Backing up a bit, we really enjoyed our townhome but it was time for a change. More space, more privacy and NO strata. We wanted to move before Chace got older as we didn’t want to change his little world mid-grade three (he just finished Kindergarten). So, we made the leap and listed our townhome.

The good news is that it sold in a day – with three offers which created a bidding war. The bad news, we didn’t have anywhere to move to! The market in our area dictated this plan of attack as places for sale were going into multiplle offers and if you had “subject to sale of our place” in your offer, you might as well not even bother.

Long story short after a few panic attacks from me and some serious market stalking, we purchased the above home which met most things on our wish list. We did have to compromise on a few things but we ended up with a few bonus things that more than made up for it.

We take possession this Saturday! I couldn’t wait to share with you all though so here are the photos from the listing (as we saw it). I also put together a little floor plan of each level. They won’t be completely accurate as I was going off memory and the specs on the listing sheet, but you will get the idea I’m sure!

Main level:

entry

living room

dining/living room

dining room

kitchen – what will Chef Kev dream up here?

kitchen/family room

family room

(future) playroom!

powder room

laundry

Here is the main floor layout to give you an idea of where these spaces are in relation to one another…

top level:

looking down towards the front entry

master bedroom

master bathroom

the other two bedrooms (Chace’s and a spare – TBD which is which!). We’re going to let Chace choose on moving day.

“Bonus room” – future craft room/office area

top floor bathroom

top floor floorplan…

basement/lower level

Down here is where we encountered one of the ‘compromises’ as mentioned above. Part of the basement is a suite which we were not looking for. However, we decided since we have more than enough space at the moment, we will leave it ‘as is’ for now and renovate in the future to make it our dream recreation room space – complete with wet bar and a bedroom/bathroom on that level. The income from the suite will allow us to do some of the updates a little sooner than we otherwise would have been able to.

First up, the current recreation room (on our side)…

And here is the suite which consists of a living space, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom (I don’t have a photo of the kitchen though).

So, there you have it! If you need me you can find me unpacking, orgnanizing or skipping down our new street. There’s a new girl in town…

Stay in touch and follow along…

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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 😉

If you were to walk in our front door right now, this is what you’d see.

But then you’d see my sitting at the dining room table in my pajamas (on my laptop) and quickly turn and leave (good choice).

So, to save you the awkwardness of walking out on me in my t-shirt and pajama bottoms I’ll break down the little autumn decorating party that Chace (my three year old) and I threw tonight (no hats, no games, no cake = lame party in the mind of a toddler). Woops. Better like next time Chacey.

The inspiraton was this awesome subway art (downloadable here from eighteen 25) that I simply framed (VERY simply) in a frame I had on hand. I say ‘very simply’ as you will see it doesn’t quite fit right but I kind of like that sliver of creamy matt. It plays off the gold text. I also like the fact that the frame is a bit beaten up – nice and rustic.

I actually used another one of Eighteen 25’s amazing subway art creations back on my Christmas mantel last year too. Love them!

Then I simply put out an assortment of Autumn coloured candles. You should smell it in here (too bad you left so quickly). It smells like Pumpkin Pie and Spice Latte had a baby and named it Harvest Apple. I could make a joke here about a kid named Apple but I did that last time. Awkward. What’s up with that?

To add some texture, I took some small frames I had on hand and thought, hey, I could make these into candle coasters!

So I trimmed up some scrapbook paper…

Removed the backs of the frames (so they would lay flat) and added the paper behind the glass. Allow my assistant to demonstrate…

When we were done, this is how the other one looked.

You may have noticed, but our front hall table is actually an old sewing machine that I got with my dad back at an auction 11 years ago (and restained here). At that same auction I also got an old crockery jug that worked nicely with the little vignette I was creating.

Looking back at the door you see my wreath and cool black bamboo. The black bamboo is a gift from Chef Kev’s co-worker Ellen (Thanks Ellen!) who thought of me while helping her daughter cut some down. So sweet!

My helper assisted in assembling the bamboo. Note the different pair of pajamas than seen in the picture above. We are potty training. Say no more.

I made the wreath a few years back by twisting together two long faux berry garlands that I bought at Michaels (craft store).

