Creating Art, and easy DIY project

I've always loved silouhettes, and I'm not the only one - they dominated stationery designs and art throughout 2009. Will they die down in 2010? Perhaps, but even if they do, I'll still love them especially when they are in jewel tones and fresh colours like these ones from Jonathan Adler...


(Carter Kustera Prints via Jonathan Adler)

You can order up your own silouhette print via Jonathan Adlers site and Carter Kustera will personally do your silouhette. Fancy and gorgeous, But likely expensive.

One evening last week, I was inspired to get some art onto my blank walls in my office. I knew that I didn't want something grand with a lot of colour and a lot going on, (I don't like a lot of visual clutter) but instead light and modern. I started to play around with some designs and came up with this...



They aren't actually our personal silouhettes but instead, very "formal" profiles of a man and a woman. I chose to make Aubrey and I in jewel tones, to add some punches of colour to the office.
I designed the poster to be 27x39", the perfect size to fit into Ikeas biggest frame available. If you're making your own art, get your printer to print it/quote you at 27x39" as this frame from Ikea is super affordable.



So now it hangs above my couch (that still needs some fluff added to it) in my studio. The office is slowly, slowly coming together. :) I still need something above my monitor, and soon, that inspiration will hit.

So, a much as I talk about wanting to buy art for our home, I'm also a big fan of making my own. For a small cost of hiring an outside printer to print my silouhette poster, it was an economical experiment. :)

Here are some links to some stock silouhettes for your own DIY Home Project. Here and Here.

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Disclaimer: I wish I could take credit for the silouhette profile images, however all that I contributed to this poster was making the heads whacky colours, putting them together, and deciding to make it a poster. The silouhettes were (I think) stock images that I found a long time ago. (they have been saved on my computer for some time)

What you can do is go somewhere like iStockPhoto.com and buy silouhettes and make your own personal poster, I've posted some links above to some particular options that seem fitting. Or, you can do the traditional method, and make one based on your own face/profile. Design*Sponge did a nice tutorial on this.

If it isn't broken, don't fix it...right?

Someone recently e-mailed to ask me some questions, and in passing, asked whether I could send her pictures of our kitchen. My reaction was "ARGHHH, are you kidding me!?" But, after the past week, I started wondering why I was so resistant to show anyone our kitchen. I felt like kind of a snob. Our kitchen actually isn't half bad. We're really quite lucky that the house with all of it's flaws when we bought it, presented us with a kitchen that was workable.

Our kitchen wouldn't be inspiring to you, nor would it be a contender for the worst kitchen ever contest. Our kitchen although dated, is no where near awful .... which is why we haven't done anything to it.

The counter, uninspired, is clean and in good condition. The cabinets, although straight out of 1985 properly hold our plates, mugs, and bowls. The backsplash, not my style, and maybe cracking here and there, is still holding up. So, although not to our taste, we try to go by the ... "Why fix what isn't broken" rule.

So, here are the pictures of our traditional galley kitchen....

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ABOVE, SIDE #1
I adore my awesome Bosch Tassimo machine courtesy of my Mom + Dad and ontop of the microwave is a must have for when guests come over, a Nespresso Aeroccino Milk frother. :) Our oven is pretty small, and won't hold a traditional cookie sheet, which is my only annoyance.



ABOVE: SIDE # 2
We haven't spent any money on reworking this kitchen, but we have done some changes. One thing we immediately did when we moved in was we moved the fridge from the farthest left area of the kitchen and moved it to our eat in area to create more space. (When the door would open, you would block the entry way to the front hall) You can tell where the fridge "used" to go by how the cabinets are much higher in the left hand area. The house a rolly-polly-plug in dishwasher which didn't work well for us, so we sold it on Craisglist and got a built in dishwasher free from a family friend who was renovating and put it in this area + installed a cutting board on top.

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Honestly, our kitchen is, apart from dated, awesome. I love the galley kitchen and it looks onto our awesome eat in area that overlooks the garden. It gets so much light. It's a simple layout, but works so well. Having lived in a basement apartment prior to this with Aubrey, the light that we got in this kitchen was mesmerizing...We had sunlight!

So here is the honesty part of the situation. Do I wish we could tear it out and redo it? Yes. That's just me - I love the idea of a new room. However, here is the reality of the situation; It's not a priority since the kitchen, although not to my taste, is totally fine. And the biggest part - budget is an issue. (Let's face it, if I had all the money in the world, I think the kitchen would be long gone)

I couldn't articulate very well why the kitchen irritated me so, even in it's functioning state. It was when Margot Austin, someone whom I admire immensely for her design style, was recently asked a series of questions for StyleatHome.com that my issue was articulated perfectly. She was asked;

"What do you think is the best renovation you can do to your home?"

and she answered;

"The kitchen. When it’s right, you can live with anything else that’s not quite right in your home. When it’s wrong, nothing in your home – or life – is quite on target."

Her answer was articulate, and resonates with me. (And for the record, she has one of the most beautiful kitchens ever. )

Although the rest of our house is beautiful, not having our kitchen like the rest of the house bothers me. (And only me). And so, I remind myself of our rule "Why fix what isn't broken" ...but as you probably can guess, I'm patiently waiting for the cabinets to fall down, the oven to go poof, and the counter top to mysteriously crack in half so we can do that *fix*

So, Is there a kitchen renovation in the works? No.
Will we ever do our kitchen? It's a maybe.
Have I threatened to take down the cabinets while Aubrey is at work? Once.

:)

Canadian Artists

Happy Sunday afternoon.

Over here I'm cleaning, reorganizing. I'm still in my PJs. It is a beautiful lazy, sunny Sunday afternoon. I have the classical channel playing in the background, my coffee is almost gone, and I'm moving around art in my studio and tidying up little things that I always seem to put to the side. It seems like a perfect day to do a post on art. :)

It was over this past week when our living room got a jolt of "new" (by reusing old) that I started to start envisioning art once again for our home. I recently talked about my love of Sarah Merry, and there are a number of other artists in our "wish list" of whom we would like to add. So here are 2 more Canadian Artists that I wanted to write about.

DAVID GRIEVE
Canadian



David Grieve is an artist that both Aubrey and I would love to add to our home. His work hangs in our family's home, and I am often captivated by his work. His work reminds me of Van Gogh - impressionist in style. When you see his work in person, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't do what I do - getting up close to the canvas, admiring the thick layers of paint. His paintings also are extremely close to my heart as they remind me of Canadian landscapes - the beautiful changing trees that I adore so much at our cottage just outside of Toronto.



Both of the paintings I've shown are showcased on The State of the Art Gallery website (here) but David has his own website that I recommend visiting to see if there are gallery's in your area that have his work.

Kate Schutz
Canadian





A newer artist I found is Kate Schutz, a Calgary artist whose work is absolutely fantastic. (website Here) I adore the above photo with the cake. It reminds me of a vintage photo you'd see in someones photo album. Don't you wonder who the cake is for?
Links to Kate's website, and her blog

Anyhow, back to cleaning. But....I have 2 other artists that I want to show you, but I'll save that for another Sunday afternoon read. :)

Tufted Ottomans

As mentioned in my previous post I was hit with some inspiration of getting a tufted ottoman for our living room instead of the traditional coffee table which sent me on a googling frenzy looking for inspiration.

Knowing me, my tastes will change between now and when we can actually afford getting an ottoman/coffee table ..... but the practicality of an ottoman at this time seems endless.

First - It adds extra seating if necessary - you just move it to the side. Secondly, you could put your feet up on it if you want to sit + read a magazine/book in the room, and lastly ... It makes me feel a little better with a baby on the way that there would be no sharp corners. It also just adds warmth to a room.

So here are my top three picks that I found online, all well outside a budget, but all dramatically beautiful to me. I of course love #1 for the storage level underneath. (Or it could be a negative and be considered a dust collector)

1. William Sonoma Home Charleston Tufted Ottoman, $1,650.00 - $2,650.00 US
2. Castered Tufted Storage Ottoman, Ballard Designs, $399.00 - $559.00 US
3. Restoration Hardware Tufted Bench, $495-$700

There weren't many online that I would consider purchasing except for the three above. However there is a DIY Alternative over @ Little Green NoteBook (how I love her stuff) she did a DIY Tufted Ottoman.

Here are some more inspirational pictures...


Via DecorPad


Via DecorPad




I haven't made my mind up on this one ... I'm not sure if I love this, or find it hideously ugly. I'm leaning towards loving it if the ottoman didn't have the fence portion on each side.

Living Room } Getting hit with inspiration

Lots of things happened in the house this week, all which all deserve proper posts. This one story is likely to be something that others can relate to. (At least I hope I'm not the only one that does this)
You see....sometimes Aubrey will come home from work in the evening to find a room looking much different than when he left.

I switch chairs around, I put up art, take down art, I move a carpet from one room to another. It's a sign that the room that I'm moving stuff to, and from, isn't working.

I think we're all liable to do something like what I do if you're not 100% happy with a room. Until I find a combo that works perfectly, all of the rooms in the house are in jeapordy of getting into the game of "switcheroo". (Master bedroom, for example, is off limits as I'm 100% content with it)

Thursday I took a mirror from our front hall and a library table that was misplaced in our kitchen, and they got moved to our living room.


(Mirror, in it's original home, our front hall)

The living room is one of my favourite rooms, with so much potential. It's sat empty for a very long time, but Thursdays game of 'switcheroo' gave me some very clear insight into the design direction of this room.
So, a recap...


When we bought. Lovely peacock feathers add a nice touch of class to the fake fireplace, don't you think?


Fake fireplace gone, new floors, new wall colour



Over the past 2 years we have added a new couch, new custom drapes, side tables and lamps. Every purchase was made carefully, and with a lot of consideration. And as of Thursday, the Library table (stollen from the kitchen) and mirror (stolen from the front hall) made their way into the living room.

What did I learn from this? Actually, I got a lot of inspiration.

(1) Height. That is the first thing that this excersise taugh me. This room needs height on that wall whether it's the mirror, or a big piece of art, something big to be on this wall. If I were to keep it like this, I would flank each side of the mirror in some more framed art, likely in gold frames to be consistent with the gold mirror.

