Dirty Little Secret

Ok, here we go. Confession time. Even I make mistakes *gasp!* Shocking right?

I have a terrible time choosing paint colours. I pick one. Second guess myself. Pick another colour. Second (or third?) guess myself. Then I pick a completely random colour and slap some paint on the walls (while crossing my fingers and hoping for the best). Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

I was inspired by these gorgeous, sunshiney laundry rooms...

{from Real Simple}

{from BP4}

We went through our whole 'paint choosing' process which involves grabbing a bunch of samples and taping them to the walls. We immediately eliminate the ones that we don't like and then check out the remaining contenders at different times of day. I wanted a happy yellow, but not too crazy. A cheerful and energetic yellow, without being too bright.

{such a sweet, innocent colour}

I ended up choosing Bicycle Yellow. Sounds fun, right? The paintchip was a warm, buttery yellow - and it looked like a pretty good match from my inspiration rooms. Let's just remember where we started - the laundry room as we saw it when we first viewed the house. The green carpet and disorganization drove me bananas.

While I bookclubbed with some lovely ladies upstairs, Jeff put 2 coats on the laundry room walls. And then I went down to see...

OH GOD WHAT DID I DO???

And that was as far as I wanted to go into that room. You had to squint it was so bright. And I felt terrible. That paint colour was totally my call and dutifully the Hubs painted 2 coats of it. So it was my job to fix it. But first I needed to lie down because looking at that crazy yellow made me a little dizzy. Oy!

The next morning I made a cup of tea and sat down with Devil Yellow Bicycle Yellow and a can of plain white and started mixing. I added yellow, one cup at a time, to the white paint until I reached a colour that didn't make your eyeballs bleed when you walked into the room. Success! Here's a quick snap we took just after I finished 2 coats of the softer yellow and Jeff laid down our new flooring.

And here's our new washer dryer in their new home!

Sorry for the crappy picture! Trust me, it looks great!

Road Trip!

With the beautiful weather we've had over the last few weeks our attention has turned to our front lawn. And the disaster that it is. There's just no rhyme or reason to it and the weeds have begun to take over.

I'm in the midst of taking out all the little maple trees and those crazy grasses, but we lacked a plan. We knew we needed a little guidance so we went to the awesome Sheridan Nurseries in Scarborough. Yes, it was a bit of a drive but totally worth it. I've found that the employees of the local garden centres are usually either too busy with other customers or lacking in knowledge so we thought it best to go a place that was dedicated to all things gardening.

This place is gigantic (over 31,000 sq. ft!!) and everyone there was super knowledgeable...especially when I asked one of them if they had the 'things that are sorta greenish purple and look like cabbages' (they didn't have them but he knew what I was talking about).

The first couple plants that caught my eye were these neat looking guys. They're so visually interesting and super unique.

{Kong Red Coleus - super neat leaves and does great in the shade}

{Henna Coleus - funky serrated  coppery leaves}

Jeff was a big fan of the grasses section. The low maintenance of some of these grasses would be perfect for us.

{Japanese Blood Grass}

{Ribbon Grass}

{All Gold Japanese Forest Grass & Black Mondo Grass - fun!}

{Variegated Moor Grass - I love how spiky he is}

These succulents were totally my favourites. I'd love to use them in bunches around the front of the lawn in a little planter (I hope to build). They look super cool when they are green and then in late fall they flower - super bang for your buck!

{Autumn Charm Stonecrop}

{Autumn Fire Stonecrop}

{Autumn Joy Stonecrop}

{Angelina Stonecrop}

After all this green we were looking for some fun colour...and boy did we find it! Check out these 2 awesome guys, Ice Cream Banana and Ice Cream Cherry. Why wouldn't you want plants that remind you of sundaes? I was getting a little wonky in the heat so I didn't do a lot of research on these guys but plan on going back soon to find out some more about them (whether they like a lot of sun, their maintenance, etc...)

{Ice Cream Banana}

{Ice Cream Cherry}

I'm not sure how all these different plants will work together, but at least we have a starting place.

DIY Project: Dominoes!

Here's a fun DIY project I recently made for a dear friend's birthday (but I haven't given to her yet so don't tell Carrie). I originally found this project through A Beautiful Mess, which linked from Aesthetic Outburst. The tutorial on there is great, but I thought what the heck I'll make my own.

