WIP - Kitchen

So lately we've been doing lots of work on the house, mainly painting, and I've been trying out some new colours. When it came to the kitchen I wanted something very light. Our old kitchen had sliding doors out to the garden, as well as a large window and it was very bright. The new kitchen has a large window but only a single back door with a small window in it.

you can see the colour here, pretty subtle...

I liked the grey we used for the old kitchen, Benjamin Moore Titanium, but I wanted something that would work well with the blue in our living room. So I picked a very pale, bluish/greenish Benjamin Moore colour called Dewdrop. It has a sort of beach glass colour to it, but it's so pale it almost looks white. If you compare it to the trim you can see the colour. In the end I'm happy with it, it's subtle but my second choice was just a classic white kitchen so this has the same effect while having a hint of pretty colour.

Before and After

I wasn't planning to paint at all, the previous colour was a pale sandy-beige that was fine, but after doing the electrical work the walls were full of holes that we had to patch. Now I'm happy I did paint it as I love the way the kitchen feels now - more bright and airy, and it also feels more like ours. As you can see above, it's not much of a change but I like it!
When it does come time to renovate I'm not sure if we'll keep the original cabinets, probably we will but update the doors. I like the way they extend right up to the ceiling. The kitchen has a sort of 50s charm, but we could use more drawers and general storage. We would like to update the counter top, faucet, sink and add a tile backsplash. I do like the wood floor and it's larger than the galley kitchen we had before. Do I miss the renovated kitchen in our last house? I certainly do, but I still love our new house so it's ok!

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Bedroom rug

Option A: I think this is my favourite, colours work very well with what's in the room, it has a nice traditional and pretty pattern but the colours don't contrast too much so it's subtle. This one will blend in with the dark floors in a nice way.

As you may recall I had a lot of trouble buying our last wool rug. The store had it online only and for delivery to U.S. customers only.

Option B: The colours in this one work as well and the pattern is really pretty

So now that I'm looking for one for our bedroom I'm glad to say I've found an alternative.

Option C: I like the simple two colour scheme in this one, the colours work perfectly with the rest of the room. The pattern is nice but a little "pointy", maybe not restful enough for a bedroom?

The place I'm getting my bedroom rug is online at csn rugs which now delivers (for free!) to Canada. There are so many great choices, but I've managed to narrow it down to a few favourites.

Option D: I love this one so much. The grey and white work pretty well with the rest of the room, and the pattern is my favourite. So pretty!!

I like traditional rugs, but lately I've been loving all the contemporary rugs I'm seeing in decorating magazines. So when I was searching I narrowed it down to "wool", "contemporary", "floral" & "geometric" and price.

Option E: Again, great colours for the room. I like the modern and geometric pattern, it's a bit more playful. Not that it matters too much, but this one goes nicely with our duvet cover which has ovals in dark brown and blue on a white background.

I'm going to just get a small 2 x 3' rug to sit beside the bed.

Option F: Good colours, and a nice simple graphic pattern. This one will look nice against the floors. It's feminine but not overly so.

I'd like to get your opinions! Here's what the room has already:
• wall colour is Benjamin Moore Gray Mist with white trim
• bedframe is a traditional brass bed painted with Benjamin Moore Cloud White
• chest of drawers painted Cloud White
• dark stained oak floors
• IKEA Stockholm curtains with several shades of brown, grey and sand on a cream background

Option G: Last but not least, this one has a nice gentle colour scheme. Bradley loves this one. But it is going on my side of the bed...

I've shown my favourite choices throughout this post, with comments underneath. Please comment and let me know what you think! I'll show pictures of the rug in our bedroom once it arrives.

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Hello new house

Phew! It's been a very busy few weeks. We've unpacked most of our boxes and are finding that luckily our furniture fits very nicely into the house. My favourite room so far is the living room which is practically all decorated.
Before we moved in I painted the walls. The original colour was a designer favourite Manchester Tan but I wanted something lighter. I chose a pretty pale blue colour called Green Tint. It looks like a bluish grey on the chip - very pale - but I found once I had painted all the walls you really start to see the blue. A very grey, soft, pale blue that I feel makes the room seem larger and brighter. It's hard to pick light subtle colours like this from the chip, in this case I actually relied on a description of the colour by a designer in House Beautiful magazine.