(2) Bookshelves

As I've written about before, and thus no surprise, we're adding in some bookshelves. You can see one white bookshelf in the picture - it is there as a temporary piece as we needed to see what depth of shelf we should do. We still haven't ordered them, we're still saving, and saving, but it's the next big thing that we plan on doing.

(3) Coffee Table or Ottoman

I've never seen a coffee table that jumped at me, but mind you, I haven't been looking all that hard either for one. I never had a vision. But after this moving of things around, I think I've fallen in love with the idea with a tufted ottoman instead of a coffee table. Round up of my favourites will follow shortly. An ottoman is probably a lot better with a child on the way (soft corners).

It's funny how a simple game of switching things around gave me that creative insight into the room.

One day, I will look back at this and laugh...

As the post title says...

"One day, I will look back at this and laugh..."

Either that, or I will always have an empty nursery because I suck at making decisions. What have I been up to lately? I've been sitting in the "baby room" staring at fabric swatches.

Heads up that this is more of a post for me, so that one day I can look back and do a belly laugh about how "silly" I was, stressing over the room. So skip this boring post, but if you want a good post about how you're glad you're not "indesisive" like this woman over here, then read on. Maybe you can relate?

You see, I'm still debating that silly floral fabric for the nursery.

Here is the thing, I'm not sure that the fabric is right for the room. It's right for our house but for the room...I'm not sure of. I'm not sure that this print was the design direction I was hoping for.

This is when I throw myself onto the bed (gently of course because I of baby) and wish that I could dial-a-decorator and get them to come do this room. I think that decorators should market to pregant women like me, whose indesisiveness makes even the best of marriages a bit shakey. ;)

So, I've made my decision. I'm going to buy a few yards of the fabric just because I love it so much. Whether it will make it's way into the baby room is up for debate. Will it end up on some pillows for the living room? Maybe. But for now, the hunt for fabric inspiration continues.

For now, here are some more awesome baby room inspirational pictures that add to my insanity over here.

Fabric Shopping

Onto fabric shopping for the nursery.

I needed somewhere to start, and fabric is a great way to pull colours. I was on a mission to find *that* fabric to be inspired by. So, fabric shopping for the nursery began yesterday with a trip down to Designer Fabrics with Mom, as well as a trip to a new store.

First up,



We went to a new place, King Textiles, which is where I found this...



I swooned. I fell in love. I love stripes. I love gray stripes. It has been decided. It will be the bed skirt on both the day bed, and the crib. In. Love. I would make it more of the baby bedding, but it's silk. Doesn't wash. So, it will be places that won't likely get messy.

And at Designer Fabrics, Mom found this bold print that I think we're making into pillows for the day bed along with some other fabrics. Take a peek at the boldness that I fell in love with...



Again. I swooned. I fell in love. I just love that vibrant floral. But...it's floral. It has pink. But it also has lots of blues and greens!

Finding a fabric like that made it super easy to find jumping off points for other fabrics, since that big print has so many beautiful colours. For boys, you pull on the blues and greens and for girls, the pinks and oranges (sherbert!) works perfectly.

As you can tell from other rooms, I kind of like "white" but this room *needs* colour, unlike our Master Bedroom that just works with grays and whites perfectly.

Can't I just make the room a *little* for me? Inner debate going on over here...

Bookshelves

I need to start this post off with some background for those that arent privy to the story behind needing bookcases. :)

When I married Aubrey, I also married a huge book collector. I didn't get it at first. Where were these books to go? Could we maybe get rid of some, to make room for the new? Before you poo-poo me and think I am a grinch, this isn`t your ordinary book collection. This is books falling out of closets, books hidden behind tables. Books, books books. Interesting books, yes. Educational, indeed. Lots of them all over our house with no place to be...unfortunately yes as well.

I realized that these books and I had to co-exist. If you know Aubrey, you know that he has this wealth of knowledge and loves to learn. It is one of the things that made me fall in love with him; his quest for knowledge and understanding of people and issues, and his interest in always learning. So. The books are staying and we have to find a way to properly display the more precious of the collection.

For the past 2 years we've been trying to figure out how to properly get some of his books out on display. We've agreed that we can't display ALL of them (there just isn't room) and so I've been collecting inspirational pictures in that time.

We've found a solution to the book display issue and someone to help make them, which I'll do a proper post on but I'm still working on the design. (and we have to save up some funds, because man-oh-man, baby stuff is expensive) But, for now here are some of the pictures I've collected. :)

Some of the pictures below are less grand than others, some from regular people's homes where I may have seen the picture on a contractors website showing a basement re-do. But any inspiration helps!


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Ps., For bookcase obsessed like myself, you'll likely already know of I Suwannee's Bookcase of the day, but if not...take a peek here.

Office, some new elements

I totally forgot to mention that I added some little elements to the office in the basement. After this post I'm really signing off for the weekend! ;)



First up, I added bamboo drapes by the window over my desk. It solves 2 issues. (1) It stops Mak the Cat from jumping up on the window ledge and freaking out when another cat walks by and (2) It adds warmth to the wall. I liked the darker shade as it ties in with the desk colour and also the floor.

Second thing I did was I added some smaller ikea baskets for awesome organization in the base cabinets of my DIY desk. Each little basket holds unique items. Camera cords, pens + pencils, paint chip fan decks. Since the desk was a DIY and I didn't add drawers, the little baskets solve the orgnizational problem. (Click here on how Aubrey and I made the desk)

The basement is seriously needing things on the wall, especially something above the desk. Corkboard? Art? Thoughts?

I'm itching to do a full reveal of the office, but there are so many itty-bitty elements missing.

Curatin Love - Inspirational Pictures

There's a lull in projects as Aubrey is back at work, business is busy, and our past week was filled up with Doctors appointments, our car needing repairs, and just "life" so I thought I'd do a quick post on what "researching". It's drapery for the nursery.

I have a slight obsession over here, and it's with drapery. I love drapes. I want more windows to hang drapes on. I'm a fan of pinch pleats as they are clean, and simple, but oh-so gorgeous. And most of the pictures below are, surprise, surprise, pinch pleats.

Let me show you some of my favourites...

The following two are from over at Little Green Notebook. Seeing her mix of the wood roll blinds with the curtains makes me want to take down all of my white wood venitian blinds and replace them with this. The issue with some of our windows is that the white wood blinds hide the ugly windows, and I can tilt the blinds to still let light in, something I couldn't do with the bamboo look below. But I can dream!


The piping of the contrasting colour is a huge source of inspiration for me for our nursery.


The mixture of the luxe fabric, with the natural blinds makes my heart skip a beat.


Samantha Pynn did a similar look of adding a contrasting colour on the inner portion of blinds in a makeover she did that was featured in Style at Home, January 2010's issue.

Here are some more of my favourite drapes pictures.











Over at Urban Grace she did these gorgeous blinds for her nursery. Again, I'm loving the look of the wood blinds, and the band of a contrasting fabric on the inner portion.

Awhile ago I was searching for drapery inspiration online and I came across Levlors helpful Guide to Drapery Styles. In talking with my seamstress, or perhaps if you're working with a designer, (or if you want to google the appropriate drapery name) their reference guide to drapery styles I found very, very helpful.



Anyhow, I'm off to a friends baby shower this weekend, and work is likely filling up the next few days as well, but next week I'm off to try to find some fabric for the nursery which should be fun. We found out the sex of the baby...which I wasn't going to reveal, but as a friend pointed out, you'll probably tell from my colour selections! ;)

Have a great weekend! Hopefully the Levlor site, and some of the pictures above prove to be inspiration for you as well.

Carpet Installed

Yesterday our carpet in the nursery was installed. We ended up finding the carpet we really, really liked at Alexanian Carpet & Flooring about 1 month ago.

We went to the Laird + Eglinton location and the style of carpet that I fell in love with was a Godfrey Hirst Wool Carpet. I liked that it had some texture to it, and really liked the waffle look.

Since we needed to order carpet in 12 ft width - and the room was between 8-9 feet wide, we decided to use the remnant for the runner to the basement. It cost a little extra for the binding cost, but it was less expensive than if we were to order a runner later seperately.



I'll take better "day" pictures tomorrow, but wanted to post an update! It makes such a HUGE difference in the nursery and I now don't have this fear of slipping down the stairs. ;)

Jenny Lind Cribs

First of all...Thank you to Grace over at Design*Sponge for featuring our Before & After of our Master Bedroom. I felt really special yesterday, and I love seeing new commenters, and will reply this evening to some of the questions that have popped up in the comment section. :)

On to shopping! I picked up crib for our nursery. We are going with a Jenny Lind. Kind of a big jump from my original pick of ultra modern style.

Turns out that I slept in a Jenny Lind style crib. Mom loved the crib and I therefore had sentimental reasons to love it, and the rest is history. :)


Over at Urban Grace, she used her childhood bed but had it sprayed gold. (I haven't found a good after photo on her blog but I will try to update it when I find it!)


Nicole over at Making it Lovely chose a Jenny Lind style of crib and posted these inspirational photos.


Here is her Jenny Lind crib for Eleanor.


(Above Image from Layla Grace)

I called around the city, and no one, absolutely no one carried it. But I do some graphic design work for a baby store Dear-Born Baby, and called them to see if they carried the crib. Although the crib is not on display, they said that they could get it in. :) WHOOP!

I'm glad I inquired sooner than later as these things need to be special ordered. Although I'm ahead of the game, the crib will take some time to get here.

It's slightly more traditional than I had intended, but I'm going to modernize the room with the bedding and other areas. :)

Ps., We chose a carpet for the nursery and it's being installed Tuesday!

Update, Sunday January 17th...I found some more pictures of Jenny Lind cribs in use!

New - Domino picture of a Jenny Lind Crib


Picture of a bright yellow Jenny Lind crib found on Ohdeedoh of Norah's Sweet and Sunny Nursery


Jenny Lind Crib picture via

His + Her Splurges

A simple post for a simple day over here. Quiet, and the sun is shining through all of our windows. I'm quietly working away in my office. But I had to take a picture of these....



I am just in love with these tulips. There is a combination of purple, pinks, and yellows. I like to buy a small bouquet of flowers at the flower shop down the street and split the bouquet into 2 small vases for beside our bed. For $7 each week it is my little splurge.

