Sam & Jack's room continued....

Okay, so we are still working on their room....my hubbie managed to get the floor down on Saturday and paint the accent wall. We still have lots to do...but hopefully you will get an idea of the room.

The accent wall is still the old colour yellow. The colonial closet door I snagged at a yardsale for $5 and the cool computer chair was $2!

Yes, the dresser is being painted...notice the ugly carpet!

These steel frame shelves were so cheap...only $20 at Cotsco and you can build them in whatever configuration you want. Very heavy duty too!

Just another shot of the old colour.

The bunk beds are going! The Canadian maple bedside table I got at Value Village for $5 and it is retro 70's! I do have to paint the drawer fronts but I will keep the hardware.

So, this shows you the ugly....hopefully the next posts will show a new and improved kids room!

Ella's pretty in pink bedroom...

Here are a few photos of my little girls room. The room originally was dark and gloomy. This is what I call a make-up renovation. We still have to replace her windows....summer 2008 and add new flooring and trim which will hopefully be this fall. I have reconciled myself to getting laminate for upstairs until we can replace it later with hardwood. I can't live with the old carpet and it kinda freaks me out that it maybe harbouring dust and dirt. We have a woodstove so I prefer surfaces that can be wiped down.

The wooden kitchen set is a favourite!

Her bed I bought at a yardsale for $20!

Gifts from people we love!

Desk & Chair from Value Village for $20!

A closer view of her kitchen! She uses a vintage china teapot!


Lousy photo but it shows her beloved Jasmine lamp.

A couple of photos proving Ella has actually slept in her bed...even if it was just pretend!


I will add more photos later of the other side of her room....the room was messy that day from renovating their brother's room. So, I just moved all the junk around till I couldn't take any more photos. I wish I had a better camera with a wide angle lens...did I mention I hate my camera!

Diningroom again....

I am finally painting the inside of my diningroom china cupboard! It has only taken me months to get around to it.....I will share the after pictures later...I am also trying to weed out some dishes or glassware....but I find it so hard! As the photos show, I have lots of jugs, dishes, glasses, even a soup toureen...and I love every piece.

I have a temporary book-shelf in the diningroom and the stuff on the top is my maybe pile.....the worst thing is the painful headaches I get when I paint....horrible! So, I have to muster up the enthusiasm to endure another bad headache as I add another coat of paint!


However, it will be nice to get this project done and then finally move onto the dining table...I can't wait to paint it and add new material to the seats...well actually I can wait on the work, but I can't wait to see the end result!

The Boys Room...

We are planning on redoing our son's room. It is simply...disgusting! It has carpet that has to go and we plan to widen the entrance into the closet to make it more practical for storing clothing and odds and ends. We will replace all the trim and closet door and paint.

Their room is a lovely spacious room that has full sun during the day...that is why you see Finnigan lounging on their armchair. The room holds bunkbeds, a fullsize comfy armchair, a steel shelving rack for their television, music and baskets of junk plus their dresser and a computer desk. All that, and the room is still spacious!

Since our house is a capecod, you get lots of neat angles that can also be tricky. Inside their huge closet, the ceiling slopes...that is why we plan to widen the closet door entrance to take advantage of the wasted space. Andy loves building closet organizers. He has always built really nice custom fit ones in all our homes. Plus, it will be fun to paint the angled wall a nice contrasting colour.

My biggest dilemma is the flooring. I have always preferred hardwood. My second choice is berber then it would be laminate. It isn't that I don't like the look of laminate...I do....it is the feel...I'm weird like that...maybe a bit OCD...but the feel under my foot or the sound that muffles up has always irritated me somewhat.

But, when I compare the cost between hardwood and laminate, (carpeting isn't an option as maggie our dog has accidents) laminate makes sense. Especially right now with Sam and Jack being so rough on their surroundings. You see, we live in our home 24/7....since we homeschool. Sam might be upstairs doing his work or reading, or Jack might drag out his lego or they may have friends over to hang out...and inevitably, drinks are spilled, markers are stained onto the floor or scratches appear from who knows what. Plus, the other big positive to using laminate is the fact that I can replace the carpet in Ella's room which would be wonderful!

