At home in Ottawa

I'm a' quitting!

2011-10-27T07:06:00.002-04:00

Hey all, it's long overdue - I have to admit that for personal reasons, I will no longer be writing my blog. I love reading other blogs about home stuff and have a lot to say/write but something holds me back. I think a big part of effective writing online is a willingness to share information about yourself - a willingness to let people into your private life for a little while. Unfortunately, things have changed in my life and I no longer feel the comfort I once did in posting things freely and publicly online. Although I would love to continue sharing, blogger is no longer the appropriate forum for me to do so.

So that leads me to good-bye - not forever, mind you, I will still be an avid reader (and occasional commenter!) on other blogs. I just won't be maintaining this space anymore. All that to say - if you are interested and want to keep in touch, I do have an active (and I mean Active) flickr account where I post (dozens and dozens) of detailed photos of all of my projects. It is, of course, completely restricted - if you have a yahoo or flickr account, let me know in the comments below and I can add you as a contact.

(oh and of course I won't publish your comment if it contains personal information!!)

Sneak peak

2011-10-21T07:12:00.000-04:00

So our bathroom is done, our living room is painted, our floors have been refinished AND our master closet is done...

We still have to paint out our hall/entry, our spare room AND finish decorating (uh huh, of course). A sneak peak to make you curious:

My living room is yellow

2011-09-29T17:33:00.003-04:00

As someone that typically goes a Bit Mild on colour, I surprised myself by picking a deep mustard colour for our living room. It's on the walls, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the choice. Deep breaths, right? Art deco inspired spaces are SUPPOSED to be colour saturated. Right?

!!!!!

Our bathroom reno - the demo begins

2011-09-26T07:37:00.001-04:00

Okay, so you saw what it most recently looked like - and what it started out looking like...so what's happened?

Well, we started with a massive demo - we had decided to absorb the closet in our master bedroom (you can see it in the floor plan here) in an attempt to get enough space to have a separate tub and shower (can you imagine?! I know!). That and the fact that our plumbing was in exterior walls meant it all had to come out.

Bye bye ugly vanity with your broken drawers and god awful tiles!

Bye bye toilet that never ever seemed to flush properly!

After taking out the toilet and sink, the hub went to town ripping down the drywall and quickly discovered that it had been put up over the original bathroom walls (plaster and gypsum, of course!). CHECK IT OUT, at one point my house had a classic vintage pink bathroom!

Coming in from the hallway, love the chaos! Check out the pink walls...with the east facing window, I added tinfoil and a window a/c unit thinking it would help keep the Boiling Heat out (it didn't).

As I mentioned before, we had decided to absorb the master bedroom closet - so you can see the demo activities from our new (and temporary) second point of access to the bathroom. You can see that obviously the walls were at one pointed tile lined - though not with ceramic tiles, with plastic ones (?!)

Peeking around the wall from inside the tub (oh la!), you can see that the original sink had faced the toilet (vs the door, where the pre-demo one had been). And that it had a built-in medicine cabinet.

BUT WAIT, it gets better! Check out this shot, you can see the shape of the original light fixtures AND a cubby. A cubby lined with the original, red red red swirly plastic tiles. This discovery made my day, I saved one of course.

I had to include a close-up shot. Check it out, they were a deep red with pink swirls? Must have been an epic bathroom.

And, of course, the door heading back into the hallway.

Second Floor - Tour of Our Before

2011-09-24T21:41:00.006-04:00

When we started this whole reno process, I was so keen. I even posted a tour of our first floor before we started. Wow, I impress myself. Now that we've been working hard on the second, I realize I never posted a tour of the before - better late than never, right?. Or really, a follow-up tour of the after or "current state" of the first floor. BAH!

;)

Anyway - so here it is, a mock-up floor plan of our second floor space.

Somewhere out in e-lala land, I have a ton of before photos that are vastly superior to these. Sadly, this is what I currently have on our hard drive..follow me up the powder blue stairs (carpet, walls, everything!)

At the top of the stairs sits our master bedroom, great view of the ugly ceiling fan and the attic/dormer storage.

The hall to the second bedroom and the bathroom:

Our second bedroom, complete with mirror tile, ceiling fan and dirty dirty blue shag carpet (oh the memories!)

Here's where the hall turns towards the bathroom...this is actually an intermediate shot - you can see that the walls are no longer blue and a light has been added.

This, of course, led into this epic space:

Which included great details like a floating ceiling and a custom made carpet (grosssss!)

Of course, you can see these and the intermediate steps for our bathroom in this post.

Changing out the cold air intakes

2011-09-20T07:48:00.003-04:00

When we moved into the house, we noticed that all of the cold air intakes for our furnace were large and irregular in size. They were the original wood grates and when you looked inside, the vents had become gross gross gross. Right away, I wanted to change them...

Upon inspecting the situation in the basement, I quickly realized that the ducting for the cold air intakes was actually non-existant - basically, there's just a closed-in section between two joists (does that make sense?) that also lines our foundation wall (?!?!?!). This means that the air that being pulled in for reheating also passes all along our cold foundation wall before returning to the furnace. Blah! How is that efficient? With that in mind, I realized that eventually I would want to put in proper insulated ductwork and pull the cold air intakes away (at least a little bit!) from the cold exterior walls of the house.

So what does this have to do with right now? Well, with the plans to refinish the floors underway, I knew it would be important to resize and change out the vent covers now so we went out and bought some pretty art deco inspired vent covers from Home Depot. We chose 4x10 aluminum floor register in a nickel finish by Decor Grates from Elite.

Luckily, through all of our other reno projects I worked hard to salvage original floorings and molding. So the hub pillaged our supply, framed in a smaller hole and pieced matching hardwood into place. The difference is a little noticable but when the floors are done, that should disappear.

And with the new cover, voila!

Dick and Jane's Spot - Art Outside the Home

2011-09-19T17:25:00.000-04:00

Art Home - gotta check it out!

Dick and Jane's Spot

I love it, from Curbed National.

How to Cut Crown Molding | Video | Crown Molding | This Old House

2011-09-18T13:54:00.000-04:00

How to Cut Crown Molding | Video | Crown Molding | This Old House

With our planned living room reno and master bedroom overhaul, I dream of adding crown molding for that finishing touch...

Oh, I forgot to mention

2011-09-17T10:04:00.000-04:00

I'll admit, this is a text-only post. So here I am, just jumping into the story of our bathroom remodel and our fireplace restoration (can I really call it that?). What's the relationship? I started talking a bit about all of our planned projects here but never really described our "logic". Are we just going at this all ass-backwards? Back around Christmas, when we finished up the small Rec Room Project we decided to take a break and quit renovating for a while. Of course, that didn't stop us from doing our entry (which now needs to be entirely redone and WHAT? I never posted that? Okay, I will) but hey. We vowed, at that time, to approach it all with a bit more rationality. A bit more, you know, control.

Things happened, life moved on, and we became motivated to get the bathroom overhauled this summer. And well, as with any major reno project there is always the opportunity to just add a bit more on. I mean, why not? Who doesn't want to do a massive reno project all at once (/sarcasm)? With our bathroom reno, we decided to absorb a closet from our master bedroom. With that, we realized we would have to remove allll the furniture from the bedroom so then we got thinking - why not take out all the furniture on the second floor? It's only one other bedroom. And with all the furniture gone, we can get the floors refinished! You know, I just realized that I never posted a tour of the second floor. So add that to the list (entry project, second floor tour, oi).

BUT WAIT, why finish there?! My God, the hardwoods are the same EVERYWHERE. We wouldn't want the floors to be a little off, would we? So with that, we decided to take all of the furniture out of every room (leaving us with just the rec room and kitchen) with hardwood and have them all refinished at the same time. And rip off the last bit of remaining carpet on the stairs - get it all done, oh!! Exciting, right?

Well, you know how we got the house releveled? and rewired (oh wait, it appears I never wrote about that. My list is getting long!)? All of this led to some serious wall repair - walls were cracked throughout the office, master bedroom, stairs, entry, living room AND kitchen. Only a few - and all after we painted everything (oh and wow, I never posted that either). So we patched and decided to wait for the electrical - which punched little holes everywhere and moved numerous boxes and blah blah blah. End result? Patches, patches everywhere. We just hung art, placed furniture strategically, etc. No big deal, right?

Wrong.

