Guess Whose Coming To Our Place?

The fabulous, super cool, UK designer and decorator, Ms Abigail Ahern, that's who!

Okay, so she's not really coming to our place per se, but she is fixin our kitchin!

(well, kind-of)

Not with her own fair hands (that would be too insanely awesome!) but vicariously, through a new segment on her wonderful blog she calls Style Surgery.

(Unfortunately) we have been blessed with a lovely 80's style country kitchen. You know those heavily lacquered, oak fronted, raised panelled doors, with a hideous orange hue to them? That's our kitchen! Here's how it looked when we bought the house:

Another real estate listing pic, which has been heavily photo-shopped (believe it or not) I could almost handle this kitchen but in real life it bears only the faintest resemblance to the kitchen we got when we bought the house.

Late last year we replaced the benchtops, appliances (we needed an oven that worked!), blind, and painted out that yellow, but it still looked awful.

(we couldn't, and still can't, justify ripping out the cabinetry. Hideous as it is - it's Tasmanian Oak and it would've cost a packet back in its eighties hey-day.  We don't feel it would be right (or very nice really) to rip it out, only to replace it with something crappy made of melamine which would still cost big bucks regardless of quality)

Anyway, my attempt to make it better failed miserably. In my note to Abigail I said it was a bit like plastering cheap concealor over a pimple - you could (and can) still see there's something ugly there, festering away (not so quietly) under the surface.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I received an email from Abigail saying that our kitchen had been selected to feature in her first ever Style Surgery feature. I mean seriously, how cool is that?!

Abigail Ahern is "tricking out" our kitchen!

Who care's if it's me doing "the dirty work"!

I'd be happy to be her apprentice/trades assistant/lacky any day of the week - especially if our kitchen turns out like any of these:

all images Abigails blog.

It's booked in for 'surgery' soon - it goes live over at Abigail's this week. I am so excited to see what she comes up with (aren't you?) and I can't wait to pull on my rubber gloves and start the healing process.

I'll keep you posted.

x

p.s. I'm moving (albiet it in the extreme and far-removed fringes) of some illustrious circles these days...guess who designed my fabulous new header? (and all for love I might add!) Click here to find out. I'm a very lucky girl, and she is a lovely, lovely, lovely person.

  

  

"Picked locally"...

while walking the dog.

(in other words, I've been doing a bit of friendly neighbourhood pruning again!)

Banksia epica 

(I think?)

Please note, I didn't pilfer these from private gardens, they are council plantings - free for the picking (in my opinion. Yours?) As I said to Anth (as he walked away from me nonchalantly - pretending not to know me, and refusing to sully his hands with with what he called my criminal activities) "we pay our rates, we're entitled!"

Anyway "pruning is necessary for optimum plant growth and flower yeild" It says so here, at Agwest, and they know their stuff.

(believe me if I could buy them close to home in their natural state, I would. The Banksias at our local florist have all had the misfortune of being stuck in buckets of dye. If I wanted purple/hot pink flowers I'd buy Irises or Gerbera's or something!)

The Brown Pot, Margaret Preston, 1940.

I love this painting. Image and more here. 

I hope you are having a nice weekend, it's a bit chilly here in Perth today x

  

Oranges and Lemons

 

Beautiful vintage tea towel cushion, handmade by lovely Zara. 

 

Lemon Curd.

 

Getting through our stash, one lemon at a time...

 

I used this recipe, but it turns out my Mum's lemon butter is just as good.

 

 

It also turns out that lemon butter and lemon curd are the same thing.

 

Lemon curd just sounds fancier and more chefy.

 

 

We like to use it (and a big dollop of whipped cream as well) to fill fairy cakes.

 

The perfect combo.

 

Vintage Meakin "Wattle" plate, another gift from Zara.

 

(and particularly special to us because Lucy Violet used to serve her roasts from a "Wattle" platter)

 

Zara has also been dabbling in watercolours of late.

 

Is there anything this gorgeous girl can't do?

 

Clearly not. Just look at what else she sent me

 

Handsome Germans and Billy Buttons, another perfect combo.

 

I'm a very lucky and grateful girl to be on the receiving end of such loveliness.

  

Thanks for reading, and thank you for your kindness Zara x 

 

 



 



 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 



 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Museum of Natural History

131 James Street Guildford, Western Australia.

This place is awesome. The blurb on their pamphlet says:

"You will walk in and say WOW!"

 

 

 

and I did!

 

Remember museums before they got all touchy-feely, art gallery sterile, and a bit boring? 

