Potato and Leek soup.

I had a horrible experience with potato soup as a child and was tempted never to try it ever, ever, ever again, but yesterday there were about 3 people who independently were raving about how awesome it is that I decided to give it a go. I refer to my cooking style as 'invention food' and tend to go with what I think would work together. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but boy-oh-boy-oh did this work out!

Potato and leek, pre-soup

INGREDIENTS
1.5kg potatoes (I used Lady Christl)
1 leek
4-5 stalks of celery
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
Vegetable stock (3-4 cups)
Milk (I used goat milk, it's awesome)

METHOD
Slice the leek and celery and throw it in to a stock pot with a couple of good lugs of olive oil over a low-medium heat, the aim is to soften it rather than fry it. As soon as it starts going mushy add the garlic and stir gently until the vegies really soften. Slice the potato in to rough quarters. You can leave the skins on depending on what kind of spuds you use, the skin is good for you!

The adding of the potato

Add the potatoes to the pot and stir it through so everything's all mixed up, then add your stock. If the stock isn't enough to cover the mixture, add some water (or stock) until it just covers your potatoes. Leave it to simmer until the potatoes are literally falling apart. You may want to skim the bubbles from the top after about 5 minutes if you are using particularly starchy potatoes. Turn the heat off and add a cup of milk. Use a stick-mixer to whizz up your soup, adding more milk if necessary. Add salt and pepper to taste. Tasty as!

100th post celebratory giveaway!

**GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED! But keep an eye out for more in the near future! **

Well ladies and gents, we've reached our 100th post here at Dear Little House and to celebrate, we're going to give one lucky reader a present. Yep, it's giveaway time! You have the chance to win a framed, numbered and signed photograph by none other than... me! That's right! This gorgeous print of a vintage toy bus and comic book that was once described by well-known documentary photographer Robert McFarlane as 'fantastic' is up for grabs.

Vintage toy bus and comic book (Fiji Velvia 100 Slide Film, 8x10 enlargement)

All you need to do is share a link to Dear Little House on your own blog, Facebook page or Twitter. You can enter as many times as you share the link, just pop back over here and leave a comment on this post to tell us that you've linked!

Entries close at 6pm (AEST) 3rd June 2011 and the winning comment will be drawn by random number generator. Open to all readers internationally. The more entries you have, the higher your chances of winning, so link away! The winner will be contacted by email, so if you don't want to log in to enter please send me an email (see the 'drop us a line' tab at the top of the page) to let me know which comment is yours.

Remember, your comment on this blog post is your entry!Good luck!

Spectacular spool.

There's something about old timber that is so very enticing! I can't help but wanting to touch old timber things, they have such a rich, tactile surface. I'm a big fan of anything a bit old, unusual and a little bit neglected, and I also am a fan of grouping similar objects in little clusters all over the place. It's a thing, I can't help it.

Lewmex wire spool

I bought this darling old wire spool at the markets a while back and have it sitting on the book shelf with a bunch of random other spools and spindles that I have collected around the traps. I really like that fact that its label is still intact too, something so unusual in items like this.

Another thing that really appeals to me is the very visible grain in the timber, it creates such a whimical and soothing rhythm in the piece. It also works well as a kind of plinth for some of my smaller spools. One day I'll take a photo of the whole collection, but I don't think it's really ready yet.

Stylish Blogger Award.

How terribly flattered I am to have been awarded the Stylish Blogger award by Claudia at Wish You Were Here. Thanks a million!

As is the process, I need to reveal seven things about myself and pass the award on to five fabulous bloggers! So here goes:

1. My favourite colour is green. Any old green will do.

2. I don't like squidgy/slimy foods (think custard, jelly, eggplant) and no amount of saying "Try a bit, you'll like it" will change my mind. I wish it would as I'm sure I'm missing out of some great food but it's not a flavour thing at all- it's the texture that I can't get past!

3. My (vintage/toy/lo-fi) camera collection is getting out of control. I'm totally okay with that.

4. I am an excellent bargain shopper. Sometimes people take me on their shopping trips to use and abuse my bargaining prowess. This is also something that I am okay with. There's a thrill to bargain hunting, you know.