Apparently, you want to prime that shit up as it keeps throwing dust. And you wouldn't want that dust in your newly finished floors, right? Right. So what does that mean? Time to finish up all the patch repair! And paint!

Yeah, fall.

Our fireplace - Status Update

2011-09-14T17:26:00.005-04:00

I almost forgot! Check out how we went from this

to this

to this

here.

My ugly bathroom

2011-09-14T16:33:00.005-04:00

So a few months ago, I posted inspiration for our pending bathroom reno...in July, we booked it up and got started. Here are some classy shots of the most recent before (in case you don't remember, our bathroom on move-in is here).

After cruising down the dark hallway, note the blue carpet. This was illuminated with lights and the bathroom door open to get some natural light.

There was an awkward turn into a tiny door - I added mirrors to reflect light.

Opening the door, you immediately saw the large (almond?) vanity. All the drawers were broken...

And another turn led you to the toilet/shower. The above toilet storage was an awesome vintage find and I was just lucky my shower curtain matched. Hard to believe this was already Post one level of reno...

Drapes from Redrawn

2011-09-08T07:41:00.001-04:00

I recently went on a road trip to Toronto - where I oggled Elte (my dream source for rugs), Barrymore Furniture (the perfect place for fabric remnants, according to Chris @ StyleNorth), and Ginger's (first time, I loved the hardware the most) and eventually found my way to Redrawn where I spotted these beautiful drapes.

A detail shot:

They are for my living room, now I have to hunt down a seamstress that can fix em up for me and pick a paint colour/coordinating fabrics. Ahh! I love chinoiserie, this is my first venture in the area. Wish me luck?

Update

2011-08-02T13:58:00.005-04:00

Hi All!

My hub and I are back on the reno path, we've been working on some big projects to get the house ready for the fall. On the current list of things to do?

1. Complete bathroom gutout and remodel. With this project, we're ripping everything back to the studs and expanding the space into our master bedroom. This leads to...
2. Master bedroom remodel, mainly closing up one closet and adding another. This will completely change the footprint of the room (yay, our bed will face west instead of east AND we will get a view of trees instead of the view of our neighbors house) plus provide his-and-her closets (doubling our storage space!).
3. Ripping out the fireplace and remodeling the living room.
4. Finishing all the outstanding wall repair from when we had the house rewired in order to accommodate....
5. Refinishing all the floors in the house.

And if we are lucky? We will also tackle our sunroom in the fall. AHH!!!

I will be writing both here and on the rejuvenation project blog (no duplicate posting cause that would be annoying) - I've already started by discussing our living/dining room plans.

We're taking on this:

and finally doing something with these and this.

Bloggin!

2011-04-11T21:25:00.002-04:00

Hey All,

I've decided to take a hiatus from blogging - I've appreciated you following my home reno stories, my love of all things local. I have just lost steam and interest in maintaining this blog on any sort of a regular basis. I'll continue to update on occasion - thanks for reading!!!

Ginger

Thanks for the shout-out, Stylin!

2011-04-06T23:17:00.002-04:00

So I didn't forget, it was the end of my fiscal year and things just got CRAZY at work. Le sigh, c'est la vie.

;)

I want to thank NK over at Style-ING with Children, she offered me up as a 'stylish blogger'. I appreciate the local shout-out, Ottawa is a great city and I feel lucky to live here ;) With the nod comes a request for seven things you don't know about me...

1. Ottawa has been my home for seven years, I chased my career here from Western Canada. As an adult, I've lived in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario AND Quebec. ;)

2. I'm married to a maritimer. So I tend to feel that we have the provinces covered. Now up to the Territories!

3. I don't know how to skate. This is very unCanadian of me.

4. I like getting crafty and have a serious obsession with jewellery-makin (and chocolate!)

5. I like to sing along in the car. If you drive anywhere with me, you learn this quickly.

6. I love storytelling, maybe a bit too much.

7. I seriously think a home should reflect the people that live in it, a space should be deeply personal and filled with love! I also think that it shouldn't be expensive, it should be a little silly AND people should always feel welcome within it.

That's all I got for you!! And three blogs I've enjoyed a lot lately:

For design and Canadian style: 2 Hounds Unleashed
For crafty (and local!) inspiration: Mod Mischief
For local happenings (of the community design variety!), check out Eric over at West Side Action

I discovered Marwencol today

2011-04-06T22:16:00.001-04:00

I had to share this: "In a Tiny Universe, Room to Heal"

It lead me to discover Marwencol:

"Marwencol" is a documentary about the fantasy world of Mark Hogancamp.

After being beaten into a brain-damaging coma by five men outside a bar, Mark builds a 1/6th scale World War II-era town in his backyard. Mark populates the town he dubs "Marwencol" with dolls representing his friends and family and creates life-like photographs detailing the town's many relationships and dramas. Playing in the town and photographing the action helps Mark to recover his hand-eye coordination and deal with the psychic wounds of the attack. When Mark and his photographs are discovered, a prestigious New York gallery sets up an art show. Suddenly Mark's homemade therapy is deemed "art", forcing him to choose between the safety of his fantasy life in Marwencol and the real world that he's avoided since the attack.

Winner of over 20 awards including two Independent Spirit Awards, "Marwencol" will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray April 12 and will be broadcast on PBS' Independent Lens April 26.

Amazing!!

Fence while out and about

2011-03-23T07:02:00.000-04:00

I saw this fence while walking up Rideau for work. Love the circle details, I wish I could find something like this!

Bookends via Value Village and Kijiji

2011-03-21T07:43:00.000-04:00

A few years ago, I read about these awesome bookends on Apartment Therapy. I finally managed to score myself a set via Value Village:

And within days of me scoring that set, I hit the jackpot on kijiji!

There was also this hot desk accessory thrown in:

My hub keeps asking what I'm going to do with so many bookends, I can't believe I have to remind him of our never-ending book collecting.

Shopping off my vintage goods

2011-03-18T17:49:00.002-04:00

So I have to rant. I posted something recently to kijiji - and got a ton of responses as I always post for a reasonable price (accepting that it isn't an antique/vintage shop). I always hope my stuff goes to someone who appreciates it and tend to have a bit of wiggle room as a result.

As in - I'm willing to take a cut and I'm negotiable on price. I believe in the whole - if you want it to go, accept what the market will pay. You know? Well today, I got taken. Someone came to see the piece, admired it and critiqued it. I guess the critique should have been the first sign - that and the fact that he kept admiring the other pieces in my house. I should have Smelled The Dealer but as he didn't tell me he was a dealer, I just assumed he was invested Like Me. Well.

He haggled me down, to my bottom bottom price (please note, I had a ton of offers for the full price!) but he seemed like a nice guy. As soon as money swapped hands, he told me he couldn't wait to put it in his shop.

Now I don't mind dealing with dealers - but I like it to be my choice. I guess I could have asked - the way he talked, I really thought it was for his home. Now I just feel taken advantage of, even though I got the bottom price I was willing to sell it for. It should feel all Win Win right now but instead I feel like he ripped me off.

The worst is that now I have to email someone who told me he really wanted the piece but couldn't afford it - and tell him that a dealer snagged it.

/end rant

I won't post the name of his store online but I will be telling everyone I know in person. ;)

Inspiration via Urban Outfitters

2011-03-18T07:01:00.000-04:00

I knew that Urban Outfitters was coming to Ottawa - I was looking forward to their home decor section. Sadly, the store didn't offer much of a selection (I guess I'll be sticking to the Kingston or Montreal locations for that!). That said, they did offer up some awesome eye candy and inspiration for reuse:

Heavy duty metal base - reminds me of these legs from leevalley.

I love anything that uses pipe - they had a few tables and some really charming benches, I wonder if these would make good outdoor pieces? Excuse the blurry cell phone pictures...

And of course, my favorite:

I love the sewing machine trundle bases remade into a table. Imagine these with glass instead?

Curb Appeal Inspiration

2011-03-17T07:59:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I take a random detour through our neighborhood (well, anywhere in Old Ottawa really) - and I always see something that inspires me. As I've mentioned before, it's important to me that whatever I do to enhance the curb appeal on my home fits with the area. With the staining above our front door, I've been on a mission to find something to put up to replace the old awning. The original awning was flat - so I've been seeking something that struck a cord. Recently, I saw this:

Isn't it beautiful? I love the metal work, the bold colour choice. Against the stone finish, it's beautiful and elegant. We plan on trimming out and painting our front door this summer - and hopefully get the change to put in a bit of cover in the next year. As we pulled around, I noticed that the house actually has a decidedly tudor style to the front facade:

Interesting contrast!

