I have never stayed anywhere as tranquil as Millars by the Lake. Set deep in the karri forest of Quinninup, this sweet heritage cottage has something wonderfully calming about it. Owned by my friend Jade and her husband Andrew for the past four years, I’ve watched from afar, through texted photos and social media, as
We just got back from a long weekend in the south west that ended up being unintentionally unplugged when I discovered our accommodation didn’t have reception. Well. That was alarming. How am I supposed to relax without watching Tiktoks of animals who think they are humans? I should have paid more attention when our accommodation’s
This post was sponsor-supported by Swann Security. All views and opinions expressed in this piece are my own and unaltered. Thanks for supporting my blog and sponsors. It wasn’t all that long ago when home video security systems were thought of as something that only wealthy people could afford; protecting mansions in ritzy areas. But
The idea of painting Miss Nerd’s built-in wardrobe to make it look like a Frozen-inspired cupboard had been lurking in my head for a while. So when Dulux approached me earlier this year to see if I’d be keen to work with them to create some social media content to help showcase their Dulux Colour
This post contains affiliate links – that means if you click on a link in this post and buy something through it, I might earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting my blog as part of my job! 🙂 Some nights I absolutely love reading my kids a book
Well, we finally did it. After (only) a couple of years of thinking about it, we got another dog! Meet Luka, our beautiful Australian Shepherd x border collie puppy. She is 12 weeks old today and has turned our house and lives upside down… in a mostly good way. She loves belly rubs, going to
This post is sponsor-supported by Emma Sleep, who gifted me a mattress for review. All words and opinions are entirely my own. Thank you for supporting my blog’s sponsors! A little while ago it was time to finally upgrade Miss Nerd to a ‘big girl’ bed. We got her a new (secondhand) bed frame off
What would you want if you were about to sell the house you’d called home for the past ten years? The home that you and your partner slowly, fixed up over the years, painting, DIY-ing and landscaping. The house to which you’d brought two babies home from the hospital, and spent hours playing with your
Wasn’t it exciting when robot floor vacuums came out some ten-odd years ago? Well, perhaps you’re not as easily excited as I am, but as a lifelong hater of vacuuming, I thought it was awesome. It made me feel like, WE HAVE ARRIVED. We have house robots now! Look how far tech has come in
This post was sponsored by Manovella. Thanks for supporting my blog’s wonderful sponsors. There are so many decisions to be made when you are renovating an older home or building a new house – if you’ve ever felt a little conflicted or stuck, you won’t be alone! Choosing colours, materials and things for your home
Who’s feeling the cold right now? Yes, I know the whole running joke about people in winter in Perth, where it gets to 16 degrees (60 Fahrenheit for those of you overseas) and people start squawking and moaning that they’re freezing to death. To give people overseas an idea, it never snows in Western Australia.
Forget rose petals on the bed and chocolates for Valentine’s Day. My idea of romance is the Sunday morning I got to sleep in late, then wake up to see Mr Nerd had made breakfast. But not just any breakfast. He had prepared for me a replica of one of my all-time favourite, iconic Perth
I’m definitely not alone when I say we are constantly thinking about ways we can reduce our plastic use. I think a lot of us are – these days most people in Australia know that single-use plastics are terrible for the environment. We are far from living a plastic-free lifestyle, but we try to reduce
There is nothing that chills my husband to the bone more than me than the sound of me screeching, “STOP THE CAR. I SEE PLANTS.” I have gotten so, so many plants for our yard – for free – by finding them on the side of the road, in the wonderful scheme that is green
Recently one of my old editors, Alecia Hancock, asked me if I would be happy to give a talk for her annual digital marketing summit Change the World. She started this event under her organisation Hancock Creative five years ago. It’s basically a free, full day virtual summit aimed at giving tips on social media