We are thinking of putting it in temporarily till they move out...which surprisingly is only five years away or less for my older two....that way when we do sell we will have nice new hardwood floors...I wish I knew what to do. I want to be financially practical and get the most bang for my dollar...but at the same time, I don't want to wish for hardwood everytime I am in their room....

Am I being silly....seeing this photo of Jack fast asleep, half on the bed half off...makes me wish I could just do berber. But, with Maggie it just isn't an option.

Help!!

Yard Sale Delights

Life is good again....I have managed to go out twice this month to a few yard sales. It is a slow start this year....today it poured rain, it was cold....but we were up and out by 7:30am.

Today I found some nice jewellery that I am most pleased with and some pretty pillows.
Last week I found this most beautiful green tinware baking set. I imagine making rice pudding in it as my Aunty Jean used to bake her rice pudding in these lovely old yellow tinware dishes. I also found a lovely old glass pyrex dish...that I will get a lot of use out of. I want to try to get away from storing all my leftovers in plastic. Having dishes like these means you cook, serve and save all in the same dish.

I also found this lovely old wicker purse..though not at a yard sale. I found it uptown at Roy's Army Surplus. I love his store as he has so many neat things. I used to take Sam my middle son to his store as Sam has a major army memorabilia collecton. It was such a nice surprise to find this wicker bag tucked onto the shelf as I have been collecting them for many years now and they are hard to come by. I love them and I have quite a collection. This is a pretty one...though not overly impressive...but because they are harder to find I couldn't leave it behind...


Already I can't wait for next weekend...

My Dirty Little Secret

One area that seems to bring lots of quick jokes at my expense is my need for my dishwasher to be loaded in a very specific way! Discovering the secret of loading a dishwasher is only entrusted to certain unique, highly intelligent, fairly organized individuals like myself. I can take a sinkful of dishes and make them fit into an already full dishwasher!

So, when I see a plate on the top rack or a knife facing upwards or a cup in the wrong section...then I have to fix it! Now, I am even so bold to correct Alli and Shane as they attempt to load the dishwasher since I consider them family and not guests...so it is fair game when it comes to my dishwasher! Though correcting them means I am the butt of many jokes...I still can't resist fixing their blatant errors in loading a machine that brings peace and harmony to relationships! My marriage would have been over within two years if we hadn't gotten a dishwasher! This is serious stuff!

It's Spring because I said so....

At supper tonight Andy informs me that we are about to get a big storm...upto 20cm of snow and high winds. I just felt resentful, wanting spring to burst forth because all of us are so sick of winter. We have a serious case of the winter blues!

So, what do I do to cope with this news....I take it upon myself to go clean my two huge picture windows from the outside. I drag my kitchen chair outside, grab my bounty and windex, balance my chair on my frozen flower beds and climb up and get to work!

I realized how silly I looked, but I wanted to wash away the grime from the winter, the dirty snow balls that the kids throw at my two windows...depending on which room I'm in...they never tire of scaring me!

So, I have to say that I felt a sense of satisfaction knowing that in spite of ole mother winter...this mamma was moving forward ignoring completely the impending storm!

Easter Musings...

Well, today is Good Friday and it really has been! Last night, Shane & Alli text messaged me that they had booked their tickets to Canada and would arrive in Halifax on April 16th! I'm still smiling as I write this because I'm still a bit in shock and feel like the air is filled with so much promise.

They still have so many more decisions ahead of them...but I admire the guts it takes to make big life changing decisions with no safety nets below them other than their deep faith that guides their path. I have good vibes that New Brunswick will be kind to them and pivotol in shaping their future goals.

Oh, and I noticed from my kitchen window today that my garlic is sprouting...I am so excited! I imagine myself braiding my garlic in the fall and cooking with my own fresh garlic...yumm! So many promises...



