Half-round table: Before and after

From dark and yucky to bright and cheery!  This table was sanded, primed (Kilz latex is great), sanded again, first coat of paint, sanded, darker paint and fabric lining in the drawers, another coat of paint all over and a hit of beeswax to add a little extra sheen and keep the drawers moving smoothly.

Current state of the living room

This is what we're living with right now.  Everything has been pulled out of the front entry way closet and dumped here.  Tomorrow there's more work to be done on the master bathroom (Trevor's tiling the shower, I'm repairing the wall and touching up paint) and the entry way closet will be put back together -- new and improved!

Curb appeal

Sure the curb appeal of this place is off the charts, but more importantly, look at that front door!  

One day...

Kitteh versus venetian blinds

Today I discovered that it wasn't such a great idea to put a bird feeder outside this window:

Target spotted.  Launch attack.

Attack malfunctioning.

Abort!  Abort!

(Note: blinds did return to normal afterwards, even though they look destroyed in the photos.)

Bathroom update

I think we're almost at the halfway point (that February 1st deadline is starting to look a little hard to meet).  Painting has been done, but touchups are needed -- it's amazing what you can see on the walls once you have decent lighting in there.  The floor tile is down and finished.  All plumbing details have been taken care of/reworked/fixed.

The bath fixtures will be coming soon!

Portrait of an unfinished bathroom. 

The new light fixture! (Bought so long ago that we had forgotten what it looked like.)

The mess. M-E-S-S. A trip to the dump will be needed soon.

And what's coming up next -- shower tile! Hurrah!

Some good scores

I went to Homesense today for their 15% off (I know, it's not that great) customer appreciation event and bought all of those little pretties in the photo.  I love the dotty-ness of the pillow and the colours and shapes of the dishes (plus they're oven/microwave/dishwasher safe).  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the dishes, they almost seem too nice to use for food -- although that might be why I would use them (imagine bright orange carrots in the blue dish!).  The square silver frame was a nice find for $5.

In the family room right now...

I'm priming this entryway table (Trevor tells me it's an old 'Ikea' table -- I'm putting that in quotes because I maintain that it is a false statement, cue Trevor's argument here).  So this 'faux-vintage-Ikea' table was an red-y coloured wood -- with brass knobs, um, has Ikea ever used brass?? -- which seemed so dark with the entryway tiles now in place (not done yet, so no photos, patience!).

 

I'm going to paint it 'Silver Dust' by Behr, and find some new knobs.    

Frosty days

This is a photo from the backyard at the moment.  The frost seems to stick to everything and last into the afternoon (even though it's sunny).  As the snow is melting here (slowly...) I'm starting to see that there will be lots of spring clean up to do.

As for interior adventures, the master bathroom has it's first coat of paint applied, more trim has been painted, curtains need to be hung, and we're waiting for the grout to set for the entryway (front door) tiles so we can seal them.  And yes, there's still more to do after that.  (Pictures will be coming soon as well!)

Rug love and frustration

I would love to own a nice rug.  Such as the one above from Pottery Barn.  Thing is, even though there are Pottery Barns in Canada, they don't like to ship to us nice people (nice paying people I might add) -- but they will ship to people in the UK.  Strange, no?  

Anywhoo, here are a few rugs that have caught my eye lately:

Pottery Barn, again.

The Puzzle rug from The Rug Company is something I could look at for a long time (and those little shapes that look like the letter 'k' are pretty rad too!).

The Spiral Hearts from The Rug Company has a nice swirly pattern.

But, you could also go back to a nice neutral, too. 

(Assuming you don't live in Canada and don't have a Pottery Barn around the corner.  Me?  Bitter?  Never...)

My favorite winter boots

This year I'm sporting a pair of Merrell winter boots that I love (in fact, most people I know probably want me to shut up about them by now).  Warm, dry, comfy -- and they have the coolest penguin pattern on the soles.  They're perfect for the all the rainy days (and odd snowy day) we get.

Guess what caught my eye...

We were at Home Depot tonight picking up more Poly Filla for the bathroom walls (we're at the patching/sanding stage and three boxes later) and I saw an Elle Decor magazine at the check out.  All I could notice was the built-up crown moulding done in the room, and it looks amazing.  

I'm a sucker for dramatic moulding, so this goes on this reference list for the 'next' house!

Master bathroom reno is underway

This is our master bathroom that we've torn apart (okay, Trevor's manned this one mostly, but I'm quality control).  We've had the supplies purchased for a while (tiles, vanity, vessel sink, fixtures, toilet, mirror...) so there's no extra decisions to make -- it's just a matter of putting it together.

