House Four

What I'm reading and where we're going...

2012-03-07T15:12:00.000-05:00

I go through phases with reading (which I love to do): sometimes I read everything I can get my hands on, and other times I go a few months without reading a book at all. I just finished the first Hunger Games book. And while I want to say I enjoyed it, that seems like the wrong choice of words, given the topic. I did think it was a great read....many layers of themes (political, social etc) that I'm not sure the younger set necessarily will "get" but that's why I was reading it in the first place - to see whether or not it was appropriate for my 11 year old son who has been asking. I think we'll wait on letting him read it for now because he's fairly sensitive and the violence may overtake the message with him. I don't think we want to go down that road just yet.

Until I can get my hands on the second book in the series, I'm going to spend some more time with these books because...

via Amazon.com

via Frommers.com

....we're going to Paris and Amsterdam this spring! Yahoo! I'm VERY excited. I've never been to either city and my husband as never been to Europe at all. The kids are thrilled which makes me really happy. When we told them, our oldest actually cried he was so excited. I know we wouldn't have gotten the same reaction over a trip to Disney (and he has admitted as much) and I can't tell you how happy this makes me! My DNA is in there after all! My parenting choices are making a difference!! Don't take offense if you're a Disney lover. That's great...for you. And if you go and you love it, I'll be thrilled for you. There are just SO many other places I'd rather go and experiences we want to share with our kids.

We can't wait to see sights like these:

via Gothereguide.com

via Historylines.net

via Destination360.com

And to eat lots of bread and cheese and crepes and.....
My kids mouths are watering over crepes already and we're not even there yet ;)

Hopefully, my rather basic knowledge of French (I did take it all the way through university but haven't used it in years) will help us with communication issues but we'll see!

My biggest dilemma for now is what cameras/lenses to take. I want to have my "good" cameras with me because the photographic opportunities will be limitless...but my baggage allowance is definitely not! Need to do some thinking about how to be creative with my equipment.

I know a few of my bloggy friends have been to these lovely cities so please...throw out suggestions about places to see, where to eat. Any and all ideas are welcome!

Blog Tag - I'm It!

2012-03-01T11:43:00.001-05:00

Wow...LONG week.
This would normally be a "Thankful Thursday" post but I've had either a really bad cold or the flu this week and haven't had the energy to even read blogs, let alone post on mine.

But...over the past few weeks, I've been tagged by a few of my friendly, neighbourhood bloggers and since I don't want them to think I'm ignoring the kind attention they've paid to my little blog by tagging me, I figured I'd better get up off my butt and post something!

Thanks to Linda at My Crafty Home-Life, Rosa at Flutter Flutter, Tiffany at Worthwhile Domicile and Martina from Adventures in Building Beauty for tagging me and being such lovely, bloggy friends :)
This game of tag involves answering 11 questions posted by each blogger and then coming up with 11 more questions to ask another group of bloggers. Since I'm pretty certain you don't have the time or interest in reading my answers to 44 questions, I'll just do what Rosa did and answer my favourites from each of the above bloggers' lists. Hope that works for everyone!

Without further ado, here are my answers:

1) What is your guilty pleasure?
Definitely the Bachelor/Bachelorette programs. I can't even believe I'm admitting to that, and I tell my husband before EVERY new season that I definitely won't watch this one because it's such a lame show/waste of time/I really should be reading or filing my nails or some other more useful thing, but I get sucked in each time. And as much as my hubby likes to mock the show, he often ends up sitting with me on the couch making fun of Chris Harrison for announcing the "final rose" each time and enjoying the train wreck that is each season. What is wrong with us?

2) High heels or flats?
Definitely flats. I have a back problem and wearing heels always results in days on end of needing muscle relaxants and sometimes even narcotic pain medication. So to avoid that, I almost always wear flats. And by flats I mean the most comfortable shoes I can possibly find. Not always pretty, but neither is limping around, hunched over like Yoda with a cane.

3) East Coast/West Coast - where would you choose to vacation or travel?
Hmmm...this is a tough one. I have spent quite a bit of time on both coasts and they both have really big draws for me. But since the east coast is the most similar to the area where I live now, I'll say the west coast. I LOOOOOVE Vancouver Island. It is my favourite place of everywhere I've ever been (which, admittedly is not an extensive list) but I think will stay at the top of my list for a long time to come. If you've never been, it's worth a visit. It's stunningly beautiful and has so much to offer. My husband and I always say if we won the lottery, we'd buy a house on Chesterman Beach (just outside Tofino) because it's such a great combination of wild, beautiful beaches, powerful surf, gorgeous trees and mountainous surroundings.

Chesterman Beach B&B

4) White wine or red?
Definitely white. My favourite right now is Kim Crawford Sauvingon Blanc from New Zealand.

5) Do you have a favourite quote?
Quite a few, actually. Here are two:
Because I don't believe anyone has all the answers: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."- Shakespeare (Hamlet)
And...
Because I think this is true for almost everyone and I believe we're ALL capable of great things: "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us." - Marianne Williamson

6) City or Country
Probably city, although I really want to have a country property one day so I can raise chickens. Seriously.

7) Chocolate - Milk, Dark or White?
Easy...milk chocolate.

8) When eating out, do you play it safe and order something familiar or do you prefer to try something new?
While I live on the edge and try something new every once in a while, I'm definitely more a "play it safe" kind of gal. Nothings bugs me more than paying for dinner at a restaurant and not enjoying it. I tend to try more outside the box things when I cook myself.

9) Do you prefer dogs or cats?
I love cats, but my husband is allergic to them so we have a dog. I do love him dearly, but don't enjoy training a dog. This is our doggie:

10) What chore do you hate?
Really? I have to pick just one? OK laundry. Only because it is never finished.

11) Summer, Fall, Winter or Spring?
Fall and Spring. Winter and Summer (at least where I live - although not this winter) are too extreme for me. I love the colours and temperatures we have here in Spring and Fall and, I guess because I'm a photographer, I love the quality of the light created by the sun's position in the sky during those months

Now I'm supposed to tag 11 more bloggers and ask them to answer a set of 11 new questions. Problem is, everyone I would tag has already been tagged...or tagged me! So while I hate to be the game-killer, I think I'll reserve the right to come back to this once I've found a new set of blogs to follow and include in the game.

And now, back to bed for a while...I'll need all the energy I can get to catch up on all the blog reading I've missed this week :)

One Room Challenge - The Final Post!

2012-02-22T02:00:00.000-05:00

The final week is here! If you've just joined us, this is the last week in a 6 week challenge to complete one room in our house. The other 14 fabulous bloggers above are participating too so be sure to check the bottom of this post for links to their blogs. If you'd like, head back to the first post here, or click the One Room Challenge button on my sidebar, and follow along with my progress. If you're all up to date, here we go (this might be a long one....)!

Here are a few shots of what our master bedroom looked like before, just as a little reminder:

We had done very little to this room since moving in two and a half years ago: I painted the walls and we installed some IKEA curtains.

Along came The One Room Challenge and here is what our room looks like now:

This week was all about finishing the bedside tables. I had also planned to make a slipcover for the ottoman that goes with the chair, but last week was really busy and I just didn't get to it. You'll also notice that the mirror over my vanity table is still black. I'm going to blame that on the weather ;) I want to spray the frame and it has just been too cold to do that yet. But...I'm considering it a win that it's even hanging on the wall! As soon as the warmer weather arrives, that baby's getting a coat of something blue or green...we'll see when the time comes :)

I'm very happy with how the bedside tables turned out (just a reminder - I got them on Kijiji for $15 each!). It's amazing what some paint and a few new ring pulls will do. Here are the bedside tables now:

This last one is a shot of how I added a turquoise glaze to highlight some of the detail in the pieces. I painted on a mixture of latex paint and glaze (about half and half) and just wiped off the excess with a damp rag. I like that it makes them look a bit antique-y because they were a little too new looking when they were just plain white.

A reminder of what they looked like before:

Here's a final tally of the projects I completed:

Rearranged the layout of the furniture (Linda - I still need some water to combat that feng shui snafu!)
Painted two bedside tables (really a table and a small dresser)
Painted my vanity table and removed its mirror
Bought a new ghost chair to go with the vanity
Had an IKEA frame made into a mirror (costly mistake - see here)
Bought a framed print from HomeSense for $11 and painted the frame white
Painted an old, french provincial dresser I bought on Kijiji for $150
Made three new Euro pillow covers, two new 20x20 pillow covers and a new lumbar pillow cover for the bed
Made a new lumbar pillow cover for the chair
Completely disassembled, rebuilt, painted and reupholstered a chair from our old family cottage
Made my own art using my iPad and my Epson Stylus Pro 3800 printer (along with four new frames from IKEA)
Hung a new chandelier to replace the ugly old "boob" light that came with the house ;)

Now the list of projects I didn't finish and my excuses for said failures:

Planned on installing some kind of molding on the walls but just never got around to it
Ran out of time to slipcover the ottoman that goes with the chair I reupholstered (but I will)
Haven't spray painted the black mirror frame above my vanity table YET - I will when the weather warms up
Thought I might paint or upholster our headboard but changed my mind. I would rather just buy a new one (I think...reserving the right to re-visit this one!)
The space over our headboard seems a bit empty - I'm going to think about that one for a while
I need to spend some time properly accessorizing. I didn't want to rush that step because I like to surround myself and our family with things that have meaning to us...not just run out and buy a bunch of green, blue and yellow accessories because they "match", if that makes sense? This step will be an evolving one.

So...after 6 weeks, would I say I "finished" the room? Not completely, no. But I also don't think any room is ever really finished. I do feel comfortable now, though, to strike this room off my lengthy To-Do list and start working on something else. The room makes me happy now, no longer feels like a dumping ground for all the household junk that doesn't have another home, and for those reasons alone I'm calling this a huge success!

I'll start posting before and after shots of all the furniture "rescuing" I did for this project. They'll be on my Before/After page (under my blog header) shortly (the orange chair reupholstery project is already posted).

For now, I just want to thank Linda from My Crafty Home-Life and the other 13 fabulous bloggers who helped to make this past 6 weeks really fun for me. I loved meeting you all and getting to know you a bit better through your projects and want to say thanks to all of you for your supportive comments and feedback along the way :)

And now, while I make an appointment for a manicure to help get all this paint off my fingernails, you can head over to these blogs to see how all of the other rooms turned out. Thanks for following along!

Nicole at Scott Designs
Kim at Kim Macumber Interiors
Emily at Rue de Emily
Jennifer at The Pink Pagoda
Kelly at Refreshed Designs
Linda at My Crafty Home-Life
Tiffany at Living Savvy
Jadyn at Dutch British Love
Jen at Insideways
Sharon at A Lifestyle Thing
Taylor Morgan at Taylor Morgan Design
Lisa at Trapped in North Jersey
Suzy at Saved by Suzy
Danylle at Nana Moon Shop

One Room Challenge - Week 5

2012-02-15T11:20:00.005-05:00

We're already at Week 5 - how did that happen?
If you're just joining the saga now, go to my first post here to catch up.

This is going to be a short post. The only thing I accomplished this week, aside from creating some iPad art for our walls, was painting the dresser that's going at the foot of the bed. I love how the colour turned out, and I have to give kudos to Martha Stewart paint because the finish is really nice too and the paint went on like a dream! I went with a colour called Gabardine that looks like this online:

It's a pretty good representation of the actual colour, but because I chose a semi-gloss finish that reflects some light, it looks a little lighter on the actual dresser (and in the photo). In real life it's quite a bit darker.

Here's how it turned out:

I still have four projects remaining:

Frame and hang the DIY art I made the other day as well as the $11 special I got at HomeSense a few weeks ago
Paint bedside tables
Possibly make a slipcover for the footstool that goes with the green chair
Clean up all the tools and crap that's littering our bedroom floor because this room has been Project Central for the past 5 weeks!

I've decided not to tackle the headboard right now, partly because it's probably only going to be a temporary solution - we'll likely buy another one before long. The other project I've scrapped for now is the molding on the walls. I'm going to see how everything looks once we have some art on the walls and may address the molding again another time. If I can get the four projects I listed above finished by next week, I'll call it done and be a happy girl!

Don't forget to visit the other One Room Challengers and see how much progress they've made this week!

Nicole at Scott Designs
Kim at Kim Macumber Interiors
Emily at Rue de Emily
Jennifer at The Pink Pagoda
Kelly at Refreshed Designs
Linda at My Crafty Home-Life
Tiffany at Living Savvy
Jadyn at Dutch British Love
Jen at Insideways
Sharon at A Lifestyle Thing
Taylor Morgan at Taylor Morgan Design
Lisa at Trapped in North Jersey
Suzy at Saved by Suzy
Danylle at Nana Moon Shop

7 x 7 Award

2012-02-14T19:27:00.001-05:00

I'm feeling very honoured lately, here at House Four. Today I was ever-so-kindly given the 7x7 Award by April at Money Pit Love and also by Lisha at One House, One Couple. If you haven't visited these blogs, you really must. April is Hi-larious and always posts lots of lovely photo inspiration, much of which I've never seen elsewhere. And her bathroom reno is very cool! Lisha is one of the first bloggers I "met" after starting this blog. She and her husband write about the house they renovated and flipped for profit. She's showing us their master bathroom now and I can't wait to see how it turns out!

On to my responsibilities as an award recipient...

Link back to the blogger who nominated you
Share 7 facts about yourself
Share 7 blog posts that fit into 7 categories
Nominate 7 award-worthy blogs/bloggers, and leave them a message letting them know!

