Saturday, May 31, 2008

Girl power shot

I finished off the dining chair over haul with the help of my darling children ,they wanted to help pull out the old staples and they did a great job too , it allowed me to try out my newest tool the powershot arrow stapler , such an easy stapler to use , going from an electric one to this is a pleasure ,I give it five stars for sure , easy on the hand. I love the black nail heads it gives just the right amount of contrast to make the chairs pop just a little.
I looked into getting a smaller cabinet for above my new fabulous fridge but at $240-$360 just for one box and two doors , I think I can come up with a better option like an open cabinet with beadboard and charm.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Chairs

I finally got around to painting the rocker , I cut the latex paint with water so that it would absorb in to the wood and become part of it . I plan to rub on some white paint and sand it back quite a bit .
I re-did two chairs so far , my wrist was not feeling too good about getting all the staples out from the old fabric removal so I stopped at two , I plan to add dark nail heads or tacks for some contrast , as well my stapler quit on me , this makes two , an electric one and now a manual both garbage , I hate having to buy equipment for one thing over and over , good thing they are inexpensive.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Now that's a big refrigerator

Here is the current look of my kitchen , I have my stainless steel appliances, I have such respect for good movers, the delivery guys were so good , the Home Depot team a couple of heavily tattooed guys came in and got right to business removed the doors and drawer , oh so carefully , we had some tight squeezes, one guy grimaced when he saw my kitchen door way , but it fit just so , everything was flawless, the stove came about an hour later by the sears team , they had a much easier task but were equally efficient and careful. There is my tile feature all exposed after 4 years behind the old stove, finally , it was a long wait.

As you can see I have some work to do , I will create a cabinet to house the glorious fridge. My husband had never seen these appliances, and he was impressed so glad too , because he hates the micro I picked.

Before:

After: WOW My little daycare kids were here as well as my husband , the little ones were so excited, who knew, they even did a happy dance about it .

Last night I fretted and fretted that this fridge was going to be too big , I was really worried I had made a mistake, but it fits in just right , phew!
I love this picture it looks like dueling fridges , easy to see the winner here.
The stove is so nice , and fast , first meal on it Kraft Mac and Cheese, of course.

I can not get enough of kitchen's , no doubt that is my favorite room in a house there is so much potential to make it great.
Wonderful massive island, I wish I had wood floors in my kitchen.
Isn't this mint painted kitchen gorgeous, love those chandeliers.
This is or rather was Micheal J Fox's kitchen , stunning, above.
This kitchen is very inspiring to me all the mouldings , white and perfect.

Pretty paisley

After trying the floral curtains and getting Sophie's thumb down I took them down , maybe I am bored of the existing drapes I have always had those and they are safe , I like the striped carpet in there is brings life that room , I know its the fabric on the chairs , it has been there for two years and it doesn't jive with the carpet , it wasn't costly fabric, most likely cheap knowing me . I took the girls out with me after work , didn't tell them we were going to the fabric store they always balk about that , and after looking and looking there it was the perfect fabric, a linen polyester paisley in all my colors and the perfect background blue, it will look so good , I ran out of steam last night after detailing my fridge freezer, so I will do that sometime today , I will surely show you later.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Girly girl

I would never describe my style as girly , I like girly elements but not overly feminine or romantic things, not for me , pretty to look at but I like cleaner looks, I am crazy about stripes , but I need to pull myself back at times . I decided to try these floral print drapes I had that were just lying around from my kitchen , they aren't long enough on their own so I layered them over the existing beige ones , what do you think ? , I think this counts as a mistreatment and term I have been reading about on blogs, I think it is fun a little change , the fabric goes so well with the carpet and the yellows in the other sitting area are repeated in this fabric. I am now going to call this my breakfast room , it looks more like that to me .
I am going to get rid of those pink candles right now , too much .

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

When I was helping my dad go through his household items I found this bottle , it is so charming and has a bit of a grey tinge, he was kind and gave it to me , he said that he found it in the ground when he was 20 , and that it is very old, it is a pop bottle , I believe. I need to get some flowers for it .
I don't believe I ever showed the after of this chair , well here it is , it really need to be re-chromed so I have done what I can with it , I rebuilt it where it was broken in the seat and added new foam and padding and this vintage fabric and chrome nails .

