David Houselhof Gets A Facelift Part 3

Ya'll ready for this?!

Presenting our beautiful new floors and kitchen. We couldn't be happier with how it turned out. It feels like a completely different house. 

Matte white subway tiles with black grout. New sink, mixer and Smeg dishwasher. 

New Smeg oven (which I'm in love with) & Samsung fridge, new kickers on all the kitchen cabinets. We are still deciding whether we change the cabinet handles to black. The ones we like are out of stock till July so we'll see what happens.

Audrey is loving having all her toys back and was very excited to pick her own special rug for her play area.
Now that the floors are done we can FINALLY look at getting a couch for this space to make it more homely... Only taken 4 years! 

We are all super happy to be back to 'normal' in the house, and to have the boys back home. It was a long 3 weeks without them here. Gordon was quick to vomit on the new floors.... dickhead!

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David Houselhof Gets A Facelift Part 2

I'm a little bit slow with my part 2 update as it's been a full on couple of weeks. 

The first week was all of our floors (ALL FOUR LAYERS OF THEM) getting ripped up and our new hardwood floorboards laid. 

Week 2 we had lots of bits and pieces done. The plan was to have everything done before the floors were sanded and polished and then the last thing would be to install the dishwasher and the fridge. 

We upgraded our sink and mixer. Installed new downlights and removed this awful spitlight that was in the kitchen. We ran power to our kitchen island and a water line ready for our new fridge. 

BJ and I also spent many nights prepping and painting the new skirting boards. 

The new oven was also installed and then wrapped for safety while other work was being done. 

The tiler was meant to show up on 3 different occasions and stuffed us around a little bit so the tiles unfortunately were not completed prior to the floors being done which delayed our finish date a little bit more. 

These photos are super amazing I know

Late night painting of skirting is not the funniest thing in the world

At the end of week 2 we packed our little family up and moved out of the house for 4 days while the floors were sanded and polished. 

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David Houselhof Gets A Facelift

Firstly.... It's been awhile!

6.30am Monday morning I frantically raced around the house as quietly as I could, moving a few more things before the builders rock up and the chaos began.
BJ and I have been wanting to replace the oven and redo our floors since we bought the house and we couldn’t do one without the other if we wanted it to look mint at the end so after I found my dream oven on sale our dreams of renovating very quickly became reality. We decided if we were going to do these two things we should do everything else kitchen related done as well. Did I mention that when I found my dream oven on sale I also found my dream fridge on sale? Both with cashback offers as well and long story short, I needed a dishwasher that would match and in the end the cashbacks paid for the new dishwasher.

Day 1 - The first layer of floors and part of the second was ripped up. We had 4 layers for those playing at home. The kitchen island and the dishwasher were also ripped out

Day 2 - More flooring got ripped up. We could see some of the sub floor. The skirting boards all came off and so did the kitchen wall tiles

Day 3 - the last of the flooring was finally ripped up and the subfloor was prepped

Day 4 - the new hardwood started getting laid. The old oven and stove were ripped out. The kitchen stone benchtop got cut to fit the new oven and sink and I sold our old dishwasher

Day 5 - A whole day of laying the new floor

Day 6 - There back, back, back again! Finished off laying the floor today and putting on all the new skirting boards

Next week we have a lot less dust and a lot less noise. The plumber, electrician and tiler will all be out to do there part. In the evenings BJ and I will be painting all of the skirting boards before the dust gets turned up to 11 and the floors get sanded the following week.


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What The Flock - Audrey's Three!

This week Audrey celebrated her 3rd birthday and it's been a full week of festivities. 

It was a really fun one this year. I've been looking forward to the year that Audrey picks the theme for her party and she didn't disappoint when she picked a FLAMINGO PARTY!

I got her to decide about 3 months ago so I could get started on planning and prepping everything. Which has meant that for the last 3 months she's told us that 'tomorrow is her birthday' and we've had to explain that she was wrong.

It's been a full on year with the shop and i've been single parenting it a lot because of BJ's hours and i've been feeling really guilty about Aude having to spend a lot of time at home while i'm working my two jobs so I wanted to throw her a really fun party. I needed as much time as possible to make this party happen.

Audrey made a list of who she wanted to invite and I did the rest. I designed the invitations, made the decorations, the snacks and the cake of course. 

I design all of our invitations and I had a lot of fun with this one. Really happy with how it turned out. 

Once the invitation was out of the way I planned out all the other decorations and started bringing them to life. The thing I actually slacked on this year was the cake. I usually have a very detailed plan of what i'm going to make with drawings and even test cakes but this year I just had a vague idea of what I wanted to do. I whipped together the topper the week before her party and the rest of the cake I threw together the day before. 

I also managed to find a few minutes to chuck together some cute cookies. 