This post was sponsored by Ted’s Camera Stores. Thank you for supporting my blog’s wonderful sponsors. Wow, Perth – what a crazy time to sell a house! The real estate market in WA – well really, the real estate market in most of Australia – is going nuts at the moment. In some parts, homes
One of my favourite things to give as a gift has got to be a plant. Most people like them; they’re usually a decent gift for that person who already has everything, they’re good for your health and wellbeing (more on that below) and they (generally) tend to have a shelf life longer than cut
Sometimes I think of a renovating or DIY project and then I become weirdly obsessed with the idea until I get to carry it out. And something I’ve always wanted to try is stencil painting an old concrete or tile floor. I always thought that stenciling looked like fun. (My idea of fun might be
Guys, don’t think that just because I have a house blog that I’m always super gung-ho about getting started on our long list of things we want to fix up here. That is definitely not the case. I procrastinate a lot, sometimes because I’m scared of making the wrong choice, because I just can’t make
Perth plant fans, there is an indoor plant paradise right here in suburbia called Novos Home Nursery, and it is amazing. Can you believe this place is someone’s backyard – and you can go there to buy plants? Novo’s Home Nursery in Leeming is run by a lovely family that have turned their backyard into
We finally got a new walk-in robe! Well, when I say new, I mean that we got our old 1970s walk-in robe fitted out at last – after 11 years with our old robe. Nala turns 11 this month, and her birthday made me realise that we have been in our house a whole 11
For much of my adult life, I’ve had the same recurring dream; I’m in a big house and I discover a secret passage or a secret room. It’s always quite thrilling and I always wake up feeling vaguely disappointed that there is absolutely no chance that my 1970s brick 3 x 2 in Perth suburbia
Have you ever had a house so messy you feel like you are going to scream? If that’s never been you, I envy you. (And how are you managing to achieve this?) While we have had numerous fantastic once-off cleans and had a terrific weekly cleaner back when our first-born was a baby, for the
It’s been a while between posts, online friends. Time feels like it has flown past lately. When we all had to stay at home, the mornings and evenings felt a little slower, but the days still rushed past – and are still rushing past. I wonder if that’s normal for everyone who has kids? With
It was a happy coincidence that Mr Nerd and I had just been talking about replacing our old mattress, as it was getting close to the end of its life, when I got an email came out of the blue from a locally based company called Macoda – asking if we would like to try
Wow – how things have changed lately. Without going on too much about all the negative things about COVID-19 – I know we all know it by now! – what it means for a lot of people is that we are working from home… and many of us with children home too. For me, having
Pass me that mother of the year baton, guys. I don’t get to have it too often, but I totally deserve to hold it for a good minute or two. I won a cubbyhouse! I won it late last year through an Instagram competition held by a local Perth cubbyhouse company called Kidzshack. To enter,
Of all the bad things to come out of Facebook – the creepy harvesting of our online data, a rise in loneliness, infidelities kindled from long-lost acquaintances, the erosion of individual self-worth through unfavourable comparison, to name just a few – there are also a lot of good things. For example, I re-met my now-husband
If you are after one of the quickest, most affordable and also easiest ways to freshen up a bedroom or living space, I always think new cushions are a fail-proof way to go. Nothing brightens and lifts a space quite as easily! Add in a fresh new plant and you’ve treated your room or outdoor
Well, that got your attention, didn’t it? Blame my shrunken, shriveled brain, but somehow I have totally neglected to share a big part of our home renovation here on the blog – our new patio and deck, which is about thirty times nicer than what what our once-daggy 70s house had there before. (Those before
I always admire it when people don’t merely just dream or talk about doing things, but they actually go out and give them a red-hot go. It makes sense that I frequently admire small business owners, professionals and creatives, and one of my favourite local businesses is also run by one of the nicest women.