Second Hand Shopping in Ottawa

2011-03-15T07:33:00.000-04:00

I obviously have a thing for that vintage score - with all our reno activities, I lost track of one of my favorite activities. Thrifting (of course!) - I recently started reading 8 foot 6, another Canadian blogger in Toronto (I think?) who has a thrifting habit. So to feed my neglected hunger, I've started haunting my favorite Value Villages and thrift stores.

One of my favorite thrift stores in the city is on Wellington - St. Vincent de Paul. Right now, they have this hot set of bedside tables for sale:

They are in beautiful shape, I think $30 each? Anyway - worthy cause, worthy furniture. Someone please go and buy them and make them pretty.

St. Vincent de Paul Store
1273 Wellington St W
Ottawa ON, K1Y 3A6

Solid wood countertops made locally by Bizier

2011-03-14T19:37:00.003-04:00

Just for NK over at Style-ing with Children, I've hunted down the local contact info for a company that makes beautiful, custom, hardwood countertops in the finish and wood of your choosing (walnut?!?!).

Highly recommended by a client I know (who has had their counters installed for almost a year), Bizier offers up some beautiful butcher-block style counters for you to choose from.

Their contact info:
Les entreprises Bizier inc.
20, Route 105, Wakefield Québec
J0X 3G0 Canada
Toll free : 1.877.959.1211 Fax : 819.459.1201
info@bizier.ca

(and of course, their bilingual website!)

Art Deco Sofa on Kijiji

2011-03-14T07:55:00.000-04:00

This is a beautiful sofa - and it looks comfortable: Found on the local kijiji.

Crystal at HomeSense

2011-03-13T14:26:00.003-04:00

So like every other Canadian blogger, I have a thing for HomeSense. I always start in the dishes, work my way through the lights, land at the furniture/rugs and finish with the pillows. ;)

The key, I think, to HomeSense success is to walk in with a particular list in mind. Something, like dishware, that you can add to over time. Me, I have an obsession for fine china and crystal - making HomeSense the perfect place for me.

Ever since our 3rd wedding anniversary (last year), I've been on the hunt for the perfect set of crystal candle holders. A couple of weekends ago, I hit the motherload.

Problem? I couldn't decide which size I wanted or if I wanted a pair or a trio. Solution? I bought them all, brought them home to admire them, and then promptly decided to keep them all.

Ahh, HomeSense. You are forever hard on my wallet.

The Recreation Room

2011-03-11T07:44:00.000-05:00

So here it is - after all the wall repair, canvassing of the ceiling - and our fancy new furniture (from Sears, who knew?).

The chaise is really what sold my hub (who picked this set of italian leather pieces out). The decor still leaves a lot to be desired, I hope to find a more modern rug at HomeSense one day...

Everything we used was dragged in from other parts of the house - this door used to be in our old townhouse, we used it to hide the washer/dryer. The barn door hardware was from one of our sheds - it all comes together to hide the unfinished bedroom (future gym?) on the other side. I managed to squeeze a bit of space out of the rec room for a small home gym. The hub is very happy about this.

Under the stairs, the hub installed a couple of walnut cupboards found at ReStore to create this "looks like it's always been there" spot for the TV. We hide all of our DVDs in the cupboards - they used to be uppers and are just deep enough.

And a view to the unfinished basement, still a work in progress!

Bathroom Inspiration

2011-03-10T19:23:00.005-05:00

So our ugly bathroom is slated for renovation this summer. I'm really attracted to this style of bathroom...

I've already got the toilet, tiles, and lights!

Lights from Rejuvenation
Mirrors from Rona (and yes, they are medicine cabinets!)
Sinks from Restoration Hardware - Previously mentioned here.
2"inch Hex Tile from ebay
American Standard Toilet (Town Square) via Preston Hardware

Stairs and painting

2011-03-10T07:02:00.000-05:00

As part of our rec room cleanup efforts, we also started to tackle parts of the stairs down into the basement. The stairs down to our basement are really unattractive. When we first got the house, there was multiple types of wood paneling with a weird cardboard ceiling AND the worst vinyl on the stairs. Plus it was painted pale green. You can glimpse a bit of that here:

Did you notice that the wall was still in place in that photo (both in the kitchen and at the bottom of the stairs?) - and the bookshelf at the bottom? That paper was everywhere, on everything. Attractive and back in style ;) You may want to click on the photo to take a closer look.

The vinyl on the stairs (wow, that trellis pattern is so in right now!):

We ripped out what we could - drywalled under the stairs and added a cat door. Primed and painted what was left behind...

Ripped off the vinyl and discovered the original linoleum underneath. It was a strong cream colour with flecks of all different colours throughout. Very cheerful - we also discovered that the stairs had originally been painted candy apple red. Red was a theme with this house - we've found bright red in the entry and when redoing the trim outside. I guess that the original house would have been the faux stone with bright red trim. If you click on the photo, you can take a closer look - hard to see in a small picture!

And finally primed those as well -

Now that we have a nice clean white base, we're thinking of what we're going to cover the stairs with (thinking of armstrong linoleum tiles, inspired by the originals!)

Drywall and patching - the basement project continues

2011-03-07T18:53:00.000-05:00

With the ceiling done, we moved on to trim, drywall and general wall repairs.

The hub had to frame and built one wall from scratch - luckily we had the materials already:

Of course, I got assigned mudding duty. Blah, so dirty and not fun. I also patched and repaired all the remaining walls. The original walls were wood paneling with a wood strip detail. Not awesome but also not totally unattractive. You can see that the hub also trimmed out the top of the walls to hide the gap, he used wood trim to create a crown molding effect. Not bad!

He also wrapped the new support beams from when we got the house releveled - and drywalled up the stairs. At this point, we started to admire our handy-work. Maybe it was possible to make a less ugly basement without a ton of cash!

As this room had obviously been a Man Cave before, there was an amazing amount of wall repairs required. You have to click on this picture to truly appreciate all my patch work. In the end, it didn't turn out too bad.

After all the wall repairs and drywall and trim, we finally managed to get a coat of primer up. At this point, the only things we had shelled out on were the canvas drop clothes and some painting prep. Everything else we had already!

Brie En Croute (Brie in Puff Pastry)

2011-03-05T19:44:00.001-05:00

Brie En Croute (Brie in Puff Pastry)

I read this to my hub and he actually said, "You should BLOG THAT, next time people come over I'll make it!"

Hell yeah. Men in the kitchen are hot!

Canvasing the ceiling

2011-03-05T07:48:00.000-05:00

So as previously mentioned, our budget for this project was tight. I had gotten a couple of quotes on refinishing the basement (all came in over $10k) and knew for a fact that whatever we decided to do as a temporary measure would eventually have to come out. With that in mind, I wanted something quick and easy that also looked good. We took assessment of what we had available and realized that we had a decent pile of drywall so we could fix the stair/wall situation. But the ceiling? I didn't want to drywall the ceiling - with our new potlights and pipes, I knew that mudding would take forever and I wanted a Quick, Easy Solution. So I turned to the net for alternatives.

I discovered some crafty home owners that had used bamboo for a distinct look - I liked this idea a lot but with no real source here in Ottawa, I thought it would be too costly. Then I noticed fabric ceilings - upholstered ceilings and thought to myself - now I can do that! I've tried my hand at upholstery and knew that what it would take was a sturdy fabric and some patience with a staple gun.

The fabric I settled on was the cheapest I could find - canvas drop clothes from Home Depot. Total cost? Less than $80. So we went to work...I ironed as we went along, held it in place while the hub stapled. Here is a shot of us getting started:

Starting off was a bit annoying, our stapler really requires a strong wrist. ;) Important trick to note - so that the staples wouldn't rip through the fabric, we pinned it up with small squares of card stock. I used left over cards from my days in language training. ha!

Looking at the pictures, it's easy to get the impression that it took us little or no time. It did take us time - with our odd shaped room, we had to use two sheets. The first one went up in a couple of hours - then we got doing other things and left it for a while. In this picture, the first sheet is up and you can see the strips of card stock hanging down. I went back after and ripped off the excess.

