Little Fixa: Renovation

Monday, August 15, 2011

DIY Home Office: Made By Girl

I came across this blog Made By Girl a while ago, Jen Ramos blogs about interiors, art, architecture, fashion and bits and pieces that inhabit her life. My blog post is about her DIY Home Office. Jen's blog is really well structured; its main focus is the photos though she does have a small description of her satisfaction about completing her home office. She has five different blog entries dedicated to her home office renovation. In her final blog entry about the home office project she has referenced her before photos so the reader can see what it was like. When you click on the before link it takes you to a blog entry with a brief description and if the reader scrolls down to the bottom of the blog entry before the comments there is a section with suggestions of similar pages you might be interested in. This is great as the reader can see three other post related to her home office renovation. The suggestion pages are an ad on widget powered by LinkWithin.

LinkWithin Widget

Jen really engages the reader by adding little extras to her blog post and also commenting on the photos she has taken, little descriptions of what she has done, needs to done or a basic comments.

Before Jen started her DIY Office, she really thought about what she wanted and needed to do, here you can see her DIY LIST. A DIY list before you start doing something I think is very important as it can make the whole process easier.

I absolutely love how Jen's new office has turned out, its bright with lots of natural light, roomy, quirky, colourful add on’s, and also very organised with lots of storage that makes the office look neat and tidy. If only I could make my office look like this. If I ever do revamp it I will be sure to blog about it just like Jen has done with before shots, progress and after as well as adding my own creative touches.

DIY Home Office webpage

Inspiration before starting

Before revamping starts

Progress shot

Progress shot - loving the wallpaper

What an amazing transformation

Monday, July 25, 2011

The Block 2011

It seems like just about every reality TV show on right now is a renovation show. I must say I love The Block, I have not yet watched the renovators but I have seen Top Design - which I wasn't a huge fan of. I watch The Block mostly online, the website it great as it has all the episodes online, photos of the latest rooms and room wins, the latest news and also expert advice I like this little section.

Great I think for the Little Fixa: Advice, instructions, and information about different things.

I love The Block as I think renovating is great as you put your heart and sole into making something your own. I love seeing where people get their ideas from and how they go about taking on a particular task. Those of you who have not seen an episode or don't really know what its about here’s a little list of things I like about the show.

Each couple is given a lump sum of money at the beginning. They should stick to their budget for each room, but really they can't and pretty much every week each contestant goes over the budget and eats into the next week’s budget. This can cause a lot of drama - which I find entertaining
They strive to win each week so they can have a bit more money to play with when designing and renovating the next room
Each week there a few games they must play to win extra money, helpers, free things and even a night away from the block at a 5* hotel.
Each room takes a week to complete and during that week I find myself getting emotionally attached to the characters and what they are doing
I didn't find that with top design, the whole renovation took place in one episode and the one episode I watch one of the apartments was just unliveable and tacky.
There can be a lot of arguing with some couples - sometimes entertaining, sometimes annoying - mainly Josh and Jenna having a go at each other