Then I added sheer voile curtains combined with blue linen drapes with a branch pattern. For the cushions I sewed two new blue and brown floral cushions and bought a velvet and grosgrain ribbon embellished cushion. Finally I hung my favourite picture on the wall, an original antique pen & ink piece that illustrates the Aesop fable The Fox and the Crow.
But the big project right now (being undertaken by my resourceful and talented husband) is updating our wiring. During the inspection we found out that there was a lot of knob and tube wiring in the house. In case you don't know, it's an old style of wiring that everyone used to have.

But nowadays any knob and tube wiring is going to be very old, and a bit the worse for wear. Mainly it becomes dry and a little brittle and can be a fire hazard. Insurance companies require that you replace it, and because you need insurance to get a mortgage we really have no choice in the matter.
Now that we're doing it, I'm glad because the old wiring that's coming out of the walls certainly doesn't look very wholesome.

Next up, the bedroom!

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It's a little thing but...

Hallway "After"

Today's reveal is the finished hallway. Doesn't seem like a big thing but it really has made a huge difference. Our house is fairly long with rooms in a row down the left, and all the closets to the right. We have two double closets, then a linen closet, then the pantry in the kitchen.

Hallway "Before"

When we moved in, the hall was a bit of a mess. It was painted a dark caramel colour, with a large box flourescent fixture. The doors on the closets were plain slab doors, but one of them only went halfway down, with a curtain tacked on at the bottom. The floors were peeling (and generally aged) vinyl tiles in a faux-marble pattern.

The first thing we did is change the light fixture which has 3 bulbs that create a soft diffused light. We painted the walls in Chalk (which matches the living room walls).
We changed the doors to bifold wooden slat doors painted Cloud White. We also changed the slab bedroom doors to freshly-painted new panel doors. Finally the floors were updated when we re-did the flooring in the kitchen and bathroom. Which meant also updating the baseboard trim.

I put in a little white bookshelf which creates a little vignette right in the middle - just a spot to put a lamp and plant and make the space cheerful.
Never underestimate the hallway - you do spend a lot of time there!

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TV corner beautified

This is a fun project I finally finished. I've been meaning to do this for ages, because I'm always inspired by pretty painted boxes I see on Flickr. As you may have guessed it started out life as an IKEA box, that has five smaller boxes for drawers.All I did was prime the box, paint it white and then add decorative paper covers for the drawers. I used some vintage wallpaper I bought from this shop on etsy (it was a gorgeous collage pack - so much fun to get and sort through the bits of fabric, ribbon and paper) and glued the paper on using PVA glue from an art shop.Also in the picture is a little quilted coaster I made from bits of fabric from the workroom fabric swap. I really do use the little bits of fabric I find here and there!

I'm not sure where I'll put the box, as I had originally planned to mount it to the wall beside the bed. That way I can have a book and my water bottle next to me since we only have room for one bedside table (and it's not on my side). But then I took the picture here on our white cabinet that has the t.v. and I really like the way it looks there. I just wish the boxes were big enough for the remotes, that would be really useful.
But practical or not it brightens up the spot so I think it's staying.

p.s. the water bottle is from The Japanese Paper Place, I bought it because it the design was so pretty but it turns out it's so great, because it's the thermos version and it really keeps my water cold, and tea hot!

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Swapping

The weekend before last I finally did a whole bunch of craiglisting and swapped all kinds of furniture. I sold two storage ottomans(men?) and threw in the cushions I'd made for the top because the person who came for them seemed to like them so much. I sold an IKEA bureau that just had camping gear - all that went into the shed. I sold a sideboard and a bedside table, also from IKEA, neither of which had a place to go anymore. And finally our very tall IKEA hutch. Oh, and my old camping backpack. I can't tell you how good it was to clear all those things out!!

Before: this corner of the kitchen used to be a workshop, with all the tools and supplies for the renovation.

