Girl power shot

I finished off the dining chair over haul with the help of my darling children ,they wanted to help pull out the old staples and they did a great job too , it allowed me to try out my newest tool the powershot arrow stapler , such an easy stapler to use , going from an electric one to this is a pleasure ,I give it five stars for sure , easy on the hand. I love the black nail heads it gives just the right amount of contrast to make the chairs pop just a little.
I looked into getting a smaller cabinet for above my new fabulous fridge but at $240-$360 just for one box and two doors , I think I can come up with a better option like an open cabinet with beadboard and charm.

Chairs

I finally got around to painting the rocker , I cut the latex paint with water so that it would absorb in to the wood and become part of it . I plan to rub on some white paint and sand it back quite a bit .
I re-did two chairs so far , my wrist was not feeling too good about getting all the staples out from the old fabric removal so I stopped at two , I plan to add dark nail heads or tacks for some contrast , as well my stapler quit on me , this makes two , an electric one and now a manual both garbage , I hate having to buy equipment for one thing over and over , good thing they are inexpensive.

Now that's a big refrigerator

Here is the current look of my kitchen , I have my stainless steel appliances, I have such respect for good movers, the delivery guys were so good , the Home Depot team a couple of heavily tattooed guys came in and got right to business removed the doors and drawer , oh so carefully , we had some tight squeezes, one guy grimaced when he saw my kitchen door way , but it fit just so , everything was flawless, the stove came about an hour later by the sears team , they had a much easier task but were equally efficient and careful. There is my tile feature all exposed after 4 years behind the old stove, finally , it was a long wait.

As you can see I have some work to do , I will create a cabinet to house the glorious fridge. My husband had never seen these appliances, and he was impressed so glad too , because he hates the micro I picked.

Before:

After: WOW My little daycare kids were here as well as my husband , the little ones were so excited, who knew, they even did a happy dance about it .

Last night I fretted and fretted that this fridge was going to be too big , I was really worried I had made a mistake, but it fits in just right , phew!

I love this picture it looks like dueling fridges , easy to see the winner here.

The stove is so nice , and fast , first meal on it Kraft Mac and Cheese, of course.

I can not get enough of kitchen's , no doubt that is my favorite room in a house there is so much potential to make it great.
Wonderful massive island, I wish I had wood floors in my kitchen.
Isn't this mint painted kitchen gorgeous, love those chandeliers.
This is or rather was Micheal J Fox's kitchen , stunning, above.
This kitchen is very inspiring to me all the mouldings , white and perfect.

Pretty paisley

After trying the floral curtains and getting Sophie's thumb down I took them down , maybe I am bored of the existing drapes I have always had those and they are safe , I like the striped carpet in there is brings life that room , I know its the fabric on the chairs , it has been there for two years and it doesn't jive with the carpet , it wasn't costly fabric, most likely cheap knowing me . I took the girls out with me after work , didn't tell them we were going to the fabric store they always balk about that , and after looking and looking there it was the perfect fabric, a linen polyester paisley in all my colors and the perfect background blue, it will look so good , I ran out of steam last night after detailing my fridge freezer, so I will do that sometime today , I will surely show you later.

Girly girl

I would never describe my style as girly , I like girly elements but not overly feminine or romantic things, not for me , pretty to look at but I like cleaner looks, I am crazy about stripes , but I need to pull myself back at times . I decided to try these floral print drapes I had that were just lying around from my kitchen , they aren't long enough on their own so I layered them over the existing beige ones , what do you think ? , I think this counts as a mistreatment and term I have been reading about on blogs, I think it is fun a little change , the fabric goes so well with the carpet and the yellows in the other sitting area are repeated in this fabric. I am now going to call this my breakfast room , it looks more like that to me .
I am going to get rid of those pink candles right now , too much .

When I was helping my dad go through his household items I found this bottle , it is so charming and has a bit of a grey tinge, he was kind and gave it to me , he said that he found it in the ground when he was 20 , and that it is very old, it is a pop bottle , I believe. I need to get some flowers for it .
I don't believe I ever showed the after of this chair , well here it is , it really need to be re-chromed so I have done what I can with it , I rebuilt it where it was broken in the seat and added new foam and padding and this vintage fabric and chrome nails .

