Interior Design Show 2013

I had an amazing time at this year's Interior Design Show last Friday.  I was lucky to have joined an "InstaWalk" hosted by the gals over at Beige is Dead and led by Margot Austin.  Essentially we wandered through the booths snapping Instagrams of things that inspired us, and if you search #idswalk13 you'll find a treasure-trove of amazing ideas and products from the show.  Here are a few stand-outs for me, and I will also include a few links to some of the other bloggers on the walk who have done great round-ups.

From top, left to right: Gorgeous wall of Farrow & Ball colours - they are just so velvety and posh, and always just the right hue.  Wish I could afford them. :) Laser-cut alphabet by Eva Bartha of lasercreative.ca in a fun casual font.  They also had laser-cut felt hangings and their business card is laser-cut slices of wood. Show-stopping copper tub in the Ikea booth (which won the Gold Booth Award).  All of the tiles at Ceragres were beautiful (really, really beautiful), but I quite like this wood-grain tile for kitchens or bathrooms, where tile is the most practical but a wood floor looks so nice!

I had to stop at this eye-catching paint display at the Beauti-Tone Paint booth, where they had lots of great DIY paint ideas.  The Ikea display was the star of the show (I'll post some of their publicity photo eye candy below) but the marketer in me liked that they included the very-affordable prices.  New works by one of my favourite Canadian artists, Charlie Pachter in the Caviar20 booth.  I am dreaming up ways to use these big hexagonal tiles at Ceragres.

And here are the publicity Ikea booth photos I was sent, which I am posting because it was impossible to get a great photo with all the crowds in there.

And here are some great IDS13 round-up posts:

• Poppytalk post by contributor Janis Nicolay
• Desire to Decorate post
• DesignMaze post
• Interior Groupie post
• Recreated post

I wanted to post these right away, but this weekend I was as sick as I have been in a very long time with some sort of flu or virus.  It has run through every member of our household and is hanging on much too long!  I am used the colds and flu that go around but this one knocked us all flat.

Ikea ideas for DIY

Sorry about the blurry iPhone shots, but I was at Ikea yesterday (my kids DEMANDED to go to the "Ikea play centre", and I couldn't understand why until I realized they just wanted to go to the kids section and play) and I thought that some of the things they had up in the kids rooms were pretty cool ideas!  I especially like the idea of mounting toys in frames on a colourful background - so cute and inexpensive.  The idea of using fabric in a collage project is pretty cool too.  Any DIYs you have done in a kids room that were outside the box?

Dining room photo wall done!

As I am sure you recall, one of the projects on my list back in September (can you even believe it's October??) was the dining room wall.  As much as I loved having the colourful chaos of the kids' artwork, I really wanted something cleaner and more relaxing to look at.

While home in New Brunswick, I took a few photos out my bedroom window looking down the river, and had an idea for a small series.  I ended up taking a photo every day of the same view, at different times of day and in different weather.  Out of a ton of photos, I eventually chose the following six:

Home Office - My New Happy Place

I have started a contract working one day a week from home (so far) and I love it.  It is so much fun to work with some old friends a project I feel so comfortable with.  I feel like I am dipping my toes in the water of working part time from home and so far I am all over it.  Unfortunately I didn't really have a space to work.  We had visions of moving the boys in to the same room and turning Cam's room into an office, but it doesn't look like that would be a great idea at the moment.  We did have this little nook in the basement where we had stuck an old home-made table (we got the plywood in an alley and added some Ikea legs).  We had put our old not-really-working-anymore sounds-like-it-might-explode computer there and it is where I have been doing my sewing.  But mostly it was just a place to dump things we had no other place for.

The bookcase was just loaded with books and photos and pictures and jars full of sewing stuff.  I had velcroed some fabric on to the table to try to cover the disaster of cables and the two plastic rolling drawers crammed full of MESS, but it made sitting there and doing anything a little awkward!

So a couple of weeks ago I tackled it with gusto.  I threw out a tonne of stuff we hadn't looked at in years, weeded through the books, and boxed up our poor old computer.  Then I hit Ikea and Staples.

I ended up just getting a couple of Ikea drawer towers to hold the same piece of plywood, since it fit so well.  I may eventually paint it white, who knows.  I was going to put a shelf under the window, but decided cork boards would be more useful.  While the results are not too exciting visually, organizationally this new space is rocking my world.  It is clean, streamlined, organized, and mess-free.  I am in OCD heaven.  Sadly (lighting-wise) it in the basement - here I am doing this photo course and posting terrible photos.  However, it is actually nice and quiet to work down there; this little nook is so cozy and tucked out of the way.  Plus we have a heated floor in the basement - enough said.