And a few pictures of it all lit and glowy. Since you ran out so quick and all…

So what about you? Done any completely free entry way makeovers lately? Started your Autumn decorating? Had a helper who burned through two pairs of PJ’s like it was nobody’s bidness? Do share!

Linking to:

Cherished Bliss

Okay, so I kind of love shoes… I mean who doesn’t right? I don’t think I quite qualify in the fetish mode category…  but I’d definitley be considered a connoiseur.

What I don’t love however, are ugly shoe racks. Or piles of shoes in the middle of the floor as you walk into the house. Or piles in the garage right in front of the door (ahem.cough.ChefKev.cough)… but that’s for another post.

As you enter our house from the garage you open into a small hallway that leads to our rec room. To the right are stairs that go to our main floor (where the main entrance is) but to the left is a (rather large) bathroom. Since the rec room is carpeted and I don’t want to track dirt on it, my shoes end up getting removed as I enter and side-kick-shuffled (patented move) into the tiled bathroom.

Exhibit A:

Obviously we needed a shoe storage solution here.

Let me show you where my shoes live NOW (hint: it’s the big yellow dresser).

Allow me to back up and fill you in on how this ray of sunshine entered my life.

As I mentioned earlier, this bathroom is quite large. It’s actually outfitted with plumbing for a bath to go along that back wall but as the fourth bathroom in our house, and being located off the rec room, it just didn’t make sense to have a tub there.

I had always wanted to get something to go in that space (wasn’t quite sure what) but the project just never made it to the top of the priority list.

Enter Craigslist and their FREE Classified section.

I saw this and (believe it or not) I had a vision…

Yes, it was straight from the 80’s (hello, Mrs. Max Headroom is calling and she wants her dresser back), had chawesome pulls and knobs and was wearing 25 years of scuffs, dings, dirt and dog chewing, oh, and the front of one drawer had fallen off… but I could see it… SHOE STORAGE THAT I COULD TURN INTO SOMETHING PRETTY!

And so it was mine. For zero dollars.

What a pretty flower.

Funny side note – my mom called me the other day and said when I got my first desk for doing homework the first thing I said was “I’m going to change those knobs!” Ha. I guess somethings never change… but taste sure does. Apparently my dad was highly unimpressed with the cost of the ones I chose as a replacement. And yes, they had painted flowers on them.

But back to this.

I did a lot of research in deciding how to make over this piece. I’ll explain my process below.

First up was to patch the dog chewed corner. To do this use some wood filler. Start by applying a layer,  letting it dry and then applying another layer and so on until it builds up to the level of the surface you are working with. Then you sand and contour the filler to match your existing drawer. My dad did this part (thanks Dad) as he had taken the drawer to fix the broken front (he had the clamps and wood glue needed). So no pictures of these last two steps but here is one of the rebuilt corner before priming.

Next up I sanded the whole dresser. The key here is to LIGHTLY sand with the lowest grit paper you can. Since the dresser has a veneer finish you want to take off the sheen without sanding down to the particle board. This step is uber-important. Of if you are italian, uber-importantico.

Next was the priming step. I chose Kilz from Home Depot. You can see it here on the left.

Apply both your primer and paint with a mohair mini roller. I didn’t use a brush at all for this project. The mohair roller is key – do not use foam. A mini mohair roller holds and distributes your paint evenly and really gets it into your lighty sanded surface. It’s basically a small version of a good quality wall roller. Anyone who has used a foam roller for a project like this will know what I’m talking about. A foam roller will just push your paint around on your surface. Slicky McSlickerson.

Now the fun part – paint! The colour I chose is Benjamin Moore “Sun Kissed Yellow”. I had seen other dressers done in yellow during my blogland and Pinterest travels and loved the graphic punch they add to a space. For my small and windowless room I thought this colour would look great.

The paint I chose was Benjamin Moore Advance paint in a high gloss finish (seen above next to the primer). My research said this was the product for the job so I took note. It lived up to expectations and dries to a strong finish, is self levelling, easy to work with and very durable, but one thing that surprised me was how thin it was. You absolutely need to use a primer with before this product and may even want to tint it.

After some drying time and knob installation we were done. I may or may not have bought the wrong amount of knobs and had to back and get more. Seriously. It’s only 12. Not a high number to count to. Ridiculous.

Ta da!

