Tag Archives: home

A Fresh Hallway

Over two years of owning this house, and I finally painted another area! And it took about a month, but it’s done now, and it feel soooo good! It is so much lighter and brighter and I love it! Here are some before and afters for your enjoyment. Yes, we have mismatched doors.

I took these befores so long ago that Victor was still crawling!

Painting trim is not the most fun, and if you look at it closely, it could use one more coat, but I’m no perfectionist, so I’m not going to worry about it. I highly recommend not being a perfectionist. It makes life a lot easier.
I also did one wall in the living room. The one wall that was the same dark brown as all the trim. So glad to be gone with that brown!Next to be painted will be the rest of the living room and finally will be the master bedroom, and then that yellow and brown will be completely gone! But who knows when that will happen.

5 Replies

A Winter-Ready Entry

This is our fourth winter here, in Edmonton. And this year is the latest winter has ever arrived for us. It (read: the snow) came on Monday, the 23rd of November! We have been spoiled. But it’s here now, so the back entry is once again my least favourite corner of the house.

We have a detached garage which means jackets and boots must be worn every time we leave the house, even if we won’t be leaving the vehicle. Then when we return, the boots come tromping back inside leaving behind muddy puddles of melted snow mixed with road gravel. The gloves and hats get discarded where it’s convenient. The jackets maybe get handed to me to get hung up. The result is a very messy and cluttered entry way. Especially when you’ve only got about 8 square feet, a closet and three doorways coming off of it.

these photos were all taken on panorama, hence the wonkyness

It’s a big ol’ mess which doesn’t make it any easier to get out the door. One thing I am thankful for in this space are the few steps up into the kitchen. The boys can sit there in one spot while I get their boots and gloves and everything on.

So this afternoon I took 15 minutes and cleaned it up. Hopefully in a way that encourages keeping it tidy. The boys’ boots and gloves and hats in a place where they can easily reach to put them away. All out of season items on the top shelf or in a different closet. And a little side-by-side, because who doesn’t like a good “before and after”?Side note: is there a chunk of the population who secretly hates scarves? I feel like everybody and their cat loves scarves, but I can’t stand them, and I can’t be the only one, right? One of those baskets on the top shelf is full of pretty scarves I never wear. They are stuffy and scratchy and make me sweaty. Hats are the same story. How on earth do people like them so much?!

If this were our forever home, I think I would do a little renovation back here. Because of the steps up into the kitchen, the ceiling is at least 10 feet tall, meaning there is a ton of unused space hiding in the top of this closet. I would open the whole thing up (take out the side lips where the door would go, and the wall above where the door would go), and build shelving all the way up to store out of season things and stuff. I just think this space could be used a little more wisely.

Rearranging the House

A handful of months ago, Tim was able to turn a hobby of his into a paying job. In short, he collects stats and writes articles for professional eSports, for the game League of Legends. Because of this, we have been able to stop being landlords and have reign over our entire house! This has had a domino effect on a number of rooms in our house.

First of all, our main motivation, the living space of the suite has become our playroom!

pictured here, in its natural state

With three kids now, it is a huge blessing to be able to have this space, especially through the winter. And I am very happy that it was painted two summers ago. It’s a dark basement, but the light colours really help.

We have also gained a bedroom! The suite bedroom is almost 3 times the size of our old guest room, so we moved the guest room down there. Because of the space, we were able to upgrade the bed from a double to a queen. You’re welcome, guests!
The bedroom even provided space for a piano! Our friends who are moving were looking to get rid of theirs, so voila! I have pulled out some of my old music and played a tiny bit. I just have to say that muscle memory is an amazing thing. I haven’t had a piano in 7.5 years, and most of the music just comes right back. My fingers just know where to go. The next domino is the boys’ sleeping arrangements. Since the double bed was no longer a guest bed, I decided to tear down Victor’s crib and switch it, along with Calvin’s toddler bed, with the double mattress for them to share. It has been working okay. I mean, isn’t this the cutest? It was actually the most helpful for a couple days after the time change. They woke up at 5:30, but I crawled into their bed and they lay back down and slept for another hour with me! The cuddles possible in a big, shared bed are wonderful.