The bookcase now holds my sewing and craft supplies, a couple of magazine racks, and a file folder, along with an inspiring assortment of books (can you spot the Encyclopedia of Beer?).  On the wall, I finally hung the three prints my dad and I got at an auction and Avril Loreti's awesome tea towel.

The other side still has the studio shot of my grandmother and dad, I think I may add some more old family photos here.  You can see a double frame on the windowsill that has photos my grandmother and grandfather when they were kids. (They grew up in the same town, which is also where I grew up.)  And of course no office would be complete without some kid art - a valentines drawing to be exact.  :)

The drawers are so deep and hold so much more than those stupid rolling things.  (I put one of them in my closet to hold belts, scarves, and tights;  I was on a bit of an organizational tear.) Add a clear drawer tray from Staples, and Bob's your uncle.

And while I didn't find a chair to suit my needs yet, I did at least re-cover the one that was there which was looking pretty worn and sad (and filthy).

So there you have it: my new happy-place.  How many times did I say organized in this post? I love organized.

Another day, another Rast make-over

I got a second Rast in the as-is section of Ikea and this weekend finally got around to fixing it up.  It was not quite as involved as my last Rast make-over, but I am pretty happy with it.  I used the left-over paint from our downstairs walls and got some new knobs from Home Depot to add a little sparkle.  I love how the colour worked on it, and it is much more useful than our previous bedside table.

As it looked in June

New and improved?

 I love it when I can check something off my daunting to do list!

Rast Renovation

Having my mother visit is win-win all around.  Not only do I have wonderful company during the day, and Chris and I got to get away on the weekend, and the kids get to see their Nana, but I also have more time to do all those projects that normally languish unfulfilled as the day flies by.  One of these is my rast redo - I got to go to Home Depot to get all my supplies AND actual finish the project!  Amazing.

Here is the finished project - not sure I love how bright the brass knobs are, but otherwise I am pretty pleased.  It actually didn't take that long either.  The photos don't quite show the grey colour (it is "seal" in the Martha Stewart collection) or how dark the stain is.

Here it is in its new home.  I had intended to put it in our bedroom, but as soon as I brought it into the hall from the car the day I bought it, it immediately got filled with all kinds of stuff!  And now that we have all the hats and mits and scarves to deal with, it just made sense.  And it looks great there!  It is nice and narrow, which we really needed, and the stain actually matches our gumwood trim pretty perfectly.  I may even get another to put beside it to make a kind of built-in.  Hooray Rast hacks!

Rast-tastic

I went to Ikea the other day to get some new train track accessories for the boys... and, well, you know how that ends...  One of my 'other' purchases was this ever-so-hackable Rast drawer set from As-Is.  You can see the light damage on the side, but since I would never leave au naturel, it matters not.  The trouble now is deciding what to do with it!  I could of course go with Lindsay's classic (and classy) version - a distinct possibility:

...or one of these inspiring ideas floating about online:

Sources: 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . 7 . 8 . 9 . 10

Here's another colourful contender that Barb suggested would make a great rast-hack:

...and I also enjoy this lovely version from A Charming Nest - the pedestal base puts it over the top:

Ahhhh - so many options!  Any others you like?  Which one should I do?

George Herman House update

 

 

Lindsay has been working hard on the George Herman House garden project.  She has taken some more photos and measurements in order for us to get a better idea of the space, and suggested we might want to take a crack at some mood boards to get the creative juices flowing.  She also found Tonic Living to generously offer outdoor fabrics. Meanwhile Jen has secured a fantastic donation of all the outdoor furniture from Ikea Canada, and Tim wrangled a wealth of donated plants.  We also have Bona Vista Pools/ Landscapes donating some accessories, and a cash donation of $500!  Not a bad start, right? 

With all that in mind, I hopped on Olioboard to try my hand at this mood board thing.  Ooooh golly it is addictive!  Can I have a career in this?? 