I was really proud of the paper garland I made for the wall. I honestly wasn't sure how it was going to turn out but I spent ages with my silhouette curio cutting out all the leaves and flowers and am really happy with the final result. It's been hanging up for 2 weeks now because I didn't want to have to do EVERYTHING on the day of the party. And it may be up for another 3 hahaha.

On top of the decorations we had a couple of games. Flamingo ring toss and Pass the parcel. Wasn't sure how Pass the parcel was going to go with a bunch of 3 year olds but it was a total success. And lastly, I couldn't resist in getting a giant inflatable flamingo for the kids to go nuts on. Surprisingly, it didn't pop and it was a huge hit.
Best $20 ever spent!

xx

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7 Years. 6 Months. 12 Kilos.

It's not that I haven't written anything in awhile its more that I just haven't been able to complete any of the posts I started writing. 

The last few months have been fucking insane!! Crazy!! Lot's of highs!

It's been nearly 5 years since I wore it and just as long since I last looked at it. Last night I whipped that bad boy out and threw it on. I couldn't zip it up myself which had me feeling a little disappointed but then BJ swooped in and saved the day. 

I haven't posted anything in the last 6 months, but SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED!!!


Since my last post, we went on our first family holiday. A week in Loch Sport, just the 3 of us and it was perfect. A chance to get away from it all and relax a little which is something I don't get to do often as I'm always working.

BJ quit his job of 7 years which he hated AND we started our own business! 

There have being some lows over the last 6 months too but I'm really trying to focus on the highs and keep a positive headspace.

2017 was a life changing year! We have taken a massive risk with BJ quitting his job and putting everything we have into starting a business and that's put a lot of added stress onto our lives. There has been lots of long hours, sleepless nights and very little family time but we are making it work. Doing everything we can to succeed and really build a better future for ourselves.

2017 was also the year and I decided to finally pull my finger out and be healthier. 

When I was pregnant with Audrey I was sooo sick that I lost an enormous amount of weight over the 9 months. I couldn't eat most things, I went to hospital at one point because I couldn't keep anything down and so after giving birth I went a little silly. After 9 months of not being able to enjoy all the foods I loved, I splurged a lot and that I managed to gain the weight back pretty damn quick. 

I got to a point that I was miserable. I hated looking in the mirror. Hating all my clothes and just wanting to hide all day in my hoodie and trackies. I kept going to kmart and just buy their $8 relaxed tees, a little bigger each time to hide my shame.

I finally made the decision to get healthy. I got on a strict meal plan, cut out 90% of my sugar intake and put a total ban on fast food. Apart from my clinical pilates class I didn't really commit to any exercise. I work two full time jobs and have a 2 1/2 year old so finding time to exercise is not easy and I didn't want to send my body into shock with too much change all at once. But in 12 months I've lost over 12kg!!

This week I had an urge to try on my wedding dress. Curious to see if it would fit.

It fit!! Perfectly!! It's a miracle!!

In the last 5 years soo much has changed. My body is completely different. I've had a kid! Things aren't where they used to be. But it still fits!

I was really excited that it fit and even more excited that when I had it on and I looked in the mirror I thought to myself 'If I was to get married right now, I would pick the same dress'. 

There are lots of things I'd change about my wedding day, but my dress definitely isn't one of them and that makes me really happy.

But the best part about trying my dress on, was seeing the look on BJ's face. I could see straight into his heart. I don't think he's ever looked at me like that. With THAT much love in his eyes.

I think I might try it on again in 5 years and see how it fits then.

This year I have some goals that I hope to achieve both personally and for the business.

I want to bake more - for myself and other people.

Continue working towards my weight goal.

Grow our business and really make it something amazing.

and make BJ and my relationship EVEN stronger.

We are 3 months into 2018 and things can only get better from here!!!

xx

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Audrey's 2nd Birthday!

How the hell is she two already?!

We had a fun afternoon on Sunday celebrating Audrey's birthday with friends and family (and Uncle Slick Bone). Audrey is obsessed with rainbows and believes in marriage equality, so we thought a colourful party would be perfect.

I love a good party theme and enjoy any opportunity to get creative.

I almost gave up on making the rainbow balloon for the wall because it was absolute hell to put assemble and used up all my tape to keep it together but I'm so glad it was a success in the end as it was perfect for photos.

This was the first rainbow layer cake that I've attempted and I'm soo happy with how it turned out in the end. It wasn't perfect but it was pretty damn good... and tasted delicious!!

As well as the cake I made some really cute hand piped gingerbread cookies, rainbow jelly, meringues, super cute fairy bread and lots of other tasty, sugary treats.

I also made the adorable little scalloped popcorn boxes, the flamingos party hats AND a giant lollipop piñata. Because what two year old doesn't want a piñata?!

In those two hours Audrey had more sugar then she's had in her two years of life and she handled the sugar crash really well.

I can't wait till next year when I ask her what kind of birthday party she wants to have and she tells me a theme.

#Voteyes

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