And then I was in the bedroom and realized I hadn't posted about this new addition. So we talked about MY splurging on $7 a week on a bouquet of flowers. And then there is Aubrey's splurging. ;)



Aubrey surprised me at Christmas with a TV for our bedroom. :)

With baby on the way, he realized that purchases for us will dwindle (and not likely be possible), so he did it without my knowledge. Why? Because I would debate the cost, fret, and feel guilty. So I'm glad he did it that way because I love it, and don't feel guilty. And when pregnancy yucks hits me at night, I'll curl up after a bath, and snuggle into the bed and watch old re-runs, or HGTV. It's my bliss. :)

And also in the picture is one of my favourite finds from Frontier Sales. This dresser was tucked away in a corner, and fit perfectly into our bedroom.

UPDATE: What I forgot to mention was that we did have a TV in the bedroom before - but it was a mama-of-a-tv and didn't look very nice. It stuck out like a sore thumb, which is why it never was photographed before. ;)

Bathroom Tiling, Part 2

Bathroom Tiling Part II happened today, with the help once again from Dad.

Instead of going outside to do the cutting on the wet saw, we put it in the "dungeon" room (which is a little room off the furnace room). It was a perfect place to cut as it creates little mess compared to cutting wood. And it is pretty cold here in Toronto to be working with water outdoors.





The men worked away at it for a good 5 hours, making sure the layout was perfect.



Initially we were going to just put tiles side by side, but when I played around with the look, it didn't seem right. It was much too "linear" for this small of a bathroom. And plus, since we're novices, we didn't do anything like "borders" like I've seen some people do, so some visual interest was definitely needed...

When I was at my parents house, I was staying over and looked at their bathroom floor that was recently done. I noticed that it was done in a diamond pattern. Genius.

So I suggested the pattern to the boys, and thankfully they agreed!

So now the tile for the floor has been cut! But since dinner time rolled near, we decided to leave the rest for another day. Baby steps....But big transformations!

Eat in Kitchen - Bench gets a back cushion

My Mom made something extra for our bench.....



A back cushion for my bench! Love it. :)

Now I seriously need to reupholster those chairs + maybe add some different cushions in different fabric in the corner. :) And the walls need something.

UPDATED PICTURE: January 14th, 2010
because I'm a nut...

I switched around the chairs. I actually prefer the look of the darker chairs with this fabric. I stole them from the dining room. :)

Nursery Makeover, Part 4 - New Shelf

Every house has something that you just have to live with. For us, it was this shelf structure in the Nursery that had to stay. The base of the unit covers our staircase below, so it wasn't going anywhere.

What to do with it?
We had a number of ideas for how to address this unit, first, we had a door concept (add doors to the left hand side of the structure, creating a closet). But that idea went out the window when we put in a daybed, and the daybed got in the way of a door opening. (Glad we did the bed first, and not the doors!)

So we revisited what to do. We had already installed a makeshift shelf at the top, not really caring how it was installed as it was going to be (past tense) hidden by doors.



So Aubrey and I stared at the shelf for a good 1/2 an hour talking out ideas. Do we leave the existing shelves? The issue with that is that whoever built them, did an awful job at them. So if we were to add on, our new side would look awful as well.

We decided to start from scratch, remove that shelf we had added on, and start from the ground up.



First things first, we took out all of the existing shelves. We left the ladder structure, that was in good shape & the height of each shelves was 100% perfect already, fitting the Ikea baskets for great storage.



We went to Home Depot and got MDF boards and brought up our table saw (borrowed from Aubrey's Moms house - thank you!) into the room, and Aubrey cut away. Since we haven't installed carpet, or done anything fancy to this room, we didn't mind getting this room dusty.



It took Aubrey 1.5 days cutting the shelves. They had to "notch" around the existing pillars, and like all things in old houses, nothing was ever "square" or perfectly straight, so it took him extra time as he tried his best. (And did a great job)



Nighttime came on Day 2 of this project, and I painted the shelves out in the Benjamin Moore's Aura line, in the same colour as our trim - Chantilly Lace in Semi Gloss. (It's awesome that there is a paint that pregnant ladies can use!) But then it came time to fill some gaps, and I wasn't going anywhere near the DAP, or the putty (I have a feeling it's not safe for pregnant ladies) so Aubrey stepped in and filled the holes.

And the shelves are complete. :) This structure that I once threatened to tear out in fits of hate, now is what I love about this room. I'm glad we did it properly and removed the old shelves and that Aubrey took the time (thank you) to build new, better shelves. I also love that the height of each shelf allows for the Ikea baskets, which I know will be handy when I'm trying to find storage for baby stuff.

Part 3, Part 2, Part 1

Nursery Makeover Part 3 - boring stuff

This post will likely be boring for most people (Hi Mom) because it's just recapping the process of the Nursery, but at the end it brings the whole project up to speed, so this project called a "Nursery" can stay organized on my blog for when I look back fondly in a few years + remember the ups + downs. :)

Although I've posted inspirational pictures, and potential ideas, little has been done to the room up until now. This room has been an office, then potential spare bedroom, and then we found out we were pregnant, so this room now, as you know, a room for our future addition to our family. :)



Above, The room looked like this when we did a walk through of the house in December 2008.



When we moved into the house, and the room became my temporary office, the room got painted in Classic Gray, but nothing else was done to it. (I didn't realize that our mess in the hall made it into this picture, oops)



When the basement was done, I moved out of the spare bedroom, and I went full force on repainting. (For the low down on how THAT turned out, see Part 1)





There is this ackward bookshelf in the room (above) that couldn't go anywhere. So we thought we'd build out the top shelf, and add doors on the left hand side. (click here to read about that grand plan)




However, here is the newest dillema, that we didn't tell you about.

When we added in a day bed it caused an issue for adding doors onto the shelving unit. The doors wouldn't open fully, as the bed came out to far. It was a bit of an issue, what to do with this unit, but we came up with a fix. :) But I'm dirty, and exhausted from the work, so I'll post the Part 4 tomorrow. :)

Nursery Inspiration Pictures

Nothing like a post filled with pictures to inspire to start today. :)

A BIG thank you to Sarah (here is her blog) for sending me the first five awesome pictures that sparked my need to put all of these amazing pictures into one place.











(above) This last one from Sarah is a blown up assignment. It is worthy to be in a nursery, but also oh-so-awesome for anywhere in a house - Love it!

And then this one that I saved a long time ago, which I think is for sure from Domino, which ignited my need for a big tall Giraffe. :)

There's a giraffe again....



This one is more traditional, but the colours are so soothing.

My neighbour Erin sent me the following ...





The following pictures need some introduction; I came across a blog called Baby Junebug. Not only is the baby, June, super-cute, but her room is to match/ (Click here to see the blog post on the nursery) She was inspired by Amanda Peets room (link), which Kay (her blog here) had just also pointed me to the other day! And I spot some Blah Blah Dolls.... (Remember my confession over here?)


Via


Via

And then, this one is of course, a favourite....

This gorgeous nursery is from the very tallented, and always inspirational couple + baby over @ Rambling Renovators. (*Link to nursery here) A room like this takes obvious vision, and a clear concept of the final design. The results are nothing but spectacular and inviting.

Anyhow, I'm one who when I see a picture I like, I right click + save it to my computer for future inspiration, so maybe some of these will become your favourites. The downside of my right-clicking is that I don't have their original sources to the pictures (I should really rename the files with the source) But, if any of you know the sources let me know and I'll credit the photos!

Shopping Trip

We went into Of Things Past , a huge consignment store on Monday when we did our little shopping trip around the city. I would consider it one of the more expensive consignment stores here in Toronto, but always worth a pop in, if you're in the area. We didn't leave with anything other than some fun pictures of pieces that I wish we either had the room, or budget for.



I just realized that my Mini has a twin in this picture! That is weird.



On the way out of the store I spotted these Chinese Chippendale Chairs at $520 for a pair. I'm not a connoisseur of these chairs, so the price is a little steep for my budget (maybe that is a good price?) but if they are still there in April, the price drops to $320 for the two of them



Look at this daybed...It's $682 which I found to be a nice price considering the day bed is real wood, and that fabric is in great condition....and actually rather trendy. It's dropped in price from the original $1050.00. Wouldn't it be sweet in a little girls room, if the room was large? Ok, how about in MY room.

Ok, back to work. I just wanted to show you, in case either of these will work in your house!

Sneek Peek At Office

I've been reluctant to show office photos as there are some major outstanding things before this basement is checked off our list. We're waiting for our pocket door to be delivered for our Bathroom, we're tiling, and most importantly - decorating.

This past Christmas I got a present from my little Brother, that prompted me to do hang some art. (More on that below)



It's a small step, but for me to actually take the plunge and nail into the wall was momentous. My Bamboo chair, I need to pick a fabric for it, and I'm thinking of Orange like the one that is seen over on Style Court. (Link) Or maybe pink...*Sigh* This is why it hasn't been recovered since I bought them off Ebay.



First step - Hanging some art in the studio. I didn't want to do ALL of my own work, as staring at things that you've already done does little to ignite new creativity, so I want to add varying styles of work on the walls.

Alphabet Print - This print is special to me - It is one of my favourite prints that I do, with the name of our family Wheaton Terrier. :) I just love the colours, so it was an obvious choice to hang for me and keeps me inspired to actually keep trying to do more artwork.

In the Gold frame is a handwritten note - it is one of Aubrey's good morning notes to me. For the past 4+ years, Aubrey has always left me a little note saying goodmorning that I find when I come downstairs. Working in the News Industry he sometimes leaves for work at 4am, so our morning note ritual is one of my favourites. Most of our notes are all in books, but this one made it into a frame.

In the Black Frame, is my Christmas gift from my little brother Peter. For the past 6 months he has been collecting my old drawings of my "Penny People". (More on the characters can be read here) He scanned in old pictures and did a timeline of how they have changed over the years. This is the frame that prompted the hanging of some art, as it would be devestating if this got damaged.

UPDATE - January 13th, 2010: Ok, so I've changed the look of this area again. I'm obsessive compulsive  indesisive. *sigh* I'll post an updated look shortly! ;)

Let there be light....