I think these things are great because I'm introduced to new (or at least new-to-me) blogs every time I read someone's award post. Hopefully I can do the same for you :)

7 (very random) Things About Me:

I was a gymnast til I was 14 and because of that, I have a lumbar vertebra with a stress fracture that will never heal.
I'm half-way to a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. But I had to quit because it's too hard on my back. Fortunately, once you earn a belt, it's yours for life!
I used to have plane crash nightmares at least a few times per week. Usually I would be watching them crash, not as a passenger in the plane. Could have had something to do with living near the north-south runway of the Toronto International Airport, but I think it was more an anxiety/control thing. I actually saw a fighter jet crash-land at the same airport during the Toronto Labour Day Airshow one year and I never had another plane crash dream again.
I am still not, however, that enamoured with flying.
A man in one of my university classes stalked me for a few months when I was 19. He was married and very creepy. One of my guy friends started meeting me after every class to try and scare the guy - and eventually he stopped. What I should have done was call the police. Duh!
I have a very strong desire to visit and photograph Scotland; and
I don't like shellfish. Actually, I don't know if I like shellfish or not because I've never tried them. But they're creepy and remind me of bugs and because of that, I have no desire to try them. And my life has been full and happy anyway ;)

My 7 blog posts:

Most Beautiful: Vision. This post was mostly just a link to a sand artist in New Zealand. But I could watch it over and over. I find not just his art but his attitude to be beautiful. Close second would be the post I wrote about losing my dad: On Grief, Chickadees and Other Pretty Things
Most Helpful: Photo Challenge Day 9 - And a Photo Tip. I would be happy to write more photo-related tutorials if people are interested in them.
Most Popular: The post I linked up to Life in Grace's Christmas Cheer party - a recipe for Christmas Morning Wifesaver
Most Controversial: I don't think I've written a controversial post here. Strange, because I love a good debate and controversy! Better get on that, I guess;)
Most Surprisingly Successful: Same as my most popular post. I've only posted two recipes here. One became my most visited post!
Most Underrated: Hmmmm....Some of my Thankful Thursday posts get the fewest visits, but I'm OK with that because they're just for me anyway. I don't really think in terms of "appreciated" or "under-rated" posts so this was a tough one to answer.
Most Pride-worthy: My First Post - Our Kitchen Reno. This post was featured on a few different blogs and was the post that got me started here at House Four.

Now...here are 7 blogs I love. If you've already participated in these awards, I apologize - I had no way of knowing. But I love your blog and wanted to recognize you and send you some blog love :) Especially on Valentine's Day. Who can't use a little more lovin', am I right?

Lynne at Design the Life You Want to Live
Shannon at Bungalow 960
Kelly at Refreshed Designs
Stephanie at LeaLou
Martina at Adventures in Building Beauty
Stucco Bungalow
Karianne at Thistlewood Farm

iPad Artwork

2012-02-13T13:19:00.002-05:00

My wonderful husband bought me an iPad for Christmas and it has barely left my side since. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit how addicted I am to this device.

The thing I like most about it are the creative apps I've found like Percolator and Wurm, to name a few. Over the past few days, I've been combining the fun with those two apps to create some DIY art for my master bedroom walls. I've been looking for abstract art for our walls since starting the One Room Challenge, but just haven't been able to pull the trigger and purchase anything yet. The empty wall that need some new art is big and I'm not a fan of a bunch of teeny prints all over a big wall. I had a pretty good idea that I was going to have to create something of my own if we were going to afford to bling out that wall ;)
I'm not much of an artist with a paint brush, unless you count a solid colour, painted on a wall. If that's art, then I rock having painted all four of our houses myself. Sometimes twice.

Yesterday I started playing around with the Wurm app. It was fun and kind of meditative. Then I wondered what one of my Wurm creations would look like if I ran it through Percolator. And I got these:

Once I frame them, they'll go on the wall like this:

These are all 16x20 prints which shows you how big a piece of art really needs to be in order to have real impact. They could even be larger but they're as big as my home printer will produce.
They remind me of how much we love our backyard in spring, summer and fall. The yard was the reason we bought this house and sometimes, when we're stuck inside during the winter, we forget that. I'm hoping these whacky pops of colour will remind us when we're in the midst of a winter-time depression.

I've also been working on this and am hoping it will be finished by Wednesday for One Room Challenge update day:

Hope everyone had a good weekend! We finally got some snow, so I guess it really is winter here after all :)

Thankful Thursday - Let There Be Light!

2012-02-09T09:42:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I looked up from making dinner around 5:45 and realized....it was still light out! I don't know why I was surprised by this. It happens every year. But I always love the day I realize that the days are getting longer and we're that much closer to spring. So today I'm thankful that the earth is starting to tilt in a more favourable direction for those of us in the northern hemisphere. Sorry, my Australian mates. But since you only have sissy winters there, I'm actually not that sorry. You guys are seriously spoiled. I am thankful though :)

I'm also thankful that this blog is starting to help me rediscover my love for photography again. This is one of my orchids that's blooming right now. My friend gave it to me shortly after my dad died so it makes me extra happy when it blooms:

I think orchids are made for photographers. They just naturally fall in these beautiful, diagonal lines. And the blooms open at different rates...they're kind of perfect.

Unrelated P.S.: My laptop screen really sucks and washes out all my photographs. So for those of you viewing this on a bad screen, my apologies. I never realized how bad my blog looks on a poor screen until today. Yikes. Everyone...rush out and calibrate your screens today! It makes a HUGE difference.

Liebster Award

2012-02-08T16:21:00.000-05:00

Thank you to my blog buddy Shannon at Bunglaow960 for awarding me the Liebster Award! I think this is a great way to recognize newer blogs with fewer than 200 followers and help get them recognized by even more people. So thanks Shannon!

I'll admit I kind of feel like Oprah: "You get a Liebster! And you get a Liebster! Everyone gets a Liebsterrrrrrr"!!!

Apparently there are five rules that need to be followed by those accepting this award:

Choose five up-and-coming blogs to award the Liebster to. These five blogs must have fewer than 200 followers.
Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you gave the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blogs so they know about the award.
Share 5 random facts about yourself.

Five random facts about me:

None of my close friends or family members, aside from my husband and kids, know about this blog (One of my friends MAY have found it..."Lenny"? Is that you? lol). I didn't want to tell anyone in case I didn't stick with it ;)
I have been in nine car accidents and one motorcycle accident. I was a passenger in all 10 accidents and I hate being a passenger now. I completely refuse to get on a motorcycle.
I honestly thought both my kids were going to be girls before they were born (not sure why, really) and now I couldn't be happier that they're boys.
I don't like the name Roger. My mother-in-law once told me she originally wanted to name my husband Roger and my response was, "Thank God you didn't because I wouldn't have dated him". This offends my husband, for some reason. Probably because I also told him I would have made an exception for Roger Federer.
I like to argue/debate and I love being right but when someone proves me wrong, I start laughing. I'm sure that's totally annoying to the person I'm arguing with but I honestly can't help it. But it usually stops the argument dead in its tracks and is a good segue to a new conversation :)

And now...to award my Liebsters! If I mentioned you and you have more than 200 followers, don't be offended! I just had no way of knowing and I like you so I think you deserve an award!

One Room Challenge - Week 4 (or "The week I got a lot of paint in my hair")

2012-02-08T10:39:00.000-05:00

We're already into Week Four of our challenge. In case you're just joining the fun now, the 15 bloggers above have each selected a room in their houses (or their client's houses) to finish in 6 weeks. If you'd like to start back at the beginning here's a little link to Week 1. Before I get started, I also want to say "Thanks" to Tiffany at Living Savvy who made our One Room Challenge button (on my sidebar) and this little poster above.

Last week was all about painting for me, and while it feels like my least productive week so far, I guess I should be happy with what I accomplished. I decided to tackle painting my vanity table first because I had a pretty good idea about what I wanted it to look like, and I still haven't decided on what to do with the rest of my furniture.

This is what the vanity (a kijiji find) looked like before:

And here it is now:

I've removed the mirror that goes with it and will hang this mirror over it once I spray it a pretty colour:

I also finished painting the banged-up frame on the $11 HomeSense print I bought last week. here it is now:

I think it looks much better and my husband actually likes it now too. So that's a win!

And lastly, I bought a couple of accessories. This green bowl I'll use for my rings and watches etc:

And this little photo frame which is serving as the inspiration for a glaze effect I want to try on our night tables this week:

That's it for Week 4. Make sure you check out what these other lovely ladies have been up to. There's been lots of progress this week...I've already checked in with a few of them!

Nicole at Scott Designs
Kim at Kim Macumber Interiors
Emily at Rue de Emily
Jennifer at The Pink Pagoda
Kelly at Refreshed Designs
Linda at My Crafty Home-Life
Tiffany at Living Savvy
Jadyn at Dutch British Love
Jen at Insideways
Sharon at A Lifestyle Thing
Taylor Morgan at Taylor Morgan Design
Lisa at Trapped in North Jersey
Suzy at Saved by Suzy
Danylle at Nana Moon Shop

Master bedroom wall art

2012-02-05T21:34:00.002-05:00

So, I'm wondering...what do you like to look at as you're falling asleep?

I thought I had our master bedroom wall art figured out. I was planning a gallery wall of family photos (I have lots of large framed and canvas prints from my photography business days) until one night as I was trying to fall asleep, I imagined all those faces staring back at me. Not sure that's restful, even if the faces are members of my own family! I'll still do the family photo gallery, but in the hallway instead ;)

Here are a few of the prints I have in my Etsy favourites file that I think might work:

Beach Fun by siiso on Etsy

Original abstract by Elis Cooke

But then I could go with "free" art and hang some of my own photography or have my boys help me create something ourselves with a big, blank canvas.

What do you have on your bedroom walls?

Thankful Thursday - the Bathroom Reno Edition

2012-02-02T11:03:00.002-05:00

It's Thursday again. How did this happen? Is it me or are the weeks just flying right by? It's probably because I'm old ;)

Anyway, Thursday means spending some time talking about what I'm thankful for. And this week I'm thankful that we're finally going to get started on our master bathroom reno. Yahoo!

I've mentioned a few times that this reno is on the horizon, but we've finally got a meeting booked to sign a contract and start choosing tiles, fixtures etc. I'm thankful we're going ahead with it, but also that we can do it at all. I'm always surprised when I hear people complain about their renovations because of dust, inconvenience etc. Granted, those things can be a huge pain - I've lived through it too and I get it. But seriously - you're able to renovate your house! That's worth celebrating, not complaining about. This is one of the reasons I love Brian Gluckstein (and I'm old enough to remember watching him on CityLine back when he had long hair and before he was OMG-BRIAN-GLUCKSTEIN!!!!). He always reminds people to put the inconvenience in perspective - a reno is Fabulous with a capital "F" and while inconvenient at the time, try and remember how many people would love to be in your shoes. I think that's a fabulous attitude :). So I'm going with it. If you hear me complain while my bathroom is being re-done, feel free to kick me in the a$$.

We're still a bit stuck on what to do re: a tub and the vanity area, but here are some of the inspiration photos I've got on my Pinterest "Bathrooms" board:

Vanities:

I LOVE this one from Restoration Hardware, but it's not going to happen. Our plumbing is on the outside wall of our house, and therefore runs into the floor instead of the wall (otherwise it could freeze in the winter). Anything with this many drawers could be problematic, but I'm using the look as inspiration.

Restoration Hardware

I love this next look too because the colours are pretty close to what we're aiming for, and I think the idea of a warmer wood vanity is nice with all that cool blue going on. I adore white cabinetry, but I don't want our bathroom to look and feel like an ice cube.

via House of Turquoise - Mark Olson photographer

This is the other idea I'm wrestling with....two pedestal sinks instead of one, long vanity. We have space for at least a 72" vanity with double sinks (that's what we have now) but I find it just looks boxy and gets easily cluttered. I think I might rather be forced to put things AWAY by having pedestal sinks and no counter space. Hey - I know myself and I can clutter up a counter like nobody's business :) Might as well be honest!

The problem will be finding pedestals that hide our plumbing effectively enough.

Dream It, Build It, Style It

I would put this between the pedestal sinks:

Restoration Hardware

Shower:

I wish people would Pin properly because this one said "Uploaded by User" and I have no way of knowing where it came from. Would love to credit it properly if possible...if anyone knows where it came from?

Anyway, we'd like our shower to be a corner version of this...subway tile walls, mosaic floor, glass walls, with a built-in shelf and possibly a built in bench but that's negotiable ;)

I love the look of this one, but keeping all those grout lines clean after a while might be a huge pain. Not sure about the idea of mosaic tile on a shower wall...

Sarah Richardson Design

We'll definitely go with a freestanding tub of some kind, but exactly which one is yet to be determined. Last year we bought an old, cast iron clawfoot tub from a local farmer who tears down and restores old houses. The tub is in good shape as far as the openings for the drain and faucets not being rusty, but the finish on the inside and out is in need of serious work. We found someone locally who can refinish the tub to the point where it looks beautifully brand new. BUT...the finish is only guaranteed for a year and they say we'd probably have to re-do it every five years or so. Not sure I'm interested when I can buy a brand new one for just a bit more than the overall cost to refinish this one (added to our original purchase price of $125).

I love these two tubs from Vintagetub.com who, incidentally, will ship for free to Canada!

Slipper Clawfoot

I'm looking forward to finalizing some of these decisions and getting started!

One Room Challenge - Week Three

2012-02-01T11:22:00.001-05:00

If you missed weeks one and two, head over there now or click here for my week one post and the before photos :)

My goals for the last week were:

finish the pillows for our bed;
find new hardware for our bedside tables; and
choose paint colours for the dresser, bedside tables and vanity (possibly headboard too).

So how did I do?

First the pillows...