5. I am totally addicted to stationery and paper products. I organise my stationery in perfectly labelled drawers. It might be considered just a little obsessive compulsive.

6. I drink lots of tea and always have several different blends on hand, just in case somebody pops in. I like to be able to offer them at least six different tea choices. It's strange because I almost always just drink Irish Breakfast myself.

7. Whenever I talk to a dog I put on a silly voice that's a little bit like Scooby-Doo and say "Who's a doggy? You're a doggy! Yes you are a doggy! Who's a doggy?" over and over again. I don't know why. I can't help it. It's strange to say the least.

And now for the fun part, passing this on to five of my favourite blogs! (So hard to choose!)
Nicolex @ First House on the Right 
Briar @ Sunday Collector
Maria @ Design Elements
Dabito @ Old Brand New
Louise @ Table Tonic

And thanks again to Claudia at Wish You Were Here for thinking me worthy of this award!

The first bricks have been laid!

Today they laid the first bricks for our house extensions, so exciting! We're seeing walls go up here people. We were lucky with the weather today as it had promised to be a nasty one, but the rain held off and the builders managed to get a fair bit done despite the looming rain and severe weather warnings floating around this morning.

The first bricks laid

It's really exciting seeing the walls go up! Although I have repeatedly been told that this bit doesn't really count as the walls because it's just the bit that holds up the foundations. Where that dirt is inside the bricks there will be where the concrete is poured for the slab. Also exciting, today we chose the aggregate to go in the concrete mix for our polished concrete floors. Rad.

View from the driveway

We are really starting to get a sense of how big the room is going to be and where everything will go. On Tuesday we finalised the layout for the kitchen and chose the fixtures and finishes as well as the lighting that we wanted. Such fun, but also a little bit stressful, especially with the layout as that's not something you can change easily.

We went with plain white for the cupboards with nice, long slimline handles on all the cupboards and drawers. We have chosen Caesarstone bench tops in a mid grey with tiny flecks of chocolate brown to complement the polished concrete flooring and the reclaimed timber we are going to incorporate as shelving and an island bench. We have yet to choose our island bench, we want to use an old timber industrial bench so we will wait to source that until we have a kitchen to put it in. We are going to have a plain splashback, white subway tiles with a grey grout, and a great big double-bowl butler sink. I can't wait until I get to share pictures of that!

Pea soup that is easier to cook than rice.

Once I went to the dentist then a bit later it was lunch time. I couldn't manage to really chew anything so I ordered the only soup they had on the menu; Pea and Mint soup. Sounded really uninspiring, actually, but there was nothing for it so that's what I chose. Changed my life. Fell in love, decided to figure out how to make it so I could have it whenever I want, asked the waitress what was in it. She said "Peas and mint" and rolled her eyes like I had asked something really dumb.

Pea and Mint soup

INGREDIENTS:
500gm frozen peas (You can use fresh if you want)
A small handful of mint leaves (Or just save even more hassle and buy minted peas. Serious.)
6 cups vegetable stock

METHOD:
Put the stock and peas in a saucepan, bring to the boil and then turn down. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. Turn off the heat, add the mint leaves (skip this if you used minted peas), and whiz up with a stick mixer. Add water to thin out the soup slightly if required.

Gluten free (check your stock label), dairy free and vegetarian. Just don't try serving it to pea haters, unless you are willing to lie and pretend it's something different like 'herbed potato' or 'awesome alien slime soup'.  This soup freezes well too, so I like to make a double batch then freeze some for later. Pictured here in a Maxwell and Williams Olso bowl.

I told you it was easy.

Mary and Jesus and Jesus.

In light of the recent 'rapture' fizzer, I thought I'd share with you my little collection of kitsch religious iconography. I'm not really a religious person, although I was raised sort-of-Catholic, but I have always loved this style of religious icon.

Mary and Jesus...and Jesus

There is something about the muted colours, the faded out shading, the halos of light rendered so strangely, the bizarre almost benevolent (but leaning a little too far towards apathetic) facial expressions, and the weird floaty quality afforded by the vignetted clouds that make these images somehow irresistible.

