Madeleine's diary - the Easter edition

Day 1, Good Friday 7am: Have woken up thinking about my sister Emily. Daddy said she would be here when I woke up. Must go check. Need to get out of this cot pronto. Mummmy! MUMMMMYYYY!

7:03am: Mummy, you took ages to get here. Is Emmy here? She is? Hooray! She got in at 2am? Well then I imagine she will be ready to play by now. I'll just run down to her bedroom and check. Emmmy! EMMMMYYYYY!

7:06am: I'm a bit over playing the "let's pretend to sleep" game, Emmy. Think I will eat some breakfast instead. Is it Chocolate Egg Day yet? Mummmy? MUMMMMYYYY!

7:07am: Oh listen to that, Harry's awake. I wonder who woke him up.

10:30am: We are going for a walk in the RAIN. This is very exciting. I will wear my rain coat. NOBODY HELP ME I WANT TO CARRY THE UMBRELLA ALL BY MYSELF. Why are complete strangers ducking and weaving away from me?

2:30pm: Hot cross buns are my favourite.

4pm: We are painting eggs. RED! I WANT RED PAINT! Wait, Daddy has blue. That's it, BLUE! I WANT BLUE! Emmy, what colour do you have? Green? THAT'S THE ONE I WANT. I WANT GREEN. Mummy, stop trying to help, I can do it myself.

3.15pm: THERE IS GREEN PAINT ON MY HAND HELP HELP GET IT OFF GET IT OFFFFFFF.

Day 2, Saturday

12pm: Grace and Kiera are here and we are having an Easter Egg hunt. I don't know what that means but I am VERY EXCITED. Aaaaargh this is very excellent, I am going to run as fast as I can on the spot and yell "yeah." YEAH.

12:05pm: We are in the courtyard. There are chocolate eggs here. OH MY GOODNESS THERE ARE CHOCOLATE EGGS EVERYWHERE IN THE COURTYARD I KEEP FINDING THEM EVERYWHERE I LOOK THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME.

12:07pm: FRENZY! FRENZY!

12:10pm: Chocolate Easter eggs are my favourite.

12:11pm - 3:30pm: Chocolate, toys, games, friends. Grace is 11 and she lets me boss and drag her around everywhere I think I will kiss her. Lunch, toys, games, friends. I will drag Grace into the hall and make her pretend to be a puppy with me. Peppa Pig! I SKIPPED MY NAP. BAHAHAHA. Dessert, toys, games, friends. Grace is tired, I wonder why? I will sit on her lap and call her mummy. Chocolate!

4:05pm: I am feeling a little bit delirious. Think I will do a spot of spinning in the lounge room in front of all my friends. I keep falling over. I don't care. Delirious! Frenzy! Frenzy!

Day 3, Easter Sunday

7:03am: CHOCOLATEEEEEEE. The Easter Bunny left chocolate in my bedroom! I am so happy. This is the best morning of my life.

7:08am: WHYYYYYYYY? Why can't I eat my chocolate for breakfast? This is the worst morning of my life.

10:20am: We are walking so that Harry can sleep in the pram and Mummy can get coffee. Why does she always say she needs coffee? I don't understand.

12pm: Mummy and Daddy found the Taco Truck, I found a park with swings and a slide. Harry is still asleep. We are all very happy.

12:03pm: Oh look! I found more Easter Eggs hidden at the bottom of the slippery slide! Hooray!

12:04pm: WHYYYYYYY? Why can't I eat food I randomly found on the ground of a deserted and slightly derelict-looking park?

2:30pm: I'm not even tired I definitely don't need a nap. Oh wow, Daddy is cuddling me on Mummy and Daddy's bed! This is so much fun. Daddy wants to sleep but I will never sleep. I am going to play and make him laugh, it will be so much fu-- zzzzzzzzzz.

4:30pm: Mummy why are you waking us up? I don't want to get up. Ooh a bottle! I will let you give that to me and read me a story while I drink it, if it makes you happy.

6pm: We are going out for a night-time picnic. And Emmy is coming too. This is CRAZY good. We are outside, walking, and it's dark! I can't believe my eyes! It's dark! I must keep reminding Mummy how amazing this is. I will say "Night night!" every few seconds, to make sure she doesn't forget. Now I will tell Emmy "Night night" too, in case she hadn't realised.

6:20pm: The park! The park! I love the park, and now we are in the park. At NIGHT. The park, at NIGHT! Wowwwwww!