Aubrey has the next few days off so we're tackling things like the carpet for the nursery, rebuilding the shelves in the nursery, and a surprise shopping trip today for lighting.

The last piece of evidence of the old owners (other than our 1980's kitchen) is on our 2nd floor where there is this awesome retro chandelier in our hallway. It actually has a little bit of kitsh to it, and became a little joke in our house.



Although it functioned (and therefore not a main priority on the shopping list) it started to stick out like a sore thumb over the past 2 years, and it's something that really bothered Aubrey because of it's look. Alternatively, it bothered me because it actually was a bad light in general as it cast a yellow glow on the 2nd floor, and the single bulb provided little light.

So we went light shopping, and came home with stiff necks.


One of my favourite stores is Universal Lighting in Toronto. It's where Meurice, our Master Bedroom Light came from. (Post about that is here)



The shiny silver lights were my first love, but they were too large for our 2nd floor landing. You'd walk right into any of these if we had gone with them. But for House # 2, these will one day be mine.



Then I spotted this collection (above) and fell in love...they had a similar sparkle to them, but were much shorter, and therefore more appropriate for our landing.



Oops, got sidetracked. I started to take pictures of other fixtures I loved. Isn't this one gorgeous? I was trying to tell Aubrey this would be PERFECT for our Dining Room. And then we spotted the price tag ($900) and I realized the closest I would come to having this in my home was by framing this picture.

So...what did we end up going with?





Although I would have prefered one of the Mammoth, larger lights like in the first picture, it wasn't going to work...and they were also pretty expensive, so this one was just right. :)

Nursery Makeover, Part 2

Now that I've admitted my mistakes on the Nursery (see previous post) I can now bring you up to date on the fun stuff - Decorating ideas.

Here is a view of one area of the Nursery. It's a very long, rectangular room. At one end we have a day bed - this is the view from which the pictures are taken below. This area I'll turn into a couch/seating area or bed, whenever needed.

At the other end of the room is where the crib will be. (Not shown) . I've been debating what to do with this wall so I thought I would show you the mock ups that I created to help me visualize before nailing into the wall. :)

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The room as it currently is.



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MOCK UPS


(1) Gallery Wall with Ikea White Frames .... with a stock photo baby. ;)



(2) Reduce the Gallery wall by 1 column and add the sconces on either side. Getting warmer?


(3) 1 Big Ikea Frame (shown to size) with 2 sconces for night time reading on either side.

Those striped "pillows" are just to show you that against that wall there will likely be a long pillow or multiple pillows to make it more of a couch vs. bed. (It's not necessarily the colour direction)

Thoughts? Either or neither?

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By the way, any Torontonians able to recommend a Seamstress? Looking to have some drapes made and I wanted to try someone new vs. my other seamstress.

Designer Inspiration - Palmer Weiss

I was searching for some inspiration for drapery for the Nursery and was instantly inspired by this photo. Not only was I inspired by the drapery, but I fell in love with the colours, and that chair fabric! Oh that chair!

It could easily be a boy, or a girl room in my mind.



When I looked at the source of the photo, I saw that it was an interior designed by someone named Palmer Weiss and I took some time to go through her online portfolio. I found myself just staring at each image, amazed at the different combination of patterns and colours. Here are some of her other inspiring photos from her portfolio.









Images from http://www.palmerweiss.com/index.html

Nursery Makeover, Part 1

I wish that I could make all the right decisions in decorating but alas, that would be boring now wouldn't it? :) To start of 2010, I thought I would admit my blunders - and let you know that I've come to the realization that sometimes you need to just try things out to know that they don't work. A fresh start for the New Year!

So here an update on the spare bedroom - turned nursery - and why I've avoided any updates until now.

A recap from the summer - What I did to the room was the following

(1) I painted the walls in white - like super-dooper white with no tint. I had painted my basement office in this colour and LOVED it (and still do) and so I thought the same colour could be used upstairs. (I was wrong)

(2) I painted the old wooden floors white.


Above, The Nusery Before. It was a newly painted REALLY white room. This is taken right before I started to hate it.

So...what happened?
Try as I might to love the all white room, it was VERY white. I would walk into the room and feel uninspired. Then....I found out I was pregnant, and the uber-modern look I had previously been inspired by no longer seemed right to welcome a baby into. Not only did I feel uninspired, I felt sad walking into the room. Some nights I would lie in bed and tell Aubrey I hated the room - Absolutely hated it.

Jump ahead a bit and recently I repainted the room in Cloud White like the rest of our house. (I know you're thinking...wooooah, she's adventurous!) But the Cloud White in this room, doesn't show up as white.....



Above, New Wall Colour - Cloud White

In this room Cloud White appears more cream - showing you how paint can VERY much differ from room to room based on the lighting conditions. (Cloud white is everywhere else in our house, and reads as a warm white) I know that with the layering of fabrics, this wall colours provides a nice backdrop to allow any fabric colours to be integrated. So the new wall colour is staying. :)

An update also on our painting of the floors.
To quickly recap....The wood floors in this room weren't worth saving. So the painting of the floors, should they not work out, wasn't going to be catostrophic. Our next option, (should the painting not work out) would be to carpet the room. So it was an easy choice, no stress, to try the painting of the floor.

What went wrong?
I used a latex floor paint that was at the recommendation of my Benjamin Moore people. The problem....? My painted floor chips very, very easily. In retrospect, oil should have been used - It would be a lot more durable. Deb Nelson, a Toronto designer, did a floor painting project and I should have listened to her advice from her blog, which was to use oil. Since I'm pregnant, we can't repaint in oil because of the fumes, so attempting oil at this point is out of the question.

Sooo......we're going to carpet this room. I'm not upset - as I think with a baby carpet will be nicer for he/she to crawl around on, and it will make the room warmer.


Above, Checking out carpet samples

We're searching for the right carpet, perhaps with a little waffle detail...We went to Home Depot but I know that independant carpet stores are usually less expensive, so we're going to go tackle finding a carpet soon. (Any recommendations from Toronto people on where to go?)

So that brings you up to date on my mistakes, and what we're doing/have done to fix it. :)

Basement Bathroom, Chapter 4 - Laying Tile

I found my camera cord! That means I can show you some pictures that have accumulated over the holiday season. ;)

The basement bathroom that is just off my studio is getting tiled! We're one more step closer to getting the basement completely checked off our list. Here is our blog post of the tiles we've picked. :) But below is a picture just to give you a reminder as to the pallet of tiles. :)



We looked into hiring someone to come and tile for us but the cost was pretty prohibitive for us, and with the encouragement from our handy neighbours who recently tiled and from the encouragement of my Dad, who has tiled before, we decided to save the cost of hiring out and to do it ourselves. Everyone just said that it's a slow job, but it's something you can definitely do on your own with patience.

We decided to do the floors first, as logically we assumed that you want to have the walls go over the floor tiles so no water seeps below.


Step 1 - Figure out the puzzle
Aubrey + Dad figured out the marble hexagon tile puzzle first, using a wet saw on our front porch to cut the marble . I felt badly as it was the coldest day yet of the season and there they were working with water...outside. We bought the wet saw off our friends who are moving out of the country. It was more economical then renting one (or buying one new!)


Step 2: Move the puzzle
Once the marble was all cut to size and the floor had a "Layout", the pieces of tile were carefully moved from the shower floor. They moved it in the same layout so that you knew which piece went where. Aubrey then mixed the mortar.


Step 3: Lay the mortar
After letting the mortar sit for 10 minutes as instructed on the bag, Dad lay the mortar making sure it was going to create a slope to the drain.



Ta-da! We need to grout it next. :)

Aubrey is going to do the floor of the bathroom next, and next weekend Dad is coming back over to help us instal the subway tiles on the shower walls. Such a fun transformation for me to watch. :)

The last two years in January we've been....

One thing I like to do is to look back at photos to see what we were doing at this time, last year, and the year before that.So here are the last years in the month of January.....


January 2008 - Move Time!
We were packing up our little-awesome apartment, as well as we were trecking back and forth between Yonge + Eglinton to the Beaches every day to do renos.


January 2008, Renos begin
About two days after closing, we got our first, of two bins delivered on our front lawn.


January 2008, Renos take over our lives
What would be one month of demo + renovations started right away, with the tearing down of the wall between two rooms to make 1 master bedroom. (Note - one of the bedrooms didn't have a closet, so technically could it really be called a bedroom?)


Janurary 2009 - Walk off the stress of the last year....The following January (last year) we started off the year with a walk to the Beach and strolled along the boardwalk. A nice tradition that we try to keep up, if Aubrey's work schedule allows (Working in the news means the hours aren't so normal!) We weren't doing many renos as we were saving up for the almighty basement renovation that we knew was coming up.


January 2009 - Winter Wonderland in Toronto
In mid January, this photo was taken...making me remember HOW much snow we had in Toronto, and how little we have right now.


January 2009 - Time to move everything from downstairs, up
And finally, we started to move boxes from the basement, into the dining room for the preparation of basement renovations. Although the reno wouldn't start until a few months later (we wanted to make sure the snow was gone to make the removal of the concrete easier) it was a good idea to do the move of stuff upstairs organized so nothing got lost or broken.

January 2010 - We're actually living in the house! ;)
And this year? I'm not allowed to do much moving of stuff as the bump is getting in the way, but in a few days we'll have some pictures of some renos we've had to do in the nursery (minor reno stuff, but dirty none-the less) and the basement bathroom tiling project.

And now, I'm going to try to find my camera cord to actually upload pictures from our Holidays to show you! (How does this cord go missing so much!?)

Nursery Mood Board

Some people have asked to see some pictures of the nursery, and how it's coming along. Long story short - it's embarrassingly empty and I grumble whenever I walk into the room. (Not kidding). I'll fill you in later, but basically the painting of the floor didn't work, and the wall colour, that white with no tint, also didn't work.

In an effort to save my sanity (or maybe his) and to keep me out of the room, Aubrey put a sign on the door that said .. "Work in progress...Keep Out". It didn't work. I couldn't rest until I had a design plan. So...