I had a slight fabric catastrophe in that I didn't have enough width in this blue fabric to make the 20"x20" pillow backs (I had a long, narrow strip left). So I improvised and pieced together four smaller squares! That way I had enough for two pillows...just barely. This fabric was FREE.. My mom gave it to me a few years ago - just a remnant of what she had left over from another project. It just happened to match the steely blue in the chain-link pattern so I had to make it work :)

This photo shows the "back" sides of the Euro and 20x20 square pillows...for a totally different look:

I'm pretty happy with how these all turned out, although finishing them wasn't without some frustration. I cannot for the life of me find invisible zippers in a 14" length (except online and I don't have time to wait for something to be shipped). And, that long lumbar pillow with the chain-link fabric? It's 36" long. No one seems to sell invisible zippers in a 30" length so much to my chagrin, I had to take apart the original Pottery Barn pillow cover that came with that pillow and use that zipper. I'm OK with that because the pillow was just sitting, unused in a closet anyway. Might as well use what I've got, right?

Moving on...

Hardware for the bedside tables was a pretty easy find. I love the selection at Lee Valley Tools and can almost always find something that works. The link above will show you a better photo of my selection, but here is the ring pull I chose installed on the bedside table:

Once these table are painted, I think they'll look great. Incidentally...WHY do alarm clocks have to be so ugly?? Honestly!

Next I was supposed to choose paint colours for the vanity, dresser and bedside tables but I got distracted by totally rearranging our furniture layout. This room is kind of problematic for a few reasons I outlined in Week One. I was having a tough time figuring out where to place all the furniture when this idea hit me:

Yes, that's the dresser where a footboard should be. A little unusual, sure, but I think I kind of like it. With the headboard on the wall to the left, everything was feeling sort of lined up all along the walls. I walked in and never really knew where to look. With this arrangement, the bed has a wall all to itself and the window area is completely separate. The frames on the dresser are there to see whether or not we'll knock things off the dresser top by accident. They've been there for three nights and so far, so good.

To answer anyone's questions about this in advance:
- Yes, I know a dresser as a footboard is BAD in terms of Feng Shui. Also? I don't care :)
- No, there is no room for the dresser on either of the walls with the bed in this position. You can barely walk past on either side, let alone open the dresser drawers.

I need to paint everything now, but I'm starting to feel like this may actually come together in the next few weeks!

Finally, yesterday I found this at HomeSense for $11:

ALL the right colours, and it's a good size. It was $11 because there is a piece inside that's coming apart near the bottom (easy fix) and the frame was all chippy. Nothing a little paint wouldn't fix:

Try to picture it without the Frog Tape :) It looks better already.

I also picked up this pretty, ruffled throw in the same colour as my walls:

That's it for this week! If you haven't already fallen asleep reading this loooonnng post, head over to see what these lovely ladies have been doing for the past week:

Nicole at Scott Designs
Kim at Kim Macumber Interiors
Emily at Rue de Emily
Jennifer at The Pink Pagoda
Kelly at Refreshed Designs
Linda at My Crafty Home-Life
Tiffany at Living Savvy
Jadyn at Dutch British Love
Jen at Insideways
Sharon at A Lifestyle Thing
Taylor Morgan at Taylor Morgan Design
Lisa at Trapped in North Jersey
Suzy at Saved by Suzy
Danylle at Nana Moon Shop

No regrets, but....

2012-01-27T10:38:00.001-05:00

I'm not regretting our choice of chandelier for our bedroom, but I will admit the choice was based on cost factors first. The lights I had in mind weren't exactly pricey, but they were at least $200 more than the one we bought, in most cases. So that's a decent little chunk of change we saved.

The following images are the lights that were the original front runners. So I'm going to keep these lights in mind for other rooms in the house, because every single light fixture needs changing:

From Overstock.com

From Lamps Plus

From Lamps Plus and Canada Lighting Experts

Now back to my pillow cover sewing!

One Room Challenge - Week 2

2012-01-25T06:30:00.000-05:00

Week two of the One Room Challenge kicks off today!
Head back here if you want to see the before photos and also a few of my plans for the room. If you're all up to speed, I'll fill you in on some of the progress I made over the past week.

First, I tackled reupholstering the "orange chair". My husband and I seem to do this - name chairs in our house by their colour. In fact, in our living room there's a chair he refers to as "the blue chair" even though there is barely a speck of blue on the the entire thing. Anyway....I tackled the orange chair project. And we now have "the green chair":

I seriously debated whether or not to paint the arms/legs of the chair because it's so old, and because painting it didn't seem to fit with the style of the chair. Those Arts + Crafts type pieces seem more appropriate in stained wood, but this wood just wasn't in great shape, and I wouldn't be able to even attempt stripping/refinishing until the weather warms up in a few months. I couldn't leave the wood because there were already splotches of paint on it from who-only-knows-when. So it got a coat of Timid White paint (Benjamin Moore) that I had left over from my kitchen reno project.

The chair really doesn't fit with the style of anything else in our room, but it has sentimental value to me so it's staying :)

We also hung this chandelier:

I started making some pillows, including the lumbar pillow in the photo of the green chair. Then I moved on to the Euro pillows that we'll use on our bed. I'm planning on making three, but only have one finished as of now:

I made that one last night, when I should have been making dinner ;)
The original plan was for the Euro (26"x26") pillows to be made entirely in the floral fabric. I'm a little worried about getting tired of that pattern over time though, so I backed the pillows in the same green fabric as the chair so I can turn them around whenever we feel like it for a completely different look. I added a blue contrast piping and each of these Euro shams has an invisible zipper in the bottom of the pillow.

The pièce de résistance, though, is my new ghost chair (knock-off):

I've been searching for a stool or small chair that will work with my vanity and wasn't having any luck. The green chair is going to sit quite close to the vanity so I didn't want another chair that would have to compete with it. And it had to be fairly small because a larger chair just wouldn't slide under the table. Luckily, I happened to be out shopping at Kitchen Stuff Plus and they had these chairs on sale! I LOVED the one with the arms, but it would have been too wide. I think this one will be perfect.

So checking in with my original plan (crossing things off a to-do list is like a drug to me) :

~~Reupholster and paint the orange vinyl chair~~ and ottoman
~~Make new pillows for the bed~~
Paint the vanity table, change the mirror, ~~and find a stool~~
Re-finish the dresser (jury still out on exactly how...better get my ducks in a row!)
Paint the bedside tables and buy new hardware
Install some molding on the walls to give the room a bit of character
~~Replace the ceiling light fixture~~
Hang artwork
Potentially add some bookshelves (this one is a maybe if there is money and time at the end).
Added this week: find a small table to go beside the green chair

I was able to cross off quite a few items although I still need to finish sewing the pillows (two more Euro covers, two 20"x20" covers and a long lumbar-type pillow for the bed) and get to work painting some of our furniture. I still haven't made up my mind about colours yet so that'll be the first step. I have a large dresser, two side tables and a vanity to paint so I'd better get cracking!

Don't forget to check in with the other One Room Challenge participants to see what they've done in the past seven days:

Nicole at Scott Designs
Kim at Kim Macumber Interiors
Emily at Rue de Emily
Jennifer at The Pink Pagoda
Kelly at Refreshed Designs
Linda at My Crafty Home-Life
Tiffany at Living Savvy
Jadyn at Dutch British Love
Jen at Insideways
Sharon at A Lifestyle Thing
Taylor Morgan at Taylor Morgan Design
Lisa at Trapped in North Jersey
Suzy at Saved by Suzy
Danylle at Nana Moon Shop

My dining room curtains - by Tonic Living

2012-01-24T12:44:00.000-05:00

For the first three or four weeks after Linda asked me to join her One Room Challenge, I was determined to work on my dining room. Partly because it's basically just a boring, beige box at the moment, and partly because I had recently received my beautiful new curtains from Tonic Living and now have a starting point to choose colours etc. The fabric is called Silsila Rhinestone and you can find it by clicking here on the Tonic Living site.

For various reasons, I changed my mind and started working on our master bedroom, but in the meantime I told Janine at Tonic Living I would photograph the curtains for her. I kept holding off until I could paint the walls, thereby showing off the curtains better, but that isn't happening anytime in the next few weeks. Then yesterday, I saw on Jenny's blog - Evolution of Style - that she's looking at the same fabric for her dining room so I offered to show her some photos of my curtains. I figured I might as well post the photos here too, while I'm at it!

So while this post is mainly for Jenny and Janine, you can peek too and let me know what colour you'd paint your walls if these were your curtains :)

The white blinds will eventually be replaced as well, likely with bamboo blinds of some kind.

Overall though, I'm thrilled with the curtains. They hang beautifully, the lining is very substantial and they were reasonably priced as well. I highly recommend Tonic Living's custom services!

Wow...seeing these photos makes me want to paint the walls even more, so that will likely be my next project after our bedroom is finished.

Hope this helps you Jenny!

The Orange Chair is No More and Some Sparkly Stuff

2012-01-23T12:20:00.001-05:00

I'll post more about this on Wednesday, but for now, here is what I accomplished One Room Challenge - wise last week while my house was influenza-ridden:

The orange chair is re-covered and I think looking very pretty now (after photo on Wednesday);
We hung a new chandelier; and
I found what I think will be the perfect chair for my vanity table.

First the chair before:

I had originally thought the chair was 50-60 years old, but my mom assures me that it was last upholstered about 50 years ago and is, indeed, much older. When I started inspecting it to see whether or not it was even worth reupholstering again, I found its original tag from an upholsterer in Kitchener, Ontario. I'm not sure if this company made the chair or just upholstered it, but I looked them up on the internet and found this photo:

So that gives you some idea ;) Think they'd still take it back "In case of complaint"?
I think the link said the photo was taken in 1906. So I have a pretty old chair on my hands. And a chair that resided in our un-winterized cottage on a Lake Huron beach for all of its life. So it's amazing, really, that it's still standing.

I took a bunch of photos from all different angles so that I would remember how to put it together again, once I dismantled it. Here are a couple:

And then I did this to it:

Yep, that there is horse-hair and straw. Which I'm now kind of regretting replacing with foam and batting, but I'm pretty certain my husband is allergic to the former stuffing. So it's gone.

I actually took it all apart VERY carefully, but didn't want to bore you with all the in-between photos. I kept every piece of vinyl fabric and made templates out of those for the new fabric. I also kept all the upholstery tacks in the above photo of the back of the chair so they could be re-used as well. I only broke one in the process, and it was from a decently hidden spot on the chair so I don't even need to find a replacement.

Next was the chandelier.
Here's the "before" boob light:

If you went to Home Depot right now, you could probably get one just like it for about $15. I'm pretty sure that's what the previous owners of our house did because every single light in our house is from this "set". The chandeliers, the vanity lights in our bathrooms and all the flushmount lights look just like this. Fly collectors.

All of the lights I had in mind for this room didn't correspond to our budget so after much searching, I finally settled on this little item I found on clearance for $69:

In the words of Dustin Hoffman in Rainman, it's "very sparkly, very twinkly". And decidedly more Liberace than I'm used to. But I think every house can use some twinkly and for $69, I will live with it for a while and move it or sell it if I ever change my mind.

My husband won't be glad to hear that. We are, in fact, still married after installing this chandelier, although it's not our favourite activity to do together. He actually said to me, "That was fun. I like doing projects with you when we're nice to each other." To which I replied, "You know that's going on my blog, right?"

Next up....the vanity chair.

But you'll have to wait til next time to see that :)

Thankful Thursday - the Flu edition and Weight Watchers Recipe Cards

2012-01-19T10:24:00.002-05:00

While I am certainly NOT thankful that both my kids are now home from school with the flu, I am still very thankful that this is, in fact, my biggest worry of the week. Is it annoying to have no time to myself? Yes. Do I have severe cabin fever to the point of almost wanting to chew my own arm off? Pretty much. But this too shall pass and everyone will be back at school soon. The flu comes and goes but my little dudes are generally fun, happy, healthy kids who I'm thankful for every day...not just on Thursdays.

I'm also thankful my husband came home a day early from his business trip because now I can go OUTSIDE! Amongst the living! And even better, I won't have to chew my arm off out of boredom.

I'm very thankful that Linda at My Crafty Home-Life invited me to join her One Room Challenge, because I'm having lots of fun with it so far and it has given me so much to think about while I'm stuck in the house :)

Cabin fever also allowed me to spend an inordinate amount of time surfing the internet this past week, and I remembered a very funny site that I hadn't looked at in a long time. I'm sure most of you have seen Candyboots? Home of the Weight Watchers Recipe cards from the 70's complete with hilarious commentary that makes me craff (cry/laugh) EVERY time I read them? If not, head over there now. And if you don't share my warped sense of humour, I can't even apologize. Because I'm too busy laughing. Marcy's "Enchilada", Mexican Shrimp-Orange Salad (which, incidentally, looks absolutely nothing like any salad I've ever seen) and Snacks on a Stick are among my favourites.

From Candyboots.com

So in this instance, I'm thankful that other people have a warped sense of humour like mine so I can find their stuff on the internet and laugh like a maniac :)

The One Room Challenge

2012-01-18T02:00:00.000-05:00

Back in December, Linda from My Crafty Home-Life told me she had an idea for a project that would help her to finally finish a room in her house. She called it the "One Room Challenge" and asked if I would like to join her and a few others in the project. I jumped at the chance to participate! I don't think I have ever, not in any of our four houses, finished a room. I'm not even sure I will feel finished with this one, once the challenge is over, but my goal is to strike this room off the list of projects that need doing. At least for the foreseeable future.

I'll provide links to the other lovely ladies who are participating in this challenge at the end of this post.
For Week 2, click here.
For Week 3, click here.
For Week 4, click here.
For Week 5, click here.
For Week 6 (final week), click here.

For now, let's get started!

Let me introduce you to our master bedroom (Note - that is NOT our usual duvet - the good one was in the wash the day I took these photos and so was the bedskirt):

It's a good-sized room, about 22' x 12' (half is about 22' x 14' because of a bay window area), but it also has a few challenges:

It's really long but not that wide;
It has a yucky popcorn ceiling;
The only air vent is in the bay window area so we can't cover that part of the floor with anything;
Half the room has a huge bay window in it, and the other half is completely dark;
The half of the room with the window also has all the doorways (bathroom, closet and hall doors) so the room is a little unbalanced with tons of wall space on one side, almost none on the other;
There is one light fixture in the centre of the ceiling. Our upstairs ceilings are only 7.5' high so we can't install a good-sized light/chandelier without smacking our heads into it on a daily basis.

