Category Archives: Decorating

Laundry room before and after

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It’s time for the reveal in the One Room Challenge. Back in September, I was really excited to start making over the laundry room. At the beginning of October, I was really excited when I joined the One Room Challenge to help keep me on track. Today, you’re going to see how far the laundry room has come. (And, yes, I’m still really excited).

Laundry room before and after

Laundry room before and after

This makeover was all about simple upgrades.

I converted the cabinets to a shaker style by adding strips around the border. A black and white paint scheme freshened them the rest of the way. We’re still missing the hardware on our cabinets. They’re special orders and are taking their time coming in. So just imagine sparkly chrome knobs and cup pulls, would you? (I’ll post an update when the hardware finally arrives).

Black and white shaker cabinets in the laundry room

Fresh paint on the walls, ceiling and trim–and fresh baseboard all the way around–brought the laundry room up to the same standard as the rest of the basement.

Then it was on to a few fun projects.

A light fixture made out of clothespins.

Clothespins light fixture

Look at the great pattern it makes on the ceiling when it’s all lit up.

Clothespin light fixture

To keep the wood tone accents going, I added a few baskets to the top of the free-standing cabinet Matt and I found a few months ago. I also made a simple hook board to hang the ironing board on the side.

Ironing board hanger

To save electricity, we hang dry most of our laundry. (Yes, we’re just that green… and cheap). Only sheets, towels and dog beds get the privilege of the dryer. The white metal drying rack is a key feature of the laundry room. I made an additional hanging rack out of pipe fittings to help with the drying.

Hanging rack made out of pipe fittings

I also made a small towel bar out of some more pipe fittings.

towelbar1

The picture above also gives you a glimpse of one of the main decorations in the laundry room. When it came to art, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to put on the walls. Then I found this little enamel pot at Value Village.

Laundry room decorations

It holds packets of washing machine cleaner, and it also reminded me that I had a small collection of enamel basins. My sisters, brother and I played with these dishes all the time at my grandparents’ cottage. When my grandmother sold the cottage, the basins were going to be thrown out. I was feeling sentimental, so I took them, although I wasn’t sure when I’d ever use them. Well, it turns out they work perfectly as decorations in the laundry room. They may have crossed over from rustic to rusty, but I still think they add a nice touch.

Enamelware basins

Hanging the basins facing out took a couple of tricks. First I needed a really long nail. I found some 5-inch spikes. The nails were too big to drive with just a hammer, so I drilled a pilot hole into the studs before I hammered in my nails. Once I hooked the basins on the nails, it turned out that their centres of gravity were a bit crooked. Some adhesive strips on the back stuck them to the wall and straightened them right up. For the rectangle basin, a couple of L brackets made a discreet and secure shelf.

Tricks to hang basins on a wall

The other item decorating the wall is also both sentimental and non-traditional art. These are the sleepers that newborn Matt wore when he came home from the hospital the first time. (I know, awwwwwwww). His Mom gave them to us years ago. Again, I had no idea what I was going to do with them. Then I realized that the red and navy stripes picked up some of the colours I was using elsewhere in the laundry room. I’ll likely end up building a proper shadow box for them, but the mini hanger works for now.

Matt's baby sleepers

On the counter under the window, I have a few appropriately laundry decorations: an old washboard from my parents and a small red toy iron that my Mom had when she was a little girl.

Laundry room accessories

It may have been a simple makeover, but the results feel dramatic to me. It’s a pretty, personal, fun and functional space.

Laundry room after

Thanks to Linda at Calling it Home for organizing the One Room Challenge. I’ve now crossed another room off my Home Goals 2014 list. Thanks to all of you reading along for all of your support and encouragement throughout. Be sure to pop by Calling it Home to see all the other rooms.

How many people dream of a pretty laundry room? Does anyone else collect enamel ware? Have you ever made anything out of clothespins or pipe fittings? Who else air dries their clothes? What’s the most unusual thing you’ve hung on a wall?

Linking to: Happy Housie Get Your DIY On: Wall Decor

One Room Challenge Week 5

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We’re in the homestretch now on the One Room Challenge. Today is the second last post. Next week is reveal time. Make sure to visit Calling it Home to check out all of the great progress everyone’s made.