I found some perfect buckets for my basket they were $6.00 , I plan to use them for drinks or snacks when we have guests.

its cleaning day


Isn't that an awful sight ,don't worry it is not mine, but today is a pretty happy day , it cleaning day ,which means my appliances are coming and soon, I have pulled apart the stove, repaired the drawer that was sticking to the point I could never close it . Thankfully mine is not nearly in that condition and I have actually kept it clean , sparkling in comparison to the image above, yuck! , but I do need to spray that awful oven spray today , I hate that oven off or whatever it is , chokes me , I dread that job , which is why I leave it until it is really needed , its not to bad right now , but anyone have a more friendly way to degrease an oven ? , I want everything as clean as possible for the new family that will be getting my appliances , I am so thrilled that I happened to hear from someone in need that I believe in a recent immigrant to Canada and is going to benefit from my good fortune.
Please any tips on cleaning the oven without horrible chemicals???
Great news , I found a recipe for a natural cleaner , it is a box of baking soda , 1/4 cup dish soap , 3/4 vinegar, 1/2 cup salt, 1/4 cup water, apparently I wasn't supposed to add the vinegar but it worked very well, gust use a big bowl, turn oven on to 250 for 15 minutes then goop on the mixture , leave for 30 minutes, I didn't wait but it scrubbed off very well the window is crystal clear now , it had an golden tinge , you know, its gone, looks great , now I can use it , I don't want to dirty it . WEAR GLOVES THE SALT IS VERY STINGING

Sunday, May 25, 2008

the weekend work

The weather is working in our favour this weekend, so there is much to be done, apparently I make my husband anxious when I work non stop on the weekends, blah blah blah , lazy bum, I don't ask for much help from him anyway I do my thing as I can , got some more screws in the deck, painted the lantern below, cuter huh! , ripped up some grass and put down more beach pebbles , stained the front steps with concrete stain , who knew they made that , cool , much improved my steps, planted my window boxes , got rid of two bamboo and wicker shelves that were ugly and taking up precious space, they left to make room in the basement , it needs to get started finally. planted some hostas in the front garden, warded off comments about my busy nature from neighbours , tended to the front patch of grass , completely neglected anything that needed doing inside, made a complete mess of my hands , the price I pay for work getting done. Had two kids sleep over on consecutive nights.....I think that is it , oh nope scraped off some peeling paint in the front of the house and caulked as well on the top of my 10 ft ladder. Yes that is it , but it is 2:00 on Sunday so I will try to get a little bit more done a few more screws and perhaps get some umbrella jewelry , oh wait I also helped and insisted that my dad come by and gather his boxes that we have been storing for 4 years oh maybe less , donated many boxes to goodwill. Feeling less cluttered now.




Saturday, May 24, 2008

Moving on

I wanted to show some of my favourite images , the sources are unknown, sometime they are just from image searches I do . I Hope you enjoy and are inspired.

Classic beauty , gorgeous wall color.

Soft and feminine , I love those velvet colored chair this image is from Country living.
White and sophisticated.
Rustic Country and very inviting.
Suburban beautiful.
Now this is my kind of room , stunning mix , I Love the coral chairs , or apricot , and that with the blue drapes and the patterned wall paper and patterned carpet , the perfect mix , stunnnnnning, obviously a designer room.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Home Depot to the rescue


All who read my blog know I am a big fan of home depot , so I looked up my fridge and checked their stock and price matching policies, well there you go they have 40 of them , they gave me lots of cut backs to get the price down even lower than sears by $100.00 , which actually is $200.00 in my favour as they gave me back my sears money , and it will be here by Thursday and it is new, and not some random fridge I did not want.
Yeah me , this certainly worked in my favour , but I won't breath easy until it is in my kitchen and running.

Wow the punches just keep coming....



They called SEARS that is , they can't get the fridge I ordered at all , AT ALL, they gave me fridge to someone else , oh brilliant ....I wasn't buying it , but it is discontinued and the ones they had are spoken for , AWESOME, so I suggest I get the floor model , it didn't appear to have any flaws when I saw it , I will go in and see what they can do as far as discounting it considering it is a floor model and all the trouble I have been through , they offered to find me something that was similar , I actually picked this fridge out , did research , I didn't spin around with a blindfold on and point at a random fridge , it took two years of choosing . INCREDIBLE.....

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Back up , this must be some kind of sick joke...

I am so upset right now , I got the mail to find a horrific sight , a return slip for my fridge I am waiting on, I feel sick to my stomach still, I called and freaked out , how can this happen , no one spoke directly to me prior to making this decision , this was made in error to a request I had made to customer service regarding which exact model I had purchased one with or without ice making, after my inquiry I called back to make sure everything was on track it was until today , 7 days before this is to arrive, the manager assured me after I had a complete meltdown that she could order one to the store and deliver it locally , why did I need to flip out to get some help, I am not a big reactor , trust me , and if it weren't for the fact that because of my daughters peanut allergy and therefore that fact that I am baking the wedding cake for my mother's wedding I would not normally freak out , but I have this obligation as well as 6 people to feed on any given day and a nice man coming to take my current fridge away to help a family in need he has been patiently waiting now along with me . Unbelievable, they will get me a loaner fridge if they can't get mine in time , great but that is sad to say the least.

