Tapping into the timber and tile market

Nothing beats a Saturday morning than a stop by the local recycled timber yard. 

We were shopping around for some cool looking timber to be used as our island bench top. Dougie suggested that timber on the island top and polished concrete for the main kitchen bench top would look rad. We agreed.

We headed down to see our pal Andy at Urban Salvage in Spotswood. This place is awesome and it seems every time we go there they have a new shipment of some kind of recycled timber that has come from an obscure place.

Ahhh, the smell of timber in the morning

We purchased our floorboards from Urban Salvage a couple of weeks ago. We went with recycled messmate overlay which isn't too dark, so it should keep the back nice and airy looking. It also has all these awesome nail holes, chips, knots and more throughout to keep it interesting. 

As we knew what timber flooring we were going with, we wanted to find something for the island bench top that wouldn't clash or look crap or god forbid, too timber-y.

Our messmate flooring

SOLD - our messmate flooring

Andy suggested this lot of remilled forest reds. I've sent a pic onto Dougie, so hopefully he thinks it will work. I would love to put a piece of our reclaimed pressed metal on the end to break up the two lots of timbers.

Remilled forest reds for our bench top

Urban Salvage has a stack of wooden goodies, so if you are heading there, go to Duchess of Spotswood first for a takeaway coffee and spend some quality time looking at the pretty timbers. 

If you had asked us a year ago what we would have wanted for an island bench top, we would have totally had said recycled gymnasium floorboards. However, if you are like Reg and I who smash coffees and croissants around the western suburbs, you would have seen these pop up in every second cafe in the last twelve months. Therefore, we have avoided. But gee whizz, it looks cool and at only $9 p l/m. Bargain.

Recycled gymnasium flooring

Awesome timber from Urban

Following our timber trip, we went on a search for tiles. After a disastrous visit to a place called National Tiles in Sunshine (never again) we decided to not go to any more 'chain' tile suppliers. Instead we went to this spectacular place called Genesis Tiles on Dynon Road (they are that cool, they don't even have a website). The store had two friendly men who drank strong coffee while leaning on the counter discussing the daily news in Europe. The shop also had a super friendly pet dog that skidded all over the shiny floors. And, if you ask nicely, the man with white hair will take you to the back area where all old tile stock is kept. If you are after feature tiles, you may find them amongst the piles and piles of dusty tiles. Probably for 20 cents each.

Grey floor tiles 

Classic white - these will be laid in the 'subway' style

I think we have scored with our tile choices - for the bathroom that is. Classic white subway tiles for the walls and a stone grey thick floor tile (both with minimum grout). Tick.

The grey and white will look awesome with our mega terrarium feature and 1960s asymmetric mirror.

knob handle tap from Masters

Now it's all about taps. Funnily enough, Reg and I have decided to go with a 'handle-knob' style tap. Totally unexpected, but when we went into Masters, they sprung out at us and it was an easy decision. Plus the store man at Masters was as nice as pie. Tick.

After all that shopping, I was super knackered however I had to get to my first ever hypnobirthing class afterwards. You can totally judge me (I do all the time), but I have to say that it was terrific. I am now at 29 weeks and starting to think about this thing called LABOUR, so I thought I'd give it a go. If you like yoga, you'll love this class. I went to a naturopath place in Yarraville called Feeling Healthy and it was excellent. I feel stoned.

Happy Saturday night to you all.

With love (and a pack of iced vo-vo's and season 5 of Mad Men),

Ali