7:01pm: We are on our way home. In the dark. At NIGHT. In the dark. We have been in the park. At NIGHT. This is the best night ever. I am never going to sleep again.

ps. Madeleine's previous diary entry

Favourite things - leave an impression

From paper to photos to pancakes, here are five clever ways to leave an impression. Brought to you, for no apparent reason, by the letter P. 1. Photos

How great is this "Lightcase"? It's a small, portable studio that you can use to take professional-style photographs of the things you make and love, even with just an iPhone.

2. Pandas

The sweetest little friends ever to sit on your finger: these miniature crocheted animals from SuAmi in Vietnam are the best! This one is a red panda. (Seen via B for Bel)

3. Pancakes

We make a lot of faces out of food around our place these days. But nothing quite as clever as this "Crack a Smile" pancake mold!

4. Paper

These Haibara letter-and-envelope sets caught my eye a few months back, and I keep coming back to them. I love how bold and clean they are, and those red outlines make them look like drawings of envelopes. (Seen via Swiss Miss)

5. Paintings

This has to be one of my favourite public art projects and if you didn't dream about moving to Paris before, you will now. Etienne Lavie replaced billboard advertisements all over the city with classic works of art. Not long after that, he did the same in Milan. Tres belle, oui?

Through the ages

In 1800 BC, Babylon was the biggest city in the world. Queen Sobekneferu of Egypt died, heralding the start of the 13th and 14th Dynasties. In India, the Iron Age got underway. And on the western slope of what is now known as the Sierra Nevadas in California, USA, a sequoia seed germinated in a forest and pushed its way into the sunlight. Ages have come and gone since then: great cities have risen and crumbled, religions have swept across continents, wars have devastated communities and science has unlocked many of our greatest mysteries.

And that little sequoia plant has continued to grow, into a giant tree.

Silent, strong, made powerful with the protection of the forest all around it. Incredibly, it is still growing today, 3200 years later! Untouched by the passing of great civilisations, it is one of the biggest trees in the world, at more than 75 metres (247 feet) high.

And until recently, it had never been photographed in its entirety: there just wasn't a camera lens big enough. The little clip below shows this stunning, ancient tree in a snow-storm, being photographed by National Geographic photographers and National Park scientists.

This tree has looked over us for more than three thousand years. Now, at last, we can look over it.

Renovation update - a blank canvas

It sure has been a long time coming, but here is my first post about renovating our home a couple of months ago. Thank you to everyone who has shown enough interest to ask, and thank you for your patience! (Here was my original post announcing this renovation. Oh, the optimism!) A blank canvas

This is not really a "before and after" story, since there's till a long way to go: we're more at the "before and three-quarters" stage. That is to say, our home is a blank canvas. The bones are complete, and we are all moved in, but a lot of the character is still to come. There are very few paintings on the wall, or cushions on the couches, or plants under sunny windows. You never know. Perhaps I'll write a proper "after" story of this house to include all those things, one day.

Ours wasn't a big renovation per se. We weren't adding or removing any rooms, it was more of a cosmetic update. New bathrooms and kitchens, fresh paint on the walls. Pulling up the old carpet to expose the original floorboards. That kind of thing. Simple and affordable, yes?

But of course we managed to trip over every cliche you've ever heard of to come with renovating a house that is more than a century old. The work took twice as long as we had anticipated, and almost twice as much as we had budgeted. There were problems with builders and tradesmen and even now, more than eight months after we started, we are still waiting on some little jobs while other small problems require fixes.

So you can blame the cliches for the blank canvas state of our home right now. Essentially our entire decorating and pulling-together budget (and a hefty sum over and above that) was spent, instead, on scope-creep that we probably should have anticipated. You can read the story of all that happening (and see some scary photos of the work in progress) here. Actual walls made out of straw, anyone?

And now for today's reveal: the lounge / dining room

This is what it looked like before we started. Can you believe Madeleine wasn't even walking at that point? What a little no-haired cutie!

Now, here is what we did to those two rooms and the hall:

* Removed the hideous decals from the walls and windows * Painted the walls, doors and ceilings * Replaced the light fittings * Replaced the locks, door handles, light switches and power points * Removed the carpet * Failed to rescue the original floorboards, replaced them with new boards * Discovered the floor joists underneath were rotten, so replaced them too * Replaced the window dressings * Re-tiled both fireplaces * Removed the mouldy cement water-features from the light well * Painted the light well * Installed a decking in the light well at floor level with the inside floor

And this is what it looked like last Friday (somewhat uncharacteristically tidy because Madeleine was at daycare).

Lesson 1: Creating light

Look how gloomy and dismal these rooms were in the "before" photographs. Yet I had every (working) light in the house on when I took them. When we were choosing new lights for these rooms, we kept telling each other "The house is really dark, so we will need a lot of lights with decent wattage."

