All about us these days

We looked all around for a couple weeks for a little chair for Sterling that was cute, cost efficient and that he could muscle himself into to be able to be more independent and the search was not going well.  So I gave into Sterling's need to be independent and be able to get in and out of a chair himself like the average 2-year-old and bought this ugly thing.....

 He absolutely loved it!  He became instantly more independent and started using it as a step-stool onto and off of the adult couch as well.  Two days later I went to Home Sense (which I had already looked for a chair for him a few days before) and found this chair.  What?  It was the same exact price, much cuter and also came with an ottoman for and added step-stool to make it easier for Sterling.  I was so mad, but I bought it anyways and prayed that we could take the other chair back.  Yup, no problems there so now Sterling has an adorable little man chair all to himself.  He has taken such a liking to it, I am not even allowed to touch it.  The no touching rule only applies to one other item he owns which are his wheelchairs, so this means something!  I love it!

So here is the official belly as of 33.5 weeks preggers!  It is looking pretty similar to the Sterls belly so that is good news as he was a smaller than average baby.  Whew!

Is the third time a charm?

I have been super struggling trying to find a layout that fits my living room and is functional and for Sterling and my accommodated my large extended family (we have family dinners and have a small town-home).  In the end I finally decided I couldn't accommodate both in my small space and have it look like a good design and still be functional for Sterling.  So I had to give.  This is the living room prior to my make over.  We had two couches and a side table between them.  This basically eliminated the bay window from any use.  My couches were purchases prior to the dark hardwood redo so they super blend into the floor and made my house look like the pit of despair.

 This is the bay window set-up after.  Much better and usable space now and now our bay window is now the highlight of our living room.  YEA!!!  We sold one of our couches and by adding two accent chairs we have only eliminated one seat in the living room but made the space so much better and bigger.  As we were able to place these chairs inset into the bay window and the couch was much too big and just covered in front of the bay window.  Plus, as an added bonus the funds from our couch sale provided enough money to purchase one accent chair and a new living room rug.  So this make-over was pretty much free!  We already had one of these accent chairs in the nursery (stay tuned for my $15 bargain chair redo for the nursery).  We brought it down from the nursery as I am already doing a make-over of the nursery to prepare it for being shared between Sterling and the midget baby in 6.5 weeks!!!  I redid the side table in my previous post with some leftover paint from Sterling's room and some extra wood we have lying around.  Can't beat free furniture redo's that make a difference.

I did purchase two items for this space over the couch money, but it ran me a total of $20.  I bought this rad antique book in Inglewood.  Oh yeah, 'The Wise Fishermen's Encyclopedia".  Neither of us particularly fish and we don't even go near restaurants that sport food that 'swims' but all the artwork and information in this book is pretty sweet and just looks awesome as an accent.  I also purchased this blue deco. to add something to the table top which Trevor lovingly refers to our 'weed jar'.  He is convinced that this jar was made for the sole purpose of people storing drugs, but I will defend my jar to the death because I think it is cute!

Last change was our ever changing lamp.  Seriously, is the third time a charm or is that just made up.  I was unsure what I wanted to do with this space and so I just grabbed the first material that I thought would match our room and our lamp turned into this (it was bright white with a black lampshade when it was bought).

Then after we put in the hardwood into our place, I decided that a splash of colour was definitely needed.  So the lamp turned into this......

And now here is the lovely lamp third lampshade makeover later.  After we put it in between the two Pier 1 chairs it was way too much colour and competition so it needed a tone down.  I had this material on hand because it matched my walls and decided it was the perfect toned down lamp shade material.  So here she is (complete with our fishermen book and jar):

 

A year later plus 3 days of work....

Here is the latest project that I have undertaken.  My rolled arm bench: A $25 purchase from Value Village (you can't lose at that price).  I thought I took a picture of this 'beauty' but realized after I had taken off all the old upholstery that I didn't.  So here is a copycat of my bench...actually this bench even has better coloured fabric than mine did.  Mine had bright 80's flower fabric on it!

I took off all the old upholstery and cut off the rolled arms and ended up with this:

I didn't need a bench and we wanted an ottoman for the living room.  The mdf for the seat was cracked so we cut out a new piece to make sure that it didn't break when a guest sat on it.  I also drilled 10 holes into this piece of mdf so that I could tuft the bench seat.

New foam and fabric later we ended up with a tufted ottoman for our living room!  Yea for us!  I am thinking of putting some nail-head trim I have lying around here along the bottom but haven't decided as of yet!

For those of you who are interested, someone is hosting a Life Cycles Premiere in Calgary during the following information:

Date: Monday October 11, 2010

Time: 7pm, door open at 6:30pm

Cost: $12 a ticket

Tickets can be purchase only at time of event.

Where: The Plaza Theatre

1133 Kensington Road NW

Calgary, AB

His film is also going to show at the Banff Film Festival on November 6, 2010, time to be later announced.