Happy Mother's Weekend!

Mother's Day? Pssst. Not in this house.  Between trying to make my mom feel special and being made to feel special by my husband and son, one day just doesn't cut it.  

Today has been as close to perfect as things can get in my world.  The three of us started the day by heading to an estate sale. No Jenny Lind spool chairs, but I came across a box of costume jewellery necklaces.  

Nothing at the sale was priced at all, so I asked how much they wanted for the whole box.  

Are you ready?  $3.00. 

This picture isn't great, but it shows the 18 necklaces I wound up with. 

The long dark teal one got some air time around my neck for the rest of the day!

We meandered along to another sale a few blocks over where they REALLY knew how to host a tag sale. Everyone there was wearing money belts and they had food and drink!  Hank was treated to a big chewy chocolate chip cookie.

I found these pictures:

They are seven water colours of various landmarks throught the world.  I like the pictures, but more importantly the frames match my hallway decor.  At $7.00 for the lot, there was no passing them up!  Best of all, they have a Simpsons tag on them!  If you're not Canadian and born later then about 1985 you won't have a clue what I'm talking about. Suffice to say Simpsons was a department store that closed down in 1991.  Seeing their branding is a blast from the past!

My mom came over for afternoon tea.  I made her an angel food cake from Better Homes Cookbook.  I bought some bright flowers put the shortly trimmed flower heads in bud vases, tea cups and egg cups.  Boy it looked nice.  Nice enough to take a few pictures, but I forgot to put the memory card in so that moment is lost forever.  Ahh well.  My mom appreciated the effort and that's all that mattered.  

I got her these adorable ceramic and gold goose measuring cups from Anthropology.

It went over well!

We went to see my sister and when I returned Jason surprised me with my Mother's Day present: he fixed my bike!  I'll be honest.  I haven't ridden it since he bought if for me in 2007 (eep), but Hank loves to go for rides with Jason and now I can join in too!  We went for a 40 minute cruise around our neighbourhood and down by Lake Ontario.  It was so picturesque.  I forgot how freeing it feels to ride a bike.   It was truthfully the best gift.  What a day! 

Tomorrow we have another Mother's Day family event and some relaxing.  I hope you're enjoying your weekend and appreciating all the moms and mom-like people in your life.  

Happy DIYing!

A new obsession, quite literally overnight.

Alicia over at Thrifty & Chic has a great blog and on Mondays she reviews model homes in her area.  This past Monday she showed this navy blue and pink themed home.  I noticed the living room chairs with the bead-style spindles right away.

Alicia's picture of the living room

My immediate thought was that they were a vintage find, repainted and reupholstered.  Between Monday and Friday I thought about these chairs more and more.  Last night the obsession culminated into a google search frenzy.  Where to begin? What to look for?

The bead-style of the turned leg reminded me of a Jenny Lind bed

Jenny Lind bed from Land of Nod

  So I started my search there.  Sure enough, Land of Nod has a Jenny Lind style chair:

Land of Nod - $999

Something in my searches led me another name for this little beauty, a spool chair.  This seem to get the best results.  Lay-Z Boy actually sells one too for between $1,500.00 and $1,700.00.

Another retailer, Z-Gallery, sells a similar item for $599.00

Z Gallery

I'm dying to get a couple of these beauties into my living room space but buying two just isn't in the budget right now.  I'm convinced I will be able to find something at an antique market, flea market or consignment store.  It's probably going to to take a while, but I'm patient.  With garage sale and antique market season upon us, my dream might not be so far off.   Speaking of which, I'm headed over to an estate sale and some garage sales this morning.  Wish me luck!

What are you obsessing over lately?

Happy DIYing!

More office updates

My work office is coming together. This is how the unfinished cork board looked

Here it is with some washi tape to jazz things up

I bought three inexpensive rolls to cover the board and some other pieces.

Once I started, I pretty much went to town with it! Washi tape is so easy and fun!

The book shelf isn't done, but it's looking better!

Lastly, I bought this little guy. 

A metal alligator is just so pleasantly unexpected. I couldn't pass him up!

He may have a face for radio, but I love that toothy grin!

Happy DIYing!

Mini Office Update

I bought a couple small items to style my bookshelf.  Ultimately, the shelf has to contain my files since it's a functional shelf and I have to keep my files organized using the filing system common to my office which isn't exactly pretty (although very functional).  I wanted a shelf or two to be more appealing.

I went to Target and found this beautiful faux coral

It is large enough to make a statement on a shelf without taking up too much space.  I bought a couple frames from the clearance section as well (the Nate Berkus line is amazing). 

I can't make any permanent changes to the office space or the furniture so I'm looking to apartment and dorm-dwellers for inspiration with temporary design ideas.  I bought blue poster tack and I intend to use it with some wrapping paper to cover the interior of my book case and make it a little more special.  I need a paper that is pretty, doesn't look cheap and thin, has a subtle and light print,  is preferably matte finish and doesn't cost a fortune.  I may be looking for a long time. 