What You'll Need:

• Wood (I used a couple pine trim pieces, measuring 2"x36"x3/4")
• Chop Saw
• Sandpaper
• Pencil
• Metal Ruler
• Puff Paint (found at any craft store)

The first step is to take your wood and cut it into domino sized pieces. I cut them into 1" thick pieces, but there was a whole learning process to this. First off, we didn't have the right saw blade and it kept ripping up the ends of the pieces.

{Blech}

Instead of going out and dropping $70 on a new blade I improvised. Each piece ended up being cut twice. 1/2 way through on one side, flip the piece and then finish the cut. It took me about twice as long as I had planned, but each cut was nice and clean. And that made me happy. For the set you need 29 pieces, I cut a couple extra just in case.

After all your pieces are cut you're going to want to sand the ends and edges (no one likes getting splinters). I used 120 grit sandpaper because that's what I had laying around. Make sure you use a damp cloth to wipe off all the dust before you start painting.

Measure the halfway mark on each piece and (in pencil) lightly draw a line across.

Using the puff paint make a dotted line across the pencil line. I don't have a very steady hand so I practiced on some extra pieces before I started on the 'good' ones.

Once the paint dried I used this chart provided by Aesthetic Outburst to mark all the dots on each piece and coloured them in using the puff paint.

The puff paint takes about 6 hours to dry so I made sure to put them in an out of the way place where the cat couldn't get to them. I'm super happy with how they turned out and think these would make a great gift for almost anyone.

{Love the detail of the woodgrain}

Now I just need to sew a little bag to hold them...and remember how to play!

Cost Breakdown:

• 2 pieces of pine trim - $3.50 each from Lowe's
• White Puff Pain - $2.50 from De Serre's
• TOTAL: $10 (for a handmade {heartfelt} present)

An Artful Home

I love having art in the home and Jeff and I have quite the collection going. We've been lucky to have been gifted with some great pieces and found some lovely ones ourselves. When considering a new piece we usually go through a checklist of sorts:
- Do we like it? Why do we like it? It's more than just thinking something is pretty. Prettiness comes and goes, but if it actually makes us feel something then it's worth a second look.
- Where are we going to put it? Though this one isn't a dealbreaker we do like to have a plan in mind for where our new piece will eventually end up.
- Does it fit with the rest of the house? I'm not trying to make our entire house match (that would be cuckoo) it's more about keeping it all in the same theme - which is currently bright, fun and a little funky.

Not too long ago I revealed our master bedroom, but we weren't quite done. There was no art! It took us a little while to find the right mix of pieces. We wanted them to work with the room, but not be too matchy matchy.

First came our DIY monogrammed pictures above the headboard.

These were super simple to do. I just typed our initials and 'and' into a word document, messed around until I found some fonts we liked and then printed them. We popped them into IKEA frames and voila - instant personalized art.

[The fonts are Graf Circulum (J), Handstand (and) and Chopin (S)}

In December Jeff and I went to the One of a Kind show and we were just about to give up on finding anything we wanted to take home when we found an amazing Japanese artist who still does traditional marbling. The artist, Robert Wu, was so nice and super helpful in helping us find the perfect prints which now hang over our little reading nook.

Marbling is done one sheet at a time, so each one is unique - which I love.

Lastly, our 'gallery wall' above the dresser. Part of being art junkies is that sometimes we have more pieces than we know what to do with. This system lets us move around our current collection and add/subtract pieces when we get bored of them.

Our current collection consists of some pretty special pieces...

1. A photograph taken by Jeff's late grandfather who was an amazing photographer.
2. A painting by my bestfriend and former roommate, Carrie.
3. A photograph from our engagement shoot. Taken by the amazing Angela Y Martin.
4. Our kitty cat, Kuro.
5. Buddha. He's been with me since I moved to Toronto. This is our 4th home together.
6. I collect elephants (as well as art). This little wooden guy is from our recent trip to Dominican Republic.
7. This elephant is one of the first gifts Jeff ever bought me. He's from a little shop in Niagara on the Lake that we picked up our first summer together.
8. All our wedding mementos fit in this cute little wooden box (our invites, menu, my veil and wedding jewelry).
9. Cute converse sneakers print was a bonus from JohnWGolden's Etsy shop where we got our robot prints from (yay for freebies).