But it has actually proven to be kind of a bad idea. It has almost wrecked nap time. We have had to now have Calvin nap in our bed because they would just not fall asleep when they are together, and they both still need naps. And we’ve had to experiment with bedtime too, in order to get them settled and relaxed enough. So, my idea turned out not to be as brilliant as I thought. We are now trying to decide if we should get them bunk beds (will the physical separation help with the distractions?), or put Calvin in the old guest room, and get each boy a new twin sized bed? Unfortunately, if we decide the latter, we can’t do it right away because it currently looks like this: It contains the contents of our linen closet and entry closet because I am painting. And painting takes me a long time. Another factor in the decision is this guy:When he gets kicked out of our room, should he have his own space (if the boys continue to share a room), or should he share with Victor (if Calvin moves out)?

But the main question out of all of this is do we buy two single beds or a bunk bed?

I apologize for all the awful iPhone photos taken of dark rooms.

2 Replies

My New Desk

If you have a superb memory, you may recall this old post in which I tell you about a corner of our house and my big plans for it. Basically, it was to fix this mess:

If you clicked on the link, you can see just how different a space can be after living in it for nearly 2 years.

The very few and small shelves made it quite impractical and not useful for anything other than a dumping ground for all the junk. Not a good use of space at all.

When my brother and sister-in-law, Nathan and Katie, mentioned wanting to come out for a visit, I immediately thought I could put my handy brother to use! After all, two years of sitting on dreams this small is too long! He agreed to do it (or probably just felt like he couldn’t say “no”), and so my first order of business was to paint the walls in the dining area of the kitchen where this nook is. I was happy to get rid of this weird yellow-brown in yet another room of the house. So we went from this:

to this:

A keen eye will also notice I finally painted over the bottom half that had been primed since the fall.

Then our visitors came and we got right to work, heading out to Home Depot just a couple hours after their arrival! It was my first time buying something from the lumber section of Home Depot which of course made me feel like a legit DIYer, even though I was doing none of the building myself. Nathan worked hard, and did such a good job working with my ideas, even adding a few of his own to enhance it.

Nathan hard at work on his vacation. And his completed project, ready for me to put the final touches on.

So from here it was all me. I wanted to paint the shelves and stain the desk part. So I did that. And then I added some cork board details to the wall above the pencil shelf. I originally wanted to just have a solid sheet of it, but these circles were cheaper at Michaels, and I love the way it turned out! The shelves hold so much more! I was able to empty all my craft stuff out of our bedroom and now I have space in there to put baby clothes, which means I can start nesting, but that’s another post I suppose. I also put all Calvin’s puzzles (which is his current love) up there to enforce a “one puzzle at a time” rule. Ideally, one day I will also get some sort of stacked drawer unit to fit underneath too, but that can wait until I find the perfect piece. I also need to staple all these annoying cables into place. But for now I will just sit right here and enjoy all our hard work. Thank you so much, Nathan!

5 Replies

Our New Windows

It’s been a few weeks now since we’ve gotten our new windows installed, and I am so happy with them! They make me feel like our house is cleaner. If you have a house with old windows (ours was built in 1979), you know what I mean. So much condensation due to improper sealing, which leads to too much mold to keep on top of. Yuck. Plus, whenever it was -5 degrees or colder, which is most of November to March, a lot of the windows would completely frost over. It made it feel like we were living in a bathroom. And sometime in the winter one of the living room windows developed a huge crack. Not safe!

When you go from this… …to that, you can’t help but feel good about the place you and your children are living in.

And then of course you can’t put old window coverings on new windows (especially since all the blinds that were there before didn’t fit over the new mouldings), I was given Tim’s blessing to get all new curtains and drapes for the house! It just adds that much more homeyness to our home and makes it feel a lot more cozy (before there were just brown, dusty blinds).

And also a lot more inviting for those who find themselves in our guest room!

One of the biggest changes was the living room, AKA toy corner. The house came with boring brown curtains which I never liked because it matches the colour palette of this house which I don’t like: brown with brownish-yellow. As soon as I looked out the front of our house through the new windows, I was so struck by how clear the view was! And we all know, if you can see out, you can see in (when the lighting is right), so I knew sheers, to let in the light but keep out the gazes, were a must, since we live on a fairly busy road.

So much better, right? And the new drapes make birthday party decorations look that much better too!

I won’t deny that I have cleaned these windows more in the past few weeks than I have in the past almost two years that we have lived here. Condensation hides so much!