The crazy part about all of this is how effective it was in hiding our pipes and wires - the end result is a relatively smooth ceiling that actually gained us two inches in height. If you look close, you can see a border around the whole room between where the existing wall ended and the ceiling started - we ended up trimming that out to hide it.

The basement project continued...

2011-03-03T07:36:00.000-05:00

Although we had no hard cash, we decided to do what we could with what we had. Step one? Removing all the strapping on the ceiling that was left over from the old ceiling. Step 2? Freeing the window. This photo was taken in the morning, that's how dark our basement was.

At this point in our reno, we both have our preferred crowbars. Here is my hub at work with my favorite - I like em small and detail oriented.

I had to take a picture of the moldy cushions coming out or I just wouldn't be me.

This window is the one you can see in the dog run. As you can see, Kelly is curious about all the activity. The window had her confused for a while...

Window free, strapping down. Cost: One Morning of Elbow Grease.

Our Basement Project - Before

2011-03-01T07:09:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure how to describe our basement - when we bought the house, it was listed as "finished" and then we had it releved and rewired. We ripped out the ceiling and a couple of walls, got all excited about it then promptly forgot it existed while we spent the spring, summer and fall outdoors. But the winter brought us back in and I really really wanted the TV to find a home that wasn't in the middle of my living room. Since the sunroom and garage had eaten what was left our reno budget, I was left without a lot of pocket change and one hell of an ugly space:

I honestly don't know why people think that trellis pattern is something to write home about, it will look like this in ten years:

I guarantee it.

To be honest, this was the cleanest our basement had been in a long time. We cleared it out in anticipation of a basement "project". I should mention that this project was motivated by us buying new leather furniture for the basement. It made sense at the time.

So there you go, the full before. Admire the commercial carpet, the missing ceiling and walls, the boarded up window, etc etc. How the heck could I do anything with no resources?

Bye Bye February

2011-02-28T17:12:00.004-05:00

I didn't get a good shot of the mountain of snow in our yard - but I guarantee the kids that wait for the bus there will love it tomorrow. Happy last day of February! No ride today, I walked home:

Admit it, my house looks awesome in the snow:

Here's an angle I've never photographed before!

Checking out Cohen and Cohen in Ottawa

2011-02-27T07:24:00.000-05:00

As it is near one of the local reStores, I occasionally check out Cohen and Cohen - their stock comes in waves, sometimes there is so much and sometimes there is not a lot. It's always fun, especially in the summer when you can cruise their outdoor area.

A nice big pile of antique tin ceiling tiles -

Container of hardware (I bought some of these!)

A pile of desks in the style my hub covets...

And finally, the new eaves

2011-02-25T07:58:00.000-05:00

So after all that painting and prepping and stuccoing - we finally had our eaves installed by Joel Daniels Eavestroughs in the fall of 2010. They turned out beautifully - they blended in so well that neighbors actually came up and asked me, "I know you did something but I'm not really sure what it was..." Not all changes can be dramatic (or should be, right?) - but for me, this was a big one! You really have to click to get a good look - we had two colours installed, one for the eaves and another for the downspouts. I think they blended really well.

Here they stand out - I plan on putting a rain barrel in right here to water the front gardens. Maybe an old whiskey keg?

Last year we noticed huge piles of snow coming off the roof at high speeds, I was a little concerned that a small avalanche would hit our car. Joel offered up these beautiful snow breakers, replicas of antiques and wrought iron. Expensive but really attractive and they blend right into our roof. So far, no avalanches to report ;)

Of course, we took the time to have the whole house done - and were smart about where we placed the downspouts to ensure that they wouldn't interfere with any deck or fence plans.

The hub really paid attention as well - he actually painted out the white vinyl on the new window in the kitchen as well as the basement window to match. Nice! Next year, the trim around the garage door will get painted out and all of the doors will be done out in a charcoal gray. Should look hot.

That Leather Sofa

2011-02-24T19:47:00.000-05:00

The office sofa has been hiding a secret -

This tear, right in the middle. A big one, around ten inches long. I was a bit intimidated by the repair job. Here I stretch out the length, you can see it's also at an angle and involves a button.

My hub ordered a repair kit offline, it arrived with a two inch patch. That wasn't going to work - so I went to thrifting and scored this:

A friend kindly modeled it for me - I went to work harvesting the leather.

Once I had a decent piece, I compared it to the sofa in case I would need to recolour it. The results? A mighty fine match, if I do say so myself. I have to admit that my friend Adria actually spotted the purse ;)

I lightly sanded the purse leather to help bind the glue to the older, more fragile leather.

Adding the glue -

You can see the different patches used to bring it all together. You can see that the patches are sizable, I decided to make them bigger to really strengthen the original leather.

Positioning the patch after gluing

All glued up, you can barely see where the massive rip used to be.

The final shot, perfect! So far, the patch is really holding up. I'm actually impressed by what a little glue can do.

Of course I have a pile of leather from the purse to deal with future wear and tear. This sofa is one of the most admired pieces of furniture in our house and it is so comfy, I have a feeling it will be in our house for a very long time.

FYI - Ottawa Blogs

2011-02-24T13:14:00.003-05:00

Just to let you know, I've added a blog list focused on local sites that I follow. Enjoy!

Art Deco Bathroom Design by Robin Muto

2011-02-24T08:25:00.001-05:00

I was cruising the internet recently and came across this beautiful bathroom design by Robin Muto in Rochester, New York. I love the bold use of glossy black, the delicate tile line details, the right shade of green, the wonderful vanity lights. All the modern amenities and beautiful period inspired details. Lovely!

There is a detailed blog post about the space here.

Our front path improvement strategy

2011-02-23T07:06:00.004-05:00

After our deck got finished, people were quick to comment on how much they liked it. And on the path. Did we notice that the path now went under the deck? Yes, yes we did. I thought there was some sort of master plan between the hub and the builder. Apparently there was, it involved a grinder.

I had my eye on a new path strategy but just no idea on what I wanted it to look like or how it was going to come together (or better yet, how I was going to pay for it...). That said, the path disappearing under the deck got old real fast. So for $30, I went to Lowes and bought some sod -

Voila! Problem solved! Of course, it was a bit of work but in the end it turned out much better than expected.

Lush, pretty new grass. So fast and easy and cheap! I wonder how it will look this spring.

I think my vintage style ghosts for halloween were also pretty awesome.

Toronto visit

2011-02-22T07:49:00.000-05:00

In the fall, we took a quick trip to TO to catch up with some friends. On our usual walk abouts, I noticed a number of planters with decorative cabbage:

Nice touch! We also ended up at some random restaurant on Queen Street that had the most amazing doors tucked into the back...

I wish I had taken a picture of the bathrooms, they were amazing.

The cat door

2011-02-20T07:13:00.000-05:00

I like houses to be a bit quirky - and of course, when we decided to put a door down to the basement I was faced with the classic cat owner dilema...what to do with the litter box? Put it in the entry? Hide it in the sunroom? To be honest, I still wanted it in the basement, hidden away somewhere. Of course I wasn't thinking about this when I picked the door to the basement - when I was door shopping, I wanted something that would let light in yet provide some level of privacy. So a door with glass - not ideal to add a pet door to. With that in mind, I really had two choices - leave the door open (then why have a door?) or put in a cat door on the wall.

So we put it in the wall! Our new cat door, tucked under our kitchen table:

Interestingly enough, this new 'feature' of our kitchen has been a hit with friends. Especially their small children, who love to chase our cat around and watch him disappear through this door. That and our dog - who also doesn't understand why she can't also use the cat door (she is always trying to stick her head through it). Who knew it would be so amusing?

We were limited in our options of where we could put the door - really, there was only one place. So the hub punched a hole in the wall and trimmed it out:

It's still a bit rough around the edges but we're getting there.

Sunny had never used a cat door before, he wasn't so keen so we bribed him.

And of course that worked like a charm.

The tulip table hunt

2011-02-19T13:30:00.002-05:00

A few years ago, I was shopping it up at Mobilia and I noticed a hot tulip table knock-off for $300 (Canadian). Apparently Canadian made...

Now I wasn't ready to buy it, I waited it out - recently, I went back and discovered that they had discontinued it. AHH! I had them search their entire inventory to no avail, it was lame. Long story short, I started an active hunt for this Canadian-made Knock-off. I knew it had to be out there and for that price...