Turns out, a lick of white paint (or three or four - it took extra coats to cover that horrible green on the walls AND ceiling) and some fresh, light floorboards can completely brighten up a space. I took these "after" photographs with just the aid of natural light and I can't believe how much brighter the room looks (we used "Antique White USA" paint throughout, if you're interested).

Lesson 2: The illusion of space

We learned the same lesson when it came to space. This is not a big house, and when we started the renovation, we would tell our friends, "The rooms are very small, it's just a cottage." But we were amazed at just how much space there seemed to be in the same rooms, once the walls had been painted and the floorboards put in place.

For this reason, we have both curtailed our natural desire for big, bold, splashes of colour. There are not feature walls anywhere in our house, of either paint or wallpaper. The curtains are fairly neutral and unobtrusive. We kept everything simple and fresh to give the existing light and space room to play.

Lesson 3: Introducing personality

The plan, of course, was to bring the colour and character in with the accessories. Artwork on the walls. Cushions and throws and a feature arm-chair or two. Plants in pots and stands and hanging from ceilings. A really great rug. All that will have to come later, when the budget recovers from Phase 1.

Being forced to wait for all those things does have its advantages. Most importantly, living in the house before properly decorating it gives us time to see how things work for our family, specifically. I think we'll be making different decorating decisions now than we would have before we moved in.

Lesson 4: Toddler proofing

I'm a firm believer that you can still have a nice-looking home while keeping it safe for the little ones. We don't have any sharp or breakable items down low. In fact at the moment all we have are books, but I do want to add some other items, like globes and wooden ornaments, that look good but are still kid-safe. There's rubber around the hearth tiles to protect the children from sharp edges, safety glass in the windows, and child-proof plugs in all the power points. A consultant from Kidsafe came through the whole house to help us ensure it was safe.

We have a "no eating on the couch" rule, and no craft or messy games are allowed in here. It works without being too oppressive, because we have a play room for all that (more in a later post).

What's next?

ARTWORK: Clearly we need some art on those blank walls. But how many pieces? How big? We still haven't decided. We have some lovely canvases and prints resting on the floor in Emily's room right now, some of them quite large (like this one, which is 1.5 x 1.5 metres) but neither of us can decide where to put them or whether they will suit the space.

Apparently there are some rules to hanging artwork that help pull a room together subtly. Can anyone tell me about these? I've heard the paintings are supposed to be hung at eye level. But what part of the painting should be at eye level? And whose eyes are the measure of the level? (I'm short). Isn't there a rule about maintaining the same height in the middle of each work? Do you do that no matter what the size of the painting? What if (as in our case) there are paintings or mirrors above the fire-places, which force them to be quite high (certainly above my eye level): do we maintain that same height around the rooms, or go lower? It's all very confusing.

FURNITURE: We'd love to find a low, mid-century sideboard / radiogram (like this) to sit along the hallway in the lounge room, to open up that space a bit more. Even better if it was made of rosewood to match the dining table. We are keeping our eyes peeled locally (and saving our pennies).

We also want some other side tables, large pot plants, table lamps (I love these!), those sorts of things. But the ideas we had before living in the room don't seem quite right now that we're here. Decisions, decisions.

THE FLOOR: I think our floor rug needs to be twice the size of the one we have here, to give the room a greater sense of luxury and space. We both really love the colours and designs in this one.

SEATING: Those couches were new and while we like the look of them and are happy with the neutral tones (the plan being to brighten things up with cushions et al), they have actually turned out to be quite impractical. They are too tall, for one thing, so short little me struggles to breastfeed on them because my feet don't touch the floor properly! Also, those little buttons that give the cushions dimension easily come loose (one has already fallen off) and dig into you if you like to curl your feet under you as I do. Finally, they are so heavy that even with padding under the legs, they have already damaged our brand new and rather expensive floor. Never mind. First world problems, Naomi!

DINING: The dining table and chairs were a splurge. They are mid-century Brazilian Rosewood pieces, although we saved a bit by taking the chairs in original condition - one of these (much later) days we will have them renovated and reupholstered. The table extends out to seat more people, which is perfect for bigger gatherings without over crowding the fairly small room the rest of the time.

Question: what kinds of table coverings suit this kind of furniture? We love the table so we don't want to cover it completely with a table cloth, but we do need place mats and coasters to protect it. I think the cork place mats look kind of tacky - at least the ones I've seen - but the idea of adding to my laundry pile with cloth place mats is less than appealing. Any tips? Also, I really need to buy a beautiful, big fruit bowl (I love the look of these but am not sure about the size - mine needs to be HUGE). At the moment, that fruit is sitting in a Tupperware salad container.

LIGHT WELL: We love that the decking out here makes this space totally accessible. It's no longer damp or gloomy or dirty, so it's a lovely little contained place for the children to have supervised play while we're at the table. But because it is such an integral part of the dining room, we also need to decorate it nicely, to incorporate that space into the rest of the house. Mr B wants some kind of artwork out there (he likes mosaics but I'm not keen). I like the idea of a vertical garden but we're not sure if there will be enough light to maintain it. Mr B makes the good point that if the plants became sick or scrappy, it would look really awful. Another idea is to commission some kind of street-art style painting, or perhaps invest in some vintage outdoor signage. I'd love your ideas!

HALL: There's nothing there right now. I'm still thinking an Eames Hang It All coat rack would be nice, although I'm now leaning towards the neutral rather than multi-coloured version. That, and some kind of shoe-rack, an umbrella-stand, and other practical accoutrements. I'm yet to find the ones I like best.

Well, there you have it folks, our lounge/dining area in its "blank canvas" state. Despite the challenges, we really love this part of our new home. It's especially nice to have a "grown up" lounge area, since the kids have their play room out the back. I'll invite you into some of our other rooms in subsequent posts on this blog.

Little things - old compass

Little things in my home... In the lead-up to our first Valentine's Day as a couple, Mr B and I were living on opposite sides of the world. I wanted to do something for him, but when you are separated by thousands of kilometres, your most romantic dinners together happen over Skype. Which is to say, not very romantic.

Then as I was walking my dog along West Houston, I stopped to look through some tables of antiques and bric-a-brac and came across this old ship's compass, still in its original box. The box was held together with tongues and grooves, rather than nails, and with little lips to make the compass 'float'. I posted the compass back to Mr B in Australia, with a message along the lines of "now you will always know how to find me."

Now it sits among the books in our family room where the two children play. Those years in New York feel like a million years ago, not four. My mind boggles at how much has changed in that time.

The compass, however, still points north.

::  ::  ::

“Little Things” is an occasional series about the stories behind some of the little things you’ll find around my home. Are there stories behind the little things in your home? I’d love you to tell me about them! Or if you’d like to join in and write a post like this of your own, don’t forget to share a link to it so I can read it.

Melbourne dispatch - local burger picnic

Reason #17 why I love living in Melbourne's Inner North: our burger shop doesn't just do take-aways, it does take-away picnics! Next time you're wandering past The Local Burger Co on Rathdowne Street and the weather is just right, ask them to pack you a picnic. You don't need to bring a thing. They'll pop your order into a big wicker basket along with a water-proof blanket and some lovely bamboo cutlery.* All you need to do is amble across the road to the park and crack open those famous sweet potato fries.

This post was brought to you by my very hungry family, and the Live North Facebook page, who sponsored our outdoor dining adventure. Photos brought to you by my trusty iPhone because I was too busy stuffing my face to pull out the camera

* For a $20 deposit, refunded when you return the basket and blanket

ps. I'm pleased to announce the winner of last week's competition for family passes to the Melbourne Museum and IMAX, also thanks to Live North. Congratulations Tawhi, I hope you have a great time!

Favourite things - I did not expect that

Lately a lot of my favourite things collections seem to be about food. Which means that as I've been meandering my way around the Internet late at night while nursing Harry, it's the food posts that have caught my eye and inspired me to hit "save." Maybe it's because I'm a breastfeeding mother who is also racing around after a toddler, and I am permanently hungry. Be that as it may, I think you may just like these unexpected food combinations and constructions, too. 1. Instagram marshmallows

What a fun, quirky, tasty gift these would make! Seen via Poppytalk

2. Beaker BLT

This made me laugh. I'm all about making pictures out of food lately, to get Madeleine to eat her vegetables. Although this certainly blows my smiley-face and cat-face bean-and-carrot concoctions out of the water! And it's just in time for the new Muppets movie, too. Seen on Handmade Charlotte

3. Kombi toaster

Have I shared this one before? I feel like I have. Or was that the Kombi tent. Either way, I'm still a fan and if you are too, you can buy your own from The Fowndry. It's like those burger-shaped telephones we all wanted in our rooms as teenagers (I never got one. Did you?)

4. Beyond burgers

Take a look through Fat & Furious Burger, a bizarre website featuring totally over-the-top photographs of insanely decadent (and somewhat weird) burgers. Then you will look up and think "Wait, where did those three hours just go?"

5. Chocolate terrariums

I've saved the best for last. Look at these. Just look at them! Beautiful works of art, and deliciously tasty too. I would SO love to have one of these served up to me at the end of a meal. Apparently they're actually pretty easy to make, so maybe I'll try them out one day. The tutorial is on The Design Files if you want to have a go.

