Tuesday 18 June 2013

Bye Bye Blue Room

The room in the back corner of the house that has been destined to be the nursery since we moved in has been known to all as the blue room. Because it had a heinous blue carpet. Here's what it looked like on our final walk through (sorry for the craptastic dark, grainy cell phone picture)


That's what it looked like when we moved in, and that's what it's looked like since; although it has been kind enough to allow copious amounts of junk to squat in there over this past year and a half. As well as being our dumping ground, Kai used it as a literal dumping ground when she was sick. Blegh! So this room was in dire need of some lovin' before we could move a child into it. Those lacy granny curtains had to go, so did the stained blue carpet.

So, this weekend, while Jason (and Mitch) was doing so plumbing on Mitch & Miche's house they're building, us girls got down and dirty in the blue room. The boys enjoyed our innuendo breakdown of how we ripped that sucker out and got the room prepped. It was sweaty, and dirty, but it took us hardly any time at all to go from that, to this...


To this...



Yeah baby! It only took us about 45min to get the carpet out, all the tack strips up, the base & quarter round up, and all the staples up. And we got a great workout in haha. It was all the original baseboard and trim in there, and man oh man, were some of them stuck on the wall. They were attached with the biggest finishing nails I've ever seen! Some of the little pieces could only be coaxed off with some choice words.


The closet we're planning on making bigger (adding a little reading nook in there), so that's what the tape is up there for, to how big the opening will be. We're closing of the linen closet in the hallway to accommodate the larger closet. Our reasoning behind doing that, is we can't do anything to this room to make it bigger (it's not particularly small at 10' x 11'6", but it's not large) we would maximize the closet space, and make it much more functional to perhaps keep a dresser out of the room, allowing for a larger bed down the road. Also, we don't use the linen closet now (since we also have one in our bedroom), and we plan on adding a built-in to the bathroom when we get to renovating it, so anything we will need to store down the line will be housed in that.


So yay! Bigger closet in there, with a space where our avid little reader can go to chill out. (I used to love reading in my closet, or in the little nook that was just outside my bedroom door when I was little) I couldn't get this closet door off for some reason, I struggled with the other one when we were ripping up the carpet, and it fell on me, but this one just wouldn't give. So Jason has to remove that as well as the old baseboard heater unit, and I apparently missed some door trim haha, so that'll have to come down. But it's basically just take that boarder down, and spackle a few nail holes then we're good to paint. Can you see the swatches up there...I think I've got it narrowed down to four colours.


So, huzzah! Although now it seems rather hospital with the dated white floors and white walls, and the question was asked, is it still the blue room now that there's no blue? Probably, I mean the Lion King room was always the Lion King room. My sister and I will hopefully get the wallpaper down before Wednesday, and if I hurry up and make a paint colour decision, I can paint and we could potentially be ready to install the floors by the weekend.

Monday 17 June 2013

Listy McGhee

Since our last assessment got pushed back yet again (this time it wasn't our fault) we have more time to get rooms actually finished. (Well at least get finishes done, even if the rooms won't be completely done.) So I did what comes naturally for a crazy person, and wrote out about 6 different lists of what we have to do before that time. So here's the list of what we're hoping going to get done by July 21.



 BLUE ROOM
o   Clean out
o   Rip up carpet
o   Remove wallpaper
o   Paint
o   Install floor
o   Cut out bigger closet
o   Make closet doors
o   Get dresser for change table
o   Upholster chair



DINING ROOM
o   3rd coat of paint
o   get picture ledge up and painted
o   picture moulds
o   base/window and door casing
o   pick up buffet
o   get electrical sorted out
o   Install Octa
o   Finish hutch project



KITCHEN
o   Case and base
o   Make sure all outlets and switches are in working order
o   Mud holes
o   Touch up paint
o   Bottle storage shelf
o   Coffee/tea shelf
o   Open shelving by stove
o   Finish toe kick
o   Counters on peninsula cabinets