Last night, I was walking through the market with some friends and noticed the SAME TABLE in the window of Zone. It made my whole day - the price? $299. We went back this AM and bought it, I will post pictures.

Anyway! All that to say - I want to post the manufacturing info, in case anyone else out there wants to find an affordable knock-off.

According to the box, it came to Zone via Chair-Tech, a company based in Toronto.

Prepin for New Eaves

2011-02-18T08:43:00.001-05:00

So after the garage situation, we realized we needed to do something to deal with the elements coming off of the steep slop of our roof. We decided to finish up the work on the exterior of our house by adding eavestroughs. We called up someone we had seen around the neighborhood, Joel of Joel Daniels Eavestroughs to quote us up. He helped us pick the perfect colour and the right style for our home - and encouraged us to paint out the trim in advance of the install.

We went with his recommendation - Terra Cota Bronze - and started painting at the back:

Right away, I could see that his recommendation was spot in. It was in the same colour grouping as our sunroom and helped bring everything together.

Another indicator that we had a problem was this water stain above our garage:

Not being so great with heights, I was relegated to the ground. My hub did all the painting himself, it was amazing watching him at work.

Of course, the best part was when he had to reach the high spots. He did it with a paint brush extender, well worth the cash we shelled out. The neighbors were also super impressed ;) I think he gained quite the fan club during this activity with neighbors stopping to comment throughout the whole transition.

Without being able to tape off around the trim, it's amazing how great it all turned out...

Now the trim blends and unifies -

Now we're struck trying to figure out what to do about the stain left by the old awning - any suggestions?

It's amazing what a difference it made - now the trim is subtle.

Those awnings, pt 2

2011-02-17T07:12:00.003-05:00

So after the new deck was in, the supports for the door awning were gone. We knew that for safety, it had to come down. The hub tried to pull the screws out, we assumed it would be easy to come down. Yeah, no. So I suggested that we cut it off and the hub started a-cuttin. About half way through, I realized that it was kind of awkward to manage - thankfully a neighbor walked by just in time!

Becky saves the day, in her work clothes no less! With her help, the awning was finally off. We left it in the middle of our lawn for days, just because we could. The hub was stuck with the tedious job of getting what was left off.

He managed - but of course, it left a mark. Any suggestions on how to eliminate??

We also took this opportunity to take down the remaining awnings:

With the awnings gone, the red trim really started to disappear.

Book Review - Living in Style Without Losing Your Mind

2011-02-16T12:17:00.000-05:00

Seriously, you should buy Living in Style Without Losing Your Mind by Marco Pasanella (no website, I can't believe it?!).

So it's out of print now, but I first heard about this book on apartmenttherapy and I had to have it. It offers a method to the madness, I might just have to create some sort of home challenge out of it to issue to my friends. I decided to buy it over the christmas holidays and hunted one down off of amazon.ca (used, of course). The one I got looks brand new and the advice? Priceless. His commentary cracks me up, especially his views on styles and trends crack me up. He offers great tid bits like, "Think first" and encourages people to learn to embrace what they have and live life in a space that reflects them. I love it!!

Favorite quote?

"If great design depends on passion, then individuality is the key. Your home has to be personal. It has to reflect who you are. Your lifestyle, your interests, your obsessions. The best-designed spaces mirror their owners, idiosyncrasies and all. But don't get the wrong idea. Individual isn't kooky.

Crazy-looking homes are often the manic products of insecure people who desperately want to be interesting.

These design "statements" screech "I'm special" and convince no one."

Our other garage door

2011-02-15T07:53:00.005-05:00

When we first saw the house, the garage actually looked like an add-on because of the framing on the front. I guess the previous owners were also DIYers, hardcore ones like us. We're not sure what inspired them to frame out the front with pressure treated wood but from previous experiences, we had learned that this typically only happened when there was something to hide...

Given the breakneck speed we were going at renovating, we didn't really stop to think about that pressure treated wood framing until we decided to get our sunroom stuccoed. It made sense that if we were going to bring that up, we should get the garage done to match and kill two uglys with one stone. So the stucco guy came and said, "No problem!" and gave us a great quote and some simple instructions. Just take down the wood trim and he could take it from there. So we did...

And we quickly discovered the old finish underneath - and that it was in pieces. And that was when I realized that there had also been a roof repair (we could see the new wood in the garage). It was in exactly the same place where huge loads of snow hit in the winter - so I put two and two together and realized that maybe the force of the snow coming down had done some serious damage. The finish on the side of the garage was also cracked all to hell so all the pieces fell together. That meant that this little project had added yet another one on - now we needed to find a way to deal with the snow load. But wait, there was more! We got a little further into the demo and I recognized something...

Ant damage! I gotta tell you, there was a lot of swearing at this point. This required a major repair and we had timed our demo so close to the stucco job that we had NO time to deal with it. We got through it anyway -

Ant damage repaired, garage reinforced!

Stucco work begins...

And the finished product.

After we added the deck, the curb appeal on our house really improved. Although you can't see it, our window insert was also done at this point. Oh! And I planted my new tree (red maple).

What do you think??

Beautiful art deco window

2011-02-14T16:12:00.001-05:00

Something Missing.
Originally uploaded by leadvein

Now the sofa isn't a great match to the era - but regardless, what a living room!!

Those awnings...

2011-02-13T14:08:00.001-05:00

So here it is - the curb shot from the original listing of our house:

Admit it, you think those awnings are hawt. Yeah, me too. It's funny - this is actually the one thing that people kept talking about to us. Apparently our neighbors hottly debated the curb appeal of these things. There was an obvious gender division with most men being firmly in the Keep Them group and most women being firmly in the They Are Ugly club. Oddly enough, it was never a debate in our household. We understood the benefits (east facing house, kept the sunlight down in the summer) and the negatives (they cover half the windows!) - we had both just assumed that they were going to go.

(seriously, you can see that they literally cover half the windows). Inside the natural light throughout the house was really limited because of the awnings.

They did add something though - I'm not really sure what. They were unique on the street and I know they weren't cheap.

We started by ripping them off the living room and office windows. What a difference!

Exploring my city

2011-02-13T07:56:00.000-05:00

My work takes me all over town - and once in a while, I have a moment to take a walk. Occasionally I remember to bring a camera ;) I feel fortunate to live in Ottawa - throughout the city, there are these little pocket neighborhoods that hide things that would surprise you. For me, the hunt is always on for those streamline inspired, art deco homes I love so much. By my own count, there are less than ten in the whole city - so it really is a treasure hunt!

On this particular day, I took some beautiful pictures of the Rideau Bridge. Great style, I have to tell you.

I decided to walk and get a better shot - and while shooting this picture:

I noticed this house:

And it made my whole day!!

My Latest Vintage Score

2011-02-12T07:32:00.002-05:00

I found these recently on kijiji, score! Apparently they are from a hotel in Toronto.

ReStore Lighting

2011-02-11T07:17:00.000-05:00

On my last trip to ReStore, I noticed all of these lights...

Antique Brass and Crystal Chandelier

Wouldn't these be charming in an entry way?

Perfect for a modern bathroom

Somewhat dated - but I love the shape of the glass. With new hanging fixtures, these could look awesome in a kitchen.

Random ceramic hanging light fixture

The current kitchen situation

2011-02-10T18:20:00.002-05:00

I finally found my camera! I wanted to provide a complete room tour after posting about the cupboards. Coming in from our office, you get a full view of the back wall of our kitchen. The window looks out into our sunroom addition - it used to be boarded up.

Leading in to a closer look at the original cupboards that I refinished in white and gray. The counter tops are from Ikea (oak), the marble backsplash I picked up off of ebay.

Walking into the kitchen, standing in front of the fridge leads you to a better view of what used to be a back entry. We pulled down a wall (actually multiple), and it's opened up the space between the kitchen and the living room/dining room area. Eventually the old back door will come out when we finish the sunroom up.

From the corner, you get a nice sight line into the dining room.

Looking back, you can see the new wall - complete with a heat vent bulkhead we had to install when we ripped the old wall out (you can see what that corner used to look like here).

Walking over to the backdoor and looking back, you can see the two new doors we've installed. One to the basement - and a pocket door to the office.

And of course, you can now see that my new cupboards have been painted out gray to match. They look hot, no? Yes! PS. All of the hardware in my kitchen is from Lee Valley, of course.

A closer shot, you can also see our wine rack from Ikea.