When we bought the house, the wall colour was pretty depressing. If I called it "baby poop brown" would that gross you out too much? Sorry...but that's what it was! I have since repainted it Sarah Richardson's "Fog" (Para Paints SR27) to go with cushions I had from Pottery Barn (Vanessa pattern) shown here:

My intent was to use those Pottery Barn shams as a starting point for colour for the entire room - blues with pops of orangey reds (or "tangerine tango", if you prefer). But when I started looking for fabric, I got sidetracked by a lot of green, grey and yellow fabrics and I completely changed my mind. So the photo below, of fabrics I bought at inVu this week, shows you the colour scheme I'm working with now:

Here is the paint colour (it's a lot lighter than it looks on the chip in the photo above):

I have never used yellow in any of our houses before. So I was surprised when I was drawn to these fabrics, two of which feature yellow in a fairly big way. Our bedroom faces the backyard which, in spring and summer is very green and blue (from our pool). And since a lot of that green and blue light from outside influences our room anyway, I figured we might as well run with it and bring the outdoors in, as they say :)

The headboard will stay the same for now, until we can afford something we like better. I thought about painting it and changing the fabric on the front, but I think it will work as-is so it's staying. As of right now, here's the list of projects I want to complete to finish this room:

Reupholster and paint the orange vinyl chair and ottoman
Make new pillows for the bed
Paint the vanity table, change the mirror, and find a stool
Re-finish the dresser (jury still out on exactly how...better get my ducks in a row!)
Paint the bedside tables
Install some molding on the walls to give the room a bit of character
Replace the ceiling light fixture
Hang artwork
Potentially add some bookshelves (this one is a maybe if there is money and time at the end).

So there you have it. I'm going to be a little busy for the next six weeks. During that time, every Wednesday the One Room Challenge participants will post on their own progress so check back here each week to see how it's going.

Don't forget to check in with these ladies too....

Nicole at Scott Designs
Kim at Kim Macumber Interiors
Emily at Rue de Emily
Jennifer at The Pink Pagoda
Kelly at Refreshed Designs
Linda at My Crafty Home-Life
Tiffany at Living Savvy
Jadyn at Dutch British Love
Jen at Insideways
Sharon at A Lifestyle Thing
Taylor Morgan at Taylor Morgan Design
Lisa at Trapped in North Jersey
Suzy at Saved by Suzy
Danylle at Nana Moon Shop

Is winter over yet? And a wee teaser...

2012-01-17T11:07:00.001-05:00

I really can't complain about this winter, weather-wise. We haven't had a mild winter like this in a few years, so I'm kind of enjoying it. The kids would like some snow, but I'm happy to let the shovel sit quietly in the garage to chill out for the winter.

The thing I will complain about is that this winter my kids are catching every virus known to man. My eldest is home AGAIN this week with the flu (the actual flu....influenza...not a tummy bug). And I'm pretty much over all the sickness now. We've gone through a couple of bottles of Children's Advil already this winter and I don't even give it to them until their fevers are relatively high. So, since it's not Thankful Thursday, and I'm not thankful for viruses, I will actually complain about this ;)

In other news, I'm very excited about a project that shall remain nameless for now (unless you look at the button on the top right of my sidebar). Come back tomorrow and all will be revealed!

Friday the 13th, My Mirror Mishap, and the Toronto Blue Jays

2012-01-13T13:13:00.001-05:00

Friday the 13th. Does it bother you? Do you even notice?

I actually like the number 13. The number three, even more so. Both numbers come up repeatedly in my life so I figure they're actually lucky for me. I met my husband at work on a 13th of November. Our office address was 33 and the floor we worked on was the 13th (yes they actually called it the 13th floor - I hate when they pretend it's actually the 14th). There are lots more but I won't bore you with examples...

So far, this Friday the 13th has been lovely. As it turns out, my unlucky day was yesterday.

About three years ago (maybe more, I've lost count), I bought a 16x20 oval picture frame at IKEA to display my photography in the studio I was going to rent. That studio deal fell apart before I ever moved in, leaving me with a frame I couldn't use in my home because it's rather feminine and I only have boys. Instead of returning the frame, I stored it in the basement thinking I would have it turned into a mirror one day.

Here it is:

This week I finally took it to a local glass store and had it made into a mirror for a total of $62 including tax. Not bad, I figured, for a pretty 16x20 mirror. I picked it up on Wednesday and brought it home, proud of myself for rescuing it from the depths of my basement. I'm going to paint it a prettier colour and use it in an upcoming project. More on that in a few weeks.

On Thursday I made a trip to IKEA looking for something completely different and saw that they are now selling said frame ALREADY as a mirror for $29.99. Not even kidding. I guess I can look at it like I helped out a local business, right?

Maybe this will make me feel better:

Yep - that worked.

The fella on the right is JP Arencibia, catcher for the Toronto Blue Jays. He's kinda my favourite ;)

Last Saturday, the Blue Jays kicked off what they call their "Winter Tour" which is supposed to help endear them to all Canadians, not just those of us in and around Toronto. We only have one MLB team left in Canada so the Jays kind of represent an entire country, not just one city. That's the spin, anyway.

So to kick off this tour, they held a four-hour clinic at the Rogers Centre for 200 kids. We registered our kids as a Christmas gift and we're so glad we did. Our two guys love baseball. They love hockey as well, but baseball seems to be the main focus at the moment. The clinic ROCKED. The kids moved from one station to the next in groups of about 25 and were taught by members of the Canadian national baseball team, Blue Jays coaches, four of the Blue Jays players themselves (Arencibia, Brett Lawrie, Ricky Romero and Casey Janssen) and a few members of the World Series winning team from back in the 90's (Pat Tabler and Duane Ward).

Arencibia isn't just my favourite...my youngest loves him too. Wearing an Arencibia t-shirt and being brave enough to walk up to him and say "I like you" earned him this:

I have better ones, but I prefer not to post my kids faces on my blog so this is just an example of the awesomeness of the day. My son told me he was never going to wash his hands again because JP touched him. Cutest thing ever. All the kids went home with autographs and memories of an experience playing with their idols that they'll never forget.

It was such a great event. If you live near Toronto and your kids like baseball, watch for this again next year. Even better, the money raised went to Toronto amateur baseball to help register underprivileged kids in the sport. This team has turned into a real class act. Good job, Jays.

Thankful Thursday - Rain

2012-01-12T21:07:00.001-05:00

I don't know if this makes me unusual, but I kind of like a rainy day once in a while. Especially in January when the alternative is the heavy white stuff I have to shovel. Rainy days in January really aren't so bad.

I spent an entire winter in Vancouver many years ago, and it's not lost on me what 35 straight days of rain can feel like. Don't get me wrong - the sun is welcome here too! But today I had a lot of driving to do and I was super thankful that all the precipitation today was NOT snow.

I'm also very thankful for online shopping because all the driving I did today (to fabric stores) produced absolutely ZERO success and since it IS supposed to snow tomorrow, I'll be able to peruse some online fabric shops from the comfort of my very own couch.

See how I just turned two negatives into positives there? I'm starting to get the hang of this gratitude thing :)

Featured on Involving Color

2012-01-11T19:59:00.001-05:00

Thanks so much to Jena for featuring my kitchen on her site, Involving Color!

I love the concept of Jena's site. She explains it best so I'll just paste her words here:

"I started this site because I love how paint color can transform a room, but I was having a hard time finding inspiration for real rooms. I created the paint galleries and room galleries to be an easy to browse resource for just that."

Such a great idea! So many of us see ideas in a magazine but are unsure of how to make them work in our real-life homes. Jena's site provides those real-life examples and I'm so glad to be included.

Head on over to Involving Color now and be inspired :)

Thankful Thursday - Pinterest

2012-01-05T17:13:00.001-05:00

If you read my Happy New Year post, you'll know that I'm trying to turn over a new, more positive leaf this year. Which doesn't just mean less complaining, but also more expression of gratitude. I thought about starting a daily gratitude journal, of sorts, but I also know myself - and if I put that kind of pressure on myself DAILY I'll probably balk at the whole thing. And I don't want to do that. So I decided to start Thankful Thursdays here on the blog. Sometimes I'll write heart-warming things about my family or something lovely like that, and other Thursdays I'll write about materialistic, fun things like....Pinterest! Yes, today I'm really thankful for Pinterest :)

We're starting our master bathroom reno (or at least part of it) soon and in the meantime, I'm also working on prettying up the dining room. And instead of having files upon files of paper torn from magazines (like I had when we started the kitchen), this time all of my inspiration photos are neatly stored in my Pinterest boards. It's actually silly how happy this makes me.

Pinterest has also made it a lot easier for me to find inspiration photos in the first place. I subscribe to Canadian House & Home magazine, which I love, but before Pinterest, if it wasn't in that mag, I probably didn't see it. It's not that I don't love magazines, I do. It's more that I'm a magazine hoarder and it's dangerous for me to have more than one at a time coming into the house (I know this from experience). I can't seem to throw them away. So you can see how Pinterest is helping my organizational efforts in this house.

At the moment, I'm busy pinning wall molding inspiration photos for my dining room. The walls in that room are a blank slate at the moment. Since we moved in, I've known that some molding of any kind would help that room out big-time, but I can't seem to decide what I want. I'm hoping looking at a bunch of inspiration photos will help me....whatever I pin the most is likely what I'm most interested in subconsciously. See how I'm making this work for me? ;)

Here are a few images I've pinned recently (direct links to the image owner are in the captions, if available) :

From houseandhome.com

I love the walls in the above photo, but that detailed panel molding is a bit beyond my meagre DIY abilities. But I think I could achieve something similar. And the key for me in this room is that the entire wall is painted the same colour. The molding adds some texture to the wall, but not contrast. I like it a lot.

From bhg.com

This molding I probably could do myself. And if I painted it the same colour as the wall, I could achieve a similar look to the first photo.

Then there's the white on the bottom/colour on the top look:

from apartmenttherapy.com

This look might be my favourite, if only because it's kind of the best of both worlds. There's lots of colour, but it's broken up by the wainscotting painted in white. And it doesn't limit my options for hanging artwork on the upper half of the wall.

I love how just going through my Dining Room Pinterest board helped me already. Thanks Pinterest!

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T10:30:00.001-05:00

Whether you celebrate Christmas or another holiday (or none at all), I hope you've had some time over the past few weeks to just enjoy your family and relax. I know I did.

And while I haven't been posting, I've been busy planning some things for 2012 that will show up here starting in just a few weeks. We're almost ready to pull the trigger on our master bathroom renovation. And I have dining rooms on my mind, but more on that later.

I'm not really a New Year's Resolution maker. I prefer to check in with myself at various times throughout the year, thinking about what's working for me, our family etc. But since resolutions are in the air, I'll share what I'm working on.

For the past three or four months, I've been focused on my health and getting back into good physical shape. I've always been pretty athletic but for the past few years, kind of fell out of my active habits. So I've been working on making regular exercise a habit again.

It's also really important to me to focus on what's great and positive in my life because:

Our family is very fortunate and we have a really great life; and
Because I believe what you focus on grows.

I'll be the first to admit I haven't always had this kind of outlook. I can be a bit of a "black hat" at times, jumping to conclusions about why something won't work rather than trying different ways to overcome obstacles. But as I get older, I have less time for complaining and negativity. This doesn't mean I'll never complain. But I want to become more constructive about my complaining ;). I want to practice being more grateful. If I point out a negative to myself, I want to follow it up with a way to turn that negative around....or work with it so it doesn't bug me so much anymore.

From Restoredstyle.com

Over the past while, I've really begun to notice a lot of complaining and negativity in my close social circle - and it really gets me down. The biggest complainers are, from the outside looking in, really fortunate, healthy, relatively wealthy and smart people with great kids and lives many people can only dream about. And yet the negativity and stress in their lives is overwhelming. I'm really sad for these friends that they live with so much self-imposed stress. Everyone has real life stresses and everyone will eventually go through something trying, sad, or even seemingly unbearable. So I'm pointing this out not to be critical, rather because if I looked at myself from the outside, my complaints would also appear the same way. And I don't want to be that person.

So I guess if I'm resolving anything today, it's to be more positive and appreciative in my daily language and activities.

How about you? Do you have any resolutions? I would love to hear. Until then, THANKS for reading my little blog :)

My kitchen - featured on Remodelaholic

2011-12-31T16:02:00.001-05:00

I was thrilled when Cassity from Remodelaholic asked if I would like to have my kitchen reno post featured on her blog. After all, that was my very first post on this blog. And I'm pretty happy with the big impact a few small changes made to the overall look of our kitchen. I'm really glad Cassity thought our little project worthy of sharing on her site.

I read Remodelaholic daily and have picked up all kinds of good ideas from her site, including finding favourite new blogs amongst the many she has featured. And have you seen the ADORABLE play kitchen she built for her own kids? Wow. Makes me wish my kids were younger again.

We still have quite a bit to do in our kitchen - this was only an interim kind of reno. The cabinets are getting old, the floors need to be redone, we'll eventually replace the appliances and I would LOVE to have the bulkead (that runs around the perimeter of the upper cabinets) removed to accommodate taller upper cabinets. But those changes are a long while in the future. For now, we love the fact that the kitchen is no longer orange and pink. And the layout is really functional. It's also great for dinner parties! Our friends all sit around the island and drink/snack while I cook and I never feel left out of the fun.

Our kitchen before/after:

Head over to Cassity's site to read more. Thanks again Cassity!