I'm also interested in Washi Tape.  Have you heard of this stuff?  It's pretty decorative tape that comes in a thousand different designs, styles and widths.  I definitely think I can do something with it!

Washi Tape from Michaels

There are tons of cute projects on Michaels website and I haven't even touched Pinterest yet.  I have a couple ideas for some blah office supplies. 

Happy DIYing!

Projects on the go

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I was a bit burnt out from the laundry room mayhem.  I'll be honest with you, we still have not taken a single step towards completion.  Instead, we have started a bunch of other projects which I'm sure will also remain ongoing for some time.

It seems to me that there are many blogs out there that whip through a project at record speed with reveal photos sprouting up moments after the project was undertaken.  Well that's nice for them (really nice) but I can't operate like that.  Weather, timing, budget and desire all play a part in getting my projects closer to completion. 

This is what's on the go at the moment (aside from the laundry room that I have listed here):

Backyard:  We've pulled out a ton of overgrown shrubbery that doesn't work for us and raked up leaves and dead plant debris that we didn't clear out in the fall.  We've stuffed 19 garden bags full of refuse.  We still have an enormous pile of bush and debris left to bundle up and we need to buy some plants for the gaps we've made.  Jason wants some fruit trees and I'm happy to take a back seat on this project.   It will be a lot of digging but I think in a couple years we'll be thrilled to have fruit from our own back yard (we currently have grapes, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and rhubarb.  We'll also plant some cherry tomatoes shortly too).  We need to take out one of the raised beds at the back of the yard (it's an eyesore that holds way too much decorative grass).  It is also where lawn ornaments either come to mate or die or both.  We found no less than two dozen broken solar-powered lights shaped like various critters.  It is a true menagerie back there.  We're building a shed in its place so that we can clear out some garage space as well as some basement space.

My office space:  As you saw here, I've been working on improving my office-space as well (as in my real work office).  Today I went to Target and bought a couple frames and a piece of fake-but-beautiful coral to try to style my bookcase. 

The hallway:  I'll do a before and after post soon.  We stripped the hallway of its chair-rail wallpaper and discovered that the walls had never been primed, causing a lot of damage.  We had them scratch coated with plaster then primed, sanded, painted and replaced all the old baseboards and trim.  We still need to rip out the front hall closet (it was not originally part of the house - it juts into the garage such that you can't actually get a car in the garage on that side).  Install hooks, shelves and shoe storage for guests, paint the dresser I got from my grandma (below) and make a gallery wall out of gold frames that I need to scavenge from thrift shops. When we do this we'll likely also finish up the hooks and trim in the laundry room since we'll essentially be doing the same thing in the front hall.

Front yard:  Paint the bench, garage doors and front door.  Reuse the bricks from the raised beds in the backyard to make a big black-eyed Susan bed in the front. 

There's A LOT more on the long-term list, but these are the items we hope to get to by the end of the fall.  Aside from my office space, these projects are all intertwined:  to get our car in the garage for winter we need to finish the hallway and clear out space in the garage, hence the need for the shed and the backyard re-do. 

What projects do you currently have on your list?

Happy DIYing!

More than we bargained for...

It's early spring.  Way too early to see critters crawling around on our carpets and nosing by our garbage.  Unfortunately, that is what we're seeing.

More accurately, this is what we're seeing:

Black carpenter ants.  Curiously, they're creepy-crawling on the second floor of our home rather than on the main floor or the basement where they have a fighting chance at finding some food.

I did a bit of research on them and discovered that they like moist, soft wood.  Given the questionable workmanship we've seen in this house, we're pretty well convinced that there is some moisture in the attic and it has attracted a nest.  Ugh.  "Nest of ants" - doesn't that give you the heeby-jeebies?!  My skin is itching just thinking about it!

In the winter we suspected that one or more of our vents weren't properly installed and are blowing warm air into the attic (our friend who's a roofer mentioned it when he saw that parts of our roof had melted snow on it).  Warm air + cold air = moisture.

An exterminator is coming to check things out this week.  As far as I'm concerned, working with poisons in the home is not a DIY project when you have no knowledge of what to do and kids/pets that could be harmed.  This is money well spent in my books.

Wish us luck and happy DIYing!

Office organization upgrade!

I bought a large sheet of wrapping paper to cover the phone holder. I traced the interior and exterior shape then glued the paper on (my paper was handmade and irregular so I selected areas that appeared the best to me).  

I wanted prettier tacks but the Kate Spade gold bows that were oh-so-cute were also oh-so-steep at $24.99 for about 15 or maybe 20 of them. Considering the  phone holder is an old tissue box, plain white tacks seemed a little more reasonable. 

The good news was that I had extra paper so I also covered my cork board. 

I'd like to clean up the edges with ribbon but I'll deal with that later. 

For now it's a decent improvement. 

Happy DIYing!