Is it that time already?

The day has come too soon. We are putting the new hardwood in our house tomorrow and I am not stoked about this. Well I am happy to be getting hardwood but not happy to have a really long day tomorrow (and I have the easy part). I am watching Keelyn, Jaedon, Corbin and Sterling tomorrow from probably about 9am to 6pm, with a brief interlude to go to Rotary Challenger park to see if it will work as a place to hold the Hope Classic this year. We will see how this all goes....Yup, not excited about a long day tomorrow.

Last night I riped all the baseboards out in the living room. I must say that I always love the demolition part of remodeling....I must have alot of pent up rage somewhere coming out to play as it is extremely satisfying to get rid of stuff. Trevor took out the carpet and we are now carpet free on our main floor, yea! Soooooooo, I will be posting some photos of our new flooring tomorrow (or maybe Sunday if I don't feel like cleaning our giant mess) along with the new set of curtains and blinds I put up this week.

Whew, I'm tired! Colin and Stacey and fam came to visit this last week before they headed out to Chicago for a week to visit her sister. I had tons of fun shopping, which for anyone that knows me is a feat (I HATE SHOPPING). But I went into frenzy mode cleaning my place all weekend for all hours because I am terrified of anyone thinking that I am a slob, which I kinda am when I have a project on the brain. I can't think about anything else until my project is done including cleaning and making dinner. But after my projects are done I have to have a super clean place! Wouldn't it be nice to have a shop in which to make the mess and not have to clean up!

-Alauna

Stripe Invasion

I know that I have already painted stripes in Sterling's bedroom but I wanted something a little more fun for his bathroom while still being neutral enough to accommodate guests. Here is the before pic:I am really quite happy with the end results. My cream colour wasn't as close to the taupe that I had picked as I had wanted but it still turned out better than I had anticipated. Yes, I was freaked out that my horizontal stripes would not be even. After I taped it look completely off and not straight but I read a blog about striping and it said that if it is 1/2 inch off you usually wont notice....and they happened to be correct about that because my lines were off all over the place. It was actually really easy to achieve this look and only took about 5 hours total for this bathroom. I painted the bathroom a tan colour that was about 2 shades lighter than the original colour in the bathroom. I let this dry for 3 days so the taping wouldn't peel off my new paint. I wanted my stripes to only be a shade or two off in colour from each other. First I decided that I would like 5 cream stripes and 6 tan stripes on the large wall. I measured my wall from ceiling to baseboard and it was 93 inches. I divided that my 11 stripes and got 8.5 inches per stripe (it was actually off by 1/2 inch on the bottom stripe, but your eye can't detect such a small adjustment in stripe size. So I kept 8.5 inches as my marker to make my like easier instead of 8.45 inches). I cut out and piece of cardboard at the exact size in length and started marking dots all along the wall to indicated where each stripe should go.
I then taped along the dots to make my horizontal lines. Making sure that the tape is inside the tan colour so you can just paint all your cream lines all at once. After I painted my cream lines twice I pulled off the tape instantly so the paint didn't bleed through or pull off chunks of new paint. Here is how she turned out:

I am really happy that the white frame I bought happened to fit inside teh tan lines perfectly helping to frame the photo. Love it!
Such an easy peasy project and I am really happy with the end results. My bathroom is no longer boring but still has the nice neutrals that most people like. I myself really dislike neutral colours and think they are really boring, but this even has appeal to me. Yup, what do you think?

-Alauna

Latest Project....so Tired.