Fortunately, the laundry room makeover is in the homestretch too. My original project plan was to have all of the “work” done as of last weekend so that this week could be devoted to decorating.  Guess what? I’m pretty much on schedule (aside from my back-ordered cabinet hardware).

  1. Add shaker style trim to the cabinets
  2. Paint the cabinets
  3. Install doors and drawers
  4. Remove ceiling rack – By Oct. 3
  5. Patch ceiling and walls – By Oct. 3
  6. Paint ceiling – By Oct. 10
  7. Paint and install baseboard and paint window trim – By Oct. 10 Done Oct. 13
  8. Deep clean (sink, counter, floor, machines) – Oct. 13 Rescheduled to Oct. 19 26 Done Oct. 26
  9. Paint walls – By Oct. 17 Done Oct. 18
  10. Replace ivory washer outlet with white one – By Oct. 19 Done Oct. 18
  11. Level washing machine – By Oct. 19 Done Oct. 18
  12. Build and install ceiling rack – By Oct. 24
  13. Build and install towel bar – By Oct. 24 Done Oct. 25
  14. Install cabinet hardware – By Oct. 24 Rescheduled to Nov. 11
  15. Build and install light fixture – By Oct. 26 Done Oct. 25
  16. Remove non-working sprayer from the sink and plug the hole – By Oct. 26 Done Oct. 27
  17. Decorate – By Oct. 31

The laundry room is currently a mix of projects to be finished and styling that has started.

Laundry room mid-makeover

I know you can’t see very much here (I have to save some suspense for next week’s reveal), but it’s looking so good. I’m super excited.

The suggestion for this post is to talk about if our plans have changed. Mine haven’t really. In fact, I realized over the weekend how close I am to my original plans.

I’ve been thinking about this laundry room for a long time. I love Pinterest, and I’ve been pinning laundry room ideas nearly since we first moved to the farm (see my board). I knew I wanted to make a clothespin light like this one from Young House Love. I knew I wanted to replicate the rustic drying rack from Knick of Time. I made both of these, and they turned out pretty much just like my inspiration.

Although I can’t truly say “made.” The rustic drying rack is being a bit cantankerous. Today will be sixth–that’s right, 6–trip to Home Depot for pipe. The main hanging part is working, but the horizontal braces are a total Goldilocks situation–either too short or too long. I keep buying new sections of pipe, but so far I haven’t found the right fit. The plan for this afternoon is to have the staff cut me the exact length I need (fingers crossed I’ve figured out what that is).

Hanging rack made out of pipe fittings

Although I had most of the laundry room worked out in advance, I did add a few things mid-project (changing the ivory plugs for white ones and removing the sprayer from the sink). Those can’t really be called a change in plans, though.

Now I just have to stay focused on the finishing details. That means I need to stop thinking about replacing the faucet and remember that I don’t have time to sew a new cover for the ironing board. The finish line is in sight. Now is not the time for detours and add-ons.

Do yDo yDo your projects usually turn out like you envision? Are there any other Pinterest fans? Do you like last minute add-ons too? Does anyone else start styling before the reno is completely finished?

One Room Challenge Week 4

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We’re heading into week 4 on the One Room Challenge. I feel like the laundry room has turned the corner. By that I mean, I’m seeing some serious progress.

One Room Challenge Linking Participant

The transformation isn’t limited to the laundry room, either. In the spare bedroom (aka the painting area), I folded up all the drop cloths, put the paint cans away and swept the floor. It’s almost ready to go back to being a bedroom. In the basement, I broke out of the laundry room and vacuumed the carpet. This may seem like a more regular chore, but it represent serious progress because vacuuming has been on hold (as if I need an excuse) until the “messy” stuff in the laundry room is all done.

In the laundry room itself, the walls are all painted and the machines are back in place. Shall we sing praises to the power of paint? There’s no decoration or accessories, but I already feel like things are starting to come together.

Laundry room in progress

Let’s take a minute and talk about laundry pedestals, okay? When we bought our new machines and chose front loaders, I knew I wanted pedestals. I hate bending over to just a few inches above the floor to do laundry. The pedestals solve that problem easily.

