Elaine

bathrooms, Home & Garden

Bathroom brightening

May 5, 2014 by Elaine No Comments

After recently refreshing our family room and kitchen area, our chocolate brown bathroom – located just off the family room- looked ridiculously dark and out of place.

When we moved in (back in 2006) the bathroom was painted in a chocolate shade – which I actually didn’t mind – but it had ‘had it’s time’. I wanted a cleaner and brighter space!

It’s a hard room to photograph as it’s just a powder room so very small, plus it doesn’t have a window so natural light = zero. However, here is how it looked before:

A few weeks ago I set about changing her from a chocolate cone, to a vanilla one. If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen this photo I posted as I began…

Two coats later, I had a vanilla cone.

The colour is called “Painter’s White” by CIL which I had colour matched in Behr paint. The name is really deceiving as it’s not a ‘white’ at all. In fact, it falls right in the middle of the paint chip and is rooted in the brown family.

Like ‘white’ though, the colour does make the room feel bigger, fresher and more modern.

I know my new vanilla cone is kind of well, ‘vanilla’ (excuse the bad pun) but after having the chocolate so long this new colour is rather tasty.

While doing this mini-makeover I also decided to embrace the gold trend and spray the picture frames, towel rack and toilet paper holder. Again, if you follow along on Instagram you may have seen this…

I used this gold from Rustoleum and was really happy with it. It wasn’t a shiny metallic finish (like the brassy 80’s gold) but a much more modern champagne shade with a satin finish.

These frames used to be silver but I think they are much more luxe in gold! The art they hold are some old ‘mill swatches’ from my industry (graphic design) – learn more about how I use mill swatches for free art here. The frames are old Ikea ones from years ago. And the mats are ones I had custom cut to make the art look a little fancier (also years ago).

I know you don’t need to see the toilet paper holder but here is how the towel rack turned out… 🙂

Overall I think it brings this little powder room up-to-date and definitely ties into the flow of the main floor better.

As they say, nothing can change the look of a space easier than some simple paint!

What about you – painted anything lately? What are your thoughts on gold coming back into décor and fashion? Love it or hate it? Running towards it with open arms… or running as fast away from it as you can?

Uncategorized

May Calendar Roundup

May 2, 2014 by Elaine No Comments

Yay it’s May!

If you are like me and pretty up your computer desktop each month, then take a look at the calendars that caught my eye and snag one for yourself.

To use, simply click on the link below the one you like to redirected to the download. And if you’re in the mood, don’t forget to leave a comment or a thank you for the great bloggers who have designed these.

Enjoy!

Family Room, Home & Garden, kitchen

How I redid my family room for $10

May 1, 2014 by Elaine No Comments

Hello! Long time no type. I’ve been busy over here – both on and off blog-worthy projects – but am back to share some updates I did in our family room that is off our open concept galley kitchen.

And the coolest part? I did it for only $10 outta my own pocket! Seriously. I’ll explain as I go, but basically it involves a present, some gift cards and Craigslist.

First up, the present. Chef Kev gifted me this awesome rug for Christmas (Jernved rug from Ikea) that I had been eyeing. I wanted to infuse some colour into our family room area (it was suffering from a bad case of the beige) and I thought this was a good contender, so put it on my Christmas Wish List.

The rug was awesome but immediately made everything look dingy and super-beige.

(Sorry for the bad lighting but I took these at night).

Beige walls, beige couch, and browny/beige furniture. It didn’t feel too uplifting!

The couch looked dingy, the cubby system clashed and the coffee table just looked wrong. I had big plans originally to refinish the coffee table when I got it second hand, but never got around to it. Whoops.

Looking at the room it had issues. Big ones. There were too many tones going on and eventually I couldn’t handle it anymore. My design brain twitched whenever I walked into the space.

After seeing my face scrunch up for the 757th time, Chef Kev said “I don’t care what you do to fix it, just don’t spend any money”. Well, that sounded like a challenge to me!

Guess what it looks like today? Ta da!

So, let me explain how this little room grew into her new rug.

This is where Craigslist comes in. First to go was the Ikea Expedit cubby unit. I ideally wanted a real-wood, mid-century modern credenza to go along that wall that I could turn into a media centre. However, after months searching Craigslist and second hand shops I realized that one just wasn’t in my budget. Sure, I could sell the coffee table and couch and then MAYBE have enough to buy one, but I’m sort of partial to couches and coffee tables and wanted to replace those too.

In the end I realized that the Expedit unit itself actually worked okay, it was just the colour that I hated for this space.

So out went the ‘birch’ finish. I sold it on Craigslist for $50 (minus the baskets)…

and in entered the ‘black/brown’ one that I purchased on Craigslist for $50. The cool thing here was that this replacement unit actually came with six of the same wicker baskets as the one I had. I ended up using them down in our recreation room where we have another Expedit unit.

