Had a little swap

Recently we have been very busy fixing up the apartment. When we were away we were staying in hotels and just seeing simple rooms with only a suitcase (and weekender bag) full of things. And when we came home the clutter was so obvious. Also there were lots of things I've been wanting to fix for ages but we were busy with wedding planning.

So I've been sorting through everything and getting rid of things and it feels great. I had lots of things I didn't really want but couldn't quite bring myself to give away - but now I'm trying to be quite ruthless about it. It's better because in the end you enjoy the things you have more.

My favourite change so far is finally removing the horrible flourescent light box fixture in our kitchen. It turned out to be a much bigger job than expected but we've finally filled the huge gaping hole left in the ceiling. I say we, but Bradley did the hole filling part and I just patched up the crevices and smoothed everything out. We have a very nice fixture for Restoration Hardware that we're going to install, a simple schoolhouse semiflushmount light. I can't wait until it's in!

The other improvement is a window treatment. I finally figured out how to have a sheer curtain and a heavier curtain at the same time. IKEA has fixtures with two curves on it to hold two curtain rods. The inner curtain rod is plain and you put the sheer curtain on that (for privacy that still lets in the light) and then the outer rod can have a fancier knob on either end and that one has the heavier curtain. A very simple solution I didn't know about before.

But in the meantime I did manage to fit in a swap with Cindy from starrydesigns.etsy.com. She requested a custom cosy for her telephone with the same berry design embroidery I had used before (picture at the top of this post). She didn't want a clasp so I had to measure everything exactly to make sure it would fit her phone snugly - I guess it worked because she was very happy. These are the pretty earrings she sent me in return - I love them. And I love that I can be in Toronto and trade a cosy for a pair of earrings with someone in Singapore.

Ok now I have to get back to sewing my new curtains...