They do remove the ability to put a counter over the top of the machines (unless I was 10 feet tall, which I’m definitely not). I didn’t need more counter space, though, so it wasn’t a big sacrifice. The pedestals also give a lot of storage in the drawers (although to be honest I haven’t used that either).

I probably could have simply built a platform and saved us the expense of the pedestals (and they were expensive for what they are). However, I do like that we have the option of using the drawers if we want to, and I also like that they match our machines.

You might recall that I mentioned in my update two weeks ago that the washer vibrates crazily (and noisily) when it goes into the spin cycle. While we had it pulled out of the way for painting, I took the opportunity to check it over. It turns out that the bolts holding the pedestal to the machine were all loose. A few quick turns with the socket wrench tightened everything up. Now that the washer’s back in place, it’s operating much smoother and quieter. Task #11 done.

Here’s the rest of the updated to-do list. In total I was able to cross three things off this week. Let’s hear it for progress!

  1. Add shaker style trim to the cabinets
  2. Paint the cabinets
  3. Install doors and drawers
  4. Remove ceiling rack – By Oct. 3
  5. Patch ceiling and walls – By Oct. 3
  6. Paint ceiling – By Oct. 10
  7. Paint and install baseboard and paint window trim – By Oct. 10 Done Oct. 13
  8. Deep clean (sink, counter, floor, machines) – Oct. 13 Rescheduled to Oct. 19 26
  9. Paint walls – By Oct. 17 Done Oct. 18
  10. Replace ivory washer outlet with white one – By Oct. 19 Done Oct. 18
  11. Level washing machine – By Oct. 19 Done Oct. 18
  12. Build and install ceiling rack – By Oct. 24
  13. Build and install towel bar – By Oct. 24
  14. Install cabinet hardware – By Oct. 24 Rescheduled to Nov. 11
  15. Build and install light fixture – By Oct. 26
  16. Remove non-working sprayer from the sink and plug the hole – By Oct. 26
  17. Decorate – By Oct. 31

Still on tap for this week? Paint touch-ups, some minor electrical work, and starting on the ceiling rack, towel bar and light fixture.

Laundry room in progress

I like the small projects stage of the makeover. Hopefully they go smoothly and progress happens quickly.

If you’re curious to see the progress that other ORC participants have made, make sure to head over to Calling it Home.

How do you feel about laundry pedestals? Do you have a front loader or a top loader? What’s your favourite stage of a project? Painting? Small bits? Electrical?

Challenges in the One Room Challenge

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The recommended theme for today’s One Room Challenge update is setbacks. It turns out that this is actually a fitting topic for this point in the laundry room makeover.

Setback 1: The times in between

I’m not sure if anyone else has this problem, but this one’s a common challenge for me in DIYing. In between each stage of a project, I sometimes find it hard to change gears.

I finished painting the cabinets, but then the idea of getting the ceiling ready for painting–never mind actually painting it–was extremely challenging.

A great thing about the One Room Challenge is it helps keep me moving.

Baseboard in the laundry room

Baseboards installed. Yay!

As I posted on Friday, work kicked my butt last week. I fought back, putting in extra time and staying late at the office. Of course, this meant that I had less time at home to work on the laundry room. Which meant that I finally started painting the ceiling at 9pm the night before my scheduled deadline.

I’m sure time will be a common challenge among ORC participants. Heck, finding time is a common challenge of DIYers everywhere, I think.

However, I am very pleased to report that I’m nearly on schedule. Here’s the original plan with adjusted deadlines and a few new tasks.

  1. Add shaker style trim to the cabinets
  2. Paint the cabinets
  3. Install doors and drawers
  4. Remove ceiling rack – By Oct. 3
  5. Patch ceiling and walls – By Oct. 3
  6. Prime walls (pshaw, who needs prime?) and paint ceiling – By Oct. 10
  7. Paint and install baseboard and paint window trim – By Oct. 10 I was a bit behind schedule on install, but it’s done as of Oct. 13
  8. Deep clean (sink, counter, floor, machines) – Oct. 13 (Happy Thanksgiving Monday!) Rescheduled to Oct.19
  9. Paint walls (first coat is on, one more to go) – By Oct. 17
  10. New Replace ivory washer outlet with white one – By Oct. 19
  11. Level washing machine – By Oct. 19
  12. Build and install ceiling rack – By Oct. 24
  13. Build and install towel bar – By Oct. 24
  14. Install cabinet hardware – By Oct. 24 Rescheduled to Nov. 11 due to setback #3 (see below)
  15. Build and install light fixture – By Oct. 26
  16. New Remove non-working sprayer from the sink and plug the hole – By Oct. 26
  17. Decorate – By Oct. 31

