Old Window to New Coat Hanger

I took this window from our house when we converted our front porch into an entry way. I love honoring the history of our house by throwing hints of its past into my decor. (I'll have to post more later... I have a sweet "come for dinner" bell that we re-installed in our pantry.)

My Secret Chalk Paint Recipe

I never understood the idea of a secret food recipe. I saw it on TV shows and commercials where someone would pass on the secret family recipe and I always thought 'why?'. Why not share it with everyone? But now I know why!!! I recently created my own chalk paint recipe... and I love it! I feel like it's my special secret. It's so weird. I know that. Luckily there are hundreds of posts about chalk paint recipes so hopefully you find your own special recipe too:) ... and don't get mad at me for keeping 'my precious'.

Anyway, that's not really the reason for this blog entry, I just wanted a catchy title;) The real reason is to show off this little table!

It's a $15 garage sale find. I wanted it to have hints of red in the part where I distressed so I painted white, the red and then green. To finish it off I used a Miniwax wax product. I like wax because it gives a matte finish that I have yet to successfully get with polyurethane.

I really love this project hope you do too:)

Just Another Brick in the Wall

Our fireplace wall was a really fun and complicated project. We ended up having some trim and two drawer units left over from the kitchen that we used. We used them to create to bookshelves and painted it all black. We love that they match the kitchen in style but the black paint helps lend to dividing the spaces. After paint I distressed and stained the sanded areas with the same stain as our kitchen cupboards. The real brick looks a little better then our temporary wallpaper solution too;)

Dear Time

You and me, we've been through it all together.
Thank you for slowing down for me while I watch my children sleep.
And in the mornings when we are all sitting at the table talking about nothing, thank you for waiting for me to finish my coffee.
Sometimes we walk together and can look back and reflect on our journey together.
Other times we are sprinting so fast there is no time to care or think about anything else.
I like both paces.
But now I feel like you have ran off ahead, without me.
I need a minute to catch up.

...and half a year later!

Wow... so I guess I kind of dropped the ball on my blog for the past 6 months. My last post kind of hints to why, life was crazy! I am happy to say that my life is a little simpler now: )


We have moved back upstairs in our house, and we have had renters in the basement for about 4 months now. Here are a few pictures of the basement suite.

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This is the best picture I could find of the rental kitchen, its not quite finished but you get the idea

This is one of the basement bedrooms.

 

The basement hallway.

I haven't taken great pictures of our space yet, so I 'll just give a few right now.

 These our the floors we chose for our main living area. This photo was taken while they were installing. They are ash, with a satin finish. We love them!

This is our kitchen... we LOVE it: ) We ended up buying an off white countertop, in quartz for the back wall cabinets, brightening up the cabinets a bit. The lighting fixtures are from EQ3, they really add to the space. We love that they are black like the granite but they are a little more modern then the kitchen.... which is nice because we were worried about the space looking too rustic. We like modern rustic style I guess. I know that sounds like an oxymoron.

And our best project in the past 6 months....

 Our sweet Heidi : )

My Mind

is thinking about... counter tops. Pricing out quartz for upstairs, I've probably looked at 5 different places.
is thinking about... painting. I can't do it : (
is thinking about... getting all the paperwork done for the govenment grant we applied for. I just found a lawyer!
is thinking about... our delayed flooring!
is thinking about... the appliances I need to research and decide on.
is thinking about... making sure my two year old is still having a fun summer.
is thinking about... the little details that need to be addressed and how much time they will take! (Lighting in kitchen cabinets, putting on the suite entrance doors, fixing the bulk head so the cabinet trim doesn't go past it, installing our new washing machine and dryer!)
is thinking about... moving upstairs (out of our basement suite) and getting the bedrooms ready.
is think about... when will we get to the outside of our house! Our yard needs to be cleaned of construction stuff, then graded, then window wells, then piles for front and side steps and back deck, then grass! Oh yeah, and the small job of siding our house.
My mind is always thinking!
Did I mention I have about 6 weeks until we are expecting a new baby!

I think one stress blog is allowed: )

My Kitchen Puzzle!

Ok children it's story time. Take a seat, this is a long one!

So almost a year ago I was perusing kijiji, like I do, and I came across this beautiful kitchen for sale. I know this sounds weird, a kitchen... for sale, but that's what it was. It was the cabinets, sinks, faucets, microwave, dishwasher, counter tops, stove-top, range fan and all the hardware. So I made my husband treck out to St. Pauls to take a look at it. He loved it like I did. Apparently the owners (who lived in a large and beautiful home) were part owners of kitchen craft (where my cabinets are from), but they had sold their share and started a new cabinet company and now they were selling their 10 year old kitchen.

These are some picture of the kitchen before we took it out.

So I bought the kitchen with out thinking too much about it. Luckily I have a dad that supports me! My biggest post-purchase dilemma was storage. I was thinking maybe we could pile it all into our shed and a bit into the upstairs of our house. Little did I know how much room cabinets take up when they are not put in place and hanging on walls. In the end we used a trailer (the kind semi truck tow) at my dad's work.

So now that it has been time to install this kitchen I have been working like mad to figure out how to configure a kitchen so that it looks like it was made for our space. (Our two spaces, there was enough cabinetry for the basement suite too) Luckily we don't have to change anything about the gorgeous island!

 I probably have around 15 of these pages

So below is what our kitchen looks like as of today! I love it. The trim is not up yet because we have to pull the bulk head out a few inches. Sort of sad, it'll be a lot of work, framing, drywalling, taping, adding the moulding, priming and painting! But we might as well do it right!

The space with no upper cabinetry is where our stove top is going. This is the one spot where I am looking into getting a piece made. Kitchen craft still sells these cabinets so maybe they can make me something custom that will look fit the space!

I just can't wait to see it all finished!

DIY Maternity Dress

This past weekend I had a wedding to go to and was kind of in a pickle on what to wear.... I went shopping to the one maternity store in the mall and plus all the other stores (hoping to squeeze my little belly into something and not look ridiculous) but found nothing. In the end I decided to make something. I bought a shirt and a skirt from the thrift store and sewed them together. I loved how it turned out... I might just have to try this again!

Teddy Bear Picnic

This past weekend we took a break from working on the house and went to the teddy bears picnic. It was so fun! I loved getting Max's face painted, and crafting with felt, the gymnastics center and meeting the Jet's moose.

This is the felt basket we made at one of the stations. (I sewed it up after we got home) So easy and fun... Max didn't get to cut them out, but he loved choosing which food we made and then feeding them to his bear!
I diffidently want to go back next year!

Feeling Grey

Actually I have been feeling out a lot of greys lately. I have been trying to chose paint colors for our house. I wanted a warm grey, so today I tested out three paint colors.

 (painted in upstairs main living space)

Originally I was really leaning towards balboa Mist... but then when I put it on the walls it looked way too warm... very beige. So I am 99% sure I am going with Barren Plain... it looked the most grey out of the three colors, and then in the basement I compared it to Grey Owl and it looked warmer of the two (which is what I wanted for the basement because it has less light).

 (painted in basement main living space)

I loved the Grey Owl, but it turned out a little bit too green for the whole house, but I am planning to use it for the front living room and the basement bedrooms.
Ok... enough grey talk!