In an effort to get some direction for this room, I've put together an initial concept for the nursery. I am quite sure that this room design will change over time, but it eases my mind to see some things together. I actually really like the initial concept and a weight has been lifted having done my first look. What can I say. I'm visual. I need pictures.


(See resources for pictures below)

I have some questions for you, those out there that have had children...(a) Do you really need a glider and (b) do you REALLY need a change table? I'm trying to avoid things that have limited life spans...so would love to know you would recommend "must-have's" for our nursery. (My Mom says that we never had change tables as kids, and I'm rather in love with the low teak dressers that I've seen around town.)

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Ps., I'm off on vacation (not going anywhere, but taking some time off work!) as of the 24th, so there will be a delay in some posting. I'm hoping to have some "progress pictures" upon my return! ;)

Resources for the Inspirational Board
(1) Jonathan Adler Sconces
(2) Shinzi Katoh forest poster, Available here Framed in an Ikea Ribba Frame
(3) Ikea White Drapes
(4) Flag Garland, like shown from Oeuf (though not necessarily this one)
(5) Giant Giraffe, From MastermindToys (not available online, but seen in-store)
(6) Netto, Moderne Crib
(7) Glider, like the Pottery Barn Kids (slipcover, washable)
(8) Carpet for room, to cover the mistake of painting floor white
(Teak dresser/no resource, find one at a used furniture shop)

Artist Profile : Sarah Merry

I wanted to introduce you to something that is on my wish list for our house. Wish list? Aubrey will probably read this and go..."How about a wish book." Ok, so my "lists" for what we would like add is long, but this is something that I adore.

One thing that our house needs is art.

In the past few years I've bookmarked a number of artists that I really love. I hope to one day be able to have one of their pieces in my home...and one day may be 50 years from now, but still, a girl can dream. I would love to introduce you to each of their works on our blog as I think it's important to support artists --- even if it's by introducing others to them.

This brings me to the introduction of Sarah Merry, an artist I've loved for the past 4 years after seeing her work in an office of a colleague. Her brush strokes seem effortless however the combination of colours is so perfect, it feels as though it must be intentional. It's that juxposition that intrigues me. (Love that word, juxposition...Aubrey laughs whenever I use it)



I just love the colours she uses together...perfect to go against the white walls in our house that are thirsty for artwork like this! Not only is she wonderful at combining colours, she's also Canadian. :) I'm hopefully going to pop by her studio and see some smaller pieces, and maybe someday soon we'll be able to add a little piece to our home.


Any of you have any favourite artists that you'd love to add to your home?
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Images used courtesy of Sarah Merry, from her website http://www.sarahmerry.com/

Birdie Painting

I was just cleaning up my office/store room and I found this painting I did three or more years ago, and thought that it may work in the nursery. I painted it while we were living in our little apartment.



I'm going to wait to see if I'm going with a soft colour pallet or not for the room. (Again, having dillemas as to the design direction of that room). But it was fun to find it. The fact that it was hiding, goes to show you how messy my store room is.



I wanted to post it to give you some tips on how I did it, as it's super easy to do if you're looking to do your own artwork. Here are some tips on how I attempted my first painting.

(1) I painted the canvas black, which gives the background some depth


(You can see the black, is actually the background of the canvas)

(2) I sketched out what I wanted to do in chalk first. :) Don't like what you've done? Wipe it away and start fresh. That's the beauty of doing the background in black first - it serves as 2 purposes. :) You can kind of see some white chalk lines left over in some of the close up shots.

(3) I left the background showing through around the birds and leaves, creating a border. I've alway just liked borders, and it's an easy way to do it without having to use black.



Anyhow, It may end up in the baby room, or it may stay in my office...But I wanted to show you it as it reminded me as to how much fun it was to do it!

I'm 30, and I love these with all my heart

I've been searching online for nursery inspiration - and have found many inspiring pictures. But I'm at the point where I kind of want someone to just come into the house, decorate it, and say..."Ta-da!!!".

I never used to get it when a homeowner would hand over complete control of a room design to a designer, but this nursery is stressing-me-out and I now sympathize with those people I used to think were nuts. *sigh*

However, one thing I DO know that I want in this room is a set of Blah Blah Dolls.



I would have bought them pre pregancy, because, I'll be honest. They are for me. (slightly kidding on that) They are also on the pricey side, but I think that they are well worth it. I've wanted them for YEARS and now I'm pretty pumped that this baby bump has given me a good excuse to satisfy my shopping addiction for these. ;) Anyone know where I can find these in Toronto?

Pink Floral Couch, Meet Ikea Slipcover

The plan for my basement studio was to always add in a couch, or seating of some sort where I could flop when I needed to draw. A lot of my work starts by hand, line drawn in pencil, traced with artist ink, and then scanned into the computer for manipulation. It's not very "inspiring" to draw at a desk. I like comfy. I need comfy. But...a new couch wasn't in the budget. And I do like to reuse, and be green where I can. So what does a girl on a budget do? Go steal one from your parents. :)

So here is the process on our slipcover story....

Step 1: I went to Potato Skins, a slipcovering destination here in Toronto and priced out a slipcover. It's a loveseat, how much could it be? Yeah, I'm in the dark ages because it was going to cost me approx $800. Ouch. :(

Step 2: Ask my Mom what to do. Really. This woman should have her own advice blog/talk show. She knows what to do, and how to save us money. Her solution..."Let's try Ikea!"

Step 3: Always trust your Mother. She found this. An Ektorp Loveseat cover for $49.99!!! AS IF! Dilema - it's BIGGER than my sofa, but bigger is better, as at least we'd know it would fit. And the price was right. :)

And soooo....


Above: Before, in my parents basement

And....


Above: With $50 Ikea Slipcover

Ok, so the cover is obviously too big for the couch, but I don't mind it at all. It's comfy. :) And...if I had the energy we could tailor it a bit more. And I could steam the wrinkles out (I just bought a steamer!!!)...but for now, she stays as-is.

And for the record, I know that I need to fluff up that couch with some more pillow inserts. But for $50, I'm living with it. :) I'm not sure HOW we're going to fill them up, but my Mom seems confident we can make it look a little better. :) (Any suggestions on how to fill up the pillows??)

For the record, I'm not knocking the $800 custom slipcover - as it would have been SO much more tailored, and probably look a whole lot nicer. If this were for my living room, I would consider it, but for my studio, the $50 version from Ikea is perfect.


(Studio shot...Mak the Cat claiming the couch)

More studio shots will come soon, we're slowly getting it put together, but right now it's my busy time for "work" so it's a bit of a mess. ;)
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Side story - When Aubrey was moving the couch with my Brother last night (thank you!) Aubrey noticed the make of the couch. It was made by Cooper Bros. - and Aubrey said..."That company used to be in our family." Ummm...Really? Apparently my Mother in Law's cousin married a Mr. Cooper and that was who owned it. (It has since been sold). So, a little piece of neat history, my childhood couch, to my new house, made by my Husbands family. :) I guess it was meant to be.

I'd like to thank....

Last night I got a really sweet e-mail from Jenny over from one of my favourite blogs, Little Green Notebook, asking if she could use my pictures from my Ikea Hack of the Rast side tables in a post she was going to do. Of course I said yes, and I professed my love of her blog. :) Titled Hacks of all Hacks (love it!) she did a really nice description on how to do the project. If you haven't visited her blog, I do suggest you do, as her projects are inspirations to me, and I know also to my friend Erin across the street - we both regularily refrence her work when we're talking about DIY projects. :)

Then, how honoured was I went I saw that (another favourite blog of mine) Urban Grace also did a post this morning after seeing it on the Little Green Notebook blog. The funny thing about her post is that she picked up on the one thing that I wished no one would notice...the twisted knob in the picture. Ha. I always considered it my little "where's Waldo" aspect to the photo. And there is my TV remote on my bedside table...so you know where I stand with having a TV in the bedroom. :) Two little reminders that this photo was not professionally staged. ;) And this is coming from me, who has OCD dendencies. ;)

So pop over to these two blogs that I do adore, and thank you again to Jenny for the original blog post, and to Urban Grace for her sweet blog post as well.

Here is the project again, which I did a post about here. :)

Candy Cane Bark, Free sticker download

I don't normally like to double up on posts, and I keep the business seperate from this blog, but this is too fun not to direct you to!



Just wanted to tell my fellow home bloggers that I posted a free template to download over on my business blog, to stick on your parcels. :) I used it to decorate candy cane bark - but it's up to you how you use it! :) Enjoy! - Lindsay

Revisiting that spare bedroom....

So, our spare bedroom is getting a little change of names. As of next June, it will have a different name....It will be our Nursery. :)


(Nursery Inspirational pictures)

It's with great excitement that Aubrey and I announce the upcoming arrival (in June) of our first baby! :-)

Now you can understand the lack of projects - I've been falling asleep every night at 7pm. :)

Since I found out I was pregnant, a lot of things have changed in the house, but I didn't want to show you as I wanted to be able to fully explain WHY we're changing things. Also, once I found out I was "with child" a lot of my previous design decisions no longer were sitting well. Some people have aversions to food when pregnant - I, on the other hand, started having aversions to colour. (Yes, colour).

Anyhow, more to come soon, but I wanted to announce the change in design plans!

Prepping for the holidays

Today, we hung our very first strand of Christmas lights! We didn't do them last year, as we were still recovering from house reno shock, but this year we promised ourselves we would do it. We went for the clean simple lights....Here is a shot from this evening.





and....we picked up our Tree from the Loblaws tree lot! Ummm, it was so big that I was had to walk home as it took up my seat, was out the passenger side window. (We drive a Mini Cooper) There were a lot of laughs as Aubrey drove away with our new tree! We had a feeling it would be on the larger side...



I walked home, and I almost got a shot of this monster hanging out in the car, but the camera battery died, and so my storytelling will have to suffice.

We did some other projects, but I'm going to wait to reveal them. :)

The back door, opposite side of the picture

Aluminum Siding. Whooo-hoo. So I know this isn't really exciting in the world of decorating, but since I've shown you the new back door from the inside perspective ...the outside needed a little addressing too.

When we tore out the back door we had to enlarge the opening for the new door. And the aluminum siding, as much as I would have loved to tear it all down and replace it with something different, had to be repaired. We couldn't do the outside ourselves, you need aluminum benders and special tools for this type of work. So we hired out.

