After living through the dusty hell of having every wall in our house re-plastered and finished, I can hopefully be forgiven for being a tiny bit precious about putting holes in my new walls.  The difficulty I have with hanging stuff on the walls is further compounded by the fact that the walls are all concrete, I can’t actually go buck-wild with a hammer, it’s just not possible.  Decorating this house requires planning {and Dave and his drill}.

I realized yesterday that things were looking a little sterile, and there was one little project that had been on my to-do list once I had my very own house…..

Much better!  There’s personality now and and a great heaping dose of JACK-ness.  All of the items I used have meaning to us and make our new house feel like our home, something that’s hard to achieve without little reminders here and there of what makes us a family.

Tips:

• I would highly recommend measuring the wall space you are going to use and masking it out on the floor.  This will help you work out your arrangement and space requirements
• Don’t start until you have finished your collection of art, pics and curios for the project
• Have a range of removable sticky hooks on hand so you can minimize the holes in the wall
• DON’T use a tape measure!
•  Do use different mediums
• Don’t rush.  This project took me HOURS, and I rearranged things multiple times

What I used & what they mean to us

1. My Mum and Dad’s personalized plate, Dad had this on his truck for years x
2. Water color of Moonlight Beach, Encinitas CA.  This was painted by a family friend, is where we lived in San Diego, where Ethan was born and where we began our life as a family
3. Tile from Portugal, gifted from our old neighbor Fred for looking after his dog
4. Tile gifted from Abby for looking after her Rabbit
5. Snapper ink print, purchased with Tara during our 2012 summer holiday
6. Wavemasters Surfing Trophy – My Florida family
7. Old Timex clock from our first apartment in San Diego – this has been in every house we have lived in together!
8. Family portrait in Northland Kauri Forest, pic by Tara
9. Paua from a wedding I shot
10. Dave’s last Florida license plate – I have moaned at Dave 100’s of times about this dirty old thing, but now I’m glad he kept it ; )
11. oops forgot 11
12. Ethan’s one and only Dave-supervised kindy photo.  Wet hair. Sigh
13. Wavemasters Service trophy
14. Water color of the Auckland skyline – gift from my Aunty and Uncle as I was preparing to leave New Zealand 12 years ago