DIY garden arch with Chinese star jasmine

I've wanted a garden arch for as long as I can remember. There's something about them when they are covered with climbing plants and flowers (like above) that suggest the entrance to some tucked away, secret part of the garden where something special awaits.

As with many things, I had to talk Shane into getting the garden arch in the first place (I believe the word 'temporary' was used). But when I saw one in Bunnings for less than $30 I snapped it up!

It was easy to put together; I managed to do it all by myself in less than an hour.

Then I planted 2 climbing jasmine plants at either end of the arch. It wasn't as sturdy as I'd hoped, but Shane has since said that he thinks once the jasmine grows it will actually become the 'frame'.

It's slowly doing its thing, although not quite as quickly as I'd hoped. But it's getting there.

I also got some fairy lights off Ebay and strung them around the garden arch, too.

Here's what it looks like at night!

Our grand renovation plan!

We had always planned to get an architect in to help with our renovation, seeing as how it was such a massive undertaking.

At first, the plan was to make the upstairs 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and the downstairs 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom. The plans were drawn up this way and Shane was rapt.

I, however, was having second thoughts. For some reason, I became fixated on having 3 bedrooms, not 2, upstairs. I figured that we were planning to have the downstairs completely separate - either rented out as a unit for someone or made into a commercial premise (either ours or someone else's); I thought 3 bedrooms upstairs were just more practical.

I stamped my feet and banged my fists on the ground (not really!), and convinced Shane to let me invite a local real estate agent in to have a look, Ken from Elite, who agreed with my thoughts on having 3 bedrooms, and also came up with some great ideas on how to make it work. (Thanks Ken from <b><a href=http://www.http://www.elitecairns.com.au>Elite Cairns</a></b>.

So, back to the architect we went and he made the required amendments. The new plan includes 3 bedrooms upstairs, 1 bathroom and 1 ensuite. We're actually due to start on the ensuite work very soon. Very exciting!

I know I want the chandalier-type look for the ensuite (see first pic below), but I can't decide between an all-black bathroom (see second pic below) or an all-white bathroom (see third pic below). What do you think?

via Pinterest via houzz.com

via Pinterest

via Pinterest via 4.bp.blogspot.com

Perhaps the most significant aspect to our renovation is the indoor/outdoor kitchen we plan to implement. Living in the tropics, we figure we spend so much of our time outdoors and the idea of being able to cook and eat outside all the time is really lovely. Cooking breakfast in the balmy morning sun, cooking outdoors every night - yes please!

bhg.com

Love the whites and pinks of this!

balkopugutasarim.com

Love the fairy lights on this one.

desiretoinspire.net

This captures the indoor/outdoor living we are going for.

J. Lawler Design

Shane is insisting on an outdoor pizza oven on the deck, so this picture is inspiring.

miss-design.com

This isn't on a deck, but we're planning on having a tv outside and I'd love to create a similar vibe.

Building our Garden of Eden

Seeing as how one half of our renovating team is a structural landscaper, we were always going to have a spectacular garden.  The garden before was pretty standard for many areas of Parramatta Park in Cairns - overgrown, uninviting and no doubt rarely used by the previous owners or tenants.

Garden before

Garden during

Shane had various grand plans which had to be somewhat tempered, but we still undertook an absolutely massive overhaul of the backyard, bringing in bobcats and excavators and clearing out a huge amount of soil.

Building the retaining wall

More building the retaining wall

Once the walls had been built we brought a whole lot of soil back again and filled them up, and one of the most satisfying jobs of all was installing the turf and planting masses of tropical plants.

Backyard after

Backyard after

We love it and it has really become our little haven away from the not-so-pretty inside.  Can't wait to have a party in the backyard as reckon the walls will make perfect informal seating!