And the view from the dining room door into the kitchen - not the best shot but it does show one thing off. Did you notice that our cabinet maker matched out the height and style of the original uppers perfectly? It's that attention to detail that really made going custom worth while. We couldn't have pulled that off with any out-of-the box solution!

Our garage door

2011-02-09T07:32:00.004-05:00

So through the sunroom evolution, you could see hints that the garage was also changing with the ever evolving dog run. In the summer, we decided to clean up the dog run a bit and planted clover.

You can see it starting to green up here. The boarded up door was so ugly but we had no alternative as the small size would require a custom solution. If I wasn't ready to buy a custom front door, I wasn't at all willing to consider one for the back door into the garage (that is mostly full of garbage, to be honest).

Paint could help, right? Well, we would have gone that route - except I made a HUGE score at the ReStore! I found the perfect door, luck was on my side. It was exactly the size I needed and the style I wanted.

And of course, we bought hardware to match our front door/back door. Everything coming together, so nice! The inside of our garage is much brighter - I plan on adding some privacy screening to the door to keep the light but hide the ugly garage interior. We don't use this door much yet, we will next year once the deck is built and we have a proper back entry into the house. I think it will become our primary entry into the house. One step at a time! I'm sure some of you are noticing the tulip table knock-off hidden in the corner there ;) Sorry, I snagged it off of kijiji for a friend!

The cupboard evolution continued

2011-02-08T10:55:00.002-05:00

I'm at home sick today so I thought I would finish up my kitchen update...

So of course, I left off on the kitchen cupboards cause they were just so frustrating and time consuming and never ending. They are ALMOST finished and I say almost because some still need paint touch ups and there are a couple things here and there. BAH, the downfall of doing it yourself.

Lets start, of course, with my favorite corner - before

And after...

Things to note would be the crown molding and the new side cupboard that we had custom made for the space. It has been painted gray to match - I'll take a picture and post eventually! I think its these little details that people really admire, it gives the kitchen a custom feel and maximizes every square inch.

We plan on winterizing the sunroom addition on the back - then the door will be gone and the space will feel a lot brighter and more open.

Moving on to the next wall with the before...

And the after - liberating the window made a huge difference, as did pushing the cupboards up and adding the shelves underneath. It's amazing how much brighter the kitchen feels. We plan on taking out the window when we finally finish up the sunroom - it will just be an open hole between the two rooms.

And finally - the fridge wall before:

This went through a major transformation just in that we ripped a wall down and gained at least 16 inches of extra space in the kitchen. People thought I was crazy for doing this - major demo just for 16 inches? I honestly don't know what I was thinking, I just know that at the time it all made perfect sense to me. I didn't really rationalize it, I just went for it! With the new space, we were left with a bit of a dilemma - what to do with the extra space? Buy a bigger fridge? All I wanted was more storage - specifically a pull out pantry. But how to do that without replacing all of our cupboards? Oddly enough, it was Sunny that came to the rescue. When we adopted him, we got to visit this beautifully restored farm house. It was amazing, totally inspiring. My favorite part? The massive kitchen, of course. But when I saw it, I knew - just knew - that the kitchen couldn't be original even though it really looked like it was. So I asked the owner how she did it - her trick? She hired a cabinet maker to copy the originals and simply added those to her newly expanded space. The results was a large kitchen with all the modern amenities - that looked original. Amazing - I, of course, contacted her cabinet maker right away. Did I mention the best part? He actually reworked IKEA cupboards to make it work. So we ran out and got these as our interim solution:

We ended up ditching the upper and having a custom one built for that - but I think you would agree that the after with our new cupboards look pretty darn fantastic:

Did I mention that they match our originals? The new cupboards and crown moldings really brought everything together - now the space is unified. Since these photos, I've added a cat door to the basement and painted out the new cupboards in the charcoal gray, I will post finals!

An update on our kitchen

2011-02-07T07:18:00.002-05:00

You've probably forgotten all about it - but I haven't. Our kitchen reno is ongoing, there are still bits and pieces left to do but we are slowly getting there. I flipped through old posts and realized I haven't brought you up to speed since the marble backsplash. I previously mentioned our new exhaust system but didn't provide any background info. When we first started planning our kitchen reno, we quickly discovered that the original vent didn't actually vent the air outside - it filtered it and recirculated it into the kitchen. So we decided to do it up proper - and why not make the hole ourselves?

There she be, isn't it pretty? You can see the hub through it, he's looking in from the crawl space above the sunroom.

I love this walk down memory lane - sometimes it's easy to forget how far the kitchen has come even though it remains a work in progress. Here you can see the new venting, ready for our new fan. Love the multi-coloured wall!

And it's up. I also forgot to mention that after the electrician hooked it up, he also added these hot pot lights. It made such a huge difference in our previously dark kitchen.

My Art Deco Inspiration

2011-02-06T10:30:00.001-05:00

In hot pursuit of inspiration, I often turn to local designs. With my home renovations, I want them to be unique yet fit with the look and feel of my community. I thought I would share a few of my inspiration shots that I took when looking for designs for my front deck -

An art deco apartment building just off of Elgin Street, in Centretown:

Closeup details of the handrails for the balconies

Detail from a neighbors garage - so simple and beautiful.

The Sunroom Evolution

2011-02-05T10:08:00.006-05:00

When we bought the house, the sunroom was a hotly debated item among our friends. I found it incredibly ugly and had decided (at random) to simply rip it down and build a big deck off the back of the house...

But then I got convinced to do otherwise...If you want to know more about the sunroom evolution, check out my related posts on the rejuvenation project blog. Just for you, here are some photos of the transition:

There were a lot of issues with the original framing, most of it had to be ripped out. We also decided to move the door to the other side for safety reasons (next year, we will ad a low fence between the backyard and the pool).

This is when it started to look really good. I have to tell you, it was tough to decide how to distribute the windows (we had seven in total). I like how it turned out and think it suits the house.

Windows in, ready for siding. We thought long and hard about the siding, we wanted something that was very DIY but quickly discovered that the prices on something modern were high. In the end, hiring someone to do stucco for us ended up being a viable option. I chose stucco because I felt it went with the age and style of our home - it was a nicer blend from the original faux-stone stucco finish.

Foamed up, ready for stucco. Because the sunroom had a transition before (from siding to the lower part), it was actually stepped out a bit. Our stucco guy was amazing, he smoothed it out and made it transition perfectly. Bye bye ugly sunroom!

If only the rest of my backyard looked this good!!

Custom metal screen with geographic pattern

2011-01-30T10:03:00.002-05:00

Syncro Metalworks Screen wall 001
Originally uploaded by Syncro Metalworks.com

Wow! I have a thing for this pattern, this is beautiful (and made in Canada?! amazing!)

Our Entry, Version 3.0

2011-01-24T07:08:00.006-05:00

So remember our entry? It was the first, "Oh, that's ugly" moment we had with our house. I'm almost nostalgic about it.

Refresher:

To deal, I painted it white - witness here:

Less ugly but still ugly. So I got it in my head that I would replace it with a new door. Then I started shopping around - new front doors are expensive! So I went to reStore and found a glass insert for a door, in my head I felt I was Almost There. This glass insert went to live in the basement for a while. A long while - the more I shopped, the more I thought I would have to buy a custom door to replace it and then pay to get it installed and blah blah blah. I decided to get over it and forget about it. I would live with the faux oak, the mismatched hardware until I could get a Nice Door.

Then I found out that it might be easy to just cut a hole in the existing door and slide the panel in. For some idea, the thought of this excited me and freaked me out. What if I said go for it - and cut the hole and it got screwed up? That's my front door and I only have one!

Eventually I realized that it couldn't get any uglier, could it? So I gambled - we went ahead and cut it up and now it looks like this!

He also installed new hardware (it looks hawt) - I'm still undecided over what to do about the mail slot...next summer I plan on priming and repainting the door in a charcoal gray.

Over on that projects blog again

2011-01-20T20:42:00.005-05:00

I'm finishing up my blogging over at Rejuvenation by talking about my sunroom - check out the slooow evolution.

What have I been up to?

2011-01-20T20:40:00.000-05:00

A good question - on the home reno front, we worked way too much and have finally decided to quit! Well, quit for six months. The problem with renovating is that really ugly stuff gets nicer, making what was previously less-ugly the new really ugly.

Plus, the pets were finding it stressful - witness here:

All Sunny has known is Renovating, imagine the world he has lived in.

