Friday, September 30, 2011

{thank you style at home!}

I have to give a big thank you to styleathome.com and Style at Home Web Editor Elaine Song for asking me to take part in an online article where 12 bloggers weighed in on their Favorite Fall trend! Check out my favorite for the fall here. I really appreciate that Style at Home loves to create dialogue with bloggers, it's so neat to hear the opinion of others in the blogosphere. I had so much fun participating, thank you Style at Home!



Happy Friday, it's the weekend! I'm gearing up to enjoy all the IDSwest festivities and from the sneak peek at the Opening Gala yesterday, it is guaranteed to be a great show!

Thursday, September 29, 2011

{a new day, a new look!}

Happy Thursday everyone! I hope your week is winding down and you're looking forward to the weekend!! I am uber excited as the IDSwest show is in town and I am looking forward to so many wonderful events including an Opening Night Gala tonight and a fabulous cocktail party on the weekend that we {Karla of Kerrisdale Design Inc., Victoria of Edin's House, Barbara of hodge:podge and myself} designed specifically for design bloggers attending the show. Best part? Ikea Canada is our premiere event sponsor and working with them has been fabulous! I hope to have tons of fab party pics to share with you next week.

On another note, things may look a little different to you around here today :) I hope you like it! I've been working on a little blog face-lift for some time, and I have to thank the people involved: the wonderful Kelly of Fabulous K Creative designed my navigation bar and side bar elements {she's fantastic, contact her if your thinking of a blog redesign!}, and my awesome/patient/skilled husband put together my header art!

Another exciting addition: I've finally put up a little Etsy shop {just a few items, more to come soon - baby steps!}. Here are some of the pieces you will find there:







And I am working on having the large canvas in my kitchen professionally scanned so it should be up there soon too!


Thank you so so much for all of your support of this blog, you have no clue how much it means to me! And thank you to everyone who personally encouraged me to put my artwork out there even though it is a bit intimidating at the best of times :) Have a wonderful Thursday!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

{before & after: my kitchen reno}

Finally! I've got pictures of my kitchen renovation {that was officially completed this summer} to share with you. We've lived in our home for 4 years now, and it took a while to get this reno complete. Our goal was to freshen up the space on a budget: we want to sell this home in the next couple of years so only a 'mini-reno' was required. We painted our old oak cupboards right before we moved in, but we put up with the disintegrating laminate counters & floral backsplash tiles for far too long!

Before I show you the space all new and improved, I have to show you the befores {it wouldn't be any fun without them, would it?}. Please keep in mind, the photos were taken when the former owner of the home was living here! {We snapped pics on our home-inspection rounds}. Cue the dramatic music ... duh duh duh DUH!


What did I tell you? So, before moving in, we at least changed the floors and painted all cupboards. We got rid of the box lighting above as well.


So we were in a limbo phase for quite some time:


But I still saw this in my face every day:


Not pretty. We knew we had to be patient and save up for new granite counter tops {our only real splurge} so we didn't want to put up a new backsplash until then. We took Tommy Smythe's advice {ate noodles for dinner for a month} and were able to get those shiny new counters :) We did the tiling ourselves after installation and chose an inexpensive subway tile:


My first time tiling and it was a blast!! I love those little spacers :) So, again the BEFORE:


And AFTER:


The eating area:



And now:




I love my new goose neck faucet and soap pump! It's the little things :)







In order to stay on a tight budget, it really had to be a labour of love, but I think it was worth it! We did all the cabinet painting ourselves, laid the backsplash tiles, and kept all the appliances that came with the home. The hardware was all from Lee Valley Tools, the faucet and chandelier from Home Depot, and the only 'big ticket items' were the pot lights and stone counters {though opting for granite was substantially lower than marble}. The artwork is my own painting - my twist on an old vintage poster. And all in all I think we got the best bang for our buck!

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