Thankful Thursday - The Jumbled Thoughts Edition

2011-12-22T10:13:00.002-05:00

I started this blog on November 10 after months (years really) deliberating about whether I really wanted to do this....what it would be about....would anyone read it....etc. etc. Since then, I've posted 32 times and have found some really great new (to me) blogs I'd never seen before and even made a few new friends along the way. A pretty successful month!

I have a confession to make....this ain't my first rodeo. Blogging, that is. This is actually the fourth blog (the others were mostly related to photography) I've started since 2004 when I first started my photography business and discovered the world of blogging in the first place. It's also my favourite of the four and I'm sure this one's gonna stick :)

This is partly to do with some lovely ladies who have been very kind to me and encouraging of my little blog since I started it so I wanted to say a big thanks to them for that. Starting with:

FlutterFlutter: Rosa posted my first ever comment on this blog so I want to thank her first :) I love her blog...always inspiring especially her fabulous tutorial about how to make your own Juju hat! She sells them too so be sure to visit her Etsy shop :)

Lynne Knowlton: Fun and inspiring with beautiful photos of her amazing travels and design projects, this is a must-visit blog. I laugh right along with Lynne and share her outlook on so many things. She's a super-supportive bloggy friend and an inspiration to anyone on how to live with difficult circumstances with grace and humour.

Bungalow 960: Shannon cracks me up. I love her writing style and that you never know what topic she'll be writing about on a given day. It's always a fun surprise when a new post from her shows up in my reader. Shannon has been super-supportive of this little blog and always comments even on my most boring of posts. Thanks Shannon :)

One House One Couple: Love the concept of Lisha and Kyle's blog - they're taking the reader through a day-by-day (almost) tour of a house they bought, renovated and flipped in 2008. I'm loving seeing some of the transformations and can't wait to see what they do with the rest of the house. Lisha stops by every time I post and for that, I'm so grateful!!

I'm going to make Thankful Thursday a habit because hey - there really can't be enough gratitude in the world, can there? It helps me focus on all the good stuff in the world and in my life Sometimes I'll write about people, other times I'll write about things. Like this, found through Pinterest, which cracked me up:

In any case, I'm sure I'll never run out of things to post about on Thursdays!!

A Gift - but not from me

2011-12-21T17:53:00.002-05:00

I love browsing all the creativity that abounds on the internet. It can be such an inspiring place sometimes.

I didn't make any Christmas crafts this year - not even one.

But this lovely lady did - and she's sharing it with her readers so hop on over if you'd like a printable PDF copy of Angela Hardison's Joy to the World print:

I love the colours and the message.

And that Angela decided to share it with us. Thanks Angela and Merry Christmas :)

On grief, chickadees and other pretty things

2011-12-16T12:54:00.001-05:00

This time of year is hard for me now. Amongst the pretty lights, yummy treats and anticipation of the 25th, there is also a whole lot of missing going on. I lost my dad just over a year ago to brain cancer which, not unlike other cancers, is a terrible thing. It's particularly awful because it's like suffering a massive, unrecoverable stroke and dying of cancer all at once. The other thing about it is that often, by the time it causes symptoms, there is very little time left. That's how it was for my dad - only 51 short days from diagnosis to his last breath.

He was hospitalized for that entire time. Three different hospitals, too many doctors and nurses...all with the same long face as they watched us grasping at hope that wasn't real. They knew better, it just took us all a while to come to grips with it. We dealt with some of it with ridiculous humour...drawing silly pictures for our dad on the nurses' update white board at the foot of his bed....discussing (almost seriously) performing his surgery ourselves with butter knives following four long days of delays in the surgical schedule. But mostly there were a lot of tears because there really wasn't much time for anything else.

In the past year, I've heard many times that "time heals all wounds" or some other such thing. The few friends I have who have travelled this road before me were honest....no it doesn't. And for the most part, they were right. I don't think this one will ever "heal". There honestly was a time last year when I felt I would never stop crying - never smile again (awful!) and fortunately, that has mostly passed. I still go to sleep crying some nights and wake up in tears other mornings, but those times are fewer and farther between thankfully.

For a while (and still) I felt a desperate need to connect with my dad - to know everything is OK even though it really isn't. Because that's what dads do when you're sad, right? They're strong and they hold your hand and they help you feel better. Only mine can't anymore. So what now?

Enter my chickadee friend.

By: Allison Trentelman - NatureMandalas on Etsy

Behind our house is a small forest so we always have lots of birds, squirrels, bunnies etc around. The kids love cardinal and blue jay sightings especially in the winter when they stand out against the snow. Sometime around last February or March, a crazy little chickadee started coming to our back windows and smashing his wings and beak against the glass - almost like he was trying to get our attention. I was worried he'd hurt himself so I closed the shutters. He flew to the next open window...and the next....as I continued to try and set him straight. I didn't want a brain-damaged chickadee on my hands and he was insistent! Incidentally, I had never before seen a chickadee in our backyard.

For a few days this went on and when he realized I wasn't inviting him in, he'd fly off back into the forest. He would disappear for weeks at a time then reappear in the same way...desperately trying to break through our windows, flapping like mad and banging the windows with his beak.

The last time I saw him that spring was on my birthday. My husband is usually not here at breakfast on school days but this day he was so I have another adult witness! My chickadee was back, banging on the backyard windows. We moved into our dining room to eat breakfast (the boys had prepared pancakes for my special brekkie!). Suddenly, there was the chicakdee at the dining room window. Like he knew we were there.

I didn't see him again until months later - on the one-year anniversary of my dad's death. I was having a particularly crappy day and was sitting in the ugly orange chair in my bedroom window (I honestly NEVER sit there) feeling sorry for myself when I heard the familiar tap-tap-tap over my shoulder. There he was. In my upstairs window. Right where he knew he'd see me. I am SURE my dad sent him. I know that sounds like the most crazy-ass thing ever, but I have witnesses to this crazy bird's behaviour and the timing of his visits. Grief can do funny things to people ;)

Anyway, I suddenly remembered that I'd had the above photo, by NatureMandalas' Allison Trentelman in my Etsy favourites for probably the past two years. I've done some mandala work with my own photos (my twitter profile photo at the moment, is one) and have admired Allison's work from afar. I just love her quiet, painterly style. Right then, I bolted from my chair, logged onto my computer and purchased two chickadee prints from her. They arrived a few weeks later and they're absolutely beautiful. I'm looking for frames right now and I think they'll will hang in my dining room. Every time I look at them, even unframed, I smile. No tears, just smiles. Almost as though my dad is actually holding my hand telling me it's all OK.

That was the last time I was visited by my little chickadee.

This was a heavy post. So to lighten things up, and in the interests of not letting any more Etsy favourites sit unacknowledged in my favourites, here are a few others I love:

siiso on Etsy

FrancesPhotography on Etsy - Frances Seward

budanART on Etsy - Mandy Budan

Thanks for visiting. I promise more fun around here from now on :)

janet

Painting a stair railing - one baluster at a time

2011-12-13T19:16:00.001-05:00

I don't suppose there's any other way to paint stair rail balusters except one at a time, unless I used a sprayer. But since I have carpeted stairs that isn't happening. Anyway, my point is that it's taking a really loooonnnng time. Since I posted a preliminary version of our home project to-do list the other day, I thought I'd show you one of the in-progress jobs.

I started this a few months ago, and then got sidetracked by a bad back. I did manage to get half the balusters primed so I've made some progress, but I haven't been able to tackle them again since. But this will be a good winter-time-stuck-in-the-house kind of job. There are lots of balusters. I don't even want to count.

Here's a before photo of the stairway (first 2 photos were taken before the previous owners moved out - not our furniture):

We would really love to remove all that carpet, but that's not in the cards anytime soon. I've thought about just removing the carpet on the stairs and filling, sanding, painting the likely paint-grade pine that's under the carpet. But that seems like a daunting task so I'm steering clear of that project for the moment.

I put off even painting the balusters and hand rail, thinking all of that wood would have to be sanded before it could be painted. Zinsser Bull's Eye 1-2-3 Primer/Sealer to the rescue! It's sticking like crazy so far and I think even just primed it's a whole new look:

Certainly not pretty yet, but we'll get there! Even just having the vertical trim parts painted has lightened things up dramatically. If you look at the top right of this last photo, you can see where I stopped priming ;)

The plan includes:

making the hand rail a darker colour - not quite black but likely a pretty dark brown. I'm just researching whether or not I would be better to go with paint or if there's another product that might work better.
painting the walls (this is still the previous owner's colour)
hanging a gallery wall of sorts on the wall up the stairs.

That is my grandma and grandpa's secretary desk in the background. My aunt had it refinished and we've owned it for about 10 years now. It might see a re-do in the future too.

If you've done a project like this before, please give me your tips! Did you sand/stain? Or prime/paint without staining? I would really rather not sand that entire railing, but I don't want to do this project twice. Back to priming and researching.

Photo Challenge Hiatus

2011-12-12T10:33:00.002-05:00

What was I thinking? Starting a 30-day photo challenge in the weeks leading up to Christmas? I really thought I'd be able to stick to it, and maybe if it had been a habit before now, I might have. But truthfully, it has been a tough thing to fit into my day along with all the extra holiday stuff we have going on right now.

That coupled with the fact that BOTH my kids have been sick not once, but twice in that past two weeks has meant little sleep and therefore, few creative ideas.

So I'm not throwing in the towel, but I am going to re-start the project after Christmas. Maybe after Boxing Day, in fact. I hate quitting so this decision bothered me, but hey - this is my own project. I can make the rules!

I feel better already ;)

"Tangerine Tango" - Pantone Colour for 2012

2011-12-10T12:44:00.001-05:00

I feel a little funny writing this post, because I'm not really a trend-watcher. I'm not all that interested in the design industry as such, although I do really appreciate good interior design and decorating. But I definitely have my own sense of what I love and can comfortably live with and don't tend to be a trend follower. This hasn't always been the case, but as I get older (and have made enough mistakes) and am more comfortable in my own skin, I'm also more than OK with saying, "yeah that might be cool right now but I'm just not feeling it."

I'm pretty happy with Pantone's choice for next year though, because I've been trying to include this (or versions of it) as an accent colour in our master bedroom. Up til now, it hasn't been that easy to find in decor stores. So I'm doing a little happy dance that I'll see a lot more of it in the coming months! I am still going to recover the orange chair in our bedroom though - mostly because it's vinyl,and it's old and a bit dirty. But I may choose a print with some of this colour in it.

I love how this colour works with light blues and greens - some turquoises - and also that it's not ultra-feminine like some of the lavenders and pinks we've been seeing lately. My husband is not such a fan of those and it's his bedroom too. So I think this warm, reddish orange is a nice compromise.

What about you? Do you like this colour? Are you a trend watcher or does this news just make you yawn and fall asleep?

Christmas Cheer @ Life in Grace

2011-12-09T11:16:00.001-05:00

The other day I said I was going to link up my favourite Christmas morning recipe to Edie's Christmas Cheer Party at Life in Grace. Then I realized I can't photograph it because we only EVER have it on Christmas morning!

So, after searching online, I found a great photo from a website called Canadian Parents AND I learned that this recipe is somewhat of a Canadian tradition. I honestly had never heard that. Although everyone we've ever made it for (my in-laws and neighbours/friends I've shared the recipe with) are total converts and have had nothing else for Christmas morning breakfast since trying it. It's really that good.

It has an unfortunate name, in my opinion. "Christmas Morning Wife Saver" brings out the argumentative feminist in me, but I won't get into that today because this is Edie's party and I never talk about politics at parties ;)

Without further ado, here is Christmas Morning Wife Saver:

This is a pretty low-res photo so I can't enlarge it more than this. But you get the idea. Here's the recipe:

16 slices of white bread (if you can fit 16 slices into this recipe, congratulations. I usually use around 12 I think?)
16 slices of back bacon ("Canadian bacon" if you're American)
Sharp cheddar cheese (I'll say to cover the bacon layer, but use your judgement based on how much cheese you like)
6 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 - 1 tsp dry mustard
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup green pepper, finely chopped (I've left out the onions and green peppers for my kids and it's still great)
1-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
3 cups whole milk
dash of Tabasco
1/4 lb of butter
Special K or crushed Corn Flakes for the top

1) In a 9x13 greased glass baking dish, put 8 pieces of bread to cover the dish entirely (like I said...I can't fit 8). Cover the bread with slices of back bacon. Lay slices of cheddar on top of the bacon and cover with the remaining slices of bread so that it looks like sandwiches.

2) In a bowl, beat eggs and add salt + pepper. To the egg mixture, add dry mustard, onion, green pepper, Worcestershire sauce, milk and Tabasco. Pour over sandwiches, cover and refrigerate overnight.

3) In the morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees (F). Melt 1/4 lb of butter and pour over the top of the sandwiches, covering as much of them as possible. Sprinkle Special K or crushed Corn Flakes on top.

4) Bake uncovered for an hour while you open presents!

5). Let sit 10 minutes before serving.

Hope you enjoy it!

I need a plan

2011-12-08T10:39:00.001-05:00

Feeling a little frazdraggled today. I don't know a better word so I made one up. I like to give myself that kind of freedom every now and then ;)

I'm a little overwhelmed with all of the projects that need doing around here, and the money and time required to get them done. Buying a house that needs a fair bit of work sounds really great when you say things to yourself like, "We can redo it and really make it OURS," until the romance of it all is lost in estimates that exceed your budget and DIY projects that are beyond your meager abilities.

Yesterday, we got a third quote on our master bath renovation. What's becoming clear is that we ~~need to learn how to embezzle money~~ can't really afford the bathroom of our dreams. Right now, at least. And yet, this isn't a project we want to take on again anytime soon, so we're having a bit of a merry-go-round debate about needs vs. wants and how we can compromise yet still have a room we both love.