The one thing that really gets me is the hands. Why are the hands always so weird in these things? Seriously, just try to make your hands comfortable in those positions. Can not be done.

Mary and Jesus and Jesus on top of the bar

I picked these up a few weeks ago at the Vintage Fair from the Gypsy Collectibles stall, they came all the way from Victoria. What appealed to me abut this particular pair of images was the retro aluminium frames, chipped enamel and all, and the fact that the image was covered in a clear vinyl overlay. Cool. They are looking really rad sitting on top of our bar, even if Mary and the Jesuses do look just a little bit bored and somewhat fed up.

What is really important in your dream home?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote some tips to help you find your dream home. I have had a couple of people ask me to elaborate, so I thought I would share with you some of the simple ways in which you can start to get a picture of your dream home really is like, and help you to find it!

What is really important to you in a home?

It is vital to discuss what it is that would truly make you happy in a home. This is something that varies wildly from person to person. Even if you are buying a home on your own, you need to really nut out what you want. If you have a clear idea of your wants and needs then it is much easier to make a shortlist of properties to look at each weekend.

I suggest that you start by making a list of all the things that you might want in a home. This is a fairly loose exercise, if you start with a broad list you can then break it in to categories of wants and needs. Remember that wants are different to needs, you have to be a little bit flexible on the wants, but it might be really difficult to compromise on the needs.

Once you have done this it is time to start that discussion. It is always possible that one person's needs are in direct conflict with the other, and this is where things can get tricky. If this is the case remember to approach each issue with an analytical mind rather than an emotional one, the last thing you want is to end up in an argument. Don't try to 'win', you need to work together to find a solution or it will always be a sore point.

Sometimes you may have different priorities altogether. Something that one person sees as absolutely essential may not even register to the other. In this case you need to recognise that particular things may be important to the other person even if you couldn't give a fig. We encountered this with parking spaces, Michael was non-negotiable about having a spot to park his car whereas I wouldn't mind at all if I had to park mine on the street. I still had to keep this criteria in mind because I knew it was important to him.

Once you have established the 'non-negotiables' it is time to make yourself a checklist. This is a super helpful exercise that saved us lots of hassle and time. Break your wants and needs down in to realistic categories- after all you did start with a broad list and sometimes they can get silly. To organise our list we used the categories must have, would prefer and added bonus. Things like 'spa bath' ended up in the added bonus category, whereas the aforementioned parking space was a must have.

Use your expert computer-fu to make up a table or spreadsheet so that you can tick off each list item as you encounter it. Have space at the top for writing the address of the property and the contact details of the real estate agent, and add some lines at the bottom for additional notes and price guide. We had a table with 3 columns; the first being the criterion, the second being a skinny column to tick whether it was present in the property, and the third to add notes about that particular item.

Print off a bunch of these and put them in a clipboard. Write the address and agent details in before you head out to the open homes so when you enter each home you can work you way through the list ticking off each item. Also remember to make notes about what you liked about the property so you can remember it when you are looking back later, even little things like 'nice cornices' or 'gorgeous bathroom tiles' can help to jog your memory about why you liked a house.

The agent will usually give you a pamphlet, carry a mini-stapler to attach the pamphlet to your own checklist.This will save you time when you are reflecting on what you have seen that day, things can get hectic when you've been to several open homes in a day and it can be difficult to remember the details of each property. The pamphlet will usually have some photos and a floorplan of the house, this will also help you to remember which house was which.

I am really glad that we took the time to work out what we wanted before we wasted hours looking at unsuitable homes. As it was we saw over 60 homes that did not appeal to us, even though they fit our initial search criteria. Finding our dream home took time but as they say; good things come to those who wait. It is worth spending a little time and effort on such a giant decision- it will save you time, effort and heartache down the track!

The strangest housewarming gift ever.