BEIGE ROOM/LAUNDRY
o   Tidy
o   Remove  electrical wires
o   Cut out “step”
o   Organize closet


  (how is it I still have no pictures of our living room?!)
LIVING ROOM
o   Get rid of shower
o   Take out built-in
o   Move TV
o   Get rid of couches
o   Bring brown couch over
o   Put switches at doors
o   Organize
o   Pick up chest for shoe storage



UPSTAIRS
o   Finish painting hall
o   Base in bath
o   Shelf in bath
o   Curtains (dye & install)
o   Paint closet
o   Install closet organizer
o   Put up canvas in bathroom
o   Art in hallway

Thursday 13 June 2013

Nursery Mood Board: Gold Glam

It's been a while since I posted a nursery mood board, and the last one that went up while being gender neutral, was still leaning more towards the masculine way of life. What can I say, that's how I roll, I'm not a girly girl. That being said, coming up with this super girly room was rather fun. The thing I encountered most with a "gold glam" nursery was the price of things. Holy Camoly can you pay a lot of money for certain things. (Which I guess is true for anything you do, it just seemed to crop up more with this board) So without further ado, here's my take on a glamorous girly nursery.



1. The colour is called Rainstorm and it's by Sherwin Williams, and I think it's what makes this room more palatable for me, because I'm really not a fan of pink. It's moody, and cozy, but with the pink and gold accents it's still girly.

2. An inexpensive "gold" pendant overhead light.

3. An accent wall with some randomized gold dots.

4. So they'll always know what letter their name starts with. Leave it as is, or spray it gold, or pink, or another fun colour.

5. A great gold foil message for the baby to learn.

6. Some sparkly hangers to display special things. Another simple DIY involving some gold (or any colour) sparkles or sequins, and some pant hangers.

7. Another message baby should learn. These could also be DIYed with gold paint, or gold leaf.

8. I love the Stella floor lamp, she's got vintage lines to her, but she's still modern enough to fit into this glam room. Plus she comes in a bunch of different colours, so she'd fit in many different spaces.

9. Because a gray elephant isn't cool enough, spray mama and baby in pink, and dip them in gold! This would be a super cheap and easy DIY, there's all sorts of animal toy DIY's out there.

10. A little floating shelf is great if you're short on space and have a ton of stuff to hold. Which lets face it, when it comes to babies, there's tons of stuff.

11. I've loved ampersands ever since grade 1, when I learned the word. So pass on the love with this little gold leafed one. Or if you're more into letters, they've got the whole alphabet there too.

12. Cute little cast iron golden birdy. Doesn't serve a purpose, but is pretty cute.

13. I love this gold faceted table lamp. It would work in a multitude of different rooms.

14. Nothing says glamorous like a mirror where you can narcissisticly check yourself 100 times before breakfast, so why not slap some on a dresser? While I'm not inclined to pay the outlandishly high price of the one from Pottery Barn, I'm not opposed to toning it down, and doing a DIY version, where you only mirror the front.

15. A simple white slipper chair is a neutral base to build some of the girlier accents off of, and is something that can grow up and be a reading chair in her room later in life.

16. Speaking of some girlier accents, a velvety pink round, a soft lace edged, and a subtle gold leaf are all good pillow options.

17. Some glitter garland strung above the crib announces this is where the princess sleeps.

18. This pink rug is made from recycled materials, and since there's a bit of white, and blue in it, it's not going to compete with the wall colour.

19. Lay to rest on some gold polka dotted bed sheets.

20. A lovely quilt with some hot pink bands.

21. After a long hard day of pooping and crying baby wants to rest her head in a modern white crib.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Kitchen Files: Floor Beneath Our Feet

There's been some changes taking place in the kitchen as of late. Some small, small that make a huge difference, and some that are so monumental they're life changing. (Seriously I'm not exaggerating.) When you've lived without a proper kitchen for as long as we did any updates you do are touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread. It still makes me giddy to turn the lights on in there! Our final assessment was set for last Thursday so we were working our tail feathers off (we much rather would've been shakin' them) to get the kitchen floor in before then (as well as a few other smaller things). We finally got everything finished at about 1:30am Wednesday night (or Thursday morning if you will), and fell into bed without showering, and barely getting changed. Then before I even closed my eyes, it seemed like the alarm was going off, and we had to get up to finish tidying and a bunch of other things we were too tired to do the night before. Before we were able to get out of bed our social worker called to cancel the appointment because she was sick. I was annoyed for all of 30 seconds, because it meant we got to go back to sleep, and we honestly probably weren't ready for her to come anyway haha.