Then, I have the great 2012 art-framing project. I say 2012 because there's no way I'll get to it this year. But the mismatched frames and unframed prints litter the house in a very unattractive way so it bugs me that I won't get to it for a bit.

For the past year, we've also been slowly acquiring furniture pieces that we need in one spot or another. I "love" these pieces in their finished state. Problem is that state only exists in my mind right now because I bought most of them via kijiji and they need to be painted/stained/I'm-not-even-sure-what yet before I can love them truly. We have unloaded a few pieces via kijiji or garage sale that just didn't work in this house. So at least that goes in the win column :)

I think the problem is that I don't have a plan as to how and when to accomplish these things. When I worked full time in marketing, this kind of thing was easy. I had an ongoing "To-Do" list and people who were expecting my To-Do's to get To-Done. Now that all of my projects are self-directed, I'm giving myself too much freedom to let them slide.

So here's where it ends. Funny thing about me - I have an insane need to cross things off of lists. I've even been known to make a list of things I've completed just so I could have the pleasure of crossing them off. Or putting a check mark beside them (although the crossing-off is infinitely more satisfying). I don't blame you if you're disinclined to read through the following list. It's really just for me, and I'll likely add to it over time. I need to write it all down so I can start attacking these projects one at a time.

Before I start the list, here are some photos for those who don't like reading other people's lists:

This is a chair I've had since my parents sold our family cottage. It's orange vinyl and has a matching ottoman/stool! It's pretty comfy, is a nice size and has huge sentimental value to me so I'm planning to reupholster it.

This is one of our bedside tables. I found both for $35 (total) on Kijiji. The other one is more of a small dresser, really. Marginally taller, wider and has three drawers instead of bookshelves. They are great, but they need refinishing and some new, sparklier hardware (see? Just made up another word).

I found this vanity on Kijiji because I wanted somewhere to put my makeup (not that I wear much), brushes, other assorted do-dads that isn't the bathroom counter. And I think it's pretty. But not like this. I plan to paint it and change the mirror, again to something more sparkly/twinkly. And I'll need a different stool because this one is too big. And it's fuschia. I'm actually going to slipcover it and move it (and it's identical mate) into my son's room.

Here's the mirror I might use for the vanity (above). I bought it about six months ago at HomeSense. It's currently in our powder room and I love it. But as you can see below, it's a little big over that small pedestal sink and it's too close to the pretty light fixture that I love and am NOT changing again.

This cedar chest belonged to my great aunt. It's actually cedar so it's great for winter sweaters etc. I'm not sure what to do with it yet, so it's on the list too:

If boring lists offend you, avert your eyes now:

- Master bathroom reno
- recover orange chair and stool in MBR (master bedroom)
- paint vanity in MBR, find a new mirror and chair/stool to go with it
- paint cedar chest in MBR
- list huge high-boy dresser on Kijiji and find a lower, 9-drawer dresser to replace it
- chandelier for MBR
- bed skirt for MBR
- Move powder room mirror to MBR and get new powder room mirror
- install shelf in powder room (I already have it)
- organize unframed photos and decide which to frame
- sort through empty frames and give away those that don't work; spray paint others
- frame and hang everything that makes it through the last two list items
- new kitchen floor
- replace all the "boob" lights left in the house
- paint boys' bathroom cabinets, install new counter, sink and faucet, paint walls
- install some sort of panelling in son #2's room, hang prints on his walls, paint his dresser, make shelving for his trains, find him a desk (Kijiji?)
- run cable to opposite wall in family room so we can rearrange the furniture
- make pillows for living room
- paint living room
- paint dining room; install molding
- finish painting stair handrail and pickets
- paint lower hall, stair walls and upper hall
- replace tiles in entryway
- paint and stencil wall in entryway
- new furniture piece in entryway with storage and new mirror
- new french doors from entryway to hall, and hall to living room (they don't match and are right next to one another currently)

This will be an ongoing list. There is a lot more to add, but I'm getting a headache just thinking about it!

Hope you have a frazdraggle-free day!

Holiday bokeh party post

2011-12-08T00:02:00.000-05:00

I've recently stumbled upon Darcy's blog, Life With My 3 Boybarians, and I'm glad I did. She's hosting her 2nd annual "Holiday Bokeh Party" today and I have some shots I was taking anyway for my own 30-Day Photo Challenge. So I think I'll link some up to her party. I didn't post a Challenge photo on Dec 7 so I'll do another today to make up for it :)

We decorated our Christmas tree last night and got out the snowglobe collection (such as it is....we're still ~~hoarding~~ collecting!). I thought the reflective glass and the lights in the background would make for a pretty image. So here are my favourites:

DIY sweater pillow

2011-12-06T19:08:00.001-05:00

This isn't a new idea...I'm sure you've seen throw pillows made from old sweaters all over the internet - or at least on Pinterest. But I'm posting this because this particular sweater pillow has saved my sanity for the past week while I've had two boys home sick (at various times). So that has to be worth something ;)

About two months ago, my mom was lamenting that she had shrunk her favourite wool sweater by including it in a regular wash cycle with warm-hot water. It was a really pretty sweater so I don't blame her for being ticked off. Instead of being a good daughter and empathizing with her plight, my immediate response was, "Can I have it?"

It just so happens the sweater was the same colour as a pillow I already on our bed had from Pottery Barn, and I've been looking for something similar but not identical to bring a little more of that colour into our room. I'll preface all of this by saying this coral/reddish/orangish colour is really tough to photograph digitally. All reds are hard, actually. So these are all reading a little bit darker than the actual colour - but it's very close..

Here's the sweater before:

The buttons are kind of pearly and delicate - really pretty.

Anyway, I took it home and got to work figuring out how to turn it into a pillow.
This wasn't the easiest transformation because the sweater was pretty small and I needed to lose quite a lot of the material off the top of the sweater to get a straight top edge to the pillow. I started by sewing the "V" at the front closed and removing the sleeves from the sweater. I saved the sleeves because I wanted to use those buttons at the wrist:

Then I turned the sweater inside out and sewed the bottom closed as well as the arm holes, trying to square off the sides as much as possible:

Finally, I turned the sweater right-side-out again and put the pillow inside, sewing the top seam closed by hand. Then, I removed the buttons from the sleeves and sewed them onto the front of the pillow. I have a huge supply of thread in many different colours lying around because ~~I'm a quilter~~ I took a quilting course about 12 years ago with a friend. And I have two unfinished quilts stored away along with hundreds of dollars worth of quilting supplies. It wasn't tough to find coordinating thread for the sweater and buttons:

Finally....here's my new pillow on the bed with its friends:

It looks a little pink here, but it's really more a dark coral.

And as if a new pillow wasn't enough, I realized I could make myself some wrist warmers with the sleeves I had cut off. The arms of the sweater had little V's like the neckline did, so I just sewed part of the "V" closed at the end, and made a thumb hole. Instant wrist warmers!

I must admit I feel a little like Caroline Ingalls right now.

Photo Challenge Day 9 - it snowed! And a photo tip too

2011-12-06T11:59:00.001-05:00

It happened. I guess we can't outrun it all winter. It snowed last night...just enough to make things kind of pretty this morning, but in another hour or so it will all have melted.

Tried to capture a bit of it before it's gone again:

A friend asked today if I could post camera settings with these photos because she's trying to learn how to achieve certain effects with her own camera. Ask and you shall receive!

Keep in mind you can never duplicate settings because light conditions are never the same the next time you try to re-create a photo. In fact, I could go outside again right now and take this same shot, and my settings would be different. However, you CAN learn from the relationship between the ISO, aperture and shutter speed of a given shot.

So with that in mind, here are the deets:

Canon EOS 5D
100 mm f/2.8 macro lens
Aperture Priority (AV on a Canon, A on a Nikon)
f/2.8
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/160 of a second

I wanted the focus to be on the drips of water as the snow melts off the evergreen tip. To do this, I had to separate the water droplets from the background. The best way to do THAT is blur the background out as much as possible. So I chose the largest aperture my lens will allow (f/2.8) on Aperture Priority (which means my camera will select the shutter speed) and I chose ISO 100 because I wanted the least noise possible in my image. It was bright enough outside that I could still get a reasonably fast shutter speed at that ISO. But if your shutter speed falls to where you can't handhold the camera and still avoid camera shake, increase the ISO and the shutter speed will increase too. I had just returned from a shoulder workout at the gym and my arms were shaking - I needed a high shutter speed to prevent camera shake! Seriously, my arms are still shaking ;)

My friend is trying to take photos of her kids with the kids in focus and the Christmas lights blurred in the background. This is the way to achieve that shot. Try for low ISO, fastest shutter possible (unless you have a tripod - increase the ISO to get a faster shutter speed if not) and lens opened up as high as it will go (f/4 - f/5.6 on most consumer-level lenses). Sit the kids a number of feet in front of the lights you're trying to blur (the further the better), focus on the kids' faces, and you should be good to go! Oh and no flash! Turn those on-camera flashes off whenever possible!

A fantastic book for anyone who wants to take their camera off "auto" is Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. It's very well-written and has step-by-step instructions on how to achieve different photographic effects. I highly recommend it!

Photo Challenge - Day 8 (still raining)

2011-12-05T14:55:00.001-05:00

Another soggy, dark day here today.

Perfect for this:

If the fire is going, this dog is in front of it. Every. Single. Time.

Life in Grace - Christmas Cheer holiday recipe link party

2011-12-05T08:06:00.001-05:00

I'm sure you've read Life in Grace, but if you haven't, definitely head over there. There is so much depth and soul in her writing. And I could stare at the photos of her kitchen reno for days. I'm sure many people have it pinned in their Pinterest boards without even knowing it.

This week, Edie is hosting a Christmas Cheer link party: holiday recipes only! Today is appetizers, Wednesday is sweets/desserts, and Friday is breads, breakfasts and drinks. I'm going to link there on Friday with our family's traditional Christmas morning breakfast. It's not only delicious, but you assemble it the night before so that Christmas morning there's nothing to worry about but rubbing the sleep from your eyes because your kids have woken you at the crack of ridiculous o'clock.

Head over now though, because there are already some fabulous appetizer recipes posted.

Vision

2011-12-04T20:14:00.001-05:00

This is a must watch. Amazing that he takes such pleasure in art that is certain to be destroyed - his vision is amazing. He is even able to love the results when someone tries to destroy his art, and looks on it as a collaboration of sorts.
This attitude should be infectious....

Photo Challenge - Day 7 (the photo that almost wasn't)

2011-12-04T18:53:00.001-05:00

I almost threw in the towel today. Well not really, but I almost missed taking a photo today. We had a busy day with the kids, and it was raining, and it gets dark so early these days, and the dog ate my homework, and....well you get the picture.

I decided to work with what I had and got this:

This is a house in my neighbourhood with all it's Christmas lights glowing....in the pouring rain. It's actually three photos overlaid upon one another which gives the lights that glowy look that we often see through rainy car windows or if you squint your eyes. This weather is reminding me of the winter I spent in Vancouver. I hope I didn't just jinx us into 25 cm of snow by typing that....

Photo Challenge - Day 6

2011-12-03T16:50:00.001-05:00

We've still got a lot of this going on today:

So there hasn't been a lot of focus on photography. Or the 17,653 projects I'm close to finishing.

I decided on a colour theme today. Blue and green:

The first shot is of a few coloured paper bags shot on an angle, and the second is a green ceramic flower pot reflecting something blue from behind me.

Hope everyone's healthy in your home!

"Pinterest"ing recipes

2011-12-02T14:22:00.001-05:00

One of the things I've noticed in my Pinterest travels is the number of people who say "I pin so many recipes and never try them!" I guess I'm weird because I'm the exact opposite but because of that, I've found some really great new recipes lately that my whole family has loved.

A big favourite was the "Crispy Southwest Chicken Wraps" from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.
I made these two weeks ago and they were a huge hit with everyone. So much so that I'm making them again tonight. I'll admit now that I sometimes have a tendency to overdo a recipe that the kids liked - to the point where they no longer like it. I am going to try hard not to have that happen here because this recipe is also easy!

Here's a photo from Mel's Kitchen Cafe:

I'm kind of a stickler about what our family eats on a regular basis and this would definitely qualify as a treat kind of meal for us, thanks to all the cheese, sour cream and white flour tortillas. But treats are a good thing once in a while. And really...I can't ask them to live on broccoli, quinoa, chia seeds and water alone, can I? (I kid....mostly)

Try this one! Easy, yummy and four thumbs up from our family.

Photo Challenge - Day 5

2011-12-02T13:42:00.001-05:00

Today I'm lucky to even have a photo to post. This is day 5 of my self-imposed challenge, and day 4 of having sick kids home from school. There has been little to no light all week because of rain, and I haven't been able to leave the house during the day. Combined, these don't make an ideal situation for taking photos.

Nothing I shot really worked out the way I wanted it to, and my son is really needy today so I won't have another chance to try again. Instead, I'll post this shot (best one I got today!) as an example of how harsh light can ruin a photo. Anyone out there who is photographing their own kids and families (or objects like in my photo) can use this tip because it's pretty universal.

First the photo:

Overall, I don't mind the shot. I took this in our living room - the chess board was already set up because my sons and husband have a game going that they are planning to finish tonight. There's at least some directional light here which gives shape to the chess pieces and shows depth rather than flat light which wouldn't produce the same shadows and might make the pieces appear a little two-dimensional.

What I don't like are the big white "hot spots" - or areas that are so over-exposed they lack detail - on almost every piece. When you shoot on AUTO in harsh light, this can happen because the camera's meter is reading the overall scene and trying to expose for the whole thing. Here, I have areas of real brightness coupled with areas of dark shadow making it really difficult for my camera to expose for everything properly. So, it "blows out" the really bright areas in order to create a decent overall exposure.