I also started prepping our front window today so that I can paint it and get one more thing ticked off my to do list. I felt I had to wait for the cold snap to break because it has been so bitterly cold. I worried that the paint along the glass wouldn't cure properly.

I am working on my easter eggs for the kids. I will fill them with candy and hide them outside in the garden...no matter what the weather! If it snows...which it might...the kids can have fun searching in the snow...or enjoy easter eggs for the next week or so as they reappear amidst the melting snow.

Andy will be at work on Easter which is new for me. It feels strange not having him here...even though he never actually does any of the easter kid stuff, except to steal some of their chocolate, it will feel odd not having him here. Plus, he is the one who would normally cook our big breakfast and help me with the dinner...

I also don't feel up to hosting a big huge family dinner so I am going to make a very small turkey breast and some mashed potatoes for me and the kids. Andy got us the new Charlotte's Web movie and we will watch that after dinner.

Oh, and as I sit here I realized the other job I hope to tackle soon is my glass cupboard in the diningroom. It needs painted and all the bits and pieces of old china, pottery, glasses, etc., needs organized and displayed properly. This will be fun because I am painting it a pretty colour to make it pop.


As you can see, I haven't touched it since we moved in just over a year ago. It is organized chaos and that's about it! I have lots of old vintage china and glassware, a pretty good sized pottery collection that for the most part comes from yard sales over the last 20 years! Why pay retail if you don't have too!

Beautiful Kitchens....

One area that I look forward to renovating is my kitchen. As it stands, I am actually very happy with my kitchen as the cupboards are really nice and well made. However, as much as I am enjoying my time with natural wood cupboards, I will be ready to go back to cupboards that are painted a nice light, airy colour.

We plan to replace our old tile backsplash with something new and fun. I love the new glass tiles on the market and I would love to use them....but in reality, I will probably try to choose a tile that will stand the test of time and trends, but the other side of me wants to do something wild and fun in my kitchen because I don't plan to move anytime soon!

When I want inspiration, I tend to look at old houses and see what looks good today as much as it did back then. Then try to update it with a fresh approach, with my own take on it.
I don't know what colour we will paint our cabinets or what tile we will pick but we will have fun planning it as it will be a big job...probably the biggest one in this house before we move outside to tackle the exterior.

The pictures here are of my sister's kitchen which is amazingly beautiful and really showcases her talent! Her husband Paul made all the cabinets himself. He has built Linda many pieces of beautiful furniture that I can only dream of...though I have to mention that he has built me some beautiful pieces too... He also built her kitchen island which she had in her last two houses. She loves it so much that it is never included in her house sales....smart girl! The island is reminiscent of ones found in old shops with the lovely aged wooden top.

I can't recall if Linda painted the cupboards herself or if she hired this job out. Another time, I will show the cupboards that my dad built and they painted theirs as well. There isn't a paint stroke to be found as they are both beautifully done.

Her tile is a subway tile with a glass tile border to break it up and add some sparkle! She has open shelving and her lighting is the old fashioned school lights which look so vintage and fun!

These pictures do not do justice to the feeling you get sitting in her kitchen. Even on the dullest day, you would feel like it is a nice sunny, happy day!

Sitting by the fire....

Okay, I know I am getting silly but I love my fireplace and writing about it is sillier still! It is one of those things that I always wanted in a home and only one other time when we had a rental did we have a working fireplace.

When you are selling your home you never know what one thing will sell your house...create that emotional attachment. For me in this house it was the vintage turn key doorbell and the fireplace.

Since we moved in, I have since repainted the fireplace to a crisp white to help balance the funny green colour I picked for the livingroom walls. Naturally, the first person to damage my nice newly painted fireplace was Andy but that was to be expected as I have a cupboard full of damaged crockery that he has broken over the years....he let a couple of logs roll out onto the tile and they burned a mark into the paint that I had to sand down and repaint. But, since then...no problems!

There is something so cosy about a fire and you can't help but gravitate around it. When we light a fire we tend to all hang out and drink some tea and watch television or talk or blog with my laptop.

Later on we plan to add some more moulding to the fireplace and reface the fireplace with tile. But for now, painting was a quick, fun fix.