Next up was the old couch, well, actually it’s a love seat but who’s counting?

I wanted something darker – either a brown tone or a gray, and definitely something more streamlined and modern.

So, out went the old love seat – sold on Craigslist for $80…

and in came the ‘new’ love seat – also bought on Craigslist – for $200.

Last but not least on my furniture hit list was the coffee table.

Out with the old (sold on Craigslist for $40)…

And in with the ‘new’ – purchased on Craigslist for $80!

When I saw this coffee table I knew it would look really cool in this space. It is actually an old coffee table that had been sandblasted down and professionally repainted this awesome red.

Sadly, after chatting with the seller, she had a change of heart and decided not to sell! She had listed it as she was redecorating and didn’t think it would go with her new décor. But she loved it so she also wanted to keep it. Due to the enormous response she second guessed herself so decided to hold on to it.

I was upset but kept on hunting. After a few days I dropped her an email saying that if she had a change of heart again then I was still interested. She emailed back that she was actually thinking of selling it again as she just didn’t think she could make it work in her new space. She asked me to give her the weekend to think about it, and on Monday let me know that I could have it! So, word to the wise – if this happens to you, a friendly follow-up email may work in your favour!

I love how this coffee table plays off the pattern in the carpet. And I LOVE the awesome curves and super cute legs!

Now, if you’ve been doing any math then you may have noticed that I sold $170 worth of furniture but purchased $330. There is no mathematician anywhere that can make that add up to a difference of $10 right?!

Right. However, I also sold a few other things that did not need replacing so that helped my cause.

I sold our second desk (currently being unused in the guest bedroom) for $100 and the old desk chair in that room as well for $10.

I also sold the four old Ikea bins that we were using in the recreation room Expedit unit when I got the six wicker baskets with the unit I purchased. I sold my old ones for $40.

So, in the end I sold $320 worth of furniture and purchased the stuff for my new family room for $330.

I know Chef Kev said not to spend any money (such an accountant!) but he was more than okay to let go of the $10 when he saw how good it looked. 🙂

An astute eye may have also noticed that I painted. That is where the gift cards come in! I received some Home Depot gift cards for Christmas and knew I was going to use them on paint. Even before the carpet/beige issue, I had been wanting to repaint the family room and kitchen area. They actually function as one big open concept space but had been painted two different colours and it always bugged me slightly. I think living with it that way since 2006 (when we bought our townhouse) was being more than patient!

So, here is the old again – a beigey colour…

And the new!

The colour is a nice light gray shade and is called “Barley Beige” by CIL. I had to laugh at the name since I was trying to get away from the beige and ended up with a colour that had ‘beige’ in the name. Weird. Definitely a gray though!

You can see it better here against white.

The other colour that was in this open concept area was an avocado green that the old owners used around the kitchen table nook and in the kitchen.

See how both the beige and green are here? Weird.

The same view with the new gray paint.

Looking the other way we used to see the same old green…

But now we see calming gray (yay).

Looking from the family room to the kitchen you can see how the old colour used to break up the space.

But not anymore!

Overall, the whole space feels larger, brighter and more connected. I love it.

I also took the opportunity to paint the ‘cable hide’ in the same colour as the wall paint (it used to be white if you noticed it in the photos above).

Now it blends in seamlessly!

I also restyled the shelves over the couch in a lighter and fresher way.

I’m really happy with how the space feels now.

Once more, the family room before:

And after!

Best $10 I ever spent.

What about you? Any Craigslist scores lately or rooms that you refreshed with paint?

It feels like Spring cleaning has officially started! What are you up to?

Stay in touch!

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entryway, Home & Garden

An obvious shoe in for the job

February 22, 2014 by Elaine No Comments

We had a bit of a shoe storage problem on our hands. When we head out or come in, we enter through the garage. And although our main entry is rather spacious, this one is not. Heading out the door has become an interesting game of twister – minus the large colourful circles.

Since it is a high traffic – yet small space – storage is key. Everyone needs a place to drop their jackets and shoes, and here is Chace’s spot. You can also see a shelf where we all dump our keys, loose change, lego men etc.

The view as you come into the house from the garage…

And the same space if you look at it from the rec room. That door heads into the garage, stairs to the main floor are on the left, and a bathroom is to the right.

Chef Kev stores his shoes on some large storage shelving inside the garage (right by the door), and I store my shoes in the yellow dresser that I made over, which is in the bathroom right off the small entry.

But back to this. Apparently children grow, and with that, so do their feet. Which means bigger shoes. And that translates into the system I had no longer cutting it. See the overflowing shoe basket?