So it might be a problem that I keep remembering new tasks to add to the list. It seems like I’m adding things as fast as I’m crossing them off. However, the progress is continuing despite a couple more setbacks.

Setback 2: Paint

The second setback isn’t really serious enough to be classified as a setback. It’s more of a lesson learned.

Painting the laundry room

When it comes to painting ceilings, I just use white primer. We had a bit of primer left in the giant pail that we used for the rest of the basement reno. To make sure the colour was absolutely consistent, I wanted to use this primer. Well, it turns out that this paint has been sitting a little too long. There were all kinds of hardened bits in it. It made painting the laundry room ceiling incredibly frustrating. I got a mostly smooth finish, but I only did one coat. I think it looks good enough. If I have to, I will strain the paint and go again.

The other lesson learned (or confirmed) when it comes to paint is that BM Wrought Iron definitely has blue undertones. I first used Wrought Iron in Matt’s windowless bathroom. There it looks pretty pure, super dark grey. In the laundry room, where there’s lots of natural light from the window, the cabinets look a bit navy blue sometimes.

For the wall colour, we walked up the paint strip and chose a much lighter tone of grey from the same slip as Wrought Iron. It’s close to Bunny Gray (read the story of our Frankencolour). We already knew that this one was slightly blue as we used it on all of the other walls throughout the basement. I had intended that the walls and the cabinets would be a purer grey, but I don’t care enough to repaint.

Plus, anything’s better than that yellow. Sing it with me people in the tune of Elton John, “Goodbye yellow gross paint.”

Setback 3: The hardware

The final setback I’ve had is the cabinet hardware. I wanted cup pulls for the drawers. I wanted them to be pretty simple without a flange or other details, and I wanted a chrome finish. I had ordered these pulls from Home Depot.

Chrome cup pull

A week or so after I placed the order, I got a call from HD that they couldn’t get anyone at the manufacturer to answer email or the phone.

I looked at other big box stores and couldn’t find what I was looking for. HD had offered me a refund, but it took me awhile to make it into the store. By the time I was standing in front of the customer service desk, the associate let me know they’d started receiving orders again from the company. If you read my post on Friday, this is when I heard, “I’ll give you the refund, but let’s try and place the order again. I won’t charge you even if it goes through.”

How awesome is that?

A few days later I came home to a message from HD. My order went through (yay!), but the pulls are on back order (boo!). They should be here by Nov. 10. That’s just nearing the end of the One Room Challenge. I think I should be able to get them on in time for the final reveal.

The moral of the story

So, setbacks aside, the challenge rolls on. The best thing about this challenge is how encouraging everyone is. It’s been amazing to connect with other bloggers and have so many new people stop by my blog and offer their comments. Seeing everyone else’s projects is also super inspiring.

Make sure you get a chance to visit Calling it Home and see all of the works in progress.

How to build your own shaker cabinets

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It’s time for the first progress report in my One Room Challenge laundry room makeover.

One Room Challenge

Today’s update focuses on the most striking transformation in the laundry room: the cabinets.

You saw in the first post that the laundry room cabinets are basic flat doors. You also saw that my inspiration was a shaker style.

Laundry room before and inspiration

Fortunately, transforming flat doors into shaker doors is a pretty easy process. However, there was one door and one drawer that weren’t basic flat panels. I don’t know what this style is called officially, but I believe it was popular in the nineties. The distinctive feature of these cabinets was a built in wood stained “handle” along the edge of the white melamine flat door or drawer. Look familiar?

90s style cabinet

Before I could shaker-fy these cabinets, I needed to get rid of the ridge part of the handle. I enlisted my new-to-me, but extremely old table saw. I set the fence and the blade at the precise width and height I needed to slice off the handle, and then I very carefully ran the door and the drawer through the saw.