Spring is almost here....

As I am sitting here enjoying my morning coffee in the diningroom, I can't help but feel excited at the promise of spring. I am itching to get outside and check on the garlic I planted last fall....the whole time nervously planting and turning around to make sure a bear wasn't creeping up behind me....but that garlic is symbolic of a long road to finding my home.

Many years ago my husband and I rented an old house with the most spectacular views of Duck Cove Beach. Duck Cove was my stomping ground when I arrived in Canada and I love being next to the sea.

At the time we had been struggling with infertility for seven years and we had been told that there wasn't any hope. So, Andy had almost finished school, we were in debt, and I was miserable because I was trying to come to grips with never experiencing motherhood. I was however busy with my new job as a hotel manager and training new staff and opening new hotels for the company.

When I would get to stressed or frazzled, I would slip home and garden. I might weed a flower bed or plant some seeds....or one of my favourites was attacking the beds that were on the backside of the house overlooking the water. From spring to fall I watched these odd plants growing that were so cool and smelled delicious....I figured they were garlic but I was such a new gardener I couldn't be sure. But, I nurtured them, pulled all the weeds away and watched them grow and produce garlic. I enjoyed this so much that I said to myself at the time that when we found the home we would settle in, I would plant my own garlic and hopefully have it forever.

Well, it only took 14 years and four houses later to know that I am here and settled for a long time. This year I hopefully will harvest my first crop of garlic....If I am really lucky, maybe I can find a sunny spot to try growing roses.

Mudroom....

This is a photo of our mudroom closet. It is a huge closet with two solid wood colonial doors which is the first thing you see when you come into our mudroom. The closet is spacious and it already had a closet organizer inside though the inside walls needed a lot of work and the wooden shelves needed paintingBefore we began renovating this room there was very old cushion flooring in white of all colours, along with walls that had the most ugly wallpaper. It is a nice spacious mudroom about 8x10.

In this room we did everything half-assed backwards. Rather than stripping the walls and painting them first, we stupidly laid our new slate floors. This happened because my husband offered to lay the slate during the weekend I was going to visit my sister in NS. I didn't hesitate to take him up on his offer. It could be months till he found the motivation to do it again! I did a mental checklist of what could go wrong doing the floor first but my desire to get something, anything done...won!

I chose a less traditional black slate tile which is rough hewn and somewhat imperfect. Part of the reason why I chose a rough hewn tile was due to memories I had as a kid visiting an old abandoned house that had slate roof tiles laying on the ground in amongst the grass. I would drag home the old slate and use it as lap style chalkboards with my sister or friends while we played school! Plus, I wanted a bit of a scullery feel to the mudroom...nothing to fancy or perfect...rough and suitable for a house with three growing, messy boys!

I chose a cocoa brown grout which I love....but that has a story to go with it also. My husband had never laid slate...and in particular one that is imperfect and takes a loving hand and eye to get it right. It was a big job and quite frustrating but all in all I think he did a pretty great job! My only regret, is that we couldn't afford to lay the infloor heating which would have made the floor far more comfortable in the winter as I tend to not heat this room unless it is absolutely freezing! So, the tile is very cold!

My hubby used to much water in the grout and instead of having nice cocoa brown grout I ended up with white. I solved the problem by using tea bags dipped in water to stain the grout and in my humble opinon...it looks marvelous!

Before we could paint the walls we had to remove layers of wallpaper. Well, why not make the job harder. Andy some sort of sharp object to score the paper instead of the proper tool....well, once the paper came off so did some of the gyprock and he had damaged the walls with his heavy duty scoring. So, all that had to be patched and sanded!