Anywho, we're glad she didn't cancel until the morning of, because we needed the meeting looming over our head to finish up the floor...



Tada! It looks great! We love it, when we first started we weren't sure if we really liked it, but the more that went down, the more we liked it. Which is a good thing, because this floor was a biotch to put down. It. Took. For. Ever! You had to flash the floor, and flash the tiles, then wait about a half hour for them to set before sticking them down. And the floor dried quicker, so it was a while before a good rhythm was figured out.


A gratuitous detail shot. And no, I couldn't have dusted the floor before hand, because I already have about 6 times. There's a lot of glue on the edges of the tiles (which is most of what you see here) that we're going to have to thumb off before we poly-seal it. (which is probably going to take a week because it's such a tedious job) Jason wasn't the neatest of gluers, but he put in a ton of hours on the new floor, so I can't complain.

Another update we did, that doesn't really change the look of the room much, but makes it a whole lot more functional came in the form of counters.


They still kind of look like ply-wood, but if you look closer, they're really...


Peel and stick tiles from the dollar store! Because we are having to post-pone our lovely quartz counter install due to a pesky leaky roof, I had to improvise. I wanted something wipeable, because I was tired of sweeping the counters. Yeah, sweeping, and we don't have a little hand held one, gotta get the ancient bristle broom up in there. Pain. In. The. Neck. (literally) So while this little counter update may not change the look of the room, it's umpteen times more functional, because no I can actually wipe up spills. Hoorrah!

So, like the dining room, it's still a ways a way from being finished, but it's much closer. Next step is some base and case and hole patching as well as some paint touch-ups. Plus organize and unpack all our kitchen stuff we still have downstairs.

Tuesday 11 June 2013

Walkin' On Sunshine

And it sure feels good! (I have had this post sitting in the draft pile for close to a month, because I hadn't got around to taking pictures...I suck, I know. I'm sorry.)
The floor we put down really is like walking on sunshine! It looks fan-freakin-tastic! And it feels pretty fantastic under your feet. We've been living with the subfloor in there (and the kitchen) for almost a year. Not that you could really call it "living with" since I can count on one hand the amount of times we've even entered the dining room over this past year. Our friend Mitch came over to help us lay it, and he's such a rock star that it only took he and Jason three hours.


We put in an engineered hardwood that had to be brad nailed down, so I was planning for most of one day to put it in, thankfully that wasn't the case. Mostly because Mitch is a rock star, and can bang stuff out in no time, seriously if you're looking for someone to make your house a little prettier he's your man.


Hooray, so pretty! Then since I was a slacker and didn't paint before the floor went down, the room  still wasn't ready, so I had to paint. I love putting new floors down, they can totally and completely change the look of the room. So can paint though...take a look at this bad boy all painted up!

The hutch won't be staying like this, it's going to get a makeover.



Woot woot! It's a far cry from done, but it actually looks like a room now, instead of a dusty hell hole, so I'll take it. The colour looks great with the floor (I still have to do a third coat to even out a few places) and once we put up the base & case and install the picture ledge it'll look even better. We also took off the awning that was over the window about a month ago, and it's crazy how much more light it lets in the room. I'm so glad I finally painted, it's been like a year since I bought the paint, I've taken it to get shaken no less than three times since buying it with the intention to paint, haha. Moving the table in there just proved to me that it's too small for the space, it'll live in there though until we can find a table we like enough to buy, or get around to making one ourselves. But the room looks fantastic, even better than I was picturing.