And the gloves, hats and sun glasses? Oh yeah. Those too. Sigh.

But the best part? This shelf. Not only was it overflowing, BUT it was chipped in multiple places (take a look at the corner). Not quite the look I was going for.

So it all came out. And I was left with a blank slate.

But what to do on a wall that was only 28.5″ wide? Traditional solutions like this and this where much too long for this space. So, enter RETUR – a recycling bin that functions in much the same way as the pricier shoe storage options.

Now, the RETUR doesn’t look as pretty as some of the other options, but as I mentioned, this is not our main entrance – just our basement one. Here, function really was the most important thing needed and these bins fit that bill. Plus, I love the recessed top that doubles as a shelf for us to drop our keys, change, lego men etc.

The first thing I did was find my centre point of the wall. Since the length of the wall is 28.5″, I made a mark at 14.25″. Then I lined up the corner of one of the bins, made sure it was level, and penciled in where I was going to need to place my screws by drawing in the little circle cut outs.

Luckily one screw for each bin hit a stud, but for those that did not, I hammered in some plugs. I pre-drilled the holes for these of course.

Once I had my first bin hung, I double checked that it was level.

Then I attached the one beside it in the same way and connected the two with a small screw that came supplied.

Then I attached the bottom bins using the row above them as my level.

You may have noticed in one of the earlier photos, there is a electrical outlet on this wall. I simply put the bin in front of it. Since we put furniture in front of plugs all the time I did not see any reason why this would not work. We don’t use this plug and so far it’s working out okay. Since you can plug plastic directly into a plug (childproofing plugs) I could not see a problem placing a plastic bin on the wall in front of one.

Then I loaded up the bins! I loved this part! A whole bin for hats and gloves!? Bliss.

A tad more efficient than this ‘before’ don’t you agree?

Here is a head-on shot.

And now this is how it looks when you come in to the house.

And here is how it looks from the rec. room.

And here is a close up of the top of the bins which now take the place of the cracked, shallow shelf.

While I was revamping this little entry, I took a moment to raise Chace’s jacket hooks. As we determined earlier, children have a habit of growing. Larger jackets = jackets now hitting the floor when hung.

Here is how they looked before.

I moved them up a few inches to just under the canvas that Chace painted at a friend’s birthday party (so cute!). I used the bottom of the canvas as a guide.

And here they are raised and reloaded!

It feels good making this small space a bit more functional! We still play twister, but at least we aren’t tripping on shoes anymore!

What sort of systems do you have in place to wrangle in shoes and hats? Are you using anything designed for another use? As long as we don’t throw our shoes out with recycling then we are all good 😉

Seasonal & Holiday, Valentine's Day

Teacher’s need some love too!

February 16, 2014 by Elaine No Comments

Happy weekend everyone!

I know that Valentine’s Day has passed, but as promised by my sneak peek (if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook), I still had one more Valentine’s idea to share.

I whipped up some fun little Valentine’s for Chace’s teachers last minute!

As you can see, it’s a simple little monster, holding a big heart. In the centre of the heart I placed a chocolate heart which I attached with a glue gun. I made sure to only use a tiny bit of glue (so as not to melt any chocolate) and made sure the foil around the chocolate was nice and closed on the back.

If you’d like to make your own next year, I created a printable as well.

You can download it here.

I did some with gold hearts too – just for variety 🙂

And that’s it. Super simple – and cute!

I hope you all had a great Valentine’s Day and are busy enjoying your weekend.

DIY & Crafts, Seasonal & Holiday, Valentine's Day

Chef Kev got mugged

February 14, 2014 by Elaine No Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I hope you all have a day that is filled with squishy sugar treats, an abundance of kisses and that you all get suffocated (in a good way) by warm hugs.

Now that that (slightly disturbing) wish has been thrown at you, let’s talk about the Big Day.

If you follow me on Facebook then you may have seen the photo that I posted of the little Valentine’s Day table setting that I left for my three Valentine’s this morning (Chef Kev, Chace and Belle).

But what you couldn’t see is that inside that ‘xoxoxox’ bag, there was a special mug that Chace made for his daddy…

That’s right. He made it himself ;).

Let me explain. It all started with this really cool ‘design your own mug’ kit that I stumbled across at Starbucks last week.

As you can see, the mug is a graphic black and white, and the style of the mug is big, straight, chunky and masculine. Hello perfect gift for Daddy!

The pen came with both a white and black tip, so you can doodle and draw to your hearts content (pun intended) on both the black and white surfaces.

Once your design is finished, you ‘bake’ the mug in the oven for 20 minutes (I think it was at 325° but don’t quote me on that). This sets the ink in place and the design is on the mug forever :).

So, earlier this week Chace got busy designing his mug before bedtime. He took it very seriously.