I found some perfect buckets for my basket they were $6.00 , I plan to use them for drinks or snacks when we have guests.

its cleaning day

Isn't that an awful sight ,don't worry it is not mine, but today is a pretty happy day , it cleaning day ,which means my appliances are coming and soon, I have pulled apart the stove, repaired the drawer that was sticking to the point I could never close it . Thankfully mine is not nearly in that condition and I have actually kept it clean , sparkling in comparison to the image above, yuck! , but I do need to spray that awful oven spray today , I hate that oven off or whatever it is , chokes me , I dread that job , which is why I leave it until it is really needed , its not to bad right now , but anyone have a more friendly way to degrease an oven ? , I want everything as clean as possible for the new family that will be getting my appliances , I am so thrilled that I happened to hear from someone in need that I believe in a recent immigrant to Canada and is going to benefit from my good fortune.

Please any tips on cleaning the oven without horrible chemicals???

Great news , I found a recipe for a natural cleaner , it is a box of baking soda , 1/4 cup dish soap , 3/4 vinegar, 1/2 cup salt, 1/4 cup water, apparently I wasn't supposed to add the vinegar but it worked very well, gust use a big bowl, turn oven on to 250 for 15 minutes then goop on the mixture , leave for 30 minutes, I didn't wait but it scrubbed off very well the window is crystal clear now , it had an golden tinge , you know, its gone, looks great , now I can use it , I don't want to dirty it . WEAR GLOVES THE SALT IS VERY STINGING

the weekend work

The weather is working in our favour this weekend, so there is much to be done, apparently I make my husband anxious when I work non stop on the weekends, blah blah blah , lazy bum, I don't ask for much help from him anyway I do my thing as I can , got some more screws in the deck, painted the lantern below, cuter huh! , ripped up some grass and put down more beach pebbles , stained the front steps with concrete stain , who knew they made that , cool , much improved my steps, planted my window boxes , got rid of two bamboo and wicker shelves that were ugly and taking up precious space, they left to make room in the basement , it needs to get started finally. planted some hostas in the front garden, warded off comments about my busy nature from neighbours , tended to the front patch of grass , completely neglected anything that needed doing inside, made a complete mess of my hands , the price I pay for work getting done. Had two kids sleep over on consecutive nights.....I think that is it , oh nope scraped off some peeling paint in the front of the house and caulked as well on the top of my 10 ft ladder. Yes that is it , but it is 2:00 on Sunday so I will try to get a little bit more done a few more screws and perhaps get some umbrella jewelry , oh wait I also helped and insisted that my dad come by and gather his boxes that we have been storing for 4 years oh maybe less , donated many boxes to goodwill. Feeling less cluttered now.

Moving on

I wanted to show some of my favourite images , the sources are unknown, sometime they are just from image searches I do . I Hope you enjoy and are inspired.

Classic beauty , gorgeous wall color.

Soft and feminine , I love those velvet colored chair this image is from Country living.
White and sophisticated.
Rustic Country and very inviting.
Suburban beautiful.
Now this is my kind of room , stunning mix , I Love the coral chairs , or apricot , and that with the blue drapes and the patterned wall paper and patterned carpet , the perfect mix , stunnnnnning, obviously a designer room.

Home Depot to the rescue

All who read my blog know I am a big fan of home depot , so I looked up my fridge and checked their stock and price matching policies, well there you go they have 40 of them , they gave me lots of cut backs to get the price down even lower than sears by $100.00 , which actually is $200.00 in my favour as they gave me back my sears money , and it will be here by Thursday and it is new, and not some random fridge I did not want.
Yeah me , this certainly worked in my favour , but I won't breath easy until it is in my kitchen and running.

Wow the punches just keep coming....

They called SEARS that is , they can't get the fridge I ordered at all , AT ALL, they gave me fridge to someone else , oh brilliant ....I wasn't buying it , but it is discontinued and the ones they had are spoken for , AWESOME, so I suggest I get the floor model , it didn't appear to have any flaws when I saw it , I will go in and see what they can do as far as discounting it considering it is a floor model and all the trouble I have been through , they offered to find me something that was similar , I actually picked this fridge out , did research , I didn't spin around with a blindfold on and point at a random fridge , it took two years of choosing . INCREDIBLE.....

Back up , this must be some kind of sick joke...

I am so upset right now , I got the mail to find a horrific sight , a return slip for my fridge I am waiting on, I feel sick to my stomach still, I called and freaked out , how can this happen , no one spoke directly to me prior to making this decision , this was made in error to a request I had made to customer service regarding which exact model I had purchased one with or without ice making, after my inquiry I called back to make sure everything was on track it was until today , 7 days before this is to arrive, the manager assured me after I had a complete meltdown that she could order one to the store and deliver it locally , why did I need to flip out to get some help, I am not a big reactor , trust me , and if it weren't for the fact that because of my daughters peanut allergy and therefore that fact that I am baking the wedding cake for my mother's wedding I would not normally freak out , but I have this obligation as well as 6 people to feed on any given day and a nice man coming to take my current fridge away to help a family in need he has been patiently waiting now along with me . Unbelievable, they will get me a loaner fridge if they can't get mine in time , great but that is sad to say the least.