The same thing can happen to people's faces or clothing (you know the typical white shirt and jeans on a beach family photo? A photographer's nightmare!!). Sitting your subject in open shade is a great way to avoid that problem on a sunny day. And if I hadn't used my Canon G10 on auto, I might not have run into this problem. Usually I have it set on Aperture Priority so I didn't even notice until I uploaded the photos that this had happened. I also could have filtered the light a little with a "scrim".

Anyway, there you have it! Someone asked in the comments the other day for photo tips, so I figured a photo mistake of my own was a great place to start. Hope it made sense, but feel free to ask if not. I love geeking out with photography talk ;)

Photo Challenge - Day 4

2011-12-01T14:08:00.001-05:00

It's December 1st so I felt OK about taking the Christmas ornaments out of storage. I know some people have everything decorated by now, but I just can't do it until it's officially December. Truth be told, I get a little tired of the holiday decor after a while. By December 27th, I'm usually so sick of looking at it that I can't wait to pack it all up. And I hate having that feeling. So, I leave it as long as I can.

Here are a few shots of some of my favourite ornaments as I unwrapped them and set them aside, waiting for the tree to go up:

If you look closely, you can see my reflection in the second one.

Rough Linen

2011-12-01T10:48:00.001-05:00

You may already know this if you follow The Art of Doing Stuff, but Karen has posted a giveaway today courtesy of Rough Linen, purveyor of fine linen bedding, tablecloths and other assorted linen goodness.

We need new sheets and I've been coveting Rough Linen's products for a while now. So really, why am I telling you about this contest so you can win??? It's December now and I'm feeling all Christmassy, I guess. And I like helping good people with beautiful products to sell their wares. And really, only about 2.5 people actually know about my blog, so it's all good ;)

So go see Karen's blog to enter. And spend some time there too - you'll laugh til you cry. I often do.

Here are a few Rough Linen items I would love from Santa:

Pretty, yes? We only use cloth napkins in our house, and one can never have too many. I think those would be perfect.

Photo Challenge - Day 3

2011-11-30T14:27:00.001-05:00

Only one photo today...

I went outside to photograph the very limited colour still left in my backyard but I almost froze my butt off!
So this one is it by default!

Good thing I love the colours. I may actually frame this one for our bedroom.

PS....Thank you for respecting my copyright and not printing my photos. If you would like to link to a photo, please just give me a credit :) I sell my prints myself so please inquire if you're interested. Thanks so much!

DIY Photo Art Project - and an introduction to "Diane"

2011-11-30T12:06:00.001-05:00

A few months ago, while searching for something completely unrelated, I found these frames at our local Habitat for Humanity Restore:

They are roughly 16x20 and the opening for the image is about 7x11. They include a nice double mat and the glass was in great shape. I didn't really know what I would do with them yet, but at $12 each for solid wood frames, I couldn't let them stay in the store.

They weren't in perfect shape, but I figured with some sanding and paint I could make them look a lot better. They're a little dinged up and rustic on purpose, not to mention the scratches that aren't meant to be there. So I decided to use them to display some of my favourite images of a trip we took two summers ago to Kincardine, Ontario. The beach images I had in mind would be perfect for a not-so-perfect frame.

First the photos. 7x11 is not exactly a standard size for photos, but I have a really good photo printer (an Epson Stylus Pro 3800) and software that lets me print photos at any size, as long as they'll fit on a maximum 17x22 sheet of photo paper. Luckily for me, two 7x11's fit nicely on a single 13x19 sheet.

Here are the first two images coming out of the printer:

Next I had to take the frames apart so I could spray them with this:

I know it's meant for spraying plastic objects, but it works just fine on wood. And I liked the shimmer it added without making the frame look totally metallic.

At this point, I'd like to introduce Diane. She's a great little helper with my projects. She never complains, and is always there when I need her. Plain and simple, she rocks:

Ah - you thought I meant a PERSON! No, Diane is my trusty "lady" toolbox, bought for me by my awesome husband after I offended his masculine sensibilities one too many times by using a butter knife for a screwdriver. Or was it hammering a nail with the heel of my shoe? I can't remember. In any case, Diane to the rescue.

Pretty much everything I need is in there. I kind of thought, with a name like Diane, this toolbox would come with a secret hiding place for extra "feminine products" or the like, but no...only tools. Anyway, I put Diane to work taking apart the first frame
Removing the hanging wire:

Maybe I still improvised a little....I can't help myself:

I gave the frame a light sanding with a sanding block:

And then I was ready for the first coat of spray paint:

I think I did three light coats, to avoid drips etc and wound up with this:

I may still give it another coat, but for now, I kind of like how the original finish still shows through a bit.

The fisheye photo is of a boiler from an old steam ship called the Erie Belle that sunk just before reaching Kincardine in the late 1800's. Apparently the boiler exploded and four crewmen died. The boiler washed up on the shore and that beach has since been known as Boiler Beach. During my lifetime, as the waters of Lake Huron rose and fell each year, the boiler has been both completely surrounded by water (just a few feet of it poking out) and completely dry and sitting on the beach as it is above.

I have three more frames and three more fisheye photos from the same vacation. When I have them finished and hung on the wall, I'll post an after shot.

Thanks for reading :)

Janet

Spray painting - One lamp down, one to go...

2011-11-29T16:47:00.001-05:00

The weather has just not been cooperating with me for the past few days. I had heard the temps would be hovering around the 12 degree mark (C) so I figured I could finish the spray painting jobs I started during our spring-like weather last week. Well that didn't happen. It was 5 degrees today. So I have a few unfinished projects. Might as well share what I've done so far!

A few weeks ago I was browsing around on Kijiji (is Kijiji in the US? If not, it's like Craigslist) and noticed someone was selling two lamps for $50 total. The lamps were only a year old, the shades were in great condition and I liked the shape of the bases. They're also a really substantial size and I wanted something with some presence for this part of the house. Only problem - they're purple. Nothing a little spray paint wouldn't fix, thought I (not that I don't love purple, it just doesn't go with anything in my house). So I bought them. Here's a before photo:

Taped the bottom and socket area with Frog Tape:

Then I sprayed it with one coat of primer and two coats of Rustoleum Universal All Surface spray paint in Gloss White which gave me this:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. They are sitting on a dresser that I'm using as a console-type piece in my front hallway. I may change the colour again when I decide what to do with this overall hallway area, but for now they work! Well, this one works. The other one is still purple...for now.

30-Day Photo Challenge - Day 2

2011-11-29T16:40:00.001-05:00

It's very rainy and pretty dreary around these parts today. I was a little worried about photo subjects because of the lack of good light when I realized the rain would BE my subject. Gotta go with what you've got sometimes. I decided on some abstracts today. These are through the very rain-covered back windows of my house:

For this last one I slowed the shutter speed way down and moved my camera to create the blur. I love the ghosted effect.

Ok that was fun. Thanks for the creative challenge, rain, but you can go away now :)

30-day Photo Challenge - Day 1

2011-11-28T12:39:00.001-05:00

Now that I've spent the morning choosing a subject to shoot, shooting, uploading and manipulating RAW* files in both Lightroom and Photoshop, I'm starting to question the sanity of a 30-day challenge. Especially when I typed "Day 1" in this post's title. Hmmm....might have to start shooting in JPEG ;)

But that's enough complaining....turns out, it's been a fun morning! I had forgotten how much I like this process and how much fun it can be to try and see the same subject in multiple ways.

On to the photos...

Every year at Christmas time, I buy a new snowglobe. We're starting to accumulate a bit of a collection now, but my kids love them and I think they look really festive. So we continue to ~~stockpile~~ collect. Both my boys are hockey players, so when I saw this snowglobe at Indigo, I couldn't pass it up. I liked the moose version a whole lot more, but I knew the boys would love this one.

These were all shot with my Canon 5D. First with my 100mm f/2.8 macro, and then with my Lensbaby Composer lens with the Soft Focus Optic (I used both the f/2.8 and f/5.6 aperture disks this time).

I absolutely LOVE macro photography. Flowers are my usual subject, but pretty much any subject can be transformed with a macro lens. It's amazing how macro photos can change your perpective of an overall subject - there's often another little world inside that isn't always apparent without looking closer.

I think the Lensbaby soft focus optic was perfect for this subject because it lends a dreaminess that works well with the story this little snowglobe tells. This hockey player in the "snow" is SO Canadian. I don't play hockey, but those who do say there's nothing like playing outside - especially with a light snow falling. I hope these capture that experience.

PS...
* RAW files: For those who aren't photographers, click on this Wikipedia link that explains the RAW file better than I can. It's basically a digital negative that has to be further manipulated and saved as a jpeg in order to print or process. It's an added step in post-processing, but it allows a lot of detail to be saved in the file that would be lost in photo shot as a jpeg - which helps a lot if you're trying to save under and over-exposed photos, for example. Anyway, click the link - I'm starting to ramble! :)

Photo Challenge

2011-11-24T15:14:00.001-05:00

I mentioned in my "About Me" page that I used to be a family/children's photographer. I also did some realtor headshots (and a few other projects) at times too, but my business was mostly focused on families and kids.

Since I closed my business, I really haven't been shooting much (ie. at all). Those who knew me then wouldn't even believe this (because I pretty much ALWAYS had a camera in front of my face), but I've only used my good camera/lenses about five times in the last 2 1/2 years. YEARS! I don't even really know how this happened. And being really honest, I haven't missed it that much until recently.

I think there's something about making your hobby a business that can suck a lot of the fun out of it for some people. And I guess I'm one of those people. The idea of having to take photos took a lot of the love from the process. And every once in a while (although you won't read this anywhere on the internet because all the photographers I read about LOVE their clients), I just didn't have a good rapport with a family and it just made the whole process really icky. I'm sure lots of independent business people secretly feel this way about their clients. And you just have to suck it up and do the work anyway. But I think photography (at least the way I offered it) is a little different because the results come from the photographer's perspective...their feelings...their creativity...their heart, if you will. And if the subject is treating you horribly, it's really hard to muster warm fuzzy feelings sometimes. I'm not sure anyone else really noticed that in my work, but I did. And that was enough.

It's kind of funny that this entry is all about photography and it's the only one so far that I'll post without a photo;) But that leads me to the point of the post....I'm giving myself a photo challenge. And I'm posting it here to light a wee fire under myself. The idea being, if I put it out there, I'll be accountable. Hmmm....didn't I just say having to take a photo is what I didn't like? Well, yes. But because it's become so easy NOT to shoot, I need the push to help me get back into it.

I was going to follow someone else's 30-day challenge - something I pinned on Pinterest. But I decided I would rather shoot what's inspiring to me. So...still a 30-day challenge, but only one other rule/reg: I have to shoot at least one photo per day.

That's it! I'll start on Monday, November 28th and finish on December 28th.

Hopefully this is one of my last photo-free posts!

Plans foiled by weather

2011-11-24T14:56:00.001-05:00

I had planned a little spray-painting project for today, but it just isn't warm enough to paint in the garage today. The next three days promise to be between 11 and 13 degrees (C) though so hopefully I'll be able to get this project finished. That's practically summer weather, considering it's nearing the end of November.

These were to be the spray-paint victims today:

Aren't they pretty? I know...not really ;)
They're going to be red when I'm finished with them, and they're going to hang on my son's bedroom wall. That kid has a ridiculous amount of empty wall space so even though these are fairly large, I think they'll find a happy home in his room.

I originally bought them only to fill some wall space when we were selling House Three (photo below):

They were really cheap at HomeSense and I figured we could use them in a basement or kids' room later. Later is now!

I'm going to spray them red because my son's room needs some more red accents to go with his new red duvet cover. I bought this spray paint, not realizing it's a gloss finish, but I'll try it and see how they look:

Wish me luck!

Fun PD Day activity - even for boys

2011-11-21T09:57:00.001-05:00

Friday was a PD day for my kids (Professional Development day or Professional Activity day - whatever your local school board calls it) and as I could have easily predicted, they woke up at ridiculous-o'clock. I know those of you with teenagers are shaking your heads, knowing that one day I'll be complaining that they won't get out of bed before noon. I know. But on that day, I was really hoping for at least a 7:30-ish kind of sleep-in. Didn't happen.

So by 9:30, they had already been awake for three hours, had exhausted their (roughly) one hour each of screen time (I'll write a post on that another day) and were looking for something to do. Son #2 had been dying to try out a paint-your-own pottery place in our area called Crock-a-Doodle. So off we went in hopes we'd be able to make a few things for Christmas presents while we passed a little time with a fun activity.

I didn't take enough photos while we were there (will take more next time we go), but I did get these (pre-glazing etc):

The yellow round sphere and the blue star are both ornaments for the boys' teachers. The pink heart is actually like a jewelry box or a container for little trinkets. The boys made all the colour and "design" choices, I just helped a little with the wording because writing with the paint "writers" was a little tricky (as you can see from the mess we made on the star ornament).We did hearts and purple dots inside the box too. The purple dots went on a little thick so we had a lot of waiting time while they dried and I crossed my fingers and hoped they didn't drip.

We pick up the finished pieces tomorrow afternoon so I'll be sure to post the "after" photos (glazed and fired) then. For around $40, we made two teacher's gifts and a gift for the boys' grandmother. And had a fun morning together. Both boys really enjoyed this activity (even though son #1 didn't think he would). The studio did a great job of ensuring there are items available that boys would like, so both boys want to go back to make a fighter jet and a piggy bank. They need ceramic fighter jets like they need holes in their heads, but if it helps inspire their creativity, I guess I won't question it ;)

Kitchen layout plans

2011-11-17T20:48:00.001-05:00

In my first kitchen renovation post, I mentioned that we weren't ready to change the appliances quite yet. The reason is that what I'm hoping to do appliance-wise will require some cabinet re-shuffling, shall we say? And we have no "cabinet re-shuffling" budget at the moment, unfortunately. Ideally, by the time we do, I'm hoping to have a bulkhead-re-shuffling budget as well, but I digress...