My wonderful stepdad and I have a 'tradition' of giving each other strange gifts. It all started when he gave me a joke gift of some crappy binoculars for Christmas one year. I'm not sure why he got me them,  I am not a bird-watcher or a sporting spectator, but it sure did start something. To repay this bizarre gift I bought him a book about gardening written entirely in Polish, knowing that he can't understand Polish even a little bit and he hates gardening. I don't know how I am going to top this one though...

Family Planning, a vital part of any record collection

A recorded talk between Nurse Drew and a family doctor on Family Planning. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think this was a hint of any kind, just the continuation of our strange gift tradition. How strange is it? Awesome strange!

I really wish I had a record player so I could listen to Nurse Drew and the mysterious 'family doctor'. Alas, she will have to sit on our book shelf looking slightly coquettish and wise to the ways of this world until such time as I find the perfect record player. For the time being she is in good company with my 'Gershwin plays the bongos' record.

We have diggers in the back yard!

As a kid I was always a bit of a tomboy. I was out climbing trees, riding bikes too fast and eating carrots that I pulled straight out of the garden. I just rinsed the dirt off in the fish pond. That last part is really true, my grandma used to go spare on me for doing that all the time. I just couldn't be bothered going inside to rinse the carrot off, there were too many snails to play with to waste time doing something boring like that. So just imagine how excited I was to come home on Thursday to find these guys!

Diggers in the back yard

Man, I so wanted to go running out there and climb all over them and pretend like I was driving them, and imagine that I got to be the one digging the big holes in the yard. Unfortunately for me, by the time I got home from work it was almost dark (as you may be able to tell from the pictures) and there was a big hole between me and the diggers. Stupid dark.

The best bowl ever.

When Michael and I got engaged we had a party to celebrate. Even though we didn't expect presents, people still wanted to bring them. Some dear friends of mine from work asked us what we really wanted as a gift. Not expecting anything nor wanting to ask for much, I told them that we could use a new salad bowl. Well, talk about the best salad bowl ever!

Villeroy & Boch 'Flow pasta bowl'

How awesome is it? It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but the flat rim is offset from the inner circle of the bowl, meaning that it is wider on one side than it is on the other. It is just such a beautiful bowl! I can't bear to put it away in the cupboard with all the other serving dishes, so it lives out on the sideboard with some lemons to keep it company until we want to make salad, then I simply re-home the lemons.

Thanks again Chris and Larissa for this awesome gift!

Renovation starts with a good bit of demolition!

The renovations have finally started on our dear little house! Yesterday was the first day of major demolitions on our home, with an existing extension from the 1970s being ripped down to make way for a much more exciting (and much larger!) extension.

Dear little house before the demolishing happened

Of course, being that this started on Monday we spent most of the weekend madly trying to redistribute all the 'crap that we'll deal with later' that was just haphazardly chucked in the back rooms when we moved in. All of the empty boxes from the move, a few random things that we realised were useless (like a broken chair), and all the boxes marked 'Misc.'. This was no mean feat. Our laundry is now so chock full of boxes that there's just enough room to open the washing machine of you stand to the side.

Can I tell you, it s a very unnerving experience being inside a house that is being demolished. Sure, they were only demolishing the crappy 70s weatherboard extension that had been tacked on the back, and I was sitting in the glorious 50s brick front part of the house, but the noise! And the house shakes. Also, impossible to use the loo when there is a builder demolishing the roof just outside the (inadequately frosted) bathroom window.

Dear little house after day one of demolition

So I think they made pretty good progress in a day. They are back again today to (hopefully) finish the demolition. So excited that it is really, actually, finally happening! One unfortunate side effect of all of this is that the possum who lived in the little green shed is now homeless. What's worse is that last night he found his way in to our roof.

I woke up at 1.30 this morning and totally freaked out because I thought there was someone in the house. Michael was brave and went to investigate. After about an hour of over-reacting to every little sound I was convinced (by Michael) that it was just the possum (after a trip outside in the freezing cold with some torches). Not a good night's sleep. I'm seriously hoping that he doesn't decide to make our roof his new home- nightmare!

Retro animation on the role of the designer.

Thanks to Brain Pickings for digging up this little gem; a 1978 Australian cartoon on industrial design. Why don't they make educational cartoons like this any more?