I am no garden designer by ANY stretch of the imagination, but just put together some of the Ikea furniture I liked, with fabrics and pillows from Tonic Living. You can't go wrong with a big, comfy sectional to stretch out on, with a big ottoman for snacks.  My idea of an easy, low-maintenance garden is to use potted plants and I love the look of Boston Ferns outside. Believe it or not they adore our southern-Ontario summers. And red geraniums are favourites of mine - simple but with a hint of Europe (they make me think of Italian window sills and terraces), and such cheerful red colour. (I also like the red mixed with the hot pink colour!) And for fabic colours, you can't go wrong with a bright grassy green, sunny yellow, and red accents. Cheerful, easy-going, and low maintenance!  Add some lemonade and a good book, and Bob's your uncle.

What do you think?  Does this ever make me excited to get outside this summer...

To help with this projects, please feel free to visit the bloggersgiveback.com site, where there is a PayPal button to make it easy.  Any other donations - of time, supplies, advice, etc. - are happily and gratefully accepted as well.  Thanks for reading!

The Kitchen

You may have noticed (or not) that any house photos I post, either here or on some of the house tours on other sites, do not include any photos of the kitchen.  That is because our kitchen makes me crazy.  The night we moved in, I stayed up until 3 am painting the cabinets white and crying.  (I was also preggo, which may explain the slight over-reaction, but trust me - the kitchen was not a pretty scene.)  Just LOOK at that ridiculous fridge placement.  And that horrid range floating in no-man's-land.  And the lack of counter space.  And NO DISHWASHER.  And no cabinets.  And the plastic floor covered in perma-stains.  Yup, this kitchen makes me nuts.

 Somehow it doesn't look quite so nasty in these photos, but this kitchen will finally meet it's maker this summer.  We have decided to bite the bullet and replace it with a full reno!!  Of course my first order of business was scouring the internet for inspiration - and there is so much out there!  Here are a just a few from my "what about this?" files.

Unfortunately, because I saved them for my own reference, I don't have sources for them all - if you recognize any, please let me know.  Here are the ones I know: 1) A Brooklyn Limestone 2) Cotswold Furniture Makers (gorgeous stuff) 3) Elle Decor 4) _JohnMuir Flickr photo 5) Canadian House and Home 6) The Kitchn 7) Not sure 8) Don't Know 9) House Beautiful

However, when I saw this one on Apartment Therapy, I knew it was The One.  It is the kitchen of Cellist Wendy Sutter, Philip Glass's collaborator and partner, and was designed by Luke Mulvey. You should go check out the 'before' photos.

It worked perfectly with all of the new stainless appliances that we got at Lowe's (for the cheapest prices I could find) and we even got that faucet before I saw these.  The best part is that the cabinets are Ikea, and when I went to price them, I found that the bottom ones are being discontinued - and were 50% off! Sweet.  Plus, it is both white AND wood, marrying the two styles I could not decide between.  And of course - cellist + Philip Glass + I work for an orchestra = FATE!  :)

It has been so much easier to make decisions having this photo in mind, and because of the timing for the reno, I had to make up my mind quickly.  The work will start in the next few weeks - so stay tuned for updates! :)

Happy Belated Earth Day!

Yes, I am aware that Earth Day has come and gone, but as any of my friends will tell you, I am not so good at remembering things on the actual day they occur.  I will note that they are coming up, with a mental "Must Remember!" and then remember again a day or two after the fact.  (Speaking of which HAPPY BIRTHDAY SELINA!!)  I have decided it is just one of those things about me that I have to embrace, because I can't seem to fix it.

So since I have a day of house cleaning ahead of me, I thought I would do a quick roundup of some of the eco cleaning options out there.

First up are these intriguing Eco Scrubbies available on Etsy.  They look like crocheted little poufs, but made with some cool scratchy material.  I want one.  I am sure you could buy something similar, but as you know I am all for buying something handmade insead.

Etsy also has tons of options for dusting - especially for Swiffer dusters.

There's the flannel Swiffer floor duster covers ($7 for 4),

the terry cloth version ($10 for 4),

Or the reversible crochet version ($8 for 1).

Of course, there is always the option of making your own - here is the pattern for the above crochet version.

For the swiffer/pledge duster, there are these fleece covers that can of course be washed over and over!

And remember all that tshirt yarn?  Why not knit up a few colourful washcloths?

Bundle them up, include a few of these sturdy (and handsome) spray bottles from Ikea ($1.79 each)

some baking soda, Borax, vinegar, and a few recipes for homemade cleaners, and you have a nice Earth Day gift!

You know...for next year...if you remember.