We've set a goal of February 1st to have it done.  (And I, for one, am looking forward to the new bathroom, because the shower we're using in another bathroom has the nozzle set to fire hose pressure.)

Snippet of the dining room table

This is the best I can do for a preview of the table in place at the moment.  It looks all lovely and rustic -- sans kitty-- in the vintage-y photo (I put my mad Photoshop skillz aside and tried out Poladroid), but the reality is that the room looks like a renovation storage locker.  And if I were looking to show off storage bin and tool chic, there would be a full room shot to ogle for sure.

Oh boob lights, how I hate thee...

In our next house, boob lights will be banished.  

I didn't have a choice with these; they came with the house when Trevor bought it brand new 11 years ago (damn builder's special cheap-o multipacks!).  The shape and, er, excited 'bosom-ly-ness' of these, combined with the polished brass finish makes me glad they're on the ceiling, and not something in my regular line of sight.  Although, now I have gone out of my way to point them out and photograph them, so I'll be thinking of them more than usual.  

Way to go me. 

The dining room table is coming!

We decided to go with the dining room table from Urban Barn.  After lots of touching, inspecting and general hum-ing and ha-ing we think it will be a perfect fit (literally, we measured!).  Right now, we'll put it in the current dining room, but we've chosen it as our future kitchen table in the *next* house -- eventually.  

It's being delivered tomorrow afternoon, which means our current tool storage area is going to have to migrate somewhere else.

More chairs

I've always like the idea of using navy chairs (originally I had wanted some bar-height chairs for my office but it didn't pan out).  Could it be that they were destined to sit around our dining room table? (Which, by the way, hasn't been purchased yet, but let's put that aside and dream for a minute...)

Trevor will surely like them as they hone into his weakness for things that are indestructible (he enjoys his claim that when he hangs up shelving that the anchors/bolts/whatnots are strong enough for him to 'hang' off of).  These navy chairs take 77 steps to build, have a lifetime warranty and are designed to last 150 years (or as the Emeco website states they 'make sure once they ship, we never see them again').

You can even get a polished finish.  Niiiiice.

The only scary thing is...there's no prices posted for these, which makes me think that the cost will be in line with the lifetime warranty and the 77 steps.  

On the wish list

In December we watch 'Love Actually' right before Christmas, and this time I noticed a 'Launderette' sign in lovely script in Liam Neeson's character's house in the hallway (I also saw it in another scene outside on the street).  

I did a little research and found out these signs used to be around in the 1950's in London.  The signs that I've hunted down online all seem to be made of mirrored finish stainless steel (and go for $400 - $4500 depending on the size, and where you order it from.  Augh!). 

I'm going to have to put my sign-making cap on (I worked for a sign company early on in my career, so I know a few tricks and have a few connections) and see if I can reproduce one of these, especially if you can get results like this:

Dining room table

We might have found a finalist in our search for a new dining room table.  It's met the prerequisites that we've been looking for:

• It has to function as a kitchen table in our next house (most important)

• It has to fit into our current dining room space

• It has to be a little 'rustic' looking (meaning, it can age gracefully with a 

    few dents and scrapes -- and withstand the abuse that I tend to 

    put on things)

And here it is:

It's made of reclaimed pine (reclaimed from where exactly, I have no idea).Originally I was looking to find a trestle table but realized that anyone who sits at the head(s) of that style of table could have their knees crunched in, so I scrapped that.  

Chairs might be a little more challenging to find.  I'd like to hunt down something a little more refined to offset the rustic-ness of the table.  

I love the curved upholstered chair from west elm, but I'm not digging the colours.  Not really worth it to buy a brand new chair to then go and rip the fabric off of them!

Another west elm find...these circle cutout chairs look nice (a la my current 'Window Shopping'!)...but I wonder about the comfort of the rigid-looking straight backs on them.

Pottery Barn has a nice option with their Schoolhouse Chair.  

It might even be nice to have a bench along one side of the table, like this one from Crate & Barrel.

Music to paint doors and trim to

The Front Door

When we were away on vacation in the fall I couldn't get enough photos of front doors in the UK (I was always being left behind with Trevor not noticing and walking ahead -- the stealthy photographer I am!). There's an abundance of colour, shapes and sizes, but they all have one thing in common -- they all have presence. The doors in North America almost seem sad compared to what I've seen, almost like the houses here were built and just decided to slap a door on the front without giving it a lot of thought.

In our next house (whether or not we renovate an existing house or build from scratch) there's going to be a front door with style and colour.