Pink room treasure's

Bamboo blinds , what can I say about them , I really love them , they convey a lovely summer feel, I put these up last night , we had originally been roller blinds when we first moved in , they broke over time and I hadn't gotten to replacing them until now, probably over a year it took me , Sophie often had her drapes drawn to give privacy and that created an obnoxious pink glow beaming out of her room. I let her choose white bamboo or white blinds , she chose well grasshopper.
There are so many things I love about her room , like this painted S and the canopy , that used to be over her be, but we moved things around for a fresh look it is now over her dresser, keeping her bed on an inside wall.
This plate that I picked up at an outdoor antique market , it is so pretty , I think that might come down to the kitchen some time soon.
These little keep sakes on her shelf, the painted puppy , picture of cuddling daddy , the tin birdhouse and a fairy painting I did for Sophie when she was 2 as a Christmas gift.
I picked these little cross stitch plates up at the Goodwill a long time ago for pennies.
It is so fun to have a playful pink little girls room to decorate, I am dreading the day she wants to change it .

The still to do list in this little room is flooring,
white painted floors ,
all the trim work ,
and closet doors, they have curtains ,which I am beginning to really hate.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Mudroom Magic

I really do love my home, it is not large , it is 1890 sq ft , a fine size to me, considered small by many I am sure , but it has two ground floor living rooms, seperate dining room , eat in kitchen and three bedrooms the master which is quite large and one bedroom which is also quite large for a child's bedroom and a smaller room with a covered porch , two and a half baths, a great wish list , this house's short comings are that is is a small lot , and the houses are very close and the house's lack privacy, we only have one garage and a single drive , so as you can imagine that can be a pain, the garage has never had a car in it , nor will it , it is purely for storage and that is fine.
I have always wanted a mudroom , this house lacks storage, partly my fault, you can never under estimate storage space as I did.
I have considered adding on to the back of the house a mudroom laundry room , but a foundation and the expense would not make any sense. To move to get a mudroom one extra parking space and one extra and a not needed bedroom would cost a mere additional $100,000.00 to the mortgage , not to mention the property taxes , as this area is known as the highest in the GTA in Toronto they pay much less than we do ,annoying, but we have nearly crime free living , new schools , rec centers and brand new shopping & resturants , everything you need to exist in a 10 minute walk away , so it is very worth the extra dough.
Back to my mudroom , now where can that go , well into the back portion of my garage , I can make an open entrance where a garage entrance was an option which I choose not to have done at the time of building, I can use up a third of the garage space and create a mudroom , it will be a short walk from the front door as well we can do a door from the garage as well. I can see it now, are you with me here. There is already water there so potentially I could have laundry and a wash basin for cleaning those grubby dogs I have. Oh my we could live here for ever , as the basement will now be left for two roomy offices and a craft space , yippee I am so excited , can't say when this will happen but it is the perfect idea, plenty of people turn their garages into living space , yuck , so why can't I carve out an awesome mudroom in mine.
Linda's mudroom , stunning and inspirational.
Ok I have got it , I will raise the floor so that it is one step down from the hall into this room , with a pocket door , heated tile floors ,easy clean, open lockers of course.
This is the ah ha mudroom above that has started the whole thing. I too might have a mudroom in my future .
I can imagine using it now, I may even be able to carve out laundry chute as it will be in the perfect location for it, this is very exciting news.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Voila


Before , notice the most awful grass , thank the dogs for that .


3 days work, that took one week to complete because of life and poor weather and drills that don't have lasting power , resulted in a deck a seating area , a lounging /dining area , a stage for the kids to enjoy , sorry neighbors , a now usable backyard , that was not enjoyable before , we need /I need to do some painting , gardening (which I will probably put off ) and we just need some warm weather or at least sunshine. Why did we wait so long.

Cheers !

Here is the real thing the umbrella I found , very happy with it .
And the rocker that I am still bitter at , its not as big as I thought it would be either a bit petite , it will be white.
The table I made out of left over wood , it is very solid, I left it a loungey height instead of dining height as I though it might be a bit over whelming , I will paint it and distress it , white of maybe a blue ??? any thoughts anyone?? I am thinking the chairs will all be white I probably said that before .
Couldn't my yard use this , I would be happy with this instead of a cabana its from Sears Canada, so pretty .
Should I finish my table like this ???