UPDATE: Brendan won’t be home until September 20, at earliest. After a consultation with the doctors, they have now decided that they will not let him fly, and prefer him to remain in England so that they can monitor his recovery and remove the pins in his leg when he is fully healed. So much for being back for pre-start (and our anniversary)!

Also, I am packing up the house, slowly but surely, and have decided to move in with an amazing friend and colleague who’s only just received the keys to his own home himself. Our real estate agents agreed to move us into another rental a few streets from where we are now, but the owners decided to give the place to their family members instead. Thank goodness for Simon who came to the rescue, and is willing to put up with us using his new home for storage! I have feeling he might start regretting it on moving day, but I’ll try and appease him with home-cooked dinners and beer!

Anyway, back to the house! Brendan and I have corresponded via email, Skype and everything in between to try and come to decisions together and to be honest, it’s been easier than we thought it would be! So I’ve compiled ideas of what we want for the different parts of the house with samples from our pre-start folder. Please tell us what you think in the comments section!

Black bathroom!

We’ll start with the ensuite. In the top left corner is the image we’re using for inspiration. Yes, it’s pretty much black but we love it! The colour samples are obviously the tiles and we’ve added the tapware, etc. for your interest.

White-ish for the guests...

So we’re going for something lighter and brighter for the guest bathroom, although we haven’t decided on the specific tile colours yet. We need to see more sample and we’ll post an update when we do. But you can see here that the guests will get a standard shower (not the shower rail), and that’s where our bathtub is going as well. I was quite adamant I wanted the bath in the ensuite, but after realising I never have the time to use one and that it’ll be predominantly used for soaking our diving equipment, we left it for the guests!

The second most important room in the home!

And now, my haven—the kitchen! I know: it’s a little 19th century to call the kitchen the “woman’s place” but for me, it is… We’ve been very inspired with this space, and we’re going with a black countertop on the back wall counters, and a white countertop for the island. White cabinets will accompany the black counter and mixed walnut/white cabinetry will compliment the white island counter. The double sink will feature a retractable vegie mixer. The splashback mosaic is still up in the air—any suggestions?

Top left: Colour scheme. Main picture: Elevation.

We want a colour scheme to mimic the image in the top left; the photo on top of that is an image of our actual elevation design. I’m gunning for limestone/sand coloured pavers but Brendan is against it at the moment, so we’ve yet to confirm that. The exterior is a little up in the air but this is what we’ve narrowed it down to for now…

To come!

We don’t need to select our interiors palette at the moment so stay tuned for updates!