Dining Room Envy

We live in just under 700 square feet. Our living room/dining room space is about 12' x 20'. When we first moved in we created an actual living area with sofa, tv etc and a dining area.

This meant we had to put the computer/office area in our bedroom. I hated it. I really want our bedroom to be an oasis. A place of quiet and rest.

So, the office had to move. Now we have an office space where our dining room area used to be and the dining room table has become one big, long desk covered in stuff (how do we end up with so much paper when we get all of our bills online? Paper in the house is like a bunch of bunnies left unsupervised...it just multiplies and multiplies!)

Most of the time I am okay with it. We have only had a dining room once in our last 10 houses. We are used to eating at the coffee table. But, I have to admit, that I do miss the idea of a dining room every once in awhile.

While cruising some of my favourite sites tonight, I found these and could not help but wish (just for a teensy, weensy moment) that I might have something like this in my life one day.

from House Beautiful

from desire to inspire

from Apartment Therapy

from desire to inspire
 

from House of Turquoise

We have our names on the co-op list to move internally to a three bedroom suite if one should come available. That would give us a room for an office and let us have our dining room space again. It could be years though so, for now, I will have to content myself with dining room design from a far. Sigh....

 

 

I have been seeing typography trays floating around on the web and pinterest for a little while now.

from visual heart

from the backyard bungalow

from google.uk

It is a look that I really like. In fact, we bought our first typography tray over 15 years ago. It is a great place to keep the odd assortment of objects that my crow has collected over the years.

Every time I walk down the hallway and see the trays, I am reminded of so many childhood memories. Fisher price, crayons, Red Rose tea figurines, dude ranch badges, an old prescription bottle of my grandmother's...

And so many newer memories...odd little miniature pieces of furniture, modern Monopoly markers, Spongebob Squarepants, brass numbers... all brought home to me by my crow.

Some women sigh over big bouquets of flowers or extravagant trips. Me? I sigh over each odd little thing that he brings home knowing that each one will hold a memory of our years together.

Porch Love

I have been taking the dog for a lot of walks lately. This is probably one of my least favourite activities but it does allow for one of my most favourite activities which is to look at houses in the neighbourhood and see how other people live.

I have come across some lovely porches in the last week and, compliments of my new iphone, have some equally lovely images of them to show you. (My daughter did say I would love my iphone and, I have to say, so far she was right on the money!)

Imagine you have a lovely glass of ice tea, it is a sunny but not too hot day (perhaps there is a bit of a breeze blowing up from the beach) and you can take yourself to one of these spaces to relax and enjoy a good book. Ah, heaven!

Don't the third and fourth porches just call out for a hammock swinging in the breeze?

One day, I keep telling myself, one day....

What is it about white?

I was just looking over my pinterest boards and paused to look through my decorating one. There are way too many posts on it (over 1200) and I am thinking of creating boards for each area of the house (sort of like I have done for each school subject).

Anywho, what really struck me as I scrolled through my decorating pins is that there is A LOT of white going on.

White walls, white furniture, white linens, white dishes, white, white, white.

When did this love of white start for me? Í don't know but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

I mean, my heart actually stutters and I feel so happy when I see rooms like this...



or this...



(although I don't think I would have so many fishy things going on. More birds than fishes for me)

or this...



(though, I must admit, I have a hard time seeing this staying white given we have a dog - and, now, a cat - sleeping on our bed most of the time!)



I want to sit down to work on my computer at a space like this. Wouldn't you?

And kitchens...geez, don't even let me get started on kitchens. I have one of the last remaining 1980's IKEA kitchens. Picture mud brown counters and ugly cream coloured laminate cupboards. It is terrible. And not something I can just change on a whim as I don't own the space. Oh, but to have a kitchen like this...



or this...

or this...

Oh, what a lovely dream it is to imagine my kitchen all fresh and white like this! Hopefully, our turn for kitchen renewal will come up sooner rather than later at the co-op. Fingers crossed! (And toes, legs, eyes, you get the idea!)

My goal is to slowly work towards having a house that evokes the same feelings in me as these pictures. These spaces always make me smile, they bring a lightness to my heart and spirit. They make me happy. This is how I believe home should feel.

Parts of our space already do this for me. But I want ALL of our space to do this for me. Time and patience plus a lot of elbow grease will get us there. Stay tuned!

Hidden Storage

Do you have the same issues as I do with storage? There never seems to be enough! We have downsized dramatically since our last move and still I have trouble finding somewhere to keep it all. One of our biggest challenges is with blankets. We are a blanket family. We like to tuck them around our feet, cuddle under them when it is chilly, snooze under them when the drowzies hit, you get the idea. We lack storage in our living room for all of the blankets. So, I have been keeping them in this since we moved in at Christmas:

Lovely, isn't it? NOT!!! I keep thinking that we will get a new piece of furniture to use for storage but, so far, we haven't had the money to spend on something that really isn't a necessity. Well, the other day, I just got sick and tired of looking at this awful rubbermaid tub  (that I had thrown a pillow on to use as a pseudo ottoman while I sit in the chair near it) and decided to give it a very quick facelift. Now it looks like this:

So much better, don't you think? This is an old quilt made by my great grandmama. It was passed down to me a few years ago when my grandmama died - mostly because no one else wanted it! It was already well passed its prime as quilts go when it came to me. Too far gone to really salvage and use properly but I still loved it. A true patchwork made from bits and bobs and a few rice and flour sacks thrown into it as well.