I couldn't find the best before picture of the backdoor from the outside view. (Because it was so ugly, I never wanted to document it). But here is a picture from A LONG time ago where my kooky brother and Aubrey were hamming it up for the camera.


(Peter and Aubrey on the old deck, before we had a couch and privacy screen up)

Next came the demo...

(The "during" phase, where Aubrey is tearing apart the back. )

And now...

Done!

We took off the flood light that was above the door, and we've purchased a nice new deck light that we will install this week. We also did some wiring so the rest of the deck will have some lighting for next summer.

(To see more garden pictures/projects click here)

Who did the nice work? We hired Beach Aluminum & Fabricating Co. for the project (416-698-6743). Courtney, the man behind the business, is really quite nice and was honest about the scope of the project. Since it was a relatively "small" project for them, he told us he'd fit us in when he could, and true to his word, he showed up one day with his team. He called a few times to let us know he hadn't forgotten about us, so we knew the job would get done.

New backdoor trim

Aubrey finished the trim around the new backdoor!


(Before, and After)

The trim replicates the trim throughout the rest of the house, which is original to the house. The header above the door is replicated by combining different pieces of moulding to recreate the look.



Ta-da! And it's done before the first snowfall of the season. :)

We hired an aluminum company to come in and fit the trim around the outside of the door, which I'll post a picture of shortly.

And I thought it was just my Mom reading this

When we started our blog it was really to document our nerdyness (and still is) for our family. As I've mentioned before, it was with great delight when Google Analytics showed me that we actually infact had more than just my Mom and Dad and siblings reading the blog, and shortly thereafter, I started seeing some awesome people comment on our projects.

This blog is a really nice hobby for me. You see, my previous hobby - art - became my career path, and a girl sometimes just needs an outlet for other creativity - which is our house, photography, and our blog, and having a creative writting outlet.

So it is absolutley flattering that our documenting of our nerdyness got us a mention along in House and Homes "Design Sites We Like" under Canadian Blogs.


(Image from HouseandHome.com)

The heading calls the list...."The ultimate list of online decorating destinations, sites and blogs — in alphabetical order — as chosen by House & Home editors." I was absolutely honored to have our trials and tribulations in decorating + renovations listed as a Top Blog.

Some of the other Canadian blogs that are mentioned are on my blog roll (to the right) and it was an absolute honour to be mentioned along with them.

I sometimes just think that it's me writting, reading, and showing my parents the blog, so it's with great delight when I see commenters on our blog, and with great surprise when we get mentioned like this by a world renowned, and much adored magazine.

Thank you! - Lindsay (And Aubrey, in the background)

DIY: Making a Seating Bench in the kitchen out of Ikea

After much waffling, we decided to make a seating bench in our eat in kitchen.

I did a post about my desire to have a bench and in the reader comments, Vez, a fellow home blogger, reminded me that Samantha Pynn had recently done a project using Ikea cabinets to make a bench. That was the inspiration that made this project actually happen. (A nice reminder that I should post my dilemas on this blog, as the readers always seem to have the right answers)

Source list at the bottom of the page

Step 1: BUILDING THE BASE

(A) Get Ikea Cabinets (Lidingo Kitchen Cabinets, (34" Deep, 15" High) Ikea)
We bought 3 Ikea Upper Cabinets to fit our 96" space. We brought in our dimensions to Ikea, and they helped us pick the right cabinet widths. There are 2 sizes of cabinets the layout. The middle is slightly wider. I'll be honest....It wasn't inexpensive to buy the cabinets. But the convinience of building them, and the extra storage this created, was well worth it.

(B) Raise the cabinets off the ground
We raised the cabinets off the ground using long planks of wood. One 96" lengh at the front, and one 96" lengh at the back, like a train track. This is so that the doors could actually open. If we hadn't done this, the doors would scrape on the floor. We also did this to allow for air flow, as at the very right hand size of the bench, there is an air vent....and we weren't going to move that!


(Kitchen Bench, before cushion)

Step 2: CUSHION
We added a 4" cushion not only for comfort, but to bring the bench up to the right height needed for a table. (The right height is 18" -18.5" for a seat bench). My Mom and I went down to Designer Fabrics here in Toronto to find the fabric for the bench. We needed A LOT of fabric. It's 8 feet long, and we did it double sided so incase a spill happens, we can "flip" the cushion. So there is no bad side. When Mom was making the bench cushion, she decided to wrap the cushion in dacron for some added plushness.

My Mom also made me a back cushion in the matching fabric by taking 6 standard pillows that we're on sale for 50% off, and using the filler to create one long pillow. Shes a genius.


Above: Our Cushion, made my by my Mom

And....


Above: Our new kitchen bench

Ps., A little history....Why a kitchen bench?
For the last 20 years I had eaten my meals on a bench at my parents house. It was comfy to me, and just made a house a home. Below is a picture of my first bench...How awesome is this bench that we got to eat at for our childhood!! (I used to eat on the BLUE seat)


(Bench at my parents house, picture when they bought the house)

That bench stayed there until a few years ago, until when my parents renovated. We were sad to see the rainbow bench go, but thankfully, the kitchen bench just got "updated"..... not removed. :)


(Post reno, a kitchen bench is still there for me to sit at)


Resource List
New Chandelier - Hampton Bay, from Home Depot $139 View Online
Bench Cabinets - Lidingo Kitchen Cabinets, (34" Deep, 15" High) Ikea
Fabric + piping for the bench - Designer Fabrics
Inspiration for the Cabinet Bench, Pure Design with Samantha Pynn. Click here for episode

Here are some more seating bench inspirational pictures!

Kitchen Bench Idea

Normally I like to post "progress" pictures on our house, but sadly, it hasn't been that exciting in home reno land. So instead, I thought I would post insight into projects that may come to be, and my thought process. So, we're revisiting the eat in kitchen. :)

The eat in kitchen has been bothering me for some time. I thought when I added these chairs, I would be loving it, but it immediately became evident that I needed colour in the room. So I thought about drapes.


(Reminder of what our eat in kitchen looks like right now)

But what I've been struggling with is that I would really, truly love, a bench. There is something comfy about sitting on one. I just adore them.

Last night I was telling my friend Erin (who lives across the street and has her own blog) about it, and this morning I woke up to find an e-mail with this inspirational picture from her.



She was right - it's a perfect inspirational picture as it's very much like our kitchen. (We have that big window, we have the round table).

So I was thinking, perhaps we'll do it the easy route (to give Aubrey a break) and make a seating bench out of Ikea cabinets like this fabulous person did below.

(Image, Apartment Therapy)
I would likely modify it a bit such as add legs and then add a toe kick to make it look somewhat built in. And I would either go with white cabinets (like the inspirational picture, or dark wood to match our floors.

So, this is the latest inspiration over here, and I'm hoping it's something we tackle. :-)

(By the way, Erins laundry room was recently featured on Design Sponge ...you should take a peek!)

Plain in store, Perfect in House

We've been without side lamps in our living room for some time. Well, we've actually never had any. And the lack of lamps wasn't because of lack of funds, but instead, because of pure indecisiveness on my part for what I wanted them to be like. I debated pottery lamps, mid century modern lamps, bold, colourful lamps, and nothing was doing it for me. Then, I realized...maybe my lamps weren't where I should be trying to make a statement....afterall, they are an investment, and I'd hate to dislike them, or for them to be out of fashion in a year. Inspired by a lamp in my Dad's library, I decided on a classic, clean look.

After doing online research , we popped over to Yorkdale and went to Pottery Barn, and found these. I will admit, I wasn't jumping for joy when I saw them. They aren't dramatic, nor show stoppers in the store. However, I had a feeling that they would just really work in the room.



Because there is always the possibility that they wouldn't have worked, I made sure that we could return them. But they aren't leaving our living room..I adore them! :)

What did I learn from this? That sometimes pieces won't scream at you in a store. But if you have an overall design scheme, they may be the perfect subtle piece to bring a room together. These lamps wont ever go out of style, which is why I didn't have an issue spending a chunk of $ on them. We still have to find a carpet for the room, and we're working on finding bookcases, so the room is slowly, but surely coming together.

Thank you!

I'm having a dumb day over here. Because of my lack of coffee intake, I couldn't figure out how to register on the House&Home website to say thank you (need-coffee-to-function), so I wanted to say thank you to Trish Snyder over at House & Home for mentioning our little blog in her "Great Canadian Blogs Volume 2" post. Obviously, it's pretty fun to know people like our blog, we're having a great time over here, and it's nice to know we have some regular visitors. But we're truly honoured to be mentioned along some amazing blogs that I truly admire, so to be noted in a post with them, was what delighted me. If you're new to reading our blog, welcome! And you can read more about us here. And thank you again to Trish, as it was such a nice surprise to see our blog mentioned!

Wood Floors, how they came to be

One of the first thing people say when they walk into our house, other than hello, is they look down and go..."Nice floors". We were initially baffled by it a little, that the floors make such a statement, but it's a nice reassurance that we did what was right for our home. Our goal was to maintain the integrity of the house. I realized I hadn't shown the "process" of our floors, and seeing as they cost us a good % of our funds in that month of renovating, they probably deserve a little post.

First, we chose the thinnest planks available to us, I think it's 2", vs' the more modern look of 4". We used Durasel Antique Brown to stain.



We did the hard stuff, to save ourselves as much money as possible. We tore up the old wood floors, that were neglected. We considered the option of resanding + staining, but the floors were on their last life, and wouldn't take a good sanding. If you've ever torn up a wood floor, you'll know that awful sound of nails coming out of wood. *shudder* It's like nails on a chalkboard. We had to manually take out every single nail with the back of the hammer. I threw my back out after that incident. It still saved us TONS of money to do it ourselves, but it was back breaking.