I have to say, I really love IKEA’s curtain rods. So easy to make the double layer, and they even have a corner connection piece so you don’t have bare ends sticking into each other! Brilliant!

Another huge change, and maybe my favourite, has been the dining nook in the kitchen. This is what it looked like before. The window isn’t the only new thing in here. Back in the fall I did a little painting of the icky brown paneling (which is actually still just primer; I won’t know what colour I want it to be until I know what colour I eventually want to paint the cabinets). And we also got a new table and chairs!

So much better!

Let me tell you about the table for a second. I found it on Kijiji for $25! It only had three chairs, but you really can’t beat $25, especially when it was the exact shape and size we wanted. I couldn’t have found a more perfect table. It came with lighter wood top, but I stained it (horribly, so don’t look too close) so it looks better. And if the boys happen to climb on top of it, I have zero worries of it collapsing, like I did with the old drop leaf table (which we kept because I still love it; it now just serves as an end table in our living room with the sides dropped).

Now let me tell you about the curtains themselves, because I am proud of myself. The drapes in the living room and bedroom are from IKEA (the floral sheers in the bedroom were a donation from a friend who didn’t want them in their house; thanks Anna!). But the floral print curtains in the guest room and kitchen I made! Aren’t they great? I think IKEA doesn’t sell short curtains, so then I was looking at their fabric, and HAD to get the floral prints. I love them!

And then of course we have the outside.It’s a subtle difference, but there will be a ton more impact once we get the stucco redone in the coming month!

I love being able to make these big changes to our home. Last year our big project was the backyard. Being a home-body, it is wonderful to be comfortable in the space I am living.

3 Replies

The Painted Suite

For the past two weeks, all of my spare time (except for the hours I somehow fit in the entire season one of Suites – thanks for the recommendation, Catherine and Nikki!) has been spent painting and painting and painting.

Our tenant moved out right before we went to Alaska, and we decided not to look for another one until we returned. We had time to list it, show it, and paint it, allowing for a September move-in.

We really wanted to paint because there are only two little windows in the place (bedroom and kitchen), and the dark colours accentuated how cave-like it was. It also happens to be all the same colours that I am slowly working on eradicating upstairs – weird yellow and cheap-chocolate brown. Not too appetizing. So I changed that!

Take a look at the before and afters!

What you see when you walk through the entry door.
Moving forward and turning right, you enter the kitchen! Turning around and looking back to where you entered (the entry door is the brown one; we are still going to change that out and that’s why it’s not painted). Before reaching the bedroom, we have the bathroom on the left-hand side. And then the bedroom. Besides the entry door, there are a couple other things to take care of, such as a few pieces of trim and hanging some shelves to get the microwave off the counter in the kitchen. But I am kind of proud of this suite of ours, and it makes me so excited to see the difference just colour can make. One day our upstairs will be changed too!

I want to say a little thank you to Nikki and John who helped with the painting, and I hope and pray that this space is a blessing to our new tenant, who moves in today!

2 Replies

Laundry Room Fix

One of my pet peeves is doors that open the wrong direction. I’ve found that this is a very common occurrence in laundry rooms, on the dryer.

This is our laundry room:

The dryer actually used to be in the space behind the wall to the left of were it is now, so it was sitting perpendicular to the washer , with a space in between. While it was like that, the door opening to the right made complete sense. But I preferred to have the dryer right next to the washer because they are buddies, and I think it looks better that way, so last weekend we moved it. So then of course, having the door open to the right didn’t make too much sense. It would have been worse if the washer was front loading, but thankfully it’s not.

I was just going to deal with it, when I had the thought that the door must be reversible! And sure enough, I saw these guys on the opposite side of the opening of where the hinges were.

So I got out the drill and went to work. And now it looks like this!

Except what you can’t see is that the door actually doesn’t close. I think the drill was too wide so the screws went in crooked and couldn’t go in all the way. So I am going to wait for Tim to come home and give me a hand because it was hard to hold the door in place and drill at the same time. With an extra pair of hands I’m sure the screws will go in as they should.

But I am glad I no longer have the dryer door in the way while I am transferring the clean things. Next up is the fridge door.

You can see it opens away from the kitchen area, with a peninsula in the way. Having to step outside of the kitchen to get something out of the fridge is not ideal.

What kind of pet peeves around the home do you have?

2 Replies