"Things are more complicated than they used to be, for a start, there are more things than there used to be." I love it! Amazingly, most of the points raised in this video still hold very true today. Style and design are not the same.

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day to all the wonderful mums out there! Especially to my mummy who is the greatest mummy in the whole entire universe! I hope you enjoyed our morning brunch and shopping at the markets.

Army medic helmet

In order to illustrate just how very cool my very own mummy is, here is a picture of the helmet that I wore to her M*A*S*H themed birthday party a couple of years ago. It was way too much fun!

Nostalgia in a little brown mug.

I seem to have a strange affinity for things that remind me of my childhood. Vintage and retro bits and pieces interest me so much more than shiny, new things. Sure, there's space in my life for contemporary design, but my heart lies with the old fashioned and fuddy-duddy.

Retro dip-glazed coffee mugs

I can't even recall where exactly this kind of mug featured in my childhood, but I was recently watching a tv show set in the early 80s and the swaggering lead was slurping his instant coffee from one of these quirky dip-glazed mugs and something in my brain was screaming 'you need some of those!'. Maybe my Nanna had some? Whatever the case, it became my mission to find some.

Well, six op shops, two markets and one dollar later I had procured there two little beauties. The retro colours are so warm and happy, and the divine pearlescent purple sheen just barely evident on the dip-glazing is so beautiful. There's something so enchanting and endearing about their wonkiness. I must find more!

11 tips to help you find you find your dream home.

House hunting can be a stressful process, and it's rarely an easy one. We looked at 68 properties and made bids on three other houses before managing to find our dream home. Today I will share with you some tips that we learned through our experiences in house hunting, and hopefully make the process a little easier for you!

Finally, after months we found our Dear Little House

1. Discuss what is really important to you in terms of what you want in a home. Even if you are a single person, have this discussion with yourself. For Michael and I this process was really important, as we prioritised some things differently. For instance off-street parking was an absolutely non-negotiable 'must have' for him as he would never be happy if he had to park his car on the street, and I really wanted an older home with at least 3 bedrooms so I could finally set up a proper studio. A home is a big, long-term investment, you don't want to be unhappy with it!

2. Make a checklist. I suggest the following categories; must have, would prefer and added bonus. We did this and it was a very valuable tool to evaluate the properties you view, especially when you've seen eight houses in one day! We formatted a chart listing what we wanted in a home and based it on these categories. There was one column with the criteria, a little one to tick whether it applied, and a third, larger column for making notes on each criterion. Also there was space to write the address, agent and their contact details, an estimated price and a space for added information. We then stapled the brochures from each property to its checklist to review later.

For more information on how to start that discussion and how to make that checklist see What is really important in your dream home?

3. Be prepared to compromise. This seems to be at odds with my prior points about making sure that it has what you want, but if you don't go in to the process with some 'wiggle room' you will be looking forever. The home we ended up buying didn't fit all of our criteria perfectly, but there was nothing that we were inherently unhappy with and some of the ways in which it didn't fit could be changed with a bit of time and effort.

4. Look for potential. This is critical, because it is an area in which you could save yourself some money. Lots of people are turned off a property if it is poorly presented or, for example, has awful 70s shagpile carpet. Carpet can be changed, the decor will be different, you can re-tile a bathroom, knock down walls, or as in our case, add extensions and completely change the existing floorplan!

5. Search outside your comfort zone. We widened our search quite considerably after a few weeks as we discovered that we were not finding anything to fit our criteria in the suburb that we wanted. We looked at several other suburbs in the general area and found that there were a few places that we wouldn't mind living. In doing this we also looked at factors such as travel time to work, and proximity to places that we often go. We also went for brunch and did some weekend shopping in each different area to get a feel for each locale, and where possible talked to friends that live there. See this post for more tips on how to tell if a suburb is right for you.

6. The 11 second rule. This is the principle that you know whether a property is something you'd be interested in within the first 11 seconds. I generally found that this rang true. We were doing mad dashes from open home to open home on a Saturday morning, so this idea came in handy. I would say that it applies easily to places that are a definite 'no'.