We hired a flooring guy (whom we adore) and he installed new hardwood throughout the first floor of the house. After installing, they poured stain on the floor (I nearly had a heart attack when they did this) We took a day to pick the colour, bringing home samples to our parents, mulling it over. We picked "Antique brown" as it had little red undertones to it. (Not a big fan of reddy woods). T



There you have it! :-) Our floor story. ;)
----------------------------
Floor - Unfinished wood, installed, sanded, and then stained on site
Stain - Antique brown by Durasel

Reveal of the whole TV Room

Now that the new back door is in, I can give you a reveal of the back TV Room. At the back of our house, there is a sunroom. We called it the school bus room because of the colour, and the gulletine windows. :)


Before - The room was being used as a store room for outdoor toys and a computer when we bought.

After. (well, we have to finish the trim around the new door)

It all really was simple fixes for this room (except the door). I painted the room Cloud White by Benjamin Moore (although I debate painting it periwinkle every other day). We added Levlor Blinds for the purpose of (a) hiding the ugly windows and (b) Getting privacy from our neighbours. In between each pannel we added IKEA white drapery between each window to soften it up a bit. We removed a fan vent that was above the door. I still want to add in a zebra rug (a little obsessed over here) but in the summer, this room gets foot traffic when I go in and out of the garden, so I'm a little afraid of it getting ruined.


The TV unit is actually a coffee table. We couldn't find something the right size for this space for the longest time, but stumbled upon this coffee table over at one of my favourite stores, Manor. It was pretty expensive, but it was perfect. Sometimes it is a good idea to think outside the box...but you don't know it, until you see it. ;) It houses Aubreys Playstation 3 perfectly, and my old-school Nintendo system. I do love my Mario Bros 3. I'm not a fan of the fancy real version games. I would have an atari if I could find one!

Installing a new door

The subject of this post should really be "Installing a new door in an old house, with uneven walls, and doorframes that are not square". That, would be the appropriate title of this post. For this project Aubrey started at 3pm, and by 11pm (non-stop) he got it in. There was the removal of the old door, making the door opening larger, and then dealing with leveling the door. We had lined someone up to help us....but they never showed up. I had a feeling they wouldn't, so we started without them, and finished. I'm pretty proud of Aubrey for doing it. After a few blood drops, and a few curse words later, the transformation was fannnntastic,


Above, Door/Room when we bought the house. This door was an "interior" door. Not meant to keep cold outside, and warmth in. I don't want to think about how much heat was lost by the previous owners. We had put plastic wrap and piled pillows in our first winter to make sure that cold air didn't come in.


Above, The new door! I LOVE IT! It finally makes the room feel like ours, and less like the previous owners.

What we have left:

Me: I'm going to have romans made so we can have privacy, and sheild the light for when a little bit of afternoon Young & The Restless watching is needed. (The room is now VERY sunny). I'm trying to come up with a fabric that I like, but it may be white, with a grosgrain ribbon detailing.

Aubrey: Adding trim.

Ta-da!

What was that fabric?

I've gotten a number of e-mails asking about the fabric that was seen in this picture.



Good eyes. ;) It indeed is the exact same fabric that Sarah Richardson used in her 1st Nursery, in Design Inc. I loved the fabric, and it was out of stock for the longest time at Designer Fabrics, as I'm assuming, others, like me, loved it. I picked up some samples the last time I was down, just curious to see how it would look in the room.



I thought that I'd make my curtains out of it, but like the Imperial Trellis, I'm not feeling it. I may do it for pillows for the bed, but my original intent, for curtains, isn't going to happen.

But, for those of you who wanted to know more (Design Inc's website doesn't give specific info on the fabric) Here is the specifics about the fabrics.

Flower/Bird Fabric
Style Name: Pananma Bari Sinatra
Price: $27.99/YD
Available here

Starburst Fabric
Style Name: Panama Bari San Remo Flor
Price: 27.99
Available here

There you go! I hope this helps, and if you put it in your room I'd LOVE to see!

Spare Bedroom Inspiration

I think some people may think I'm nuts when I paint a room as white as I did like the spare bedroom. (Umm...did you see the hilarious refrences that Dad + Aubrey refered to the room as in this post?) I'm still giggling at the refrences.

I realize that my inner monologue/design plan, no matter how I articulate it, is never as good as seeing a visualization.

My overall plan is to really add pops of colour in this room with fabric. It's a spare room, so I feel like I have some freedom with going a fun with colours. The other thing I need to address is the elephant in the room, that comes out of the closet when we show people our 2nd bedroom. Yes. This will "one day" be a baby room. There is no baby in the immediate future, but I'm trying to consider design around this. I'm not a ducks + lambs kind of person, so this room will be the same with, or without a baby.



I was going through my design files and the images from Black & Spiro, and AMAZING website, sparked my imagination, and are pretty great examples when I say "pops of colour". You can see that the white walls allow for the fabrics to all play together. Will these be the fabrics. Probably not. But is this a good example of what I'm hoping to go for? Yes. :)

Fabric Samples - Tonic Living

A helpful blog commenter told me about Tonic Living, a Toronto based online Fabric store that is selling an Imperial Trellis Fabric. At under $10 a yard, it is a far cry from $120+ a yard for the real thing. Fabric is much different in person, than it appears online, and once placed in a room setting, so making big purchases, I feel, should warrant the cost of sample pieces. I was delighted to see that Tonic Living had an option for buying a sample for $1.00. Whooo-hoo! I just started clicking away. And, little than 2 days later, my samples arrived. They were SUPER quick at sending the samples, and it was a small price (literally) to pay for the comfort of knowing you're getting the right fabric.



These are a few of them. The others (not shown) I saw when I opened the parcel and said to myself..."WHAT was I thinking". I must have been lacking in coffee intake that day. They will go in a bin for craft projects. The Imperial trellis is a very light fabric, which they did note on the website (not suitable for upholstery) but with lining it may be fine for curtains for the Spare Bedroom.



I don't know. I'm not totally loving it, but then again, I don't really have an overall scheme in mind, so it's still up in the air. It may be too busy? It's hard to tell when it's a swatch...even though the swatches from the company are a really generous size.

On another note, Aubrey built me the top shelf for the closet!


I need to paint it, but I immediately put up the baskets to see how it looked. :)

Garden Improvement, Chapter 5

We're finishing the fence. We wanted this checked off our list, but it's been too rainy to get out there and do any work. The sun was shining (sort of) today, so today Aubrey finished the post caps.


(Before, posts were too tall)


Aubrey chopped off the posts, and finished the posts off with caps. I should probably put the camera down and hold that ladder.


The colours in the garden are definitely telling me Fall is here.

Finding creative spots for storage

Remember we had the issue on how to hide the electrical panel? The cabinet works perfectly in the space, and I don't even notice it. The fact that it's white, makes it blend in with the white walls. But not only does the cabinet hide the electrical pannel....it's providing AMAZING useful storage space for all my vases + decorative items.



We didn't put the back on the cabinet because it was going up against the pannel, but we did install some of the shelving that it came with.



Aubrey even did the baseboards around the cabinet (that is also screwed into the walls, so that the weight of the doors don't make it topple over)

Office is slowly getting colour

The office is slowly coming together, with the hits of colour being added with the inspirational boards, and with work just piling up in general! It's getting busy work-wise, which is perfect timing. We had always planned on me being down here for Fall 2009, but I'm glad the move was awhile ago, because moving all the stuff + building the desk, took a lot more time than I thought.


Clockwise from top left: (1) Work desk + large posters getting ready to be mailed (2) Art prints getting ready for a photoshoot (3) Moishe reminds me to keep it youthful. ;)

I can't tell you how amazing it is having this whole area to work. We're trying to find a couch for down here so when I have corporate clients over, we can sit with a coffee in a seating area, instead of sitting on work chairs. I have yet to find one, but the hunt continues.

As the office gets filled, I will take some actual "nice" photos, but for now, here is a pop of colour, as I feel as though I scared my family with that "all white room" (2nd bedroom). My Father said.."It feels like I'm in that final sequence in 2001 space odyssey." (An all white room scene) And Aubrey calls the room the "heavenly room" as it reminds him of in movies when it's a "heaven" scene and it all goes white. The funny thing is - I agree with them both. ;) But when colour IS added, it will TRULY heavenly, and perhaps also, out of a movie. ;-)

Mock up of bookcase in spare room

So here is the plan for that bookshelf that you see in the Spare Bedroom.

The issue with the shelving is that it is built over a box. The "box" is above our staircase. So the base had to stay. We debated tearing the shelving down and making it a seating bench. But that would mean that we were going to get into major re-constructive surgery on this room. Secondly - the unit, actually with some TLC could provide some useful storage for the room. With a new coat of paint, it's looking a lot better already.



The concept is
(1) Add an additional top shelf on the left for baskets/storage. You can't reach up there easily, so it's best to use it for maybe winter clothing storage, or when we have kids one day, storing random stuff.
(2) Beneath that, we will build 2 doors, that open to reveal "hanging" storage.

Although we have a closet in the bedroom, it's small. So we're going to utilize the space for more hanging space for clothes for guests etc.

It will really be a super easy project (What am I saying - Aubrey is the one that always has to do the measurements). But I think it will be much easier than the bookcase project I initially thought he could do. (We're not going to have him do those...)



Like my little mock up? I even added some nice reading material for our overnight guests. :)

2nd Bedroom Makeover Progress

And here is the 2nd Bedroom Makeover story, to bring us up to date. :) I'm not going to lie, I absolutely hated this room. I think I hated it because I was stuck in it for 1.5 years running my business, and it was super cramped. (I knew what I was getting into, I'm not complaining, but I didn't factor in that I would really miss being "organized")

I really disliked the room. That is up until now. Here is the "story line" of the 2nd bedroom. Although it's far from finished, I'm no longer embarassed to show photos.



When we bought the house. BLEH.


A second shot of when we bought the house, looking in the other direction vs. above. Double BLEH. Seriously, I wonder what we were thinking sometimes, but I guess it was a vision. :)

{Here, we have a "pause" in the photos}
Between the picture above, and the picture below, I lived in the room running my business. The grand plan was to reno the basement to be my studio. (Which has happened) It was a temporary insanity, for the greater good of the whole scheme of things. The office was a mess. And I'm going to refrain from posting the embarassing pictures. :) So let us skip ahead to the "present" day scenes.


Priming the floor.


Another shot after priming. The walls needed some touch ups, and painting is next.


I started painting the room on Sunday, and took a break for dinner with my parents (Sunday ritual) and then came back and went strong until 1:30am.