Then we bought a new hutch in a vintage style I like so much better, and a glass door bookcase that now holds all my yarn and some spillover fabric. I'll probably post that later once it's sorted out. The new hutch is similar in style to our china cabinet that holds all my fabric, I would guess 1930s, which seems to be my favourite decade for design.It's nice little details like this handle that I like so much:Then we bought the new IKEA Fusion table and chair set, which luckily matches the hutch since the wood finish on the hutch is very nice and I wouldn't want to paint it. So now our kitchen nook is almost done!

The lamp on the table was a family yard sale find, there's a pair of them and I just need to find glass lampshades for them.

It's basically done, but someday we'd like to replace the sliding doors (that don't slide very well), the ceiling fan and the dusty old stucco on the ceiling. The Fusion set is great because the chairs curve around the table and it doesn't take up much room. I didn't care for the black seat covers, so I replaced those with a striped aqua and white fabric that I bought at the Textile Museum Yardage sale.

I was trying to pick a fabric then noticed this one matches the curtains perfectly, hurray!

Speaking of which, I can't tell you how much great stuff I found at the Yardage sale, but to paint a picture, I looked like a bag lady who lives on a bicycle on the way home. I had huge tote bags sort of wedged and tied to the baskets at the back. Most of it is in the new bookcase so you'll see it then...

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Springtime

These Siberian squill (Scilla siberica) are our first flowers!

First of all, judging from all the shoots coming up in our gardens it's springtime and the bulbs are growing! Also we're pleased to see that the little lilac tree we planted in the fall is getting some buds. Relieved to see it survived after being buried in about 17 feet of snow this winter...

Also, for the first time, I have finally brought branches inside to force the blooms. I've seen it in magazines and they are always stunning but I haven't managed it until now. I think it has something to do with having a house and our own garden. But the branches on the left are from our parent's house (my in-laws), they're cherry tree branches. The branches on the right are from our own Forsythia.

So this is a reminder, now is the time to bring some branches in! Of course I will post pictures once ours bloom. I have several vases all over the house. And two tips:

1. woody branches should be cut at the bottom in an "x" so that they can draw up water more easily

2. the branches will turn the water a golden brown colour so you might want to use a coloured vase. I don't really mind about it, plus I have lots of branches and had to use all the vases we had.

Hope you have a happy Spring.

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Pretty organized

The kitchen is going well, mainly because we had to get things in place for the countertop measurer on Wednesday. It went well, they make cardboard templates of your countertop and glue them in place to make sure they're accurate. Now we just have to wait a few weeks until the countertop is ready to install. Since the kitchen is now more organized I could put away some of the dishes that were in the living room china cabinet I bought specifically for sewing supplies. I've finally organized all my fabric!

The fabric is folded in large squares so that you can see the edge of each one which will make them easier to find. They're sorted by colours of course, with patterns and solids mixed in. I tried to fold them neatly (in thirds if they're big enough) so you can pull one out without messing up the whole pile.

My thread boxes are on top, and the drawers hold smaller items. The lower shelves hold messier remnants of fabric that don't fold as nicely. I want to paint this cabinet white but can't decide. The wood patina is nice on some places but not so much in others. This is the outside of the cabinet: And the inside:
I might just put light wallpaper in the inside to lighten it up without painting. The vintage tins hold things like zippers and bias tape:
I also had some inspiration for my ribbon. I'd already organized it into these metal baskets that came from the dollar store. They are wound onto pieces of paper towel cardboard rolls.
My inspiration was to use some of my vintage thread spools. Finally I have a purpose for them, and it's much nicer than the cardboard. These old wooden spools are just too nice to throw away, but I do actually use the thread so they were empty.
You can wind the lace or ribbon the way you would thread, spiral up and down the spool then secure in place with a pin. I need some shorter pins for this, so if anyone knows where you can find them please let me know!
p.s. the cable stitch from my recent knitting post was adapted from this lovely scarf pattern. For mine, I made the longer cable part shorter and was trying out a double rib for the sides.

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Reading kitchen

I can't believe what we got done this weekend. Friday I painted the eat-in area and moved in a small white shelf that fit perfectly in the spot the hutch used to have. Having books beside the kitchen table has made it feel so homey, it invites tea drinking and reading. It's so sunny in that spot, we just needed our small table back in place to make it a popular corner of the house again.