In the meantime though, I've pinned a photo on Pinterest that is a very good example of what I'd like to do:

A shot of my kitchen from the same angle shows that our layout is very similar to that in the photo:

In my kitchen, above (obviously from before the counter was installed - yikes!), you can see, to the left of giant monstrosity of a fridge, the door to our dining room. I would like to make the following changes to emulate the "inspiration kitchen" photo (layout only):

Move the dining room door to the RIGHT side of the fridge. There is so much wasted, useless space in those upper and lower corner cabinets anyway that I think I'd gain usable space by losing that corner altogether.
Installing double wall ovens where the corner cabinets used to be, as per the inspiration photo.
Adding a counter-depth, built-in fridge in the white monstrosity's current location, surrounded by cabinetry and possibly a small desk (as per inspiration photo) where the dining room door and pantry doors currently are.
Change the stove to a counter-top gas stove which would give us more room for extra pot drawers underneath. And as far as I'm concerned, I can't have enough pot drawers. And not just for pots either. Just like heated car seats...once you have them, you can't go back. I feel the same way about pot drawers ;)

Here's another photo of that entire wall so you get a better idea:

Our kitchen is definitely smaller than the inspiration kitchen, but not by a lot and I think with some minor modifications that layout could work for us!

P.S. I'm definitely a Pinterest addict. If you are too, follow me there at JanetHouseFour (clicking that link should take you right there). Until I can figure out how to add a "follow me on Pinterest" button, that link will have to do!

My son's room - working with an inspiration photo

2011-11-16T13:01:00.001-05:00

As we work on the initial plans for our master ensuite reno, I am also immersed in re-decorating my youngest son's room. And I'm doing something I've never done before to accomplish this - working from an inspiration photo.

This is the photo my son and I both loved/agreed would work perfectly for his room (from decorpad.com):

We were already part-way there with the blue walls, but for a headboard we were still using one of the side rails from his crib (he's almost nine!). It was meant to be used as a headboard (one of those "convertible" cribs), but it was pretty flimsy-looking and he has a large bedroom so we needed something more substantial.

Off to kijiji.com I went, searching for something that would be either similar to the bed in the above photo, or at least would be something we could work with. That very night we found this:

It was solid pine and the owner assured me that the measurements I had given him of my son's mattress were perfect and the bed would work perfectly. He had advertised it as a double and that's what we needed. So my husband picked it up that night. Turns out, it's a queen. But we're keeping it because it really is a great size for the room. Being totally honest? We're keeping it because I had already painted it before we discovered it was really a queen ;)

My son and I went to Rona the next day to choose a paint colour. We knew we wanted black, but not stark black so it took us about 10 minutes to find just the right one. For a kid (and a boy), my son has a good eye for colour. "Nope, that one's too green. That one's too red," he said after looking at chip after chip in the store. He was always right. Gonna be fun for some girl in the future if he's this opinionated about decorating at the ripe old age of eight! We finally settled on Benjamin Moore's Black Tar...the perfect charcoal black for this job, in my son's humble opinion ;)

The first step was to sand and fill all of the obvious scratches, dings and boo-boo's that you can see in the photos above and below. That was a bigger job than I gave it credit for and I was glad when that part was over.

It's getting cool here in Ontario now that fall is in full effect, so we moved the bed up to my son's room for the final two steps: priming and painting. I had primer on hand from another project I'm working on (Zinsser Bull's Eye 1-2-3 Primer/Sealer) so I got right to work on the priming step:

The next day was a beautiful fall day so we opened up the windows and I finished with two coats of the Black Tar paint in a satin finish latex that I mixed with a paint conditioner to help smooth out brush strokes. It's not a perfect job, and certainly doesn't look as good as if I'd had it sprayed, but I'm happy with the results. And so is my son, more importantly. Photos below are:

1) first coat of Black Tar applied (you can see his old cribrail headboard in the background!),
2) A shot of the bed with two coats that show my son's messy LEGO table as I worked around it ;),
3) A shot of the final bed (all made up) taken with my Canon G10, and finally,
4) a shot of the final bed taken with a Nikon D70, for a better perspective.

The last two photos I'm sharing as a bit of a photography lesson and a reminder to myself to stop being lazy. Up until the final photo in this post, all photos were shot with either my camera phone (yuck) or my Canon G10 which is a fantastic little point and shoot, but I've been using it a lot lately out of laziness. I usually don't use flash in my photos (unless they need some fill for shadowed areas) and all of the above were taken with natural light only. However, the final shot was taken from across the hallway, almost in my other son's bedroom with a slightly longer lens to show the true proportions of the bed.

Notice how in the second-to-last photo, the footboard appears very wide and large while the headboard looks far away and smaller. Those are obviously not the true proportions of the bed, and the only way I could truly show that was with a slightly longer lens (55mm) that compresses the distance slightly and shows more true-to-life perspective instead of distorting it, as the 28mm lens did in the earlier photos.

Still to do:

Remember the red stools at the foot of the bed in the original inspiration photo (scroll up)? It just so happens I have two upholstered stools that aren't currently being used! I'm planning to slipcover them in red fabric and sew in a white racing stripe to make them look as close as possible to the inspiration stools.
I'm planning to install some panelling behind the headboard wall because it's a rather large wall and needs a little "something" extra for interest.
Above the headboard, my son wants to install a shelf (where the lighthouse print is now) that will hold trains that belonged to my dad before he died. The trains are really special to my son and I'm thrilled that he wants them featured so prominently in his room!

Stay tuned! Lots of projects left before we're finished :)

Another beautiful kitchen transformation

2011-11-14T09:29:00.001-05:00

I must admit I feel a little lame now, having just posted about my own kitchen cabinet transformation. Lame, because after feeling so proud of how inexpensively we transformed our cabinets by sending them out to be sprayed, I read this post this morning on Jenny's blog, Evolution of Style. I am so impressed! Here's a before and after photo she posted after spraying her cabinets HERSELF:

What a beautiful job she did (not that her kitchen wasn't beautiful to begin with!). But I agree with her....the light cabinetry really highlights the granite beautifully and brightens the entire space.

Gorgeous job Jenny!

Incidentally, the next step in our kitchen reno is to change out the flooring. I love the tile in Jenny's kitchen :)

Obsessed with shower stall design

2011-11-11T13:02:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago we made a big decision - two years is two years too long to not have a functioning shower in our master ensuite. We are going to renovate our bathroom. Yahoo!

If you thought our kitchen before photos were bad, just wait til you see the ensuite in all of its brown-fixtured glory. I realize having brown fixtures in one's bathroom is totally a first world kind of problem. Really I do. And I'll be the first to admit that we're very fortunate to be able to tackle this reno. But...like most people whose homes are NOT featured on HGTV reno shows, we have a very modest budget for this renovation. The kind of modest that has made a few contractors cock their heads to the side like confused puppies, staring blankly at us as they consider the number. With a few compromises, DIY jobs, patience and a lot of research, I'm confident we'll be successful.

We really like the size of our current shower stall. Too much bigger and I think we'd end up freezing waiting for the space to heat up in the mornings. The shape also works within the layout of the overall bathroom, which also is not changing. We think it's well-planned as-is. So really it's going to be about making it pretty :) I'll post some shots of our entire ensuite in an upcoming post, but here I just want to link to a few shower stall designs I've fallen in love with while searching online (none is realistic for us, but all are beautiful in their own ways):

From bhg.com:

From vintagehome.tumblr.com

That may be the most unique shower stall I've ever seen. Very cool.

And how fabulous is this next one from grahamandco.org:

It's somewhat masculine, but I could live with it!

This next one (shower only) is probably closer to the mark design-wise:

We're thinking simple subway tiles because they're classic and not too expensive, with smaller mosaics on the floor (better traction with smaller tiles beneath the feet). And having just painted our master bedroom in Sarah Richardson's "Fog" (Para Paint), we're tending towards cool colours in the ensuite as well.

I'm waiting for a quote from Home Depot for the basic installation and glass door/walls, and we'll decide from there about tile choices and who is going to install them.

Stay tuned!

My first post - our kitchen, before & after

2011-11-10T15:09:00.000-05:00

Might as well start off my new blog with a doozy of a first post about....kitchens. My kitchen, specifically, including lots of before and after photos. So sit back with a coffee and warm up those fingers. Lots of scrolling in this post, I'm afraid.

Most women I know have a pretty good idea what their "dream kitchen" would look like, if they had their druthers (and an unlimited budget). I am no different, in fact I've got a binder of kitchen ideas torn from magazines that I've been carting around from house to house since about 1999. Mine would have light cabinets (white, but not stark white), a large island at which I imagine my family eating and/or my boys doing homework, a combination of finishes like dark and painted wood, stainless steel appliances or, who am I kidding, completely concealed appliances. The closest we ever came to this look was House Two which we had built from plans. It was a large, beautiful, bright kitchen, but never quite what I imagined.

So when we moved to House Four and realized we could rather easily incorporate a few of our want-to-haves, we were pretty excited. This house is about 20 years old and the kitchen is going to need a big overhaul sometime in the next few years. We couldn't afford to take on a project like that two years ago when we bought this place, so a "for now" renovation would have to do.

You'll see from the before photos below that we had our work cut out for us. I'm certain the dusty rose ceramic tile on the counter tops and backsplash (not to mention the lovely strip of black and pink accent tile in the backsplash) was never intended for anything but a 1980's bathroom, but somehow it wound up in this kitchen. In a big way. Couple that with knotty pine (solid, mind you) cabinets with stain that was taking on an orange hue, and the overall look of this kitchen was a pretty big assault on the eyes.

There was also a lovely bank of plastic, fluorescent cove lighting that wound its way around the ceiling above the upper cabinets - a fly graveyard, as we discovered the day we removed it. Gross.

Here are a few before photos (keep in mind these were taken BEFORE we purchased the home so all furniture etc belongs to the previous owner):

Yeah.

That awful cove lighting was the first to go, exposing the rather unfinished ceiling underneath and more than a few hanging wires. The first project was to close up those holes and fix the rough ceiling so it blended with the rest of the room. We also took down the useless "boob" light that was over the small island, and the ceiling fan that was over the previous owners' kitchen table. These were replaced by four pot lights over the new island area, and the fixture you'll see in upcoming photos which lights up the stove, sink and surrounding counter areas.

Next, we had a kitchen company quote a re-facing job for the entire kitchen as well as building a whole new island with a solid surface top. The quote for the doors alone came in at $8,000 and that was just for a basic, rather ugly white thermofoil door. NOT what we were after at all. If I remember correctly, the island was going to be an additional $8,000 PLUS the counter (items like soft-closing drawers and wood interiors vs metal would be big extras as well).

Remembering we already had wood cabinet doors, I started looking at options for painting the doors. So as not to bore you with the details, we went to Benjamen Furniture Refinishing in Toronto (Sarah Richardson's guy) and he sprayed all of our cabinets and drawer fronts (36 in all) in a sturdy lacquer paint for around $1,200, taxes in. Seriously. They turned out more beautifully than I had imagined and I only had to paint the cabinet boxes to ensure a match (not hard to do). Not sure what he charges now...keep in mind this was in 2009.

While the cabinets were away being sprayed, I tackled removing the horrible pink tile from the backsplash:

Seriously ugly. As was this job. It took me an entire weekend and that was just for the backsplash. The counter would come later. I could barely feel my arms after that and totally get why people charge an arm and a leg for tile removal.

I can't even believe I'm going to post this next photo. Apparently I took it right after lunch - there is crap EVERYwhere. But, it does show what we lived with for a few weeks while waiting for cabinet doors, backsplash tiles, counters and an island to be installed. Yeah, it was bad:

This post is getting ridiculously long so on to prettier photos now...

Fast forward a few weeks and we have the backsplash installed, the island base installed and our cabinet doors back from the painter. Oh happy day:

The end was in sight and believe it or not, we were thrilled even to have a cardboard counter at the island for the few weeks that we had to wait after the granite supplier measured the space. We joked that it was like being out for dinner at a kid-friendly restaurant. Hey kids - a counter you can colour on!!

Finally, the backsplash was grouted and the island counter was installed. I painted the room (which I kind of regret now, more on that next time) and we have the kitchen you see in the following photos:

There is still quite a bit to do, but for now, we love it and the kitchen functions very well. Just as I had hoped, we eat breakfast and lunch at this island. Dinners are usually in the ACTUAL dining room, which is nice because that was a room we rarely used in previous houses. And, my boys do their homework at the island after school while I make dinner. We worried a bit about making the island so large because in doing so, we took away any space for a kitchen table and chairs. But now that we have lived with it for two years, I have no regrets and would do the same thing all over again.

This post is crazy long now, so I'll just end with a few links to the suppliers we used for this project:

Island Cabinetry is KraftMaid from Home Depot (the installer was great and they run a tight ship over there - highly recommend them for reno projects). The door finish I've linked to is not identical, but is the exact profile and very close to our doors. I think ours were cherry and the finish is darker.
Painted cabinetry is a colour match of Benjamin Moore's Timid White .
The cabinet refinisher is Benjamen Furniture Refinishing in Toronto. If you're Canadian and you watch HGTV or even Candice Olson now, you've seen this guy a lot!
The perimeter counter was also from Home Depot and is a laminate (not sure what the colour is but it went well with the granite on the island!).
Knobs and pulls for the entire kitchen were from Lee Valley Tools. They have a huge selection!

We installed a new dishwasher after the Flintstone-era one that was here caught on fire the first week after moving in. But, we haven't tackled the rest of the appliances yet because my plans for those involve an overall reno in the kitchen (more in a future post) so we're making do for now. Everything works great, fortunately.

If you've read this far, you deserve a cookie but after writing this post, I'm way too tired to bake. I'll try to keep the long posts to a minimum from now on :)

Hope you'll check back again sometime and thanks for visiting!