Recently I tackled a DIY project at our place that had been on my to-do list for a LONG time – spray painting our old Colorbond sheds black. Woohoo! I know they are just sheds, but they look SO much better now that it legitimately thrills me. I had it in my head for months
If you’re like most people, the very mention of the words “spring cleaning” makes you want to dive under the covers and hope for six more weeks of winter. Decluttering, doing a deep clean of your whole house, knocking off all those cobwebs to get your outdoor area ready for the warmer weather… we all
If you have ever admired a pretty succulent bowl but thought they looked too tricky to make one at home (or that you’d kill it anyway) I have good news! Succulent bowls are super-easy to put together; and even if you’re a total black thumb with plants, you can keep one alive and thriving, I
Lately there’s a saying that’s been doing the rounds on social media – that to help maintain overall health and wellbeing, you need not just one, but precisely three hobbies. One to keep you fit, one that exercises your creativity, one to make you money. It’s a very neat and clever little idea, and I
When I first heard of Cook and Clean WA four years ago, my first thought was, “What a good business idea!” I think Little Nerd was about six months old, and the reality of how hard juggling a baby and a job (with a husband on frequent work trips away) had most definitely sunken in
This post was first published on my original blog format on November 17, 2014. Today I’m going to share a very easy DIY project – one that I think is maybe my favourite DIY project ever. I feel like everyone should do this to their home, partly because it is so easy, but mostly because
Not everything about writing a blog is fun and roses. But one of the things I love most about blogging being a part of my life is that it gives me so many kicks up the butt – deadlines and incentives to finally get my act together and do something. I need these kicks up
Don’t fall off your chair. Today I finally have a reveal for you! Our before and after of our Scyon Walls elevation makeover, where we overclad the exterior of our double brick 1970s house. Yep, it’s been a while. If this is your first time to my blog, welcome! Basically we decided to overclad our
Bayswater is one of my favourite suburbs in Perth. If you don’t know it; think old farmhouses, sleepy streets, old trees, character houses with tons of potential, and little pockets of former farming land that make you feel like you could have stepped back in time. It has so much perfectly unpolished charm, and it
I have a soft spot for Penshurst, the historic house I’m going to share with you today – which was actually one of my very first home tours – in fact I visited it before I’d even clicked ‘publish’ on my first blog post! (Original post here). When I was a teenager, after school my
Rolling country views, a pony, dogs, a beautiful solar passive new build, a lovely family and two pet sheep who are convinced they are people – this wonderful home visit was one of my favourites and I’m so pleased to share it here today with these gorgeous photos by Heather. Nestled in the Perth hills
Would you like Florence Broadhurst patterned blinds in your home? Or would you prefer to design your own pattern and have it printed and custom-made just for you? Whatever your fancy, you can have the most stylish windows going with one of the newer window treatment companies to make waves on the market, Blinds in
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This means if you purchase something through an affiliate link on my site, I may make a small commission on the purchase – at no extra cost to you. If I was down to my last $20, I’d probably buy a
“I just want lights on a dimmer,” I used to say to my husband every time the topic of new lights came up. I remember when I was growing up and my friend’s house had their lounge room lights on a dimmer and I thought mood lighting was just the most incredible fancy thing I’d
This beautiful home has just gone on the market with Nadija Begovich and Dan Broad of The Perth Property Co. Buying a house in beautiful Coolbinia was a dream come true for then newly-engaged couple Ash and Lisa Mitchell. Both Ash and Lisa had always loved character homes and when the chance came to buy
I originally published this post on the old format of House Nerd here. Iwanoff fans rejoice. Iconic Paganin House has been saved! After this famous Iwanoff home in Floreat was gutted days before Christmas 2015 by a house fire, it has now been brought back to life by the careful work of its owners and
Le Fanu, Perth’s most expensive home renovation, is up for sale. If you could do with a luxury beach home and have a spare $17 million, this heritage-listed house could be yours! Some of you guys may remember the story I wrote a few years ago on this house. Right by the beach in Cottesloe
The right lights can have a major effect on a room or an interior. In fact there are few things that can date a home more quickly than old, daggy lighting. Hello boob lights and oyster lights! No matter how curated and stylish your décor, or how modern your renovation, if you still have an
I was a teenager the first time someone told me I had an addictive personality, and I didn’t know what it meant. “Oh!” I said brightly. “Meaning people find me addictive?” I was picturing myself as this alluring, magnetic creature. “NO,” they shot back rudely. “It just means that you get addicted to things very
I love this house. This is the former home of our friends Tim and Caity Phillips, it’s a cool renovation and a house that I like because it suits its owners down to a tee. You guys may already know Tim’s name from some of my earlier posts; he and his TJP Carpentry team put