Lately, I have had it thrown over a chair in the livingroom and it was literally going to pieces. I cut it to fit by eyeballing it against the rubbermaid tub and then went to work on the sewing machine. I am very happy with how it turned out. You can not tell by looking that there is a rubbermaid tub under there and it is easy to access the blankets when we need them. It has that shabby chic look that I like and blends well with the other furnishings. Plus, I think of my father's family and the South every time I put my feet up on it. Quite simply, it makes me happy! I am still undecided about the rug you see it on but as it was another freebie (scored by my crow while out walking the dog!) I am going to learn to live with it (at least for the time being.)

What small changes have you made around the house lately that bring a smile to your heart? Making our house into a home is one of the most rewarding jobs I have taken on. Each little step I take makes me even more glad to open my door and call out "I'm home!" at the end of a long day.



Salvaged Shelf

As many of you know, I call my hubby "my crow" because, just like a crow, he is always bringing me home bits and bobs to feather our nest. It started with him bringing me "floor score" of jewelry from his job as a security guard at a local club. I would incorporate the bits and pieces into my creations. Then it grew to bringing me home mannequins, doll parts, old windows, old doors, and other assorted finds.

Since moving into our new 750 square foot apartment we have had to make many decisions about what would stay and what would go. Believe it or not but the discussion about which mannequins would stay was probably the most heated. He wanted to keep as many as possible and I wanted to get rid of most of them! We ended up each choosing one we liked and let the rest go.

There are days when I am really happy with all the goodies he brings home and other days when I can't figure out what to do with ANY of it! Recently though I was very grateful for his habit for holding on to things. Our sofa is on a wall that has a wall heater attached near the floor. I was finding that the sofa was getting really hot and the heat wasn't circulating well. I wanted to put a shelf or a  table behind our sofa to help the heat move but didn't want to buy anything. Well, turns out that one of the old doors that my crow had outside of our old house had fallen apart in the elements. And my hubby being who he is salvaged bits and pieces of it before chucking the rest. Voila! Instant shelving!

He attached the door part using L brackets. It is the exact length of the sofa (serendipity or what?) and both looks and works great. It adds a cool architectural feature to the space and I am pretty sure that it isn't something you'd see in lots of places. I like that it is quirky and unique. Kind of like my crow!

I sent my hubby to the new place with the camera today. He took a few shots of what he is dealing with as he gets everything ready to paint.

Don't you just love the avocadoish/sage greenish 1970's paint colour? It looks even worse in person. And the carpet is filthy! I wish we didn't have carpet and will probably try to cover it with a runner of some sort eventually.

The past tenant left a gazillion holes in the walls. We (I say we, but I really mean my hubby!) had to fill them and then sand them in prep for the paint.

Yes, the room really is this yellow! Both of the bedrooms are painted in this really vivid banana-ish yellow. It is not pretty. Trust me. You would not want to try to get any sleep in there!

Yes, these are stickers, a lot of stickers on the ceiling of our bedroom. I am not looking forward to getting them all down!

You can tell that we are going to have to put in some time fixing up the door frames. For now I think we will just get the walls done but eventually something will have to be done with these.

And check out the kitchen cupboards in the background. U.G.L.Y. The counter tops are totally dirt brown and are hopefully going to be replaced in the new year. My fingers are crossed because I don't know how to make butt ugly brown counter tops look good. The cupboards I can work with.

I am going to go take some pictures that show more of the rooms than the ones hubby took. I want to be able to show before and after shots as I work on the apartment. It is crazy that this is probably the worst looking place at move in but it is the place that I am the most excited about living in. I can hardly wait until we are sleeping in our new (non-yellow) bedroom. Only 9 sleeps until the furniture is moved in!!!!



We got the keys!!!!

So, today we got our first look at the apartment. All I can say is that we have our work cut out for us. The previous tenant was meant to get the apartment paint ready and cleaned up before he left but he didn't. You name it and we probably have to do it!

I had figured we would have to paint but it is going to be a BIG job! All the walls are currently avocado green or banana yellow. There are spider webs hanging everywhere, stickers on the walls and tons of holes to be filled in. YUCK!!! I am off to find just the right paint for the space. I know that I want most of the walls white - but not a cold white. I want a warm, cozy white and then I want to do the baseboards in the same white but in a gloss. There is very little wall in the kitchen and I am contemplating doing a turquoise or blue there. We'll see. 

I forgot to bring my camera home with me from work but I will go in on Monday and get some before pictures to show. You will not believe it when you see it!