7. Use the power of technology. Most popular real estate websites have automated systems that can email you listings for properties that fit your search criteria. This saves you lots of time and energy and can be updated daily if you so choose. You can also view several images of the property and usually a floorplan, this helped us to avoid wasting time going to open homes that wouldn't suit us.

8.Get in touch with local agents. If you call around real estate agents in the areas that you are interested in you can let them know what you are looking for. They can call you as soon as new properties are listed, meaning that you can often get the jump on something before it has been listed online or in the papers.

9. Know the market. Follow the property trends in your preferred area for a while before you really start looking. Read the real estate section in the paper and do a little research in to the price and availability of homes that fit your criteria. The more informed you are the more prepared you will be.

10. Loose lips sink ships. Don't let the selling agent have too much information and keep details vague, remember that ultimately a higher sale price means more commission for them. If you tell them what your absolute highest price is, they might up their expectations. They may also quote you a price lower than they expect in the hope that an emotional attachment will drive you to spend more (this is illegal in some places). Never overstretch yourself and try to keep emotion out of it.

11. Something will turn up. As long as you have realistic expectations, you will find your dream home. It might take longer than expected and you may feel like you'll never get your Saturdays back, but you will find something that suits you. If worst comes to worst rent somewhere in the area you like and keep hunting, or take out a 'home wanted' ad- you never know it might prompt someone who was thinking about selling to contact you. Be patient, don't buy something you don't love just because you're sick of house hunting!


For us, following these simple tips made the house hunting process easier. I never said it made it easy, but certainly easier that it would have been! If you have any tips you'd like to share, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Adriano Zumbo sure knows his way around a macaron.

The other week I had a dear friend over to visit for morning tea. We catch up every few months and being as she hadn't seen our new house yet I decided that it might be nice for me to host her here. Of course, I knew that this meant I would need to have some amazing tasty treat on hand.

Adriano Zumbo macarons up close and personal

Luckily, the afternoon before our morning tea I was out and about shopping in Rozelle, so I stopped by 'The Lab' -as the main Adriano Zumbo kitchen is called- and grabbed half a dozen of his signature creations in varying -majorly appealing- colours and flavours.

If you've never had a macaron you are missing out on one of life's finer things, it must be said. I have never had a macaron so tasty as an Adriano Zumbo masterpiece. The range of flavours is so tantalisingly broad and the colourful display of delicious treats is way too tempting. You couldn't possibly have just one!

Macarons pictured in a Maxwell & William Oslo bowl

My friend bought us a most wonderful house-warming gift of T2 tea, so between the delicate and warm, spicy flavours of the tea and the sweet treats we had a most glorious morning tea indeed! What a magnificently pleasant way to spend a morning here in this dear little house.

Sailboats and sunshine.

Finally, a day of sunshine after all this miserable rain. What is better than a sunny Sunday spent browsing op shops, garage sales and the markets for some quirky, vintage finds? Especially when you have such great luck! I present you with the kooky, awesome, vintage find of the day.

Vintage sailboat painting

The conversation went a bit like this; I said "We need to have that sailboat painting" to which Michael replied "What? That sailboat painting? *lots of over the top gesturing and pointing*Are you serious? What the hell do you want that for!" and then I said "Babe, you need to trust me with these things." So we bought the sailboat painting for a mere $20 from the garage sale man.

To Michael's credit he does realise that my interior design skills far outstrip his own and thus acquiesced. He did agree that it does look awesome once we had got it home and hung it above the sideboard.

It has the perfect amount of kitsch to complement our 50s dining furniture, and the gold trim on the frame highlights the gold trim on our sideboard and dining chairs. The grey-blue tones in the ocean and sky, as well as the slightly yellowed patina, work wonders with that blue wall.

I also bagged two pairs of shoes (which almost never happens to me because I have giant feet), a blue Peter Morrisey handbag with a funky bamboo handle, a beautiful antique hanging mirror, and a stack of unused vintage postcards. I also bought lunch, had a manicure and still had change from $100. Super awesome haul if you ask me!

Did you have any funky finds this weekend?