This story is a paid partnership with Scotts. Thank you for supporting my blog’s sponsors. Ahh – summer. I am going to be honest, I’m not a summer person. In my past life I probably was the Wicked Witch of the West who melted to death. Her rage was an accurate representation of my snippy
This post was a paid partnership with Origin Energy. Thank you for supporting my blog’s sponsors. Woah, 2018. It’s been a very busy – and expensive – year for us. This year we made massive changes to our house’s façade with our Scyon Walls cladding makeover; a project that grew into the goal of improving
This week’s blog post is for one of my biggest critics and one of House Nerd’s biggest personal fans (well, at least I like to think) – MY DAD. He’s probably reading this right now while grumbling to himself, ‘When is she going to get a real job?’ however, one of the bonuses of me
Little Nerd is at his Oma’s house, Mr Nerd is at work, the dog and the baby are down and I’ve had two coffees by 9am. What better time to snatch some blogging time at my desk and hastily share some progress photos of our Scyon Walls cladding makeover. (If you haven’t seen our before
I haven’t blogged in a little while… and if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you might have seen why! We recently welcomed our sweet little baby girl Miss Nerd to the family. She is a sweetheart; a smiley, cuddly little koala. She has been warmly welcomed to our family, especially by Little Nerd,
Even though our living room is one of the two rooms in our home where we spend the most time, after years of living here, I still never felt like we had fully finished it or properly styled it. A little embarrassing – most people seem to do the living room first, don’t they? I
After we found out we were having another baby, I started a little bit of a mental baby bucket list. Just some fun things I wanted to do before baby number 2 arrived; things I knew would not necessarily be impossible to do with a newborn in our midst again, just trickier. I was so
Whenever I hear of a young couple that has worked their butts off to get into real estate from a young age, I find it easy to empathise. Mr Nerd and I have also worked hard and made sacrifices to get on the property ladder ourselves. Unfortunately, even when you think you’ve done ‘the right
Can you believe that until recently, I had never caught an episode of Selling Houses Australia (we don’t have Foxtel – at least not yet… this may now change) and the show has been around since 2008. Now in its eleventh season on Foxtel’s Lifestyle channel, this multi-award winning show is bigger than ever. I
My freezer club started with a jar of homemade tomato sauce left on my doorstep. A friend of mine had messaged the girls group chat and said she’d just made a huge vat of veggie-filled passata but had way too much – would anyone else like some? Four of us said yes please. I added
A little while ago we had a promo video shot in our home for Karndean Designflooring, the company we got our awesome vinyl floors from. If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen my post from the day; a little clip of the boys filming Little Nerd playing while Nala harassed them. (Sorry
Having built four houses across a range of looks from coastal to Colonial to contemporary, empty nesters Debra and Steve knew exactly what style they wanted their next home to be. The end result is what they both call their dream house – a beautiful, timeless Hamptons-style home perfect for dinner parties and entertaining. Beginning
With increasing urban sprawl and an ageing elderly population, there is one kind of home we’re now seeing more of – the multi-generational home. And I have to say they rarely get lovelier than this. This gorgeous home is a new one I recently had the pleasure of visiting. This house is named the Oak
If you come here just for the home-y stuff, this post is probably not going to be your cup of tea, sorry. If you are here because you are pregnant and hating it, read on! I’d like to preface this post by first saying I’m not a horrible or ungrateful person… honestly. I know some
I love Perth. But in my humble opinion, the rugged NSW coast has to be one of the most beautiful and special parts of Australia. A few years ago my sister-in-law relocated from Sydney to live in a beach house in a small town a couple of hours south of the city (just near Berry,
There’s nothing like stepping into your beautiful, blissful bathroom renovation, carefully designed in a minimalist colour palette of tasteful neutrals… only for your eye to be immediately drawn to the stash of colourful, garishly labelled shampoo and conditioner bottles in your shower. Am I being a little OCD? Yeah, I know it’s a first world
What do you do when you love renovating and building and are itching to do it again… but you love your current location, which is just perfect for your family? Well, it might not happen very often, but these two dedicated renovators sold their much-loved labour of love – and built their next home right
Well this has been one very exciting and very busy fortnight! January 15th finally came round – the date the guys from TJP Carpentry were scheduled to start on our Scyon Walls mixed material makeover, and they’ve almost finished! We’ve still got to finish the painting, tidying up and a little replanting of the gardens
So, most bloggers probably share their baby’s nursery when they’re still pregnant, or maybe in the months after the newborn has arrived. Most probably don’t share it when their little person is two and a half years old… and they’re uh, pregnant again. Clearly I am not most bloggers! But better late than never, right?