That said, there are about a thousand projects that I never blogged so that should keep me busy. Any requests?

FYI

2011-01-20T17:43:00.000-05:00

I recently got a shout-out from fellow Canadian blogger, NK over at Style-ing with Children that reminded me of my lack of posting. First, I wanted to say thanks as I really appreciate any shoutout, anywhere plus she looks like a cool lady ;)

And second - I'm getting off my ass right now!

Sorry for the lack of posting!

2010-11-07T09:55:00.005-05:00

Hey all -

You are always a quiet bunch but I get stats on this site - I know you are out there! Sorry for the ignore - life caught up, things got hectic. Needless to say, things will hopefully slow down now and I can get back to keeping up on this thing.

I recently posted an office update to the Rejuvenation Project Blog - so feel free to go check it out if you want to see the latest update.

Here is the classic photo teaser:

I've also had a ton of other projects on the go. Just an FYI - I don't want to post here what I post there (duplicates are lame, my friends, just lame). I originally thought that I would get more comments there - I know my project gets the number one hit off of google but other than that, I have no idea how it fares over there.

So all of that considered, I've decided to post this to you - what projects do you want to read about here? Do you have a preference if I write here or there?

There, I'm talking about my front deck, sunroom, and office. I will probably also write about my living room and dining room.

That said - We just finished up a major stucco job on our house, got some eaves in, I'm also hell bent on renovating my basement for under $500, finishing the kitchen, doing up the entry, decorating our bedroom, and redoing the upstairs bathroom (for under $1k). You tell me - what do you want me to write about here? Do you think all of that should go there, that you're more interested in local sources and all that stuff here? Cause I gotta tell you, if you check out my last post there it talks all about the local sources I used in my reno.

Anyway, let me know. I want to hear from you!

Ginger

PS. Thanks for the loyal reading, y'all. It's appreciated like you wouldn't believe.

Bedroom inspiration via Sarah Kaye

2010-10-01T07:08:00.000-04:00

Photo by Chris Everard.

Pantry Inspiration

2010-09-08T07:25:00.002-04:00

Eventually my basement is going to have a fullllll pantry. I promise myself. And when I have it, it will look like this:

Complete with antique jars and hand-written labels. Photo by Tim Evan-Cook found via Sarah Kaye Representation.

Letterhead inspiration

2010-09-05T07:30:00.000-04:00

I have a thing for paper, must be the librarian in me. I think this website (all letterheads!) is brilliant.

If your ceilings are too high or your rooms are small...

2010-09-02T16:28:00.005-04:00

More wonderful advice from Effa Brown - you know I got more where this came from ;)

(edit: for some reason, blogger just had to post this on this particular date.)

Curious about my house?

2010-08-26T19:52:00.005-04:00

Well, check out how we went from this:

To this:

On the Rejuvenation Project Blog. Thanks to Dan of Kehler Renos who helped us pull it all together.

Wallpaper via ferm

2010-08-11T07:25:00.000-04:00

ferm LIVING offers up a lot of beautiful wallpaper - my favorite being this one:

and this one:

Did I mention they also have a great blog?

Thinking of planting a tree or shrub?

2010-08-09T07:17:00.000-04:00

I received a free tree via the City of Ottawa program and it got me thinking about gardening (and more trees!). I just found a great list of trees and shrubs for the Ottawa area by the Ottawa Horticultural Society. It's hard to believe that this organization has been around since 1854! Their website offers loads of information - include basic gardening tips and an interactive map of Ottawa gardens. You can become a member, too (and with Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean as the patron, how can you go wrong?).

Lighting via Lindsey Adelman Studio

2010-08-07T07:15:00.000-04:00

This beautiful light is by Lindsey Adelman Studio.

Floor runners via Madeline Weinrib

2010-08-05T12:21:00.000-04:00

The cotton flatweave collection by Madeline Weinrib is beautiful - I think these choices would be beautiful on stairs. Apparently there are stores in Toronto and Montreal.

Must do for this weekend

2010-07-30T12:30:00.001-04:00

This weekend I want to go here.

Because according to Eric, this is the new location for the awesome lighting store from Richmond. A bit of searching led me to their website - it looks like they have way more room AND offer more than just lighting!

Entry Details via Apartment Therapy

2010-07-29T07:33:00.001-04:00

I spotted this charming tile job - via a (Canadian!) home tour featured on apartment therapy.

Love the lighting at the bottom of the stairs, great detail!

Back to the projects blog

2010-07-28T12:45:00.002-04:00

Curious to know what happened with this wall?

I've posted about its current status here (the Rejuvenation Project Blog).

Found Design is closing?

2010-07-27T12:57:00.002-04:00

Say it ain't so! Focusing mostly in mid-century modern (with the occasional art deco piece) - Found Design has been a staple in Ottawas vintage shopping circuit.

Go check them out before they close their doors...

Found Design
1192 Bank Street
Ottawa, Ontario

Edit: Apparently they aren't closing their doors forever - the business is simply dividing in half with the current location focusing on lighting. A new location will be identified for Found Design. I'll let you know what I find out about it!

Beautiful stair inspiration via Desing*Sponge

2010-07-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

These beautiful stairs were designed by kyla of Inoui Design Collective and featured on Design*Sponge. I love the colour/texture, I wonder what other things can be used to achieve a similar look. Or better yet, what other creative uses can be identified for these rulers (what about a kitchen backsplash? or to line the back of a bookshelf?).

My office reno on the Rejuvenation Project Blog

2010-07-21T23:17:00.002-04:00

I just posted about my ongoing office reno that I previously talked about here - on the Rejuvenation Project Blog - check it out and tell me what you think of the progress!

Steampunk Decor and the Bruno Light Series

2010-07-20T18:04:00.002-04:00

I saw this post today with this great picture:

and it reminded me of my desire to find a great light for our office. I oggled this light in the past - and now find it everywhere (like here, here, and here). They even carry some variations of it at rejuvenation...

The Bruno Table Lamp

The Bruno Floor Lamp

Maybe it's the name (oh Bruno, I miss you!) but I seriously seriously love these lights. This led me to googling crap again, pondering what I wanted the overall feel to be - and I realized. It's steampunk! I want a steampunk office. Preferably with a homemade light switch.

Okay so I've known about steampunk stuff for a little while - but is it just me or is this a greatly unappreciated design trend? I love it! I mean seriously - is this light not steampunk? Yes. Yes it is.

Handpainted Chinoiserie Collection from de Gournay

2010-07-10T08:16:00.000-04:00

This wallpaper is so so so pretty. it would be perfect in an entry or a bedroom.

Via de Gournay.

Miles Redd (again...)

2010-07-09T08:04:00.001-04:00

So I was just looking at my post from yesterday when I realized that his kitchen

leads into this garden...

Which I featured a while ago here.

Miles Redd, I think I love you.

2010-07-08T18:03:00.001-04:00

Okay so I've honestly never really thought about who my favorite designer was - and then I realized. It has to be Miles Redd. Every time I see his work, I think to myself - how can I make my house look like that? I love it. Oddly enough, he embraces colour with gusto - seriously, I didn't think I was very colour focused. I just like it glam ;)

I saw this image via House Beautiful -

Seriously, black? shiny walls? The herringbone pattern on the floor? All of these things are so beautiful.

Which led me back to this old post and over to his current portfolio - which included this beautiful picture:

And then I landed on this interview that included a tour of his home. The point where I knew that my heart belonged to this one designer? I'll admit that it wasn't the marble bathroom or the crazy living room. No, it was the kitchen floor.

I have always wanted to incorporate a star motif somewhere into my house, I couldn't imagine how or where but this floor - it has inspired me. I'm going to paint on on to the floor of my sunroom!

My Room and Board visit

2010-06-26T07:56:00.001-04:00

So a while ago, I really really coveted a sofa at Room and Board. I was, of course, totally terrified by the idea of ordering something offline without ever having sat in it so I refused to order it. I also felt like it was a lot to ask my brother (who lives in Chicago, there's a Room and Board there!) to go and check it out. He's a busy guy, got shit goin on!

Anyway, anyway. As you know, we went to the Big C and I finally made it to Room and Board. Of course the sofa debate is a little late now - seeing as I found one but I can still imagine. And who knows? Maybe I'll put the sectional somewhere else.

Walking up, I saw this hot set:

Too rich for my blood but I love it anyway...