Trimming the edge off a cabinet door

Once the handle was removed, I could work with these cabinets exactly like the rest of the ones in the laundry room.

Using my table saw again, my Dad and I cut 2 inch wide strips out of a sheet of hardboard that I had left over from my bookshelf project. I then affixed the strips to the cabinets to make the raised shaker detail.

Easy peasy.

Adding shaker trim to cabinet doors

I used a smear of carpenters glue on the back of the strips and then I tacked them in place with my Dad’s nail gun. A bit of wood filler evened out the joints and an all over sanding smoothed everything out. I chose to have the vertical pieces run edge to edge on the drawers and doors, and then the horizontals ran between the two vertical strips.

For the drawer and the door that I’d trimmed earlier, the shaker strips covered most of the original handle. At the edges a good daub of wood filler took care of the hole. Here’s a sneak peek of how they look after painting. Not perfect, but good enough for me.

Adding shake style trim to cabinets

Anyways, before I get too far ahead of myself, how about a few more details on the painting? After I painted the kitchen cabinets at our first house, I swore I’d never do it again. Maybe my tolerance for DIY has improved because painting these cabinets was much less torturous.

A few things were different this time around.

  1. After priming I used the Advance paint formula from Benjamin Moore as opposed to a stinky heavy duty oil paint. I’ve been super impressed by the finish I get from Advance, and clean up is a breeze.
  2. I painted just the fronts of the doors. Sure it’s a shortcut, but I didn’t feel the need to flip them over and paint the insides too.
  3. I split the painting into two stages because I chose two different colours. The uppers and two blocks of lower cabinets are all BM Cloud White (the same colour as we’ve used on the trim elsewhere in the house). The lowers on the sink section are BM Wrought Iron (the same colour as Matt’s bathroom). One coat of one colour took just 30-45 minutes–much better than the week of 16 hour days I spent in our last kitchen.

As soon as the drawers and doors were dry, I put them all back in place.

Laundry room cabinet makeover

The room may still need to be painted, cleaned and decorated, but it’s already looking 100 times better. Since installing the doors and drawers, I’ve found myself making special trips downstairs to the laundry room just to admire the cabinets.

That’s not weird, is it?

This is a super cheap, easy way to makeover basic cabinets. I highly recommend it.

And because this is a progress report, here’s where the rest of the makeover stands:

  1. Add shaker style trim to the cabinets
  2. Paint the cabinets
  3. Install doors and drawers
  4. Remove ceiling rack – By Oct. 3
  5. Patch ceiling and walls – By Oct. 3
  6. Prime walls and paint ceiling – By Oct. 10
  7. Paint and install baseboard and paint window trim – By Oct. 10
  8. Deep clean (sink, counter, floor, machines) – Oct. 13 (Happy Thanksgiving Monday!)
  9. Paint walls – By Oct. 17
  10. Level washing machine – By Oct. 19
  11. Build and install ceiling rack – By Oct. 24
  12. Build and install towel bar – By Oct. 24
  13. Install cabinet hardware – By Oct. 24
  14. Build and install light fixture – By Oct. 26
  15. Decorate – By Oct. 31

I knocked off steps 4 and 5 in the past week, but added one new step (#10). I don’t know how I forgot that the washing machine shakes like it’s going to take flight every time it goes into the spin cycle. We have to fix that.

So week one of the One Room Challenge is over. Five (or hopefully less) to go. If you haven’t had a chance, I highly recommend checking out the link-ups on Calling it Home. The 20 participating bloggers post on Wednesday and then the linking participants (like me) share our progress on Thursday. There’s an impressive range of projects and lots of inspiration. Exactly what this challenge is all about.

Have you ever made over cabinets with trim or another add-on? How about painting cabinets? Have you ever taken on that fun task? What’s your favourite cabinet style? Anyone know what that nineties built-in handle style is called?

Smokey Hollow

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This year’s birthday present is one of the most special gifts I’ve ever been given. Matt, my family and his parents all went in together to buy me a painting.

Smokey Hollow

The painting is of a waterfall in the town where I grew up.

I hiked the trails around this waterfall and waded in this creek so many times. The waterfall doesