Browsing Tag

house

Non Lingerie Related Things I Love

Anxiety, Home, Personal October 9, 2016

Jeez Louise… I keep saying “I will blog more. I will blog more.” Then I think about blogging and I seize. Blogging/writing is one of the things that anxiety has taken from me. I’m trying to reclaim it, but also trying to accept that it takes some baby steps. It’s funny, because on here I’ve always been somewhat of an open book. I believe in the power of sharing experiences, good or bad, but over the last two years, it’s become so hard. I’m not sure when or why it happened exactly but that nagging voice in the back of my head saying “no one cares. you can’t do it. you are a failure” started to take over. Ridiculous because rationally I look at what I have achieved and I am proud, but in my mind, nothing is ever good enough. There is not a point with my business where I feel I could look back and say “there. I’ve done good.” Or a point with my physical self where I could say “ok, I’m thin enough/fit enough/healthy enough.” Anxiety is not about rationality though. What a difficult thing to grapple with as someone who values evidence based thinking and rationality!

Needless to say I’ve been dealing with a lot over the last few months. Learning how to re-train my brain into more productive modes of thinking and dealing with some difficult things from the past has been rewarding and a huge challenge. On one hand I feel happy I am doing this. I want to be a good example for Isabel. Sometimes our thinking needs a facelift, and it’s ok to seek out help if you can’t do it on your own. I am a huge believer in continual self-improvement. On the other hand, it would be so much easier to stick with the status quo…

Work has slowed down somewhat over the last few months, mostly because I haven’t been adding anything new or updating any of my shops. I plan to do so soon… when I’m ready.

Mostly I’ve been working on sewing that I want to do, fixing up our house, running, and trying to stay sane. I had a lot of work opportunities that fell through in the last 6 months which were hugely disappointing (including a book. PS If you are a publisher or literary agent, I want to write a book. Contact me!). I found I was wrapping myself up entirely in my work and the disappointments felt overwhelming because I didn’t have anything else going on. I think this happens a lot with our careers, it becomes our identity. So, I’ve been broadening my horizons again.

I ran my first 5k race! Here I am with pig-tails a-bouncing with my beautiful cousin Pam. She makes it look easy! It was really fun and I felt so accomplished once I passed the finish line! I remember Pam saying “Ok you can stop running now.” Ha! It was a very hilly route which was a challenge for me.

2016-09-24 | 2016 Muskoka Brewery 5k

I also have taken on a bunch of projects around the house, because fixing up this house is my dream. I re-pointed the fire place, I repaired a water damaged wall. I patched so much old plaster. I sanded. I painted. I worked my butt off.

boutique

img_3034

This room is going to become an office/sewing room. It is so bright and airy feeling now. I’m just saving up my pennies to put in a big long desk with lots of file storage. For now, it’s a great place to do yoga and store my plants. I currently have my sewing area set up in the basement, which is nice because there is lots of space, but lets face it, basements aren’t the nicest place to spend your time… at least not mine!

img_2726

img_3035

This room was the scariest in the house because there had been water damage and we had to do some exterior repair in this area of the house too. It has been kind of a “make-do” project because eventually I would like to tear out this fireplace surround, but for now, I’m absolutely happy with the results and it is nice to have a big, bright living room to spend our time in. Previous to getting this room done, we had set up in a spare bedroom. Dan built and installed all of those floating shelves. The room still needs art, especially something big and impactful over the fireplace, but I’m not really sure what I want there yet.

I am loving this house because I have the space to display all of the things I love. I have lots of little knick knacks that remind me of this or that… things from our grandparents, things we have made, things we picked up at junk shops. Our house is filled with hand me downs and even random things picked up from the side of the road.  I love that.

It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. We had our first family get together yesterday at our house, and will be enjoying a turkey dinner with all of the fixings tonight. Isabel’s birthday is also coming up. I can’t believe she will be 2 already. And, of course Halloween is on it’s way which means I have costumes on the mind…

I really hope to spend more time on here. I spent a lot of time, energy, and money getting my new blog set up. Now I just have to start using it!

 

Making Do with Ugly Tile

Home May 9, 2016
Green.
This house has a lot of green.
Deep, forest green.
So, as I mentioned in my last house post, Dan and I are prettying up the inside of our 1930’s beauty on a shoestring budget. That means for the time being we’re focusing mostly on paint, window coverings, lighting etc, while we do some more important structural work to the house. If money weren’t an issue, I’d gladly replace all this tile with something a little more neutral, but for now we have to make some of the more permanent fixtures work.
The purple wall colour really made the green pop.
Hi kitty!

This is our main bath. On one hand it is amazing. There is so much space, and if you know me, you know I love to bath. Baths are my thing, so a room that is almost entirely bathtub is pretty amazing. Before you say “but doesn’t it cost a fortune to fill?” we pay a set charge for up to a certain amount of water, and we never go over that amount, so other than the awful environmental impact of using so much water, it’s not a huge money drainer. That being said, eventually we’ll put in a more reasonable sized tub…. for now, I’m enjoying swimming laps during my evening bubble bath.

This room also has a shower and a sink. There is a small powder room just off of it. To me, it’s a little strange that there is no toilet in here, but also kind of nice.

This room also doubles as a laundry room. It is just off of our family room which is super convenient when I’m watching Isabel and doing laundry. The washer and dryer are currently housed behind glass sliding doors (just to reflect more of that green tile, I swear), and I hope to replace those with some sliding barn doors.

The green marble tile is a challenge. However, I don’t hate it the way I hated the yellowy-gold floral tile in my old bathroom. This tile is new-ish, it’s clean, and now that my walls are painted bright white, it almost takes on a black-ish shade. Painting out all of the oak trim really helped to neutralize the room.

Kitty is showing off our pretty stained glass windows.

Yup, even the top of the vanity got tiled.

I’m exceptionally happy with how this room looks now. It has some nice fixtures, like the big tub and steam shower, but the tile is definitely not my taste. I’m happy with how the white paint has toned everything down and will be content living with this room as is for the next several years. I would eventually like to remove all the tile and replace it with something more neutral, install a toilet and new tiled shower and vanity. The room itself is huge, and I believe it used to be a bedroom, so there is so much opportunity to have a super amazing bathroom in here.

Some people had suggested I paint the tile, but there is so much tile in here, I’d worry about it scratching or scuffing. While I’m not loving the colour of the tile itself, scratched or scuffed tile would bother me even more. For me, as long as things are clean and in good shape, I can usually survive with something a little less fashionable.

The small powder room next door to this room also has some questionable tile – mauvy purple with flowers. It’s on my fall to-do list… one room at a time.

Updating our 1930’s kitchen.

Home May 4, 2016
The kitchen in our new house was in pretty rough shape when we first saw the house. There had been some water damage across an exterior wall (which has since been repaired) which was torn down to the studs, and the flooring was starting to come up due to it’s age. There is still a lot  that I would like to do (new appliances, new countertop), but for now we’ve tidied it up with some paint, lighting and flooring on a pretty tight budget. I really love this room now. We have so much more counter space for preparing meals, and there is even a little breakfast nook (which we have yet to furnish!).

Our sunny kitchen window.

Buying the house and doing the major repairs, like replacing the furnace and taking down the chimney, sucked up a lot of our resources. We didn’t want to get into any debt prettying up the place, so we’ve chosen projects that we could DIY.  We removed all of the cupboard doors,  removed the antique hardware, filled  the holes and sanded them down, then painted our cupboards in a two-tone colour scheme with white up top and grey-ish blue down below. We took a lot more time and care painting our cupboards this time around than we did in our old house. Let me tell you, painting cupboards is an ordeal. It is not a quick and easy project. It is long, annoying, and grueling. Be prepared to have your canned goods and dishes strewn throughout the house for weeks.

One of the most annoying parts of the paint-job was that the hinges had been painted over. We had to chip away the paint in order to fit a screwdriver into the screws. That alone took us a day, at least…
We replaced all of the vintage red hardware with new chrome cup pulls and knobs from ikea. We also had to replace the hinges. Hardware adds up, but it made a bit change.
We replaced a small piece of the countertop over the dishwasher. It wasn’t even really made of countertop material, just some plywood with old tile on it. My parents recently renovated their kitchen and had a piece of wood countertop left over from their island they installed, so we were able to get that for free! I would like to eventually replace the rest of the countertops with the same, and tile the backsplash. I’m particularly proud of this little piece of countertop because I personally demo’d it. That sucker was screwed it good.

A little built-in in our breakfast nook

One of the things I’ve had the hardest time adapting to is our new range. First thing, just look at it. How the heck do you use that thing? I actually had to read the manual. Second, it’s a gas cook top. I’ve only ever cooked on electric, and as a result burned ever grilled cheese sandwich I made for the first two months living here.  At first I really did not like this range, but it’s really grown on me!

I really agonized over the flooring for this room. The rest of this house has hardwood (except for the extensively tiled bathrooms). I had originally envisioned tile, but we are dealing with a pretty lumpy floor and did not want to get into a new subfloor. We ended up choosing vinyl plank flooring, which was easy to install and is really easy to maintain. Dan and I are getting really good at laying quarter round.

A little place to hang our hats.

 I am happy to have kept many of the original features of the house, like the tall cupboards, but am glad it has a more updated look.  I’m also really happy the work is done (though I just remembered we still have to paint the trim… ugh).

I keep thinking back to our little apartment we shared in Orillia. We literally had one little block of counter space, which was usually filled with dirty dishes.  Now it feels like we have so much room. The four of us (don’t forget Oliver!) can be in here comfortably with room to spare, and Dan takes up a lot of space so that’s saying something! (Love you, Dan, but you are super tall)

Around the house…

Uncategorized July 8, 2015
When we purchased our home, not a whole lot had been done to it in the last 20 or so years… We got it for a good price but it needed a lot of updating. We’ve been here for a few years now and have changed all of the exterior doors, insulated the basement, installed a new bathroom vanity, some new flooring, jacked up the floors, have painted every room, updated wiring and electrical, installed a dishwasher and new appliances, and have done some landscaping. It still feels overwhelming, the work that needs to be done… we need to tear down and rebuild the falling down garage, repair the crumbling chimney… and I’d love to put on a small addition for my studio so that we can go back to having three bedrooms for guests (or a sibling for Isabel?).  But, that’s not for a while yet.  Of course, we are having to do all of this on a very tight budget!
Over the last couple of weeks we checked a few things off our to-do list that have been lingering for a while. When we replaced the doors, the walls that are still lath and plaster crumbled… so, we repaired the plaster in the side entry, filled all of the cracks that appeared when we had previously jacked up the floors, and painted. I still need to put down some new flooring on the stairs, but for now, our side entry way looks 7000% better. No exaggeration!
our crumbing house!

Clean and bright!

 We had begun to plan to do our garage build this summer, but there is total chaos outside our house from now until October. Our entire street is torn up and we’ve lost a good chunk of our front lawn. The street is being widened and new sewer and water pipes are being installed. It’s been an inconvenience (not to mention ugly and noisy), but when it’s done everything will look new and pretty!

the summer of construction.

To escape from some of the ugly and add some privacy, Dan put up some lattice pannels on our front porch. I absolutely love it! It’s like we have an extra living space now. We bought a small patio set for out there and how have a nice cool place to sit back and relax (after all of the construction crews have left).  And look how much my gardens are filling out!

My gardens are filling out.

But the really BIG thing that we have recently done is having painted all of the awful orange wood paneling that covered our entryway, stairs and upstairs hall. It wasn’t your average wood paneling. It’s this deep-grained, shiny, horrible orange paneling that was a nightmare to paint (and in general, a nightmare to look at). None of the corners or seams were finished very well so we went through a ton of spackle. I think at one point, part of one of the walls in the entryway was used as a bulletin board, or possibly a dart board… it was absolutely covered in holes.  Underneath the paneling is more crumbly lathe and plaster, which eventually will be removed. But, for anyone who has done that before you’ll know it’s a terribly dusty job, and not one I want to do with a small baby crawling around the house! The house feels so much brighter and cleaner now.

This window seat is what made me first love this house.

How our house looked when we bought it, and after we installed new flooring.

We keep toying with the idea of moving, but every time I look at the houses in our modest price-range, I never see anything that even compares to how much I like this house (warts and all). Maybe I’m just sentimental because we have done so much work to it. There is still so much to do… it is overwhelming. But each time we finish one project, I begin to love our little house even more!!!

Isabel started crawling a few weeks ago, pretty much right at the 8 month mark. Life is now really hectic. She’s pulling herself up to standing and cruising around on her own around furniture. I can’t believe how much she has changed in just a few weeks. She’s starting to really be like a kid now!  She has 6 little teeth, is nibbling on finger foods (she is a cookie monster!), gives slobbery wet kisses, and says “dada” pretty much non stop.  She’s a total cutie, and if you follow my Instagram you can get lots of Isabel Spam.

Planning for Spring…

Uncategorized March 11, 2013

You may have noticed I have put my shop on “vacation.” Unfortunately for me,  I am not laying on a beach somewhere warm and sunny, I am just trying to catch up on a backlog of orders.  My goal has been to deliver under 8 weeks, but to be honest, it’s more like 10 right now, which is a long time!   I am an impatient person, so I understand how annoying that must be for my customers!  I’ll probably reopen next Monday, and I do plan on having a sample sale at that time as well. Finally!

Yesterday Dan & I started talking about doing more planning for some changes around the house, which has gotten me excited about something again!  We have a list of things that have to be done and a list of things that we would like to do.

Our “Have To” list consists of fixing our chimney, and at the same time, seeing about having a gas fireplace insert installed into our wood burning fireplace.  Our chimney is currently on a bit of a perilous angle.  I am really excited about a gas fireplace.

Our “garage”, and I use that term loosely, is desperately in need of a bulldozer.  I’ve been a little afraid of even thinking about this project because the whole thing needs to be rebuilt.  Last night we looked at some prefabricated garages, and they are totally realistically priced for us! I was so happy.  Our “garage” really looks like it’s ready to fall down at any minute, so getting it fixed would be really wonderful.  Depending on the cost of the chimney, we might try to do it this summer.

Scary, huh?

I’m not sure if this is a “have” or a “like,” but our main entry way, stairway, and upper hall are all finished in this bizarre, tiki-style wood paneling   I actually don’t hate it. When people come here for the first time, they always walk right up to a wall, touch it, and say “wow… I’ve never seen paneling quite like this before.” I don’t know if they are just trying to hide their horror, or what… The problem I have with the paneling is there is virtually no insulation behind it.  I guess folks back in the day weren’t so concerned about their heating bills.  So, I would like to take it down and drywall.  The thing I dread is it is lathe and plaster underneath, which makes a real mess when you take it down… We discovered that when we changed our side door.

Our “High Gloss” Paneling

As for the likes, I want to give a go at painting our bathroom tile & harvest gold tub.  Anyone ever done this before? My parents have painted their tub, and it looks awesome, but I’m not sure about painting tile.  I’ve read a few blogs where people have done it. While it’s not the worst bathroom in the world, it’s still pretty ugly.  I also want to replace the vanity and re-tile the floor.

Harvest Gold Bathroom

My biggest “like” involves removing the wall between our kitchen & living room, adding a kitchen island for more counter and cupboard space, changing our counter tops (there are currently 2 styles of counter tops in our kitchen! oh the joys of purchasing a rental house…) and putting the dark wood flooring throughout the remainder of the main area of the house.

I’m still really happy with our house and I think out of all of the houses we looked at in our modest price range, we got the most value for this one.  It still has a some issues, but so far it hasn’t been anything we can’t handle!

Over the next few weeks Dan and I are also going to do some changing around on the main area of our house.  I currently have my sewing room set up on our dining room, which worked for a bit but now that I am working from home I really feel a need to have a space I can go into in the morning and leave in the evening.  So, we are going to make a combined sewing room / art studio that Dan and I can both use.  I hope to do that soon, because as hard as I try to keep my sewing area neat, it can be really challenging, and I find it really stressful staring at the mess.

So, I am very excited about the next few things we will be doing to the house.  It’s been really fun to see it go from a gross old house to something kind of cute, and it’s probably been one of the most fulfilling feelings, fixing it up ourselves.

Gardens!

Uncategorized May 23, 2012

I never, in my life, thought this house could look so neat and tidy.  Dan and I used to drive past this house on our way to work every day and I never gave it a second glance.  Now with some paint, new gardens, GRASS, and a new apple tree, it’s looking pretty darn good.

As a testament to how much Dan loves me, he dug through our very compacted gravel drive way so I could have a garden on the right side of our front stairs.  Previous to this, the gravel went right up to the stoop there.  Here’s a reminder of what our house looked like about 2 months ago:

Welcome to bores-ville!

My mom and I went out flower shopping on Saturday morning.  We each got a rhododendron, and I got a hydrangea, some veggie plants, and a bunch of annuals. We broke up some hostas and lilies from my mom’s  gardens and planted them here as well.  Dan and I also planted an apple tree at the front of our property! We have a crab apple tree in the back, so we just might get apples one of these days.

On the Mend…

Uncategorized May 12, 2012

Normally when I get sick, I’m out for a day or two.  I felt like crap all week and am finally starting to feel better. I spent a day and a half resting, and after that I couldn’t take it any more, I went back to work, did my usual routine, and today, Dan and I painted the porch.  It was nice to be outside (until it rained) and the house looks awesome.

On the left, is the house as it appeared when we moved it.  Since then we have put on shutters, put up a new mail box and house number, added some furniture, outdoor cushions (that I made), dug a garden (which will get planted next weekend), cleaned up the drive way, and painted.

I used two shades of grey on the porch – light grey on the railing and spindles, and dark grey on the face of the porch, risers of the stairs, and the trim around the top of the porch.  We left the floor bare, not wanting to have to paint it every few years…

Next weekend we will be planting some flowers, and after that I hope to  do a small stone walk way up to the front steps.  Aside from that, I am pretty darn happy with how it has turned out.  It’s a far cry from what we moved into.

Making the house less… ugly.

Uncategorized April 15, 2012

 Hurray! Our shutters are up.  They fill up the void of the upper level nicely.  Now, if it would just stay warm enough for me to pain the front porch and get some flower beds started… At least our grass is starting to grow on the front lawn.  I’m starting to see more houses like ours around town, but ours seems to be a little different with the spaced apart windows on the second floor, the beams, and stucco… Ours is also much taller than others I’ve seen.  There is standing room in our attic, and the ceilings in the upper floor are very high.  It is such an unusual house, I just love it so much!

We live on a busy street so I am a little concerned about putting too much out on my front porch.  Have you ever had thing go missing from the front of your house? We have a huge front porch that one day, I’d love the have a wicker chair and love seat for…. but for now this little bench and shelf will do!

I made 3 16×16 cushions.  One ruffled, one with a bow, and one with our Monogram, which I cut out of fabric, glued onto my cushion, then with embroidery thread, did a running stitch around.  In all, the 3 cushions, including forms, cost $30.  I added long pieces of ribbon to the back to tie them down to my bench so they don’t blow away…