Curtain Love

FINALLY! got our curtains hung after finishing the trim around the windows. I bet our neighbours are excited too not to have to look at our cardboard.

Master Bedroom:

These are the same curtains we had previously and we just got them back up.

JBaby's Room:
These are new curtains from Fabricland that have embroidered cars on them (although you can't see them in the picture) - super cute.

Family night tonight, we are all at home for the night together for the first time this week, so we are looking forward to a little time together.

Bedroom Renovation

So here's the metamorphosis that is our bedroom. When we moved in, she looked like this:

We immediately ditched the tobacco curtains and carpet, and scrubbed down all the walls with bleach (and cleaned the window).

In June, we moved our bedroom into the living room so we could re-insulate the walls (cut the street traffic noise down hugely), and paint it a colour other than white. In the meantime, it became the hockey gear drop off & airing out centre (ew.) We debated the merits of closet organizers & ceiling fans, but have yet to get either.

Here's what we've got now.... so nice to have a door again.

I even convinced my lovely renovator to hang up a picture, giving us a grand total of 3 things that we've actually hung in the house!

We changed the way our bedroom faces. Before, we had our bed on the wall where our dressers now are. That worked well for some time, but was tight between my dresser and the bed frame (I bumped my hip constantly when I was pregnant). With changing the closets, we were able to put both dressers on the far wall and our bed & night tables just squeezes into the space along the wall instead.

We still have to get the ceiling fan we've decided on, build a closet organizer (and you will be able to download our plans!), and add a couple pieces of trim & hang a door, but it's a sigh of relief to be able to our own room.

Get ready living room, I'm breaking out my sledgehammer.

PS. If you wonder what we've been up to, we're chasing this cutie around. He's going 0-60 in 2.1 seconds.

Brrr... and Bedroom Progress

It's a balmy -26 C here today, brr!

Was suppose to get much colder, but I suppose we'll see what happens as the day goes on. Hope you are keeping warm, we sure are.

We've been working hard on our bedroom - crow bars a'flying as we tear out the hardwood floor. This floor is original to the house, and I still believe it's lovely but it sure was showing it's age. From the manufacturer's brand on the back of our hardwood was made by Royal Oak from Crosset, Arkansas. Boy, it's a long way from home.

If you're tearing out your own floor, set your skill saw to the depth of your floor, floor typically is less than 7/8", start by making a cut into the floor for a place to start tearing out and pry up with your crow bar. 

On our case, because we have moved our closet and the extra space from the opposite side was carpeted, we had a natural break in our hardwood floor to start from.

The best pry bar in our collection is from Lee Valley, 25" Renovator's Bar. The longer you get, the better it will save your back!

Here's the before shot (love the light that this room gets during the day):

After a little nostalgic dump run to the most picturesque landfill site just in the knick of time on Saturday with a truck load of floor.... and a tonne of nails sticking out....

We've got a new sub-floor and a call in to our favourite local flooring place with hopes of carpet soon so we can move our bed back in.

Somehow our bedroom has become the room where the smelly hockey equipment goes, in the meantime. Pee-you.

Here's a peek at the carpet we'll be installing:

Same as what is in our other bedroom - the preferred place of our dog to shed as much as possible. He sure keeps us busy with the vacuuming. On to my next project of the day....tackling my junk drawers. That's right, I have two.

Will reveal them in all their glory, next post!

Colour Our World...Beige Edition

A lovely paint job by my lovely DH - we chose to paint our bedroom a lovely "Sandpiper Beige" and the bathroom "Inukshuk".

I commented that we keep picking beige, not a bad thing - just our colour palette tends to be to use a neutral colour on the walls and then use the accessories to add that "pop". In the case of our bedroom, we have 2 comforters and a quilt we typically use - and all of them have varying colour palettes (blue/brown, brown/green, brown/orange).

The current debate involves whether or not to put a ceiling fan into the master bedroom. We wired the light this way to allow this possibility, and as we don't have air conditioning in the house, a ceiling fan could be a really great addition in keeping us cool in the summertime.

As we are heading towards winter here in Alberta, it's not essential that we put this in right away. It could be a "boob" light for the time being (insert D shaking his head rapidly here insisting that we "do it right" a la Mr. Holmes)

We're looking for:
(1) 52" to be able to move the air effectively
(2) With light(s)
(3) Brushed nickel finish ideally (to match door knobs and current lamps).

We checked out the offerings at our local Canadian Tire and Home Hardware, and were underwhelmed, so to the Interweb...

Costco - Canarm St. James $84.99

So far we're leaning towards this one. I suggested DIYing the brass one we currently have in the kitchen (it is the right size).... It's not totally out there - I refer you to this post. In case you forgot, here's what it looks like:

Pretty sure with a couple coats of Rustoleum paint and a few new shades it would be just nifty. This may be my project of the week. And hey, if I ruin it, it's ugly, and who cares?

We checked in with the local flooring place we like to use too (Friends of ours, their parents own it), and we just need to submit the measurements of the master bedroom and they can come within a week or two and lay the carpet. It's going to be the same as Jonas' room, a nice neutral with a slight pattern in it (can't really see this in the photos). 

Glad we have a central vac installed as a certain doggie seems to love carpet, and he's black... the carpet...well, it's not very forgiving to his fur tuffs.

With a little more hard work, we may have a bath tub, a bedroom with a door and bathroom upstairs again soon :)

Bedroom Update

We're getting tired of sleeping in the living room.

Things are still progressing along on the Hobo-Chic Project, but a little slower than usual, mostly because of this shiny little face, but also because our head contractor is working full-time and a bit!

We will continue on in our plans though. The bedroom walls are primed, next up the ceiling, and I got a very special project to work on.

Namely the master closet and closet organizer. Huzzah, and I knew exactly what furry helper would help me out.

Err... well, he tried. 

Our closet got a big jump on it's former self by us removing the Front Hall closet on the other side and moving our closet into the corner of the room. This allows a lot more room for the door and a little nook.  From our clothing situation it looks that we need one high bar (6' or so) for long hanging items such as dresses and suits. We both like to hang out hoodies (no small feat in my case), and I also like to hang my pants, this means we probably need 2 other short bars. We like the idea of shelves or drawers in the middle, although we're not really sure what they would be for at this point.

So, to the Interweb.... lots of closet kits available....

From homedepot.ca, Martha Stewart Living 4-8'  $159.99

From homedepot.ca, John Louis Home Deluxe, $799

A custom closet, I envisioned was about the same price range ($400+). So back to the drawing board, or back to what is currently in J's closet perhaps.

A couple of options:

• Ana White's Build a Simple Closet Organzier Plans and DIY it
• Wait for this piece to go on sale
• Throw everything in Rubbermaids and call it a day
  
  PS. I really like the Canadian Tire's website feature that you can put a Sale Alert on an item - how smart is that?