We ended up painting the walls twice. The first time it was a lovely green colour which looked really pretty. But, the look was more pottery barn and I felt it was to safe and predictable. What I really want for this house is my own look...I have always had to consider resale and keeping it buyer friendly....so now I want my own somewhat eclectic taste to show through, I can show off all my bits and pieces that I have collected over the years! Most of all....I want people to smile when we open the door. I don't care if it is because they roll their eyes because they hate the colour or because it makes them feel happy! So, I chose a very bright almost tacky orange...and we love it! It is a small room and I will change the colour often I am sure...but for now....we get a kick out of the jolt of colour when you open the door.
In this photo you can see a small sampling of my vintage wicker bag collection. I have collected these for about 20 years now and my favourites are on display here. One isn't a wicker purse but one that my friend knitted and felted and the other favourite is one given to me by my friends Shane & Alli.

The light above is new and it is the rubbed bronze as are the new hinges and door handles. I really love changing out hinges as much as I do door handles. It is a small detail but it is something I notice and appreciate.

This room turned out to be
a lot of work...it took us over a
month to complete this job. But we are really satisfied with the job so far. We do plan to replace the back door with a new one when we can afford it. But first we will replace the steps and build a small deck leading upto the entrance.

Family Room

When we moved in a year ago, the first job we did was to replace the ceiling in our family-room located in the basement. It is a large spacious room but has a tricky layout because of the woodstove situated smack dab in the middle of the room.

The woodstove sits on a cement slab which would have been poured as part of the basment 36 odd years ago. It was covered in a groovy brown and biege tile that I took great joy in smashing! Then we... or I should say, my brother and husband smashed out the first layer of cement on the fireplace pad. This pad sat about 12" off the ground. We discovered below the ugly but groovy tile a great surprise of beautiful to me (not so much to the men) flagstones. So, they were forced to chip them out and they are now safely located meandering through my flower beds that I am slowly working on....though that is another story for another time.

To my dismay, they announced that demolishing the cement pad by sledge-hammer wasn't feasible (weaklings!!) and we needed to rent a jack-hammer! Needless to say, a year later, it still isn't finished as the motivation was not found during the busy summer months.

However, we did manage to paint the walls a very sunny yellow and we replaced the incredibly horrible drop ceiling with gyprock. We installed pot lights and now the family room is a pretty happy place to be....except for a few minor details....we still have one wall of fake wood panelling to remove and replace with gyprock. It goes up the stairs so my husband is stalling on doing this...it drives me crazy!!! I hate wood panelling and he hates anything tricky and therefore requires much deep thinking and planning and discussion with a million other people to confirm what I already know and have told him!

However, this house is to be our home for a long time and I truly believe it is a life lesson for me to be patient and wait....not my strongest quality! I tend to want to take a task on and fix it! So I, being the dutiful wife will wait on the wood panelling...more so, because I am distracted by other jobs I want done, and it lulls my husband into a false sense of security that I am patient and agree with his wise councel! When I do zone in on this detail once again, I will threaten to prime and paint it, which will probably spur him into action....he hates it if I waste money and get paint on the carpet....LOL...silly man, I do that so he will paint!

Dining Room

I think that out of all the rooms in this house the diningroom was the one room I truly despised! Why....you might ask....simply put, the colour! Since we are located on a shaded treed lot, I have been challenged to no end on choosing paint colours. Every house I have owned has always been sunny. My colour choices for inside my house has reflected that until now.

My very patient husband has actually been very kind on painting and repainting rooms when I realize that I can't live with the colour. Let me tell you, if you are the type of person who needs light to function to avoid the mid-winter blues, then you will understand my dilemma. I love colour, but within my home I prefer colours that are happy and airy or bold and happy! That way, when we are in the midst of a long winter and February drags on like it owns 50 days instead of 28 and the cold sears your bones you tend to appreciate walls that remind you of cheery summer days rather than your child's last bout with stomach flu.

This diningroom had paint on the walls the colour of newborn breastfed poops...(hey, not so bad because they don't smell!) but none the less, I don't need joyful reminders of those early days with my newborn babies. What stopped me from painting this room was the massive window that takes up the whole wall. It is a wooden window that has been well scratched up over the years and shows the wear from many cats and little boys with dinky cars.