So guess what guys, we have some news… I am pregnant! We are expecting our second baby in early July 2018 – I am 17 weeks along. We just found out what we are having – a baby girl this time! I hope she likes Enid Blyton and drawing house plans and Tomb Raider and
Today I’m finally sharing our laundry renovation on here! I absolutely love our laundry makeover. If you were to ask me which renovation project in our house has given me the most satisfaction, I have to say I think it would be this room. And I don’t even LIKE doing laundry. This is my favourite
Imagine having acres and acres of land around you, no other houses as far as the eye can see. Sounds like heaven – right? But what if it’s so many endless acres of space that every so often you actually end up craving a little more intimacy, a bit more privacy and enclosed space? That’s
“If we ever renovate again, I would…” “Our next house, we should do this…” These are words Mr Nerd and I have uttered to each other many a time as we’ve been ankle-deep in renovation rubble here. I am still FAR from a renovating pro, but we’ve learned a lot of things through trial and
One of the most common problems I think people have when renovating and decorating their homes is choosing the right white paint. We love our white walls in Australia, and for good reason – white walls are versatile, they feel fresh, light and airy, they work with all kinds of décor and they can make
Choosing lighting for our home is one thing I used to put in the ‘too hard so I don’t want to think about’ basket. It meant I would walk into a lighting store, become completely overwhelmed, argue with my husband, and then we’d just be so overwhelmed and undecided we’d walk right out again without
Since we have started our project to rejuvenate the exterior of our house using Scyon Walls™cladding, I have been blown away by the number of people interested in these products and asking me questions about it. I’m not blown away because I’m surprised – I think the products are fantastic – but blown away by
Land, land, land – and big blocks of land at that. In WA I feel like we’ve always been obsessed with land size. And for decades I think we’ve been subconsciously schooled in the traditional way of thinking, which is to believe that you should seek a bigger block of land whenever you can. But
When I am scrolling through Instagram, the photos always guaranteed to stop me in my tracks are ones of renovating. Maybe it’s because I have always been obsessed with a good before and after story – all the bits, from the demo to the drywall to the decking being laid out – but there is
Aside from our own renovations, I haven’t often featured room makeovers on House Nerd – I’ve always gone the whole hog and done a whole house. Even though putting together full home tours – like this one – take me ages, I haven’t often done ‘room renovations’, such as a kitchen or bathroom only, because
This post was brought to you by Nuffnang and Termidor. All writing is mine and all views expressed are my own. Buying your first house is such an exciting time, especially if you have always rented. All of a sudden here is this house you can theoretically do anything to that you want – paint,
So I’m excited to share that we are about to start our Scyon Walls™ elevation makeover! Not long ago I shared in this post that we were going to be making over our house’s elevation with a modern mixed materials look in collaboration with Scyon. We also had a designer on board to help us
Amy and Andrew Palmer-Millin stumbled upon their new home by accident. They were house-hunting in seaside Scarborough and were on their way to a different home open when they chanced upon the place that was to become their next home. “We accidentally went to see the house, it wasn’t on our list to view at
What better way to celebrate turning 100 than with a makeover that makes you feel beautiful? If houses could talk, this stunning Federation home in Mount Lawley would certainly agree. Once beautiful back in its heyday, this old Federation home had many charming character details. But over the decades it had fallen into disrepair and
When you were growing up, you probably dreamt of the day you’d have your own place. I was way too dorky to get invited to house parties and do normal teenager things like hook up with boys, so daydreaming about my future house was pretty much my hobby. One of my first (and quite possibly
A while ago I wrote about how we gave our old 1970s kitchen an IKEA kitchen renovation, completing it (kind of!) just in time for our baby’s arrival. (These pics above were taken by the lovely Alanna of Earthbound Images when he was nearly four months). I also shared our IKEA kitchen renovation diary. Since then I’ve had a
Would you buy a house you hated? Could you make an offer on a home with an interior you didn’t like at all – a home that was actually a particularly ugly example of the era it was built? Home owners Craig and Emma Croxford did – buying a 1970s Willetton house that was so
So I’m going to make a bold call here, but I have to call it – I think I’ve found my favourite Iwan Iwanoff house yet. (At least my fave of all the ones I’ve visited so far!) It’s this quietly shy beauty – the Frank House in Menora. The house is owned by Michael and Carmen
Well, this is it, guys – hands-down one of the coolest houses I’ve had the honour of featuring on House Nerd! This is Nature Inspired Eco House. Designed for a tiny 200sqm infill block in the city, this two-storey, solar passive new home is eco-friendly and runs on renewable energy (with no air-con). Built from a
House Nerd has had a makeover – but you can still visit the old site and enjoy all my stories here! In the meantime, I’ll be migrating all the original content to this site.
Have you ever been house hunting and seen a listing with real estate photography so bad, it’s turned you off from even visiting a house? Or have you ever visited a home for sale you’ve been eyeing off only to be disgusted the moment you step foot inside? I have, while we were house hunting.
The renovating bug is a sneaky thing, isn’t it? Once you’ve been bitten by it (or the home building bug, which I hear is as equally infectious) it’s never long after you throw down your paintbrush one day and swear, “That’s it! I’m done! I’m not doing any more renovations,” that bug raises its little
So today I finally have a before and after to share with you – our kitchen renovation! (Finally!) I had putting off doing this Before and After story for ages because I was waiting til we could renovate one of the biggest elements (the floors). But now it’s done and I couldn’t be happier, even though
When Penny and Mat bought a dark, dated and daggy 1970s home in City Beach, they thought it might be a knockdown job – and their friends presumed they would bulldoze it and build anew, too. But when Penny and Mat decided that instead they were going to renovate and extend to make it a
Hi House Nerd, I live in an old home in Fremantle that I am renovating and would love some tips on how to reduce road noise in my house. Being close to the street and constructed of weatherboard I hear every car that passes and it is getting quite frustrating especially when trying to sleep.
This story was originally published on my old blog format on July 26, 2016. The house I’m sharing with you today is so cool – and ahead of the general Perth design curve. Built on a tiny inner-city infill block just 200sqm in size, it’s a freestanding house that has been designed to comfortably accommodate
This story first appeared on my original House Nerd blog here. It was dilapidated, needed love and had slowly deteriorated to the point that almost none of the doors and windows could be closed properly. But there was something mesmerising about the old weatherboard cottage that drew young couple and serial renovators Nat and Trent
I have been a fan of the houses of WA architect Ben Mountford for a while now. You might remember I did a story a few years ago on the renovation and extension he designed for this old Mt Hawthorn cottage, which won him an architecture award. His homes are cool; yet relaxed and liveable, different; but not
When first home buyer and building designer Janik Dalecki bought a dumpy little Maylands cottage, his friends thought he had lost the plot. “The house ticked all my boxes and I instantly saw what potential it had,” he says. “But family and friends thought I was crazy and said things like, ‘it’s a bowl-over’!” But Janik,
So I have exciting news – our new walk-in pantry/scullery renovation is finished! I think this may actually be my favourite renovated room in the house now (although I think I say that about every room once we finish it, even the toilet). But I AM in love with our new pantry. I first learned about