Shane does run his own business and it would be remiss of me not to give it a quick plug here so if you need any paving, landscaping or garden maintenance in the Cairns region (from Gordonvale to Palm Cove), give him a call on 0467 492 225 or visit his website <b><a href=http://www.instylemaintenance.com.au>InStyle Maintenance</a></b>.

Painting the walls and restoring the floorboards

We got the keys to the cottage on Shane's birthday. He took the day off work and spent his birthday pottering around, feeling very chuffed with himself I think. It was a disaster area - the neighbours had suggested it should be torn down - but it was our disaster area. And we could see what it could become.

This is the front room (originally the verandah). We thought it had great natural light and we now plan to make it our ensuite.

This was one of the bedrooms. This was where we found most of the junk in the floorboards (not just cigarette butts but earbuds too...yech!). I think the first thing we did was push that old dodgy-looking airconditioner right out the window, listening as it made a very satisfying THUD out of our house. Forever.

In this room (currently a bedroom, soon to be a bathroom), the floorboards were much nicer. We couldn't believe tenants had been living with the manky carpet when they had such grogeous boards underneath (this photo in no way does justice to the amount of mankiness was).

One of the first things we did was paint the entire place white. As I've mentioned, the house was painted everything from purple to green to orange and it was, quite simply, hideous. And there was a HUGE amount of prep work to be done as there were nails and holes in the walls like nothing we'd ever seen.

The white paint made a huge difference. We also pulled up all the carpet and gave the floorboards in most of the rooms a quick polish. We were pretty pleased with the result!

We were able to move in to our palace after this, but the adventure had only just begun.

Some 'before' photos...!

Buying the Worker's Cottage in Cairns, QLD.

We turned up at an open house for the worker's cottage in July 2011 on a whim. The week before, we’d been looking at new builds in Smithfield village. ‘No, no,’ I had said. ‘I want a house with character’ (insert mild feelings of regret here).

The Renovator's Dream

The 'cottage' certainly had that. Marks all over the walls, even a secret hidey-hole in one (the neighbours have since suggested that drug dealers had lived here at some point), cigarette butts in the floorboards under layers of stained carpet…it bared the scars of years of being ‘lived in’. 

The walls were all kinds of scary: bright orange in the hallway, purple in the bathroom, blue and green in the bedrooms, and the real estate had had to put a fly-screen up in the kitchen to stop the pigeons from getting in through a large unexplained opening in the wall.

We fell in love with it.  On the spot.

The Inspiration...

It probably had something to do with the fact that some days before, we had gone to an open home at another Queenslander, nearby. This one was the ‘after’ to our before. It had been done up wonderfully, with a huge balcony out the back and floor-to-ceiling French doors that opened up onto the garden. 

The real estate agent was pulling out all the real estate cliches with that house; first of all it was called a ‘champagne viewing’, and we were handed a glass as we walked up (cheeky but admittedly appreciated), she’d had some mood music playing and even a roast dinner cooking in the outdoor kitchen! 

Well, her dirty tricks worked…sort of. Although the house was way out of our budget, it made us think about what was possible.

There were several things about our cottage that we loved. For one thing, it was already raised, which meant we could legally build underneath, maybe for a second income, maybe for a commercial premise one day.   It had beautiful floorboards once we looked under the manky carpet (and pulled out all the rubbish between the boards). It was close to the city. It had a good-sized backyard. 

Renovation Potential?

It had potential. We made excited faces at each other when the real estate agent wasn’t looking…and then told her that it needed a lot of work and we really didn’t think it was worth that much.

Our cover was blown when ten minutes later, back in the car, we phoned her up to make an offer.  Three months on, we had the keys to the house.

Initially we had planned to take 12 months – 18 months, tops – to turn the old renovator into something special (I now see we were seriously deluded on that front). 9 months on, I thought I’d start to share the story with you. As anyone who’s renovated probably already knows…it can be quite an all- consuming task, and one that starts to dominate thoughts...!

I hope you enjoy it. Perhaps you can even offer some advice now and then?!