Leadlight finished, carspace resurfaced, splashback decided on

Arcadia Leadlight finished and installed my stained glass window above my front door. It looks wonderful! In the end, Arcadia tweaked my design. It features a sulphur crested cockatoo, 2 rosellas, a gumtree and some clouds sweeping across the sky. I can hear people as they walk past "Oh wow look, she's put in a stained glass, that's a nice one"

Carrie from Arcadia Leadlight installing the window

It is the first thing you notice as you walk down the hallway now. 

Unfortunately the border looks navy (ugh ugh) but is actually a deep purple. I picked the wrong one.

So beautiful (not the bin)

How it looks on approach.  The first coat of pink is on my front door by the way... 

Not as noticeable from the outside of course.

Here are some of the tiles that were shortlisted for my kitchen splashback. The shortlisted-shortlisted items were the silver hexagons and the pink glass tile.

I have finally settled on the splashback material:  pink glass. This was aided by my wonderfully talented friend Bronwyn who WHIPPED up some visualisations in minutes to help me see what the room would look like. She also quickly inserted the feature wallpaper as the feature wall will communicate heavily with the splashback. The first shot shows  the pink glass tile and the second the spacey hexagonal tiles. I think I will just get a single sheet of glass. I am starting to get people saying "are you .. sure the styling won't be a bit.. much" ?  The answer is no and believe me this is NOTHING compared to what's in my brain.

I wrote a letter to the council complaining about several things like an old lady. Some of the complaints were about how much rubbish is in Footscray and perhaps the locals need training / signs. I also said that my rear laneway was full of rubbish. To my surprise, I got home one day and they cleaned out the laneway! I don't have a before photo, but let me assure you it looked a lot worse than this. 

One Sunday we got a team together and rendered the big side brick wall in the back. This involved mixing together mortar and slopping it/ massaging in to the brickwork. The idea is to get all the differend brick sections looking uniform. It will then be painted. Unfortunately it needs another coat.

Nick angle grinded the old metal washing line out which really opened up the side walkway. 

I have had my backgarden / carspace resurfaced with "exposed aggregate" concrete. This involved them removing all the old concrete with a bobcat, laying mesh, pouring concrete, coming back later, applying acid over the top then blasting the top off with a high pressure water cleaner to reveal a nice natural hard stony surface underneath. It isn't quite finished yet- they still have to shine and seal it. I can't drive on it for 2 weeks while it dries.

Washing the top layer off to expose the finished stony look.

One of them came inside and asked me if I live alone which I found a pretty irrelevant question. You really take a risk when you're constantly opening the house for tradesmen, leaving the back and side gate open, leaving them alone, having them privy to your schedule. I only leave the key for the tradies I have good relationships with. Even this blog is opening myself up for security mishaps...

In short, I will be relieved when I no longer have to call, text, email, meet and greet tradies.

There has been a mountain of boxes in the backgarden which I've been slowly recycling every week every which way I can. We affectionately dubbed it "Box Hill"  (Melbourners will get it. I was born there, I unfortunately briefly went to school there and my first sharehouse was there)

 However last weekend I discovered Visy Recycling in Laverton. They took the boxes free in special bins. They also took pity on me and took my paint cans which are notoriously hard to get rid of!