This week I took on a ton of projects simultaneously. Unfortunately that means that I didn't really get any of them done and just got most of them half done. Here is the one and only project that made the time restraints for my newest post. I bought a sweet new mirror at Homesense for $10. THe mirror is nice and everything but it was just a plain white frame and it made all the beautiful details invisible in soft lighting. I decided to add some glazing to the frame in order to make the details pop, and pop they did. Now you can see all the details and it adds some dimension and interest that wasn't there before. I am super happy with my results...What do you think?
Here is a close up of the glazing I added to the mirror.
Also if you noticed this isn't so much a mirror anymore. I decided that in fact I didn't need another mirror to add to my mirror collection fetish (I seriously have like 10 mirrors all over my house). I bought some cheap chalkboard spray paint. After 10 minutes of masking the frame it only took about 2 minutes to do a couple coats of chalkboard paint and she was done. I was so happy after the fact because the black chalkboard also helps bring out the glazing that I did on the frame. I was totally happy with my results, for once...I am a bit too picky and critical of my projects or at least that is what my husband tells me. Such an easy projects and only took about 30 minutes in total.

I painted the basecoat in my guest bathroom last night at midnight. I am going to add another colour on this tomorrow or Sunday depending on the amount of energy I have tomorrow. Will show pictures when I finish this bathroom. Really excited about my idea, but won't tell in case it doesn't work out. In that case I will pretend this post doesn't exsist not show pictures this week of my bathroom.

Yea, I know, I suck at this blogging thing...It is really hard to work a full time job, raise a little rat baby, finish all my millions of projects and then manage to fit a couple minutes in to blog about my progress. Work was so busy this week....I went into to work early, worked through lunch and then stayed 30-60 minutes after. I think that the next time I fall asleep I won't be waking up for at least 3 days. This wasn't just because I enjoy my job but in fact due to 2 people going on vacation and I just happen to be the only other person that knows how to do both jobs...which resulted in me attempting to do three people's job and sucking at them all. Wow, just thinking about this last week makes me want to go to sleep.

-Alauna

p.s. can I also add that curtains are my arch nemesis. I have made 4 different sets of curtains and window treatments for my main level and haven't liked any of them. I think that sewing is not my strong suit and should leave it to the professionals. I did this to save money and personalize my space...which has ended up is being really costly and about 100 hours of wasted time. It would have been cheaper just to buy really nice window treatments from the getgo. Dangit!

I am such a lucky Gal...

I found a clearance sale at HomeSense, which happens to me make me soooooo happy. I have been looking for something to put on my fireplace mantel wall to fill the huge space and have been unsuccessful. Here is a before (before I lived in this house picture) of my fireplace.

Here is my after! I still have to put in hardwood floors (see below), but this is the gist. I just loved the lines of this mirror and had to get it. Not so sure about the lantern, but I am still in the refining process. I painted the walls because I am not a fan of tan, I think it is a really boring and 'safe' colour that everyone uses. Took down the awful shelf above the mantel and there she is.

Sterling has a really hard time wheeling around our house with us having carpet in the living room. I am on the board of the SBHASA we have $2500 each year (with volunteer work requirements) in order to help make Sterling's life a little better for him. So we decided to splurge and get some hardwood to help make his wheeling life a little better (and the added side benefit of having nicer flooring) with the associations money. We bought this mocha bamboo hardwood today at Costco of all places. I looked at Totem but the flooring that I wanted and liked a little better kept selling out before I could buy it. At any rate this bamboo flooring was just a little darker in colour and 50 cents a square foot less money so it saved me $140 fundage. So really excited to be putting in this flooring next week. On the downside most of my furniture is really dark wood, so now I have my hands full with refinishing it all in a lighter colour so I don't feel like I am living in a cave. I will have more photos when we get around to installing.

Without Flash

With Flash

I couldn't get a picture of what the wood really looks like, it is somewhere between these two colours of photos.

More projects to do a not so much time to do them. On my list for this week:

Paint legs of barstools in antique white style

Paint stripes in Sterling's bathroom

Finish side tables for our bedroom (they have been primed, just have to silver-leaf and paint the sides black, whew!)

Find a killer rug to bring some colour into our living room

Finish the chalkboard I am making

Paint picture frame for living room

Hmmmm....I am thinking this list is a little bit too ambitious!

I have great footage of Sterling that I will absolutely post this week.

-Alauna

ELMO!!!!

No words needed for this awesomeness.....

p.s. Sterls loves Elmo thanks to the Elmo sweater Grandma Gibb gave him and we found this gem.