Chandelier Installation

About 6 years ago, we bought a very special chandelier at my favorite shop (which has since moved out of town). We bought it for the kitchen in our old house, and paid much more for it than I would ever pay for a chandelier of it's size now. Haha Anyway, we ended up selling that house before the chandelier was ever installed, and then we rented a house (now referred to by Ben as The Bat Cave, because it was so dark and moldy. ha) for over a year while we searched for a new house to buy. We have lived in our current home for 3 years, and still hadn't put the chandelier up! Finally, I decided that I would like it be in our master bedroom, since the existing center light fitting would make the installation much easier than in the living areas of the house, which only have down lights. So, for my birthday a couple weeks ago, Ben installed our lovely chandelier and a ceiling rose I brought back from our last trip to Idaho. As you can see, Ben came up with an ingenious contraption for holding the ceiling rose in place while the "liquid nails" was drying. I have to admit, I was a little frightened the books would end up falling on our heads. Haha

I love having something beautiful hanging above our bed now. :-)

Tour of Our Home

Welcome! I am so excited to be taking the readers of Poppies At Play http://poppiesatplay.blogspot.com/ on a tour of our home! We bought our "cottage down under" 3 years ago, and have taken it from a very plain modern look to a much more romantic look, mostly using paint and many decorative touches. Nothing structural. We have also added quite a few trees and flowering plants to the front and back yards. In fact, we named our house "Daphne-Rose Cottage" in honour of the many rose and Daphne bushes. :-)It is late Autumn now in Australia, so the yard is not at it's most exciting. Hence, no photos of the yard today.


Let's start with the formal living room. This is one of the rooms in our house where we have used dark colors and wood. It has a very cozy feel. :-) I hung curtains at the entry to the living room from our sewing, reading and play room.

This fireplace mantle is one of the few antiques in our home. I just love it's shabby ornateness, even though we don't have a fireplace. Haha

In the kitchen and dining/family room, I have used my favorite color scheme- white, cream and pale pink. :-)These rooms are very "shabby romantic".
Ben is working on changing all of the handles to the pink glass ones. :-)
I made most of the quilts and pillows, etc. in our family room.

Our white dining table was a special Christmas gift last year.

Ben drove a 5 hour round trip to pick it up for me. :-)


My sister painted the beautiful picture above our TV cabinet.

We have used a lot of dark wood in our master bedroom. When we bought our bed 6 years ago, I liked it, but Ben loved it!

I'm a fan of using "fairy" lights around the house at all times of year. ;-)

I love our very feminine, pink guest room. ;-) We actually decorated it while I was early in my pregnancy with Teddy, and if he had been a girl, we planned that the baby would have this room.

The main bathroom is adjoined to the guest room.

The boys' Peter Rabbit themed bedroom is one of my favorite rooms in our house! Partly because I love our babies so much, and loved feathering their little nest, and partly because it just feels so relaxing in there.

My friend, Melissa, made this lovely collage for me. :-)

Well, I hope you enjoyed the tour, and that you will all come back to visit me again. :-)

Happy Mother's Day!! :-)

~Words Around Our House ~

I love using words and letters as decor around the house. Starting with a welcoming sign at the front door. :-) The name of our "cottage" and a little sign that almost everyone ignores. Ha

"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

"Beatrix Potter" letters in the boys' initials, below.

And just to prove that our house isn't entirely "feminine decor", below are some words found in Ben's masculine study. :-)
" Born to fish; fishing is life; trout, catfish, bass"

This sign was a gift from my youngest sister. Haha

I am joining Richella's "Special Touches" party today. :-)

http://impartinggrace-richella.blogspot.com/2010/05/those-special-touches.html

New Winter Curtains

I bought some curtains to go with our new bedding that I showed you previously. They are thermal lined, so when they are closed at night, they should keep us nice and cozy. :-)
As you can see, the curtains are somewhat wrinkled in these pictures. Since I am allergic to ironing, I figure the wrinkles will hang out with time. Haha ;-)

I love the tasseled organza tie backs that I found to go with the curtains. Something a little bit different, I think.