After that, I actively embraced an obsession for their dining room displays.

I love tulip tables! Or maybe it's more the marble. I love marble! White or black, I don't really care.

I am still on the hunt for a buffet - this one was attractive.

Another buffet...

I loved allll the lights, very dramatic.

I have to admit, all the sofas I tried out were comfy. I wasn't as much of a fan for the Anson sofa - but I really liked the the Andre sofa (I talked about the chair for that series here).

I really liked the vibe of this room -

But this was definitely my favorite. Love the gray/walnut wood combo.

Did you notice the marble dining table with?

A closeup -

Oh and these chairs, these I want. Want! They were so comfy!

Reno Writing on Rejuvenation

2010-06-24T19:04:00.005-04:00

So I told you a while ago that I was going to be writing about my renovation activities on another blog - well, my first post is up there. I'm writing for the Rejuvenation Projects Blog - and since I have an obsession with lighting, it's perfect for me ;) I'll let you know here whenever I post there - this blog will focus more on interior decorating and my other obsessions.

My new lawn!

2010-06-23T07:20:00.001-04:00

Okay, okay - it's been a lot more posts then usual this week but it's cause I want to show off my lawn! It was such a pain in the !!!!

Lets take a moment and remember the before:

And now you can fully admire the after:

I know, it got me. Everyone has been all, "Oh what a little grass can do!" and to them I say, "Screw you!" This was a whole lot more than a little grass. It was my blood, sweat and tears - witness here:

I look so haggard in this picture. I'm wearing my husbands shoes, I had just bought the trimmer at Canadian Tire and was all, "I MUST TRIM THE HEDGE RIGHT NOW." I'm surprised I wasn't still in my work clothes. PS. It is half finished.

I did it all for my dog. At least she thinks so.

Ahh, so perfect. Right? Right. A shot of this angle before, if you want to take a look.

Shed Demo, Part II

2010-06-22T07:57:00.002-04:00

Oooh, before I post the pictures of our current lawn - I thought I would share the last shed goin down. It was all bye-bye shanty town after this pic! You can see the hub and his bud contemplating strategy, just like they did the last time... - check out the green pool corner!

Here's a shot of the back end (or the view from the neighbors driveway)...

And it's down! Oh, I missed this moment. That is a sad thing, I was kind of attached to this shed to be honest.

Oh well, gone now! Look at how well the neighbors can now see into our yard.

The hub used this opportunity to expand the dog run..

I'll show you the lawn soon!

My pool

2010-06-21T20:45:00.005-04:00

We had no idea that our house had a neighborhood nickname - got any ideas what it is?

Here's a hint:

And another one:

Yes, that is a green green pool. Apparently the original house listing provided a picture of the pool in a similar shade of green. It took us a bit of effort to get rid of it, we are still battling the foggy water it left behind. Anyone want to come over for a swim?? I doubt we will ever live down the nickname.

Landscapppppin

2010-06-21T12:05:00.002-04:00

Oh you know you were so craving my house progress report - wellllll, here's my backyard...

In the spring, obviously. Check out how black the pool was, the two neighbors with the great view. The dirt yard, the random crap. Honestly, this was cleaned up. Seriously!

Why hello there neighbor! Like the view of my green pool and my dirt yard? Oh yeah. One of my coworkers pointed out the classy cinder block (used throughout for landscaping). You know you want it!

And yes, those are lilacs there on the right. For those allergy suffers (like me), these are the Hell Bushes. Did you notice the massive pile of tomato cages?

There was a lot of fence pieces and random sticks. I guess the dirt area was a veggie garden (ten years ago?). If you can believe it, this was the yard "all cleaned up".

And shanty town was in fully swing...so yeah. What did we decide to do? Well, we're remodeling the sunroom addition and have decided that we will have a deck off the back and to the left (where the sheds were). Eventually there will be a fence between the yard and the pool so we can avoid tragedy when we have kids...But generally, we just tried to make it all just a little less ugly.

Home inspiration spotted via Curbed LA

2010-06-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

Okay so I love Curbed. It has become my new obsession - they cruise the real estate for me AND provide alllll the details. So this house was recently posted - and after going to the original listing, I found the most beautiful deck/pool/bathroom pictures. While they aren't perfect, they are soooo close to what I covet for my house.

Seriously, do you see the marble? And the sink with the chrome base? I even love the loud wallpaper. The only thing not for me? Gotta say that the mirror/light combo just doesn't do it for me. Otherwise, it's all love love love.

Maybe it's because my pool is so ugly - I really dream of redoing the deck and bringing the pool edge out like in this picture. I also dream of having an enclosure at the end, lots of seating - blue water, clarity, etc etc etc.

This is my favorite though - do you see it? Herringbone! Brick! Stepped down! LOVE IT, want it, covet it forever. I don't think something like this could survive the frost we get but a girl can dream, right? Right.

Flea market review - Bentleys

2010-06-18T07:20:00.000-04:00

Okay so I'll admit it, I've checked out a few flea markets in the area including Bentley's. Bentley's is only open on Sunday - though small, I found the selection good (including a really decent used book area and lots of vintage housewares). The prices were pretty decent - if it was on the same schedule as ReStore (which is right around the corner), I would totally hit it up more often.

There's also a store right next door with some choice antique/vintage pieces. I can't remember what it was called but I do remember coveting one of their art deco buffets. Apparently there is quite an active Flea Market community in Ottawa, I will have to go back to that one and get more details.

Mouille Style Eye Wall Sconce via Barn Light Electric

2010-06-16T17:43:00.000-04:00

I have to admit, I find it confusing that some lights are $15 US and some are in the thousands...I love this one though:

It kind of looks like a bathroom light though in my head, I imagine it everywhere. Ah, lighting.

The details:
# Measurements: 12"W x 5 1/4"H x 10" Proj.
# Backing Plate: 5 1/8" Diameter
# Stem: 4 1/2"
# Max Wattage: 100 Watts Standard Inc. - Med Base
# Finish: Polished Chrome (Inside of Shade is Raw With Imperfections)
# Weight: 1.1 LBS

Flea Markets? Auctions?

2010-06-14T12:05:00.000-04:00

Okay locals, gimme the details. While I'm all active in the online shopping environment, I can't figure out where the good flea markets/auctions are here in Ottawa. Any ideas????

Beautiful table via Sarah Kaye

2010-06-05T07:10:00.001-04:00

Time for tea? Photo by Chris Everard.

Wall Blank - Keep Your Teeth Clean

2010-06-03T07:56:00.000-04:00

So I love Wall Blank - especially this image from their vintage collection:

Plumbing shelves via apartmenttherapy

2010-06-01T07:24:00.002-04:00

I love this idea and would love to do something similar in our rec room. Originally posted here on a blog called The Brick House (all about renovating a mid-century modern home), found via this apartmenttherapy post.

Art Deco Crown Molding via Inviting Home

2010-05-31T12:19:00.002-04:00

So one of my neighbors has the most amazing original molding in her house - this post from desire to inspire reminded me of it and got me thinking about what I can get my hands on for my own home...

I googled it up and found these beautiful examples via Inviting Home...

First up is the Miami Art Deco Crown Molding -

Second is the Los Angeles Art Deco Molding -

And finally (I have to admit it is my favorite) is the New York Art Deco Crown Molding -

To be honest, I think the Miami style would look the best in my home. I already have stepped molding around the doors and baseboard. There's another coved style but I want something a bit more geometric. What do you think?? (also note, this is more mental masturbation than anything else).

Stair Inspiration

2010-05-30T07:02:00.002-04:00

I don't know where I found these stairs, but I love them. Are they too much? For some reason, I think they are from Elle Decor.

Edit! Found the info: Photo by Polly Wreford.

The New York Real Estate Brochure Collection - A floorplan database

2010-05-28T07:59:00.000-04:00

Heard about this wonderful resource via curbed - The New York Real Estate Brochure Collection

About the Collection

The New York Real Estate Brochure Collection was donated to Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library by Yale Robbins, Henry Robbins, and David Magier in 1986. The collection consists of over 9,200 advertising brochures, floor plans, price lists, and related materials that document residential and commercial real estate development in the five boroughs of New York and outlying vicinities from the 1920s to the 1970s.

Guide to building a trailer for two (tear drop design?)

2010-05-26T07:29:00.000-04:00

I want to build a trailer for two.

Le sigh.