Finally, I challenged myself to break down the work into managable bites. On day one, I taped the window. Then priming came next, then I decided to tear off all the trim because it was garbage, then I painted that window a total of 8 coats with three different paints. I started using what I thought was a very good primer. However, I forgot that wood bleeds and it wasn't really adequate for the job. Then I chose a Zinnser product but didn't care for the low sheen and finally I used another Zinnser product with a high gloss and hard wearing as I have a cat and a toddler.


The change to the room was amazing. What light that came into the room was somewhat absorbed by the wooden window. Now the sunlight bounces off the white trim and the room is so much brighter and cheerier. Then we moved onto the painting the ceiling, walls and replacing all the trim. I painted the glass doors and my husband replaced all the hinges with the dark burnished brass. We didn't replace the door handles as they are vintage glass knobs but I did replace the glass cupboard knobs with burnished bronze knobs.


I still need to paint the diningroom set to a creamy white and paint and decorate the inside of the glass cupboard....but for now, I am very happy!

Oh, and I have to mention some of the bargains in my diningroom. The dining set was free! My friend Martha gave it to me after I helped her with a move. The curtains cost me $30 total. Four sets of white panels at $6 each and the aqua blue florals cost $3 each...I guess no one wanted them! The diningroom light was $20 on a clearance table and the shades were free from my sister. The runner was another $3 and the dresser in the back where I store all my treasured linens and cutlery either passed down or collected at yard sales cost me another $10 at an amazing yard sale! Oh, and you can't see it, but there is a beautiful woven wicker man under the dining set that I also snagged at a yard sale for five bucks! I love a bargain and I believe that a limited budget demands you to be creative.
Anyone can buy a look...copy it verbatim, but the most fun and creativity comes from the challenge of creating a look that is uniquely your own yet fresh and modern.

Overall, the biggest expenses were the paint, the new trim...though even half of it came from a yard sale so it wasn't to bad and replacing all the electrical switches, heater, light dimmer and thermostat was actually the most expensive part...but well worth it!


My vintage glass door knobs!

A little bit about our home....

On November 16th, 2005 we moved into this wonderful older cape cod. Hard to believe, but a house built in 1970 is almost considered vintage! This house was built by the owners. He was a carpenter and my husband and I have discovered that he didn't cheap out on the wood used to build the house.

Even inside the garage which is seperate from the house, there are huge beams of what looks to be hand hewn timbers. The two big picture windows in the livingroom and diningroom are double glazed glass with absolutely no leaks nor do they frost up.

I don't care for the look of the glass windows from the outside...but if you are sitting in the livingroom or diningroom the view is truly lovely as you can see from the photo I snapped last week through the window. These deer visit me almost daily and wander through the trees then across the road into our neighbours.

Our lot is a beautiful treed lot with lots of privacy that I prefer. It is set back from the street which also allows the kids to have a wonderful hill to slide or snowboard on. My back yard butts onto my mothers yard which was one of the main reasons we bought the house.

The street is a dead end cul-de-sac though we do get some street noise which is another street over. I love the old trees and yet every time we have a wind storm I say some pretty fervent prayers that one of the trees won't come crashing through our roof.

The front yard is in desperate need of landscaping. The grass does not grow because of the pine trees, the huge fir trees and the multitude of other trees...including an apple tree!

The nicest thing I did this year in the garden was plant garlic plants. It has been 14 years in the making...waiting for a house that I would be staying at for longer than a couple of years or so. My husband and I have already renovated one house, then built two new homes ourselves. We always figured we would be able to build three new houses quickly and be mortgage free with the fourth....LOL...what a hoot....not if you have 4 kids and choose to stay at home as I have done.

However, building a new home is truly a wonderful experience and to a large degree I miss not doing it. It is nice when you move in and most things are done...but we are thrilled to be fixing up this lovely home and restoring it to that place that shows we care. I only wish I had more money and time to do it sooner rather than later.

The House We call Home

This is where I plan to post photos and my struggles to fix up this house. I am starting this blog one year into the process. However, I plan to short write ups of what we have accomplished...more so for myself as I get discouraged because things aren't happening quick enough.