HOUSE ADORNMENTS

 We were lucky that there was very little work to do when we moved into Archibald St but we have made a couple of changes. The house is filled with grey/brown blinds. Not my favourite colour, as you can imagine, but they work and if they are up (which they usually are), you don’t notice them very much. However, in the family/dining room, we decided we needed some colour. And that was our first challenge. It’s almost impossible to find blind and curtain material that is anything other than cream/beige/grey/sand/oatmeal etc etc etc. We wandered from blind shop to blind shop and finally discovered Warwick in Leederville. They did have plenty of those buff colours but they also had just a few alternatives. And Susan and I found one we both loved, called Fiesta, which seemed appropriate.

Every blind-making person that came out to quote and saw our choice went “wow”.  Even they wished more people would be braver about their colour choice. Having found the perfect material we had our curtains and roman blinds made by a family-owned store a couple of minutes drive away- an Iranian family that do their own sewing. And result is just what we hoping for. The material even matches some painted wooden chairs that I’ve owned for 35 years and never had a place to put them since leaving Sydney.

 


Our next change to the family room area was an inbuilt bookcase. Although we did a large cull of our books before travelling to Perth, we do keep buying more. The bookcase enables us to show off some book collections and also some small pieces of art so the question is which books to put on these shelves? Susan has opted for her sets of Kerry Greenwood, Georgette Heyer,  Dorothy Sayers, Laurie R. King plus her cookbooks and children’s books. I’ve still in the process of deciding but so far have opted for travel books and my photo books plus DVDs (I know, how old fashioned to even own them!). We’ve both happy with the way the bookcase adds to the feeling of the room.

 


The next change was the garden. Out the front, there was a hedge surrounding a patch of fake grass. You know how fond of artificial lawn I am but as we don’t have much garden space there isn’t room for the birds and the bees and the butterflies to visit. We decided to pull it up and replace it with lavender and rosemary. With the hard work of our friend Gary, this little spot of garden has been transformed. The only challenge now will be to make sure we keep the plants alive during summer.

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