythang!

It’s been over a month since I’ve moved in to the new apartment. Thought I’d jot down some thoughts in relation to Maroubra vs. Rosebery, House vs Apartment.

Things about Maroubra that I miss:
– Being able to play music and my guitar VERY loud!
– The MUCH cooler and fresher air (it’s really hot and dry in Rosebery!).
– Heated towel rails (they’re just SO good!).
– Zip tap (well it wasn’t working anymore in Maroubra, but I still miss having instant boiling water to make my morning coffee).
– A kitchen island that I can eat at (even though I ate on the floor at the coffee table). The new apartment’s kitchen bench doesn’t have room for my knees).
– Safe and easy mail deliveries (getting parcels to an apartment feels sketchy, especially if they leave the parcel next to the lift on floor 1).

Things I don’t miss about Maroubra:
– Being in the middle of nowhere and having to Uber Eats a lot (I just walk out and eat now, so many cafes and supermarket is a block away).
– The damp (lots of mould) and the salty air rusting everything I own.
– House was just way too big to keep clean.
– Having to remember garbage days (new apartment has a garbage chute on my floor, and a massive garbage area in the carpark where I can throw away oversized items (all year round council clean-up basically!).

All in all I’m loving the apartment. It’s much smaller, thus a lot easier to keep clean. Having lots of smaller rooms means I’m using each of the rooms fo different things (whereas I had everything in the main room at Maroubra and never walked in to the other spare rooms). There’s heaps of awesome food in the area and the woolies is a block away (no more delivery needed!). Rosebery is so central too (I’ve been doing weekly trips to the Bunnings in Alexandria and IKEA at Tempe!).

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Better Beer

betterbeer
Love this beer.

Love the Yamazaki silcone coasters just as much!

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BenQ ScreenBar Halo LED Monitor Light

benq_lightbar
Let your soul glow.

In an attempt to keep my tiny desk clean I decided against buying a desk lamp, and instead went for this lightbar which comes with a cordless puck which I can use to adjust the brightness, colour temp as well as backlight which lights up the wall behind the monitor. It came in “Apple like” packaging, which I thought was pretty damn funny as the packaging nor the design of the item is anywhere near the level of Apple products, but hey, it works and I like it!

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Spotlight: Art Supplies

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Needs more love but it’s a start!

2b
2B is all I REALLY need!

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Trolley.

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One of my old pieces.

My main mission is to get back into making art, and whilst I do think I’d be most comfortable drawing and painting in the main lounge room I’ve decided to set up the spare room as a dedicated art studio (I suppose I can paint in both!).

I’ve brought over all of the art that I’ve decided to keep from Maroubra. I bought a trolley (so I can easily wheel art supplies around within the art room and even out to the lounge room) and a small (but deep) standing table and ergonomic stool from IKEA. What I really need though is art supplies.

I’ve been looking for art supplies online for the past few weeks. The RIOT! Art & Craft chain stores have shut down (there was one in Eastgardens which I had planned to drop into). There’s an Eckersley’s in Bondi Junction Westfield’s, but that place is a fucking nightmare. A few people on reddit suggested that Spotlight had some bargains so earlier today I checked out the Spotlight site and it turns out they were having a 30% off everything in-store until 8pm. Perfect!

In a rush to get out the door I locked myself out! I could break in to my old house in Maroubra, but there wasn’t any way I could break into my new apartment. Luckily for me I had my phone on me so I called the locksmith (Kevin Wong). Amazingly he was free! Better yet it only took him 15 minutes to get to me! Just as Kevin got to the building another tenant was entering the building so they let him in (the apartment fob to use the lift was obviously in my apartment!), all the luck!

He was done in 10 minutes. I headed off to Spotlight and bought another easel, a couple of canvases, an art pad, pencils, brushes and paint. I saved $130 with the sale, most of that went to Kevin the locksmith, but hey happy days!

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Calathea Makoyana

calathea_Makoyana
Calathea Makoyana (AKA Peacock Plant).

Dropped in to see Alex at More Plants today and picked up another plant to live outside of my cabinet. This time I picked up a Peacock Plant (another Calathea) because A) It’s got a wonderful painterly pattern on it’s foliage and B) it’s going straight into the spare room which I’m setting up as an art studio and C) It’s pet safe, a good thing as Mia’s still chewing leaves!

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Apartment update

handles1
Replaced every instance of these ugly handles in the apartment.

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Replaced them with these simple black handles from Bunnings. Still might rip off the sliding mirror built-in wardrobe doors from the 2 spare rooms.

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Ripped off 6 doors in total from the master walk-in wardrobe but have decided to leave the last 2 doors at the end, for now.

findingspace
The Finding Space Journal.

dodrugs
DO DRUGS (the whole pencil actually says “TOO COOL TO DO DRUGS”).

kitchen1

kitchen2
ALL BLACK ERRYTHANG!

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IKEA Rudsta Greenhouse Project

queen_anthurium
Yes. I caved. The ultimate goal is to have a Queen Anthurium with huge perfect leaves as the only plant in the cabinet. I bought a baby queen a little while back, and it’s pushed out a new leaf, but it’ll be years before it gets to the size of this one.

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Anthurium Clarinervium pushed out this cute new little leaf (how is this not heart shaped?!). It gets bigger every day. Fingers crossed it’ll be way bigger than the biggest leaf!

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Alocasia Cuprea pushed out this amazing new leaf!

Late night internet shopping is nasty. I had seen this Queen Anthurium for sale over a month ago on Rootd Plants. It was the last of the batch that no-one wanted as the leaves on it looked pretty banged up, but late the other night I saw it was still there and I pulled the trigger on it. It came quick and was packed well. She’s definitely pretty beat up. They have very sensitive leaves which many who keep them say not to touch. A small mark on a small leaf will become a HUGE mark once the leaf gets big.

I have every single plant in the apartment growing in leca now except this queen. I’m nervous about moving her over, but at the same time I’m a little less nervous as she’s not the perfect specimen.

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Pine and Sprout

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pineandsprout_trellis

I stumbled upon these amazing plant trellis made by a brother and sister duo in the US. Love at first sight! I had to have the evil eye trellis! Viv is NUTS about the moon (and she has a lot of plants!) so I bought her the moon phase and sun, moon stars ones too. Visit: https://pineandsprout.com

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