Tea & Toast: Recycled Walls

I’ve got my stripy red mug in hand and some sourdough toast with peanut butter to go with it. Ready!

How about you?

Yep, it’s Tea & Toast time again. Today I wanted to spend some heavy duty drooling time over recycled walls. Oh how I love a good bout of recycled treasure and things couldn’t be better when they are actually used in the constructing stage of a nest.

OK, off we go on our recycled wall adventure…

This would have to be my absolute favourite. Painted, flaking timber boards as a wall lining feature. Gorgeous! {And hello! Roofline alert!!!!}

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And how about this one? It’s a wall of bits and pieces of recycled timber put together like a gorgeous jigsaw puzzle to be a feature for a cafe.

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And how about using doors as a wall? Some people are just so creative.

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Do you know what this wall is made of? Come on, see if you can guess…

{hint: you could read it……}

I know I’ve posted this image in a previous post but I couldn’t resist re-posting it here. Don’t you love it? A recycled metal fence screen.

Now this is not my favourite but I felt the need to post it here in memory of my Brogo childhood. Bottle dreaming!

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Hmmm, could you do this in your study?

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Oh, how I love recycled corrugated iron. Team it with a pot belly and voila, instant Aussie-ness.

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And last but not least, a gorgeous recycled brick wall. I love old red bricks. I have a big pile of them, not cleaned yet {bar 69 of them…thanks Lewi and the Racz kidlets xx} that I’m contemplating having to move to our next nest. Effort plus but oh, the possibilities!

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So what did you think?

Has Tea & Toast this week inspired you to add a little zing of recycled loveliness to your nest?

 

Happy Tuesday!

Kim xx

 

 

The Learning Is Everywhere

Another full and lovely week has flown on by…the next month is going to be one big ball of chaos – I’ve just got this funny feeling.

We…sticky beaked

We…got silly

We…found things

We…played

We…made stuff

We…house hunted

We…walked

We…enjoyed

We…thought of our friend, Taj

We…ate

We…movie-d

We…partied {Happy 12th Birthday, lovely Karinya xx}

We…stepped back in time

We…house hunted some more

We…celebrated

We…relaxed with friends

We…snacked from Lynda’s garden

We…fed hungry sting rays

We…swam

How about you?

Kim xx

This Week I’m Grateful For Friends & Contracts

 

 

All things happen for a reason. All things. Full stop. They really, really do. And I’m so very, very grateful that they do.

Take yesterday, for example.

Yesterday was an ordinary day apart from two little details. The first was a big ball of a little bit of exciting and a lot sadness and a giant helping of relief, all mixed into one.

Yesterday we exchanged contracts on our purple nest. Done! Signed, sealed, delivered. {Thank you, thank you, Kate and John and kidlets for buying our house xxx}. Settlement is set for the 26th of September. The wheels are in motion – avalanchey snow ball style motion.

The second little detail is that my very, very close and dear friends who live about 4 minutes drive away, also exchanged contracts on their house and  their settlement date is set for the…can you guess? …26th of September! Hello! Weird. Freaky. Yet all for a reason, that I’m certain.

Already I can see the wonderfulness of having very close friends selling up and moving out at exactly the same time as us. Empathy. Empathy to the max. We really understand exactly what the other is feeling.

You see both of our families owner built our houses. Both planned the dream house and lifestyle. Both became a little financially strained. Both decided to down size and get a grip. Both realised that as much as we love our beautiful nests, they are, after all, only 4 walls and a roof and floor. They are not the be all and end all to life. There is life after building the dream house. Thankfully!

 

So this week I’m so very, very grateful for friends and contracts and that combination. The journey begins…for more than one of us.

So, what are you grateful for this week? Why don’t you pop on over to the lovely Maxabella’s and share in the grateful fun.

Happy Weekend!

Kim xx

Ye Old Printing Press: Some Book Week Fun

 

Yesterday we stepped back in time – right back, in fact, to 1871.

In 1871 this beautiful treasure – a bench top hand printing press came to life in down-town London.

It would’ve been the talk of the town back in the day and in down town Bega, 2011, it was still the talk of the town.

What an amazing contraption this is!

Richard Jermyn, the owner and most-incredibly-knowledgeable one on all things printing and presses, gave a talk and demonstration at Candelo Books yesterday and showed us all how books were made back in the day.

I honestly had no idea of the work that went into printing books back then.

Every single word and sentence and page had to be hand constructed, using these ‘types’ {little cute as a button lead letters}.

Then they were carefully placed on the bed of the machine, accuracy being of utmost importance.

Then, 60 year old ink, made purely of linseed oil {burnt and burnt and burnt again until it becomes black syrupy ink} was hand rolled onto the type – rolled onto the type, I might add, with a roller made from rabbit glue, glycerine and molasses {Richard, of course, makes his own rollers using the traditional methods}.

Paper was then placed accurately and very carefully onto the tipin bit and then fixed and manoeuvred so the press could do it’s job.

Then voila! Beautiful hand printed  pages are made. Aren’t they lovely? And the smell!! Linseed oil mixed with that fresh hand made papery smell. Lovely!

When another colour was added, the whole process had to be done again.

 

This is a book brought in by a man at the demonstration. He’s a collector of old, leather bound books, and he happened to bring along this 300 year old beauty. It was printed using the same sort of printing press as Richard’s and it shows the use of multiple fonts in the one book. What a treasure!

Oh wouldn’t I love to get my sticky beak into Richard Jermyn’s shed? Apparently it is the size of Candelo Books and is full to the brim of old printing memorabilia.I feel a little home schooling visit is in order…

Kim xx