If you look just beyond that you can see that all the lower cabinets are now assembled, thanks to Bradley who has recovered from his cold and was behaving like a superhero all weekend. The cabinets even have their feet on now.

And he shortened the closet doors so they're now all back in place. Phew! We kept knocking them over while moving things around. I also finally added the second coat of paint in the hallway. The walls had been a bit scuffed up from the flooring work as well.

Friday I added curtains to cover the sliding doors. As much as I like to make my own, ready made curtains can be a real bargain considering how much fabric they have. I found these at Urban Outfitters, they're nice and sheer and soft. They came with an extra strip of fabric each, I sewed buttonholes and buttons on those to make ties. The rod is from the new Umbra store on John St.
Although not kitchen related, I'd like to mention that we also finally assembled the shower for our clawfoot tub and I can't tell you how thrilled we were to be able to have a shower again.
I also managed to get one of the shelves up. I'd like to get more of the white wicker baskets from IKEA to go on the shelves. As you can see I've painted the Ocean Air on the walls.Realizing it was time to order our countertop we went to Home Depot on Sunday. I had been hemming and hawing for ages about that choice. It was hard to decide what would work with our flooring, cabinets, sink and walls, and what we should spend and which material would be most practical. As I've mentioned before we hadn't planned on gutting the kitchen in the first place so we've been making decisions as we go along. I wouldn't recommend this method but so far we're very happy with the results. So anyway we ordered a countertop but I'll save which one for the reveal!

But before they can measure for the countertop we need to wrap things up, which means installing baseboards (while we can move the cabinets and get back there), setting up the wiring for the new dishwasher, having the plumber over to set up the plumbing and finally attaching the lower cabinets in place. Usually you're supposed to install the uppers first but this won't be the first time we've done something backwards. I guess the main reason was to try to keep the kitchen liveable as we did the work.

These are the old uppers:
Until yesterday we were using these old upper cabinets for storage. But last night we finally emptied and took down the last of the old cabinets (well I moved some things but Bradley did the real work) and the wall now looks like this:
So cleaning, patching, sanding, priming and painting these last two walls is my job for today. Along with some illustration work in case you were wondering if I still have a job...

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Shutters down!

As I expected after my last post I felt the push to get some work done on the kitchen. I've now repaired the walls in the eat-in area, and sanded and primed them. After clearing out the area I was given the chance to rethink the furniture in there.

As I mentioned in the last post the air conditioner is a real eyesore and we're not ready to replace it and fill the hole in our house (!). So I realized I could cover it with our hutch. Better yet, the hutch was on the other side but the heater on the wall was slightly in the way and it was sticking out a bit and not in an ideal spot. So now the hutch is in a better spot and the air conditioner is covered.

This is the "before" shot again so you can compare:Notice that there is also an ugly orange power cord on that wall. Well that cord was connected to the wooden outdoor roll shutters we had that cover the sliding doors. These shutters were built by a previous owner many decades ago and when we tried to have them repaired it proved impossible. This gave us the perfect excuse to just have them removed altogether. Luckily the house was largely intact underneath the huge box that housed the shutters:
So now these shutters are gone, the orange power cord is gone, the ugly plastic button that operated the shutters is gone and the holes are all patched up.The repair men were fascinated by these ancient roll shutters and took the whole contraption with them - possibly to go into some kind of shutters museum. They were certainly welcome to them.

The best part is that the shutters covered part of the doors even when fully wound up, and once they were gone it was such a change. With that dark shadow gone, the room seems so much lighter and brighter. I have to admit that they were practical but I'm glad they're gone. Here's an old renovation photo that shows the old shutters in place. Also the old tile on the walls and some general chaos. I like to look back at these photos to remind myself how much we've done already:And this is the "after" with the walls primed, the hutch moved and the blinds gone:Suddenly the area seems so large. Our table is quite small too, so it will still be spacious once that goes back in. There's nothing like emptying a room to help you figure out how to arrange it.

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