New Floors in the Nursery

I'm a little overdue for this post, so, sorry. But there's floor down in the nursery now! And it looks really good! It's the same floor as in the dining room, but it looks so different in the nursery - you know, different lighting and such. Jason, Eric and I banged it all out in a few hours, and then my glutes and hammies hurt for three days. As a reminder we painted the walls and the ceiling in Behr's "Gentle Rain", colour matched to Dulux Xpert paint. And by we, I mean me, because Jason wouldn't have anything to do with it haha.

This is probably the closets representation of colour, it's a great warm grey and it works well with the South facing room. We've since changed out all the outlets and put in nice new grate covers, and all the base and trim should hopefully be going on this weekend, then it'll actually be finished, and just needing to be decorating. This room has come along the quickest, and I can't wait to start the decorating process.

The closet has also since changed appearance. I can't wait to get goin' on the reading nook, and closet organizer and start putting the three totes of baby clothes I've managed to amass over the years. I shared this sneak peak on Instagram of what the closet colour will be.

It's called Thermal Spring, by Sherwin Willaims. It's a pretty great teal colour, all dark and moody, it looks sweet in the closet, and I totally want to curl up in there with a book - too uncomfortable currently though. The room is coming together nicely, I'll update pictures of the trim and closet as soon as I can.

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down!

Do you remember when I mentioned a little while ago that we were planning on making the closet in the blue room/nursery bigger?  Well guess what I came home to on Tuesday?

A giant mess! I was torn between exasperation about the mess, and excitement that the closet is now bigger. There was this giant, naily, dusty mess in the hall and bedroom - I almost broke my neck climbing over it to get this picture haha - plus drywall dust foot prints all over the nice new kitchen floor. It was a little overwhelming, but the early stages of a demo project usually are.
    Jason did clean up his mess after he got home - he took the windows out, and threw everything out the gaping window less holes into the backyard haha. He had to build a header on the left hand side, and he put up some drywall and attempted to slap some tape & mud up. Now it's looking a little less overwhelming, and a little more like a closet.

I say he attempted to mud, because the mud was like soup. Because our air conditioner decided to crap out during the most humid and rainy weeks our basement was super damp and warm, apparently the bucket 'o' mud thought it was its job to act as a dehumidifier and suck up all the moisture in the air. So Jason was essentially trying to make the tape stay up with mushroom soup. Now that the weather has decided to back away a bit from Hades, and be a bit more reasonable, we're hoping the mud will thicken back up a bit, making like a bit easier.
   We still have to close off the old opening of the linen closet from the hallway, as well as a number of patches here and there, but Jason is motoring right along, and he tells me I should be able to paint by this weekend. We knew we wanted a light, warmer toned gray, something subtle so we could have fun with accents and accessories. We landed on "Gentle Rain" by Behr.

I really like the swatch, so I'm hoping it translates well to the walls. We need to get the paint up asap, so we can put the floor down and have it actually look like a bedroom for our final visit. (two weeks, yikes)

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.

Nursery Mood Board: Scottish Bairn

It's been a little while since I've posted a mood board about a fun nursery. This one is one of my favourites, Jason and I both really like it, and could totally see our child taking up residence in a room like this. We both would love love love to go to Scotland, we've got a trip planned for when we meet certain goals in our life (and save up enough money). So until that time I'll live vicariously through pictures of the gorgeousness that is Scotland, and this cute little nursery.

1. This overhead light looks like it's wearing a sweater knit by your grandma!
2. A beautiful fine art oil painting of the Scottish Highlands. Oh how I'd love to be there.
3. Haud Yer Wheesht! Means Hold your quiet, or Hush, be quiet. Perfectly fitting for a nursery, no?
4. Along with rugby and Nessie, Shetland Ponies always make me think of Scotland. If you're not lucky enough to have a bunch of these weird little creatures tromping around in pastures near you to take a picture of, that's sad. Just google them, there's a ton of great pictures you could frame.
5. A branch lamp base paired with a simple white shade; rustic and charming, just like any Scot who opens his mouth.
6. It can't be a Scottish room without a nod to rugby...they love their rugby. We also love rugby, I picked up this ball from a 7's tournament Jase was in in NYC a couple years ago, and it's totally going in our child's room. Jason has said on more than one occasion he wants enough kids to outfit at least a 7's team.
7. A room deriving inspiration form Scotland isn't complete without something related to Nessie. There's so many cute prints on Etsy, like this one, or this one, or this one.
8. A flag shield to protect yourself from all those English invaders. This would be a pretty easy DIY with some leftover pieces of wood, or even a piece of ply.
9. I love postcards. We've collected a few from every trip we've been on, and I love when people send us postcards, so a vintage postcard would be a great addition to an art wall.
10. A vintage map of Scotland, to talk over all the places we'll go visit when we're there.
11. I once heard a Scottish comedian making fun of the fact that the thistle is the Scot's national symbol, and how they must've shown up dead last to pick that one, right behind us Canadians who get a leaf. Funny. These little thistle buttons would look really cute pinned together in a group of four in a shadow box on a fabric backing.
12. The cutest little sheep bookends ever, and since I couldn't really justify spending $135 (plus who knows how much to ship to Canada - if they even do) you could make your own (or rope a talented friend into doing it) (Use a cute crochet pattern like this one then stuff it with something to weight it down)
13. Refinish an old dresser into something that looks great, and will serve double duty as a changing area.
14. Keep the toes warm in the winter with this furry sheep like rug. Also would be fun to roll around in and run your face in...baby would probably like to do the same.
15. The Strandmon chair from Ikea, so lovely. This is what we plan to do with one of our wing backs that we'll use in our nursery.
16. Coordinate with some cute pillows, like this cute hounds-tooth one, or this plaid tartan one.
17. Hello adorable Nessie plush. I can't decide if I'd want to use this as a plush toy for baby, or stuff it full of something heaving to use it as a cute door stop. Either way, she's super cute and soft looking.
18. Dirty laundry should not have to be ugly, especially when it's cute little baby clothes. A woven basket would make a great laundry hamper.
19. Prop your feet up on this little plaid ottoman after a long hard day
20. The Sparrow by Oeuf.
21. Get some cute gingham sheets for the crib, and pair it with a quilt in your family tartan. Or just any tartan that you think looks good.