 

(that's how I feel about modern museums anyway. I think they've lost something in their attempt to be user friendly. What do you reckon?)

 

You might like white walls and bright lighting, but I prefer the museums of my childhood: dark, spooky, and a bit on the daggy side. I like feeling like I should whisper and mind my p's and q's while I'm looking at fossils and relics and dinosaurs. I like that feeling of reverence I felt in museums whem I was a kid on school excursions (not sure if reverence is the right word here, but I hope you get the gist). I reckon museums are far too clean and tidy these days, and that is why I fell in love with this place.

 

(that, and the fact that it's housed in an old Slavonic Hall, built in 1926, but currently rocking more of a 70's interior: original bar in corner, alpine mural backdrop still on stage, perspex chandeliers (love them!), velvet curtains etc. etc.)

 

Here are some pics, they're not that crash-hot (actually, they totally suck!) but don't let them put you off - please. It's a really cool place. I know you'd like it, and remember, it won't be long until the July school holidays...    

 

A fleeting glimpse of Annabel,

 

and another.

 

 

 

 

they're antlers hanging from the chandeliers.

 

Kangaroo Paws (now you know - if you didn't already!)

I found this exhibit a tad unnerving.

 

Now I know some of you might find all this taxidermy stuff upsetting (every time there's a cow hide in an interior on Design Sponge, The Design Files, etc. there's always a few comments from outraged readers), but Michael Buzza, Master Taxidermist(!) and the chap behind the museum, only works on animals that have died of natural causes, so don't fret too much, okay.

 

(and when you've had your fill of the museum, there's always Guildford's antique strip - Curio Warehouse is my fave)

 

Thanks for reading x

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots-o-Lemons

 

 

Why is it, when your own lemon trees are dripping with lemons, so is every other lemon tree in the hood?

Seriously there's a basket/bucket of lemons out the front of every third or fourth house I pass when I'm taking the dog for a walk. Note attached saying something like:

Free Lemons.

 

PLEASE take some!

 

And why is it, when your tree's bare, and you're desperate for a lemon (for your Caesar Salad - this always happens to us) there's not a lemon in sight?

(forcing you to trot up to Coles, and fork out top dollar for a horrible old imported lemon that doesn't smell, feel, or taste anything like, the real thing! Sound familiar?)

 

Lemons are a great example of the old "feast or famine" adage - you're either loaded or your bust. Because I can't bear to see ours go to waste (there are only so many ice-block trays of lemon juice I can fit in the freezer!), and because I thought you might be in a similar predicament, I thought I'd share a few lemony recipes here over the next month or so. The yummy ones, obviously.

 

First up a recipe from David Lebovitz.

(if you've never heard of David - I have only recently discovered him - I have to tell you that every single recipe I've tried of his has turned out perfectly, not to mention deliciously, plus he's a brilliant writer. You know those cooks that tell stories you want to read with their recipes? Well he's one of those.)

Yesterday I made his Whole Lemon Bars, and while they made only the tiniest dint to our lemon glut, they are  

 

totally

 

 

totally

 

 

delish! and I reckon you should try them.

 

Got any luscious lemon recipes? Send them my way and I'll give them a whirl. Think of it as a bloggy way of helping yourself to the bucket of "free lemons" I've plonked on our front verge...

 

I notice that Allison is doing the lemon-thing on her blog today too. Check her recipe for Lemon Tart here.

 

Gotta give my lemon peel/vodka a shake (recipe for homemade Limoncello here soon - if it works!) See ya, Kylie x

 

 



 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Speaking of...

Pottery, how about these?

 

 

 

I'm particularly fond of the little dip in the saucer which makes the most perfect 'handle'.

 

 

Four dollars a pair, local op-shop. I only wish there were more of them, and that I knew who made them. Here's the potter's mark - perhaps somebody out there can help me identify the artisan who turned a lump of clay into something so beautiful. And useful. 

 

 

 

 

 

Meet Betty

 

She likes

 

 

to mix things

 

 

up!

 

(unlike me - I've had the same 'do', give or take a fringe, for twenty years!)

 

Meet Betty's maker and namesake here.

 

I found her at Guildford Village Potters.

They make/sell some lovely pottery and ceramics, very reasonably priced too (heaps cheaper than a lot of the pottery I'm currently lusting over on etsy!) There's a lot of 80's country cottage stuff on the shelves (tea bag holders and such) but keep an open mind, and your eyes peeled and you will be rewarded.