You can see how the damaged corner turned out below. For reference it is the bottom left corner of the bottom left drawer in the photo above.

The thing that really drew me to this dresser was that the top two drawers were divided in to six quadrants with bevel detail between each section.

For the knobs and pulls I chose some that I thought would look good (found at Home Depot here and here). I chose this style because I like that it was a nod to the traditional but was going to be used on a piece that had been given a modern glossy yellow twist.

Since these were the front runner after my searching, I actually had a photo of them on my phone for a few months (shows how long this took me to do). One day while in the bathroom I noticed something about the existing taps. Ummm… match much?

It was knob fate.

Here is a different view of the room where you can see how the dresser fits into the space.

See the towel reflection? I picked those for my birthday back in March. Obviously I was planning on getting to this… just took awhile.

I love the layering of the charcoal and white chevron inspired towel paired with the bright yellow and crisp white.

One of my favourite parts of this project is that now I have a drop zone for my jewellery when I come home from work.

And of course, a new home for my shoes!

So there we have it!

What about you? Refinish any Craigslist finds recently? Did it take you months or is that just me? Hopefully you weren’t carrying around photos of knobs on your phone like I was. Um, dresser knobs people. That came out really wrong.

I’m back! I had stopped blogging as I didn’t think I had enough time… but realized how much I loved doing it so decided to do my best to MAKE time! What is time if not spent doing things you love right?

Here is a little project that I worked on lately…

This antique sewing machine is used as our front entry way table but wasn’t quite vibing with our décor. It’s a sentimental piece as I got it at an auction with my dad and he refinished it for me, but it was time for an update. The old finish was a bit too rustic and the hardware needed some TLC.

My goal was to obtain a more modern finish – darker and more walnut/expresso vs ‘oak’. And to introduce a little sparkle to the lack lustre drawers!

Plus, I had accidentally given it a water stain it a few years ago so I owed it. Woops!

… And these knobs were looking more wobbly than Lindsay Lohan on a Tuesday after a night out on the town.

So I took it out to the garage and got my groove sand on.

After my sandathon I wiped it down with a damp cloth, applied some wood conditioner, wiped that down, then applied two coats of the water based walnut stain I had purchased… and hated it. So, I applied a coat of espresso stain on top of that… and still hated it. The finish was much too RED for some reason. SO, I did what any insane determined blogger/DIY attempter would do. I cried softly and started again.

After two coats of just the espresso stain I was happy. And let’s face it, even if I wasn’t, this thing was going back into the entrance regardless.

So, here she is AFTER!

She looks good in her new dark get-up no?

Here is a close up of how the dark stain really helped accentuate the wood grain.

And NO more water stain!

The finishing touch was these glass knobs that I added. I think they help modernize the whole piece. So much lighter and prettier than the old ones (sorry Lindsay).

As I was screwing in the last knob I heard the cutest little voice behind me – “Mommy, I do it”. I turn around to find my 2.5 year old little Mr. Fix It with his tool puzzle – all ready to help mommy screw on the hardware.

Since I had just finished screwing in the last knob I undid them all (what is it about this project and doing everything twice?) and my helper assisted in reapplying the finishing touches. From there he moved on to find more things that needed fixin’.

As he ‘worked’ I took more photos…

Have you stained anything recently? Any ‘helpers’ around your house? Been out on the town with Lindsay lately?

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers out there. Have a great long weekend!

There seems to be a bit of a rivalry going on at my house. Team Mantel vs. Team Bannister. It threatened to get ugly folks… but all is well that ends well.

Here’s how it all went down.

Banisters caught wind that Mantel had a painting party… but didn’t invite them (oh. oh. Drama). So, after a heart-to-heart (what, you don’t talk to your banisters?), I promised Banisters that they too could have a party of their own. And what did they want to wear? Well their LBDB’s of course!

Here is how Banisters looked before dressing up…

We have a few banisters like this around our house and I didn’t want to hear them whine too wanted to paint them all the same for cohesiveness.

Here is the signature drink that was served at the party, and a party goer partaking in a big sip…

Once drunk painted all the ladies banisters looked fantastic. LBB’s all around!

Oh, and for anyone following along, I used the RIGHT paint this time.

After we recently painted the main floor light the banisters just washed into the background. I feel it looks polished now. Black is the new banister.