I know that it will look wonderful once we are all done but looking at the amount we have to do in the next two weeks (while working full time no less!) is very, very overwhelming! The furniture will all be moved two weeks from today. We have to paint, move everything else AND get ready for Christmas before then. So, I am off to make a list so that I can keep my stress under control. Wish me luck!

I have completed two more projects in the last couple of days. One was inspired by pinterest and the other I just felt like making. The pinterest one came from this image:

You know, of course, that I love the colour - I mean, it's turquoise, isn't it? - and so I had to have one for myself! I used an old cookie sheet instead of a frame and I am really happy with how it turned out. See?

This will be in our new bathroom. It is more of a pale blue than a turquoise but I was mixing colours up using my acrylics and I am pretty pleased with it. I had some good magnets on hand and used a dab of E6000 to glue them on to the backs of all my make up. I can hardly wait to get this into the new bathroom!

The other crafty thing that I made was just for fun. I have a big box of buttons - some from my mother, some I have bought, some my friend gave me. I decided that I wanted to show off some of them. And so I did this - lovely buttons in beautiful shades of blue and green and in my favourite shape!

Did you notice the apple shaped button right in the middle? I got it years ago from a good friend - you know, the whole give an apple to the teacher idea - and never figured out where to use it. I love it in the centre of this piece. I will be hanging this in the stairwell gallery at the new house. It is making me crazy that I can picture it all so clearly and, yet, I have to wait before we can get in there. Only 6 days until we get the keys!

The other day while cleaning out stuff I came across two of these IKEA mirrors. I bought them years ago.

They are only $2.99 each - major score - and they have the potential to become really nice wall art. I had decoupaged both of them in different colours and textures but I really didn't like them anymore. So I painted one white and one black. Then I pulled out my letter stamps. And now I have two more pieces of art to grace the walls of our new home!



A thing for words...

I have a thing for words - well, for quotes mainly. I have collected them in little notebooks, scraps of paper or written/painted/drawn them in my art journal for years. Since becoming a pinterest junkie, I have discovered the joy of quotes framed on the wall. I now have so many that I want to hang up in the new house that I am not sure I have enough walls!

Here are a few of my favourites...

via hello darlin

(this one makes me think of my dad)

via a month of sundays

via happy deliveries on etsy

(I actually ordered this one!)

via tumblr

via desmobilia

(so true - my hubby would like this one)

via pitter patter art

Don't be surprised to see some of these turn up in the stairwell gallery in our new home. I can see it so clearly in my head. Now I just want to be living there already so that I can make it a reality! 8 days left until we get the keys. Yippee!

Our new home is going to be the smallest space in which we have ever lived. It is roughly 800 sq. feet. I feel equal parts excitement and trepidation. Excitement because I love organizing and decorating. I get a real charge out of figuring out how to use a space in the most efficient manner and still maintain our eclectic sense of style. Trepidation because it is so small!!!! We will be getting rid of about 6 pieces of furniture and at least 40% of our belongings. In the last two weeks I have sent 6 boxes and 1 bag to the Sally Anne. That probably amounts to 2% of what we need to get rid of in the next month. Yikes I still have a lot to do!

One thing I didn't expect to happen is that I would start to feel lighter as I fill box after box. As the rooms clear of books, decorative accessories, picture frames, crafty stuff I never use anymore, clothes, shoes and more I feel better and better. It is a lightness in my soul. I am left only with those items that we truly treasure.

One thing that I can't decide  what to do with is the papasan chair that our daughter saved up her money to buy when she was around 12. It came from Pier 1. She doesn't want it anymore - her room now has a black and white/Marilyn Monroe/Audrey Hepburn theme going on and the papasan just doesn't fit. And....my hubby hates it. And I do mean he HATES it!

But it is one of the most comfortable chairs ever! It is just the right size to curl up in under a cozy blanket to read. I really, really want to have a chair in the corner of our master bedroom. And today I found this pillow that goes on it. In teal! In fuzzy teal! In come over and curl up on me cozy, fuzzy teal!

I find that with small space living there are only so many places to go for privacy. Basically, the only times I can have true privacy are in the bath or in bed. So, I often end up reading in one or the other of these locations. But I really, really want a place to curl up. Only problem (well, besides the fact that my hubby hates it!) is that it is not a small chair. It takes up space. Keeping it will definitely mean getting rid of something else - most likely one of the pieces that I really want to keep.

So, what's a girl to do? It would be a heck of a lot cheaper to buy the new pillow for the papasan and call it a day. But do I want a piece of furniture in our bedroom that my hubby hates? Wouldn't that be bad karma or something? And does a papasan chair really fit in with the vision I have of the new place. Maybe I should leave that corner empty until I have the means to buy the just right chair. Maybe something like this?

via tumblr

via pinterest

via tumblr

vie the virginia house

via re-nest

via pinterest

Hmmmm....have to say that after looking over these pics of such lovely, cozy chairs I think that I am going to thank the papasan for being in my life and then let it go. I would rather wait and find the chair that really calls  my name. Gee, I love when I start a post with a question and manage to answer it myself by the end! Go me!