The floors got painted white, and it's beautiful. The room feels bigger, airy, and perfect. The only issue - when you take a picture, everything blends into one another. (HA) so some "accessories" are definitely needed to pump up this room.



There you have it! The up to date post on the spare bedroom. Ikea baskets fit PERFECTLY on the shelves! And we're going to build doors on the left hand side so it's a usable closet. ;)

Pumpkin Inspiration

(Above Image, Marth Stewart Magazine)

We we lived in our apartment, we never got any little ghosts and goblins coming by our door, as our entrance to our apartment was at the side of a house. We experienced our very first Halloween last year in our house, and it was SOOO cute. Our neighbourhood has tons of kids (we live 1/2 a block from a Junior School). We ended up just hanging out on our front porch the whole night, as there was no point going indoors. I had meant to do this project last year, but timing got in the way.

A LONG time ago I saved this picture from Martha Stewat Magazine, and I scanned it in last year. Umm...how cute! I think we'll try to it, but even if not, I thought this may inspire others as I've seen some really fun posts on some of my favourite blogs about getting ready for Halloween. :)

Caned Bed Makeover

Awhile ago I was perusing my local used furniture shop, Frontier Sales on the Danforth, I spotted this headboard in the corner. $125.00.



Umm, pretty similar to this one that is $2,200.00. (Bed no longer available, but I'm pretty sure it was a Rachel Ashwell Bed when I originally sourced the price comparison)



I contemplated where I could put this headboard, but it broke my heart to know that I had no where to put it. At $125 I knew it was a steal. Then....I recalled that my Mom was redoing one of her rooms, and we had just had a conversation regarding what she would have as a guest bed. I pulled out my phone, and dialed Mom, told her about it, and the next day - the headboard was being loaded into the car, and on its way to her house.

The issue - the headboard was just that. Only a headboard. The bed was brought over to Sharon O'Dowd Antiques, and they antiqued the headboard, and created a frame, and low profile footboard.



And here she is, all complete. :) I simply adore how the headboard was restored to be a full bed. I have had a few VERY comfy snoozes in this bed.

Adding Bookcases to the Living Room

We're tackling (mentally) a bookcase project. Whether we buy, or build, is the question. Aubrey has a lot of amazing books and it's time that they found a permanent home. We've decided that we're adding bookcases into our living room, framing the entrance to the dining room.

Here is a picture of the living room in progress.



The first thought was obviously IKEA. Inexpensive, and an immediate fix. We would put up shelves and then add moulding around it to make it appear "un-Ikea-ish". I've seen it done, and it can look quite nice. However, the issue with our room is that the left side of the doorway is narrower than the right side. 1 Ikea bookshelves could potentiall work on the left side, but we'd have to do 2 bookcases on the right hand side. My stumbling block? I'd really love to make it so that the right side was all 1 shelf, not 2 put together. I think we ruled out Ikea.



Confused? I don't blame you. I even did a diagram to help me keep my thoughts (and measurements) together. There is a reason why this bookshelf hasn't happened sooner (apart from the basement being the #1 priority) but we haven't been able to figure out what to do.



We went to Naked Furniture here in Toronto and I think we'd have the most luck in terms of style, and being able to specify the right dimensions (they will custom make the shelves) but the price was more than we had originally anticipated, but it's not ruled out.

Some friends were over yesterday and I was remarking about our dilema and one friend said something about Amish Furniture. I made a mental note, and did a google today and found this site.



Their website states " Our Amish builders create custom wood furniture made just for you. That’s affordable choice." Hmmmm. I wonder what they consider "affordable"...as my "affordable" is likely a LOT less than someone elses.

I told Aubrey today ... "Hey, you could probably just MAKE some, it wouldn't be that hard." Surprisingly he didn't storm off at the idea of me putting another project on his plate, but he did say that if he did make them, it would have to wait a little bit as we have other projects on the go (Back Door, Basement Bathroom). I feel slightly guilty for throwing a project at him, but I'd help, and it would probably save us some funds that need to go to other areas of the house.

We haven't decided what route to go yet - either buying or making them ourselves. Suggestions welcomed. :)

Eye Candy - Home Tour

I came across a home tour via a blog I have added to my roll of favourite blogs {freckles chic}. I clicked the link on her blog that led me to the home tour and I've spent the last hour drooling over every single photo. One word. Spectacular. Every element of this home was perfectly executed, and definitely my dream home.

The home is clean, yet not sterile, and the perfect amount of accessories in the living rooms etc.



Look at the living room. I am SO getting zebra ottomans. They have been on my wish list forever, and seeing this photo just confirms it.




I've been trying to figure out what to do with our dining room, and I'm inspired by this look.

Ohh, they have another living room!

So, go check it out. It's fun to find pictures like this where every single element is inspiring. So I thought I would post it for others to enjoy.

All photos are from http://219northcliffwood.com/

Update: Turns out the house was designed by Brooke Gianetti and her husband Steve and that she chronicles the build and design of it on her blog, Velvet and Linen. Here is a link directly to a post re: the home design. Thanks to RamblingRenovator for siting the source!

DIY - Chalkboard Project

Here is a chalkboard project that is pretty easy to do. Like REALLY easy. I was reminded of my project when I was reading over at {freckles chic} when I saw this post of hers. The chalkboard has now found a new home in my studio, but for awhile it worked well in our kitchen.

Total Cost - Under $40

Step 1: I went to my local framer who made random frames out of renmants - left over frame from other jobs. I'm pretty sure that I've seen this done in TONS of other frame shops, so just pop into one and see what they have. I bought the frame for $30.

Step 2: I measured the size of the opening from the reverse. The frame is designed to allow for glass to be put in (so there is a ledge). Instead of glass, I got a piece of plywood cut at my local Home Depot to the size of the opening.

Step 3: Paint the piece of plywood with chalkboard paint. When it's wet, the paint looks blue. I freaked out a bit. But it dries black. Trust me. I did 2 coats.

Step 4: I took carpenters glue and put it along the ledge on the reverse of the frame, and then put the plywood in. I weighed the plywood down with some books to make sure that it took, but the weight of the wood does the trick.

Voila!

Trip to Ottawa

Aubrey and I snuck off to Ottawa to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary. Here is a little collection of photographs! :)


We stayed at the Chateau Laurier. Ohhh, it was so beautiful.


When we got to our room, we found this nice treat!


We went to the Museum of Civilization, one of my favourite museums. Aubrey and I visited the museum together as teenagers when we took a road trip with our friend Ben so it seemed fitting to revisit it!


I hadnt been back to the Museum for awhile, and the Totem Poles and Art by the Haida were especially interesting to me this time around, as I studied Haida literature with an amazing professor, Professor Sean Kane when I was at Trent University.



There was a part of the museum that showed wood crafting and how they stored wood. We joked that this was the original Home Depot. (And of course, I took tons of pictures as we giggled at our association to the home renos going on)




We visited the William Lyon Mackenzie King Estate that is in the Gateneau Hills in Quebec. It was rainy, and muggy, but the gardens were inspirational. We learnt a little about him, on top of what we already knew (10th Prime Minister of Canada) and googled more on him on the drive back to the hotel.




The drive home was spectacular. The colours on the trees were stunning, and reminded me of why I love our country so much.

And there you have it! We are back, and fully energized for the next round of projects! :)

DIY - Ikea Rast Side Table Project

In September 2008, I was looking for side tables for our bedroom. At the time we didn't even have a couch, so dropping a lot of money on bedside tables wasn't something that we could do. I was flipping through my September 2008 Style at Home Magazine and I came across a bedroom shot and in the corner of a page I spotted a bedside table that was PERFECT. When I quickly flipped to the source of the table (expecting to be yet-again dissapointed by cost) I saw that they were Ikea RAST side tables. Seriously? Ikea?

They had made over the Ikea Rast tables, and although there weren't instructions on how to do the project, I decided to try my hand at recreating the tables myself.

I got these....



and the bedside tables turned out like so....



Here is what we did to make them look "un" Ikea.

1.) First you need to pick up a RAST table. We bought 2, one for each side of the bed.

2.) We assembled the tables, except for the drawers.

3.) Doing the drawers - I primed the fronts of the doors and then painted them in oil Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore. I had Chantilly lace left over from painting all of our trim in our house, and I really liked the warm white.

4.) Staining - I found it easier to stain the piece fully built, instead of piece by piece so I stained the "body" of the table in Antique Brown by Duraseal (this was the floor colour, left over from when we installed new floors.) I did 1 coat, as I didn't want the side tables to look too dark. I think the lighter the tone, the more modern it looks. UPDATE: Any stain, waterbased or not will work, we just liked the look of this colour. A deep walnut selection is my favourite.

5.) Staining Part 2 - I did 2 coats of varnish after the stain had dried.

6.) I then put the drawers together on the built shelf, and threw out those ugly Ikea knobs, and put in the beautiful bronze knobs from Lee Valley Tools here in Toronto. They have an online shop, so you can easily pick up your own too. :)

Frequently asked questions about this project

Q: What is the quality like?
A: I didn't even think that quality would be questioned, until a lot of people e-mailed me to ask. These are awesome side tables, real wood, well constructed, and easy on the pocket book. We've been using them every day, and they don't have any scratches or bump marks.

Q: The drawers don't have rollers. Doesn't that make it hard to open the drawers?
A: Rollers are good if you're opening drawers that are (a) Big and (b) hold heavy items. Keeping that in mind these tables are small, and (for us) house things like bedtime reading, socks, pajamas, the missing rollers are not an issue. We're not storing heavy stuff in these tables, so the drawers open easily. If you were to add heavier items (like lots of hardcover books) yes, it may be heavy to open the drawers, but they still open.

Shopping References:
Inspiration (Thank you!) Style at Home Magazine, September 2008 Issue
Knobs: Lee Valley
Side Tables: Ikea Rast Table,
Bed in picture: Colette Bed
Our Bedroom Colour - Classic Gray (oc-23) by Benjamin Moore
Drawer Colour: Chantilly Lace by Benjamin Moore, I used oil, and in semi-gloss

For a more complete shopping list from our bedroom, take a peek at our Before + After Bedroom post here.