Three months late but here at last!

Remember my buffet and tv unit post? Well, they were 3 months late but are finally here. Mr B picked them up this week so we've finally got some furniture now :)

I must say I am really disappointed with Nick Scali. Firstly the items were meant to be in Adelaide by the end of February, and then when I emailed them asking what was going on they kept ignoring my emails until I asked for a refund. They then told me the items were here and ready to be picked up. When we rang the warehouse, we were told that they are not ready for pick up but are instead in Sydney and yet to be forwarded to Adelaide... Then there was drama over not being able to pay the remainder of the balance at the warehouse... When I asked if I could transfer the money via netbanking, they sent me their account details, but not the exact amount remaining... I gave up waiting for their response, so we went to the nearest store and paid the remainder prior to picking up from the warehouse. I am yet to receive a reply from them. LOL. Very sad really.

We like both items but I am unsure if we will be able to mount the tv unit to the wall, on top of the skirting boards... even though we've added bracing to the steel frame in place where it's meant to go. The unit is extremely heavy, and deeper than I thought it was... But we will see.

We've put the buffet along the wall where it can be seen from the kitchen, in between the dining room and "meals" area. MrB is not happy with it being there, and besides this is the wall where a portable gas heater is meant to go... I hope to take some photos of them both in place so you can hopefully provide me with some advice. I've pathetically styled the buffet, and am looking forward to your advice on that too :)

B

Recent purchases

Since it's been too hot to make any progress on the house, MrB and I decided to go furniture shopping. We rarely find anything that we love + at the right price but this time we were lucky! Phew!

We ended up ordering a buffet and tv unit from Nick Scali. So excited for them to arrive. The buffet I am planning for the wall in between the meals and dining room windows. However, this is the wall where the gas point for a heater (which we are yet to buy is), so we might end up moving the buffet elsewhere. Maybe to the formal lounge or even under the tv in our bedroom...

The tv unit will for now sit in the formal lounge. Once we buy a family room sofa/lounge we will remove the legs from the tv unit and hang it on the wall. If only we would come across our dream family room lounge now.... Ahhhh

B

DIY Ikea Minimalist TV unit - the plan

I previously mentioned my plan of having a minimalist TV unit made using IKEA components.

The requirements were:

• fit within the 2.7m space
• contain a couple of shelves to store the tv & gaming equipment (until the entertainment room is sorted out)
• glass door for the shelves
• solid high gloss doors for the drawers

The thing is, I have still not inspected the quality of the components I plan on buying, or whether the colour of white high gloss doors matches the colour of white glass doors... and I still need to find out if they have the components to make 40cm deep shelves or if I will need to source them from our cabinetmaker .... But here is the plan...

The cost of these components adds up to around $360 for a 2.4m unit. It excludes the cost of hinges, drawer system, benchtop etc.

I plan on using 3 x 70cm x 40cm compartments/doors, which will make the total length of the TV unit 2.1m long... leaving us with 60cm, or 30cm on each side of the unit. Once we've added the apron on top and possibly the sides as well, it shouldn't look too bad. What do you think?

I wanted to go with 4 x 60cm x 35cm compartments which would have been a better fit at 2.4m but they didn't come with matching glass doors :(

Also, some of you may have noticed that I've changed the commenting system on my blog. This was to include the CommentLuv feature which allows you to have a link to their latest post displayed at the bottom of your comment. However, if it causes too much trouble to you guys I will roll back to the old system. So do let me know :)

B

DIY Minimalist floating TV unit

Having recently received a quote for a custom made tv unit in two pack, I decided that it simply isn't worth the cost. So instead, I am considering this Ikea hack using Akurum/Faktum wall cabinets. This is not something MrB needs right now as he is so busy as it is, so I won't bother him with it until I've sussed it all out... For starters, the thing that concerns me is the fact that in a lot of the photos I've found online, once joined together, the doors don't line up ... Is this something that can be fixed?

What do you think? Should we give it a go? Or is the poor quality not worth it? I really don't want something that will fall apart quickly ...

See what I mean about the doors not lining up?

B

Some good news at last ... sort of

We ordered our downstairs powder room vanity 3 months ago. I last contacted the cabinetmaker 2 months ago but never heard back from him... so today I decided to give him a call again to see if everything was ok. I was worried for him, he did our kitchen, laundry and ensuite vanity and we've been extremely happy with him and his work... Anyways, turns out he's had the doors painted and cut everything up months ago but then got so busy that he didn't have time to drop it off and put it all together... okkkkk. So he promised he would come some time next week to install it. Fingers crossed.

It's been so annoying having guests wash use the laundry for hand washing since it's on the other side of the house. Really looking forward to a vanity in the powder room!

We are also very keen to have a tv unit made so we can finally move the tv from the "formal"lounge to the family room. However, deciding on the height and configuration (drawers vs shelves with doors) has been a pain in the neck! All the power points will be behind the tv unit and the tv will sit on top of the unit, so we will need to have holes cut out for the cable to go through...

Any tips on what configuration to go for? Drawers vs regular doors? A combination of both? We are having a proper tv/cinema room where all the equipment etc will be stored since everything is connected via Cbus. Also, we don't have to worry about the remote control working through the tv unit doors, thanks to Cbus. I am not a fan of open or glass/perspex doors on tv units...

A layout of our family room:

Oh, and I will be calling the tiler soon to finish of the laundry tiling. Really excited about that. We will then order the overhead cabinetry and wall to ceiling cupboard. Hope it doesn't take 4 months to have them installed though...

Considering that our laundry cabinetry, bench tops and walls are all white and all the tiling is grey... Do you think it would look odd having the gap between the white architrave and cabinetry tiled in grey tiles? We've got skirting height tiling in the laundry, so this would be the only area with tiling all the way to the splashback...

And a reminder of what our powder room vanity should look like:

Can you believe we've been in the house for almost a year? :(
Still no curtains, no driveway :(

B

Floating tv unit

 I really want a custom made floating unit in our family room. The only problem is that the wall (2.7m long) I want it on is next to a hallway, not a majour one, but still ... I am a bit paranoid about how far out (towards the hallway) to go without increasing the risk of one hurting themself. Obviously I would like it to be as long as possible... but what do you think would be practical/safe?

How far out from the door should we indent it? Also, I just realised that due to the powerpoints being so low, we won't be able to hung is very high off the ground... above skirting board height... is that ok? Would love to hear your thoughts about the safety of sharp floating tv units :)



PS. Our final piece of the ensuite mirror was installed on Saturday and it looks amazing! :)
Now if only our CS guys would get their act together and send us an invoice so we can finally have the vanity completed.

M from Two beaches and a lake is having a giveaway to celebrate her birthday! So pop over to enter and wish her a happy birthday :)

B