She loves winter

I have been doing little illustrations and fancy typography of cute quotes from books that I love. This was the first one, featuring (of course), that cheeky Mademoiselle Madeline (you know the one: she lives in an old house in Paris, covered in vines...) ps. Don't forget there is one day left to enter to win family passes to both IMAX and the Museum, worth $75. Details and entry are the bottom of this post.

Laughter

We all need it. Sometimes we really, REALLY need it. I needed it this week. The past few days have been, well... awful. Some pretty horrible stuff has been going down. Anyway, WE WILL ALL BE OK. Which is why it's definitely not as bad as all that, you know? And last night, I took a little break from it all. A friend and I went out to see Three Stuffed Mums, as part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival. There's nothing quite like a good belly-laugh with The Sisterhood, as we bond over those toddler Abs of Steel that appear when you're trying to wrestle them into a pram or car seat; or the fact that the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end when walking past a teenager's room because of all the static generated by their numerous electrical devices (not to mention the funky smell); or the sad reality that after performing the miracle of pregnancy, childbirth and often breastfeeding, most of our body parts now seem to want to head south.

I'm really grateful to these funny mums for comping me the tickets because not only was the show a great laugh and very close to home, it was also such a treat just to get out at night! It's so rare that I do, I'm always mildly surprised to see everyone else out and about and enjoying the evening, just as though it's a normal thing to do. I keep forgetting. This novelty was so profound that it wasn't even ruined by the fact that after getting all dressed up (read: put on lippy, swap flip-flops for heels and unearth a jacket without have spit-up on it), I couldn't find my umbrella so I had to walk down the street carrying Madeleine's miniature, multicoloured and spotty number to keep off the rain.

If you want to go see these mums and laugh along with them (and me), you can get your tickets here.

(Photo is an old one of me with two of my dearest girlfriends. It makes me so happy to look at this.)

This is where I live

What do you love about where you live? I've lived in a lot of places around Australia and the world, but I've said it before and I'll say it again: Melbourne is the first place I've felt "at home" since I left New York. I live in a really great part of Melbourne, known as the "Inner North." What do I love about it?

It's a 20 minute walk from my place into the heart of the city, yet everywhere around us is quiet and peaceful. We're in a historically-protected area, so most of the homes in our street are more than 100 years old, with their beautiful Victorian facades preserved. A walk to the park today is barely changed from the same walk a century ago.

Buildings in our area are peppered with wonderful vintage advertising painted onto their brickwork. There are cobblestoned laneways behind the homes. And the main streets are choc full of amazing food: cafes, restaurants, bars, food trucks and organic produce; as well as shops that boast beautiful homewares, vintage finds, fashion and art.

Are you ready to visit me yet?

If you are, I may have the perfect travel guide for you. Jauntful is a new (free) digital tool that makes it incredibly easy to design attractive online guides that are also printable (with maps). Pretty nifty, huh?

I've just designed my very first guide, focusing on great places to eat and visit in Melbourne's Inner North, with babies or toddlers in tow. I'm not talking about places that deliberately bill themselves as family-friendly, necessarily: all too often those places are noisy and grotty and garish and the coffee is appalling. Instead, I'm talking about the sorts of places you'd want to visit even without kids (and you totally should!), which just so happen to be super supportive of those of us sporting miniature humans, and frequently include some special extras that keep the kids happy and make our lives easier.

So, here is my guide (scroll down through it too see all the places I recommend). What do you think? Do you want to come visit my neighbourhood (with or without kids)?

The toddler-and-baby friendly Inner North

And now for the competition

To celebrate the launch of a new Facebook page called "Live North" that celebrates all the great things about Melbourne's Inner North, sponsored by Hockingstuart, I've been invited to give you guys a gift: a family pass to Melbourne Museum (two adults and two children), PLUS a family pass (two adults and two children) to see Unseen World at IMAX Melbourne. The total value of this prize is $75.

To enter, simply send me an email (nabulger AT gmail DOT com) with "Live North" in the subject line. I'll select the winner at random so making your message funny or cute won't win you any extra points, but it WILL make it fun for me to read, so don't hold back if you're so inclined! The competition closes at 3pm this Friday 11 April (Melbourne time, of course). Only one entry per person, but you can enter other members of your family (or your friends), as long as they are over 18.

UPDATE: This competition is now closed. Congratulations Tawhi!

ps. The Live North Facebook page has also launched a HUGE competition to win dining and shopping in the Inner North, worth more than $4000! Enter here.