I think adding art can really personalize a home, and that's all what we're about!

Naked Shed

When we first toured the house last Auguest we noticed a lack of storage and because we have a lot of junk stuff personal items we knew we'd have to fix that. We moved in late October and didn't have a lot of time to get to work before the real cold set in. We didn't have the time to plan, design and build our own shed so we ordered a 'shed kit' from Shedman. Jeff visited their Pickering location where he got to check out all their different styles and get a sense for the quality of the workmanship. He was happy and because it was the end of the season we got a smoking deal on one of their 'barn style' sheds. What they basically delivered was a pile of wood (all cut to length), screws, roofing shingles and the directions (which we promptly discarded). We figured it ended up costing us less than if we had bought everything piecemeal from a hardware store AND it was delivered right into our backyard. Score!

First we had to remove the rotting planter at the very back of the yard. When we tore it apart it was a treasure trove of discarded junk; pieces of concrete, rocks, a 2' length of pipe, random childrens toys, a ballon and other random bits of garbage. It was like the previous owner had chosen to use his planter as a garbage instead of a place for pretty flowers.

Sometimes Jeff likes to tackle major projects by himself. After all, he's a man and can do anything. But when it came to building our new shed he called in reinforcements. On a bitter cold Sunday in November my dad, father-in-law and sister's boyfriend all came up to lend a hand (I ordered pizza and kept the cat company inside). After many hot cups of coffee and a 24 slice pizza we had this monstrous thing of beauty...

{That shed is perfectly level. It's our entire lawn that's on a slope}

Excitedly we went out and bought 2 gallons of paint to pretty this girl up. And then the temperatures dropped and it was too cold to actually get any paint on her. We thought about giving it a shot and crossing our fingers but apparently if you paint when it's too cold out it doesn't stick well and it could bubble off. Which would be gross and counter productive. So we waited. All winter. And our shed was naked.

Then it got nice again and we got off our butts and dug out the cans of paint that had been sitting unused all winter and got to work. ***sidenote: When I say 'we' I mean 'Jeff' - this was all his baby.

{One coat of 'Elephant Skin' and she doesn't look too pretty)

Halfway through we ran out of paint (because that's how we do things around here). It took 2 whole weekends but she was finally done.

It only took us 7 months from start to finish, but I think it was worth the wait. Not only is the shed super pretty, but also HUGE (8'x10'x10') and solves so many of our storage problems. Jeff has already installed a loft for added vertical storage, he's built a workbench and currently working on an organization system for everything. Once he's done I'll post pictures but for now I am sworn to secrecy.

I love looking back on where we started and seeing how far we've come. The backyard (and frontyard) are in need of some major rehabilitation which we plan to spread over the next few summers, at least now we have a place to start those projects and store all the necessary stuffs needed to make it happen.

{Click to enlarge}

Living Room: The Reveal

When we first viewed the house there was a very small room at the front of the house, originally it had a couch, coffee table and tv. It felt really small, but we figured that we could make it work. Because this is the first room you see when you come home and the last room you see when you leave I wanted the space to be welcoming and cheerful, something that would put a smile on your face as soon as you walked in the front door. Choosing the right colour combination was tricky but I am so happy with how everything turned out.

I think I'm going to paint the front door red - surprise surprise.

We can now fit a 7' couch, 2 chairs, coffee table, 2 bookshelves and a fireplace and the room feels 2x larger.

Walter proudly guards our awesome fireplace and to hide some of our clutter we snagged some bookshelf doors from IKEA and found some 'coral' fabric from Designer Fabrics for a funky new look.
 

Jeff's favourite couch has secured its place in our home - for now. And Jeff's 26th birthday present is the perfect 'family portrait.'
 
I love how the light streams through these front windows, it's the perfect place to curl up with a book.

Most of the objects on our bookshelves were carefully chosen because they mean something to us or work with the palette of the room. All the books were wrapped with plain white computer paper for a less cluttered look.

We have plans to make this 'message centre' a little more functional, but for now we're just happy to enjoy our finally completed living room.

Before + After

{click on the images to enlarge them}