Pink room treasure's

Bamboo blinds , what can I say about them , I really love them , they convey a lovely summer feel, I put these up last night , we had originally been roller blinds when we first moved in , they broke over time and I hadn't gotten to replacing them until now, probably over a year it took me , Sophie often had her drapes drawn to give privacy and that created an obnoxious pink glow beaming out of her room. I let her choose white bamboo or white blinds , she chose well grasshopper.
There are so many things I love about her room , like this painted S and the canopy , that used to be over her be, but we moved things around for a fresh look it is now over her dresser, keeping her bed on an inside wall.
This plate that I picked up at an outdoor antique market , it is so pretty , I think that might come down to the kitchen some time soon.
These little keep sakes on her shelf, the painted puppy , picture of cuddling daddy , the tin birdhouse and a fairy painting I did for Sophie when she was 2 as a Christmas gift.
I picked these little cross stitch plates up at the Goodwill a long time ago for pennies.
It is so fun to have a playful pink little girls room to decorate, I am dreading the day she wants to change it .

The still to do list in this little room is flooring,
white painted floors ,
all the trim work ,
and closet doors, they have curtains ,which I am beginning to really hate.

Mudroom Magic

I really do love my home, it is not large , it is 1890 sq ft , a fine size to me, considered small by many I am sure , but it has two ground floor living rooms, seperate dining room , eat in kitchen and three bedrooms the master which is quite large and one bedroom which is also quite large for a child's bedroom and a smaller room with a covered porch , two and a half baths, a great wish list , this house's short comings are that is is a small lot , and the houses are very close and the house's lack privacy, we only have one garage and a single drive , so as you can imagine that can be a pain, the garage has never had a car in it , nor will it , it is purely for storage and that is fine.
I have always wanted a mudroom , this house lacks storage, partly my fault, you can never under estimate storage space as I did.
I have considered adding on to the back of the house a mudroom laundry room , but a foundation and the expense would not make any sense. To move to get a mudroom one extra parking space and one extra and a not needed bedroom would cost a mere additional $100,000.00 to the mortgage , not to mention the property taxes , as this area is known as the highest in the GTA in Toronto they pay much less than we do ,annoying, but we have nearly crime free living , new schools , rec centers and brand new shopping & resturants , everything you need to exist in a 10 minute walk away , so it is very worth the extra dough.
Back to my mudroom , now where can that go , well into the back portion of my garage , I can make an open entrance where a garage entrance was an option which I choose not to have done at the time of building, I can use up a third of the garage space and create a mudroom , it will be a short walk from the front door as well we can do a door from the garage as well. I can see it now, are you with me here. There is already water there so potentially I could have laundry and a wash basin for cleaning those grubby dogs I have. Oh my we could live here for ever , as the basement will now be left for two roomy offices and a craft space , yippee I am so excited , can't say when this will happen but it is the perfect idea, plenty of people turn their garages into living space , yuck , so why can't I carve out an awesome mudroom in mine.
Linda's mudroom , stunning and inspirational.
Ok I have got it , I will raise the floor so that it is one step down from the hall into this room , with a pocket door , heated tile floors ,easy clean, open lockers of course.
This is the ah ha mudroom above that has started the whole thing. I too might have a mudroom in my future .
I can imagine using it now, I may even be able to carve out laundry chute as it will be in the perfect location for it, this is very exciting news.

Voila

Before , notice the most awful grass , thank the dogs for that .

3 days work, that took one week to complete because of life and poor weather and drills that don't have lasting power , resulted in a deck a seating area , a lounging /dining area , a stage for the kids to enjoy , sorry neighbors , a now usable backyard , that was not enjoyable before , we need /I need to do some painting , gardening (which I will probably put off ) and we just need some warm weather or at least sunshine. Why did we wait so long.

Cheers !

Here is the real thing the umbrella I found , very happy with it .
And the rocker that I am still bitter at , its not as big as I thought it would be either a bit petite , it will be white.
The table I made out of left over wood , it is very solid, I left it a loungey height instead of dining height as I though it might be a bit over whelming , I will paint it and distress it , white of maybe a blue ??? any thoughts anyone?? I am thinking the chairs will all be white I probably said that before .
Couldn't my yard use this , I would be happy with this instead of a cabana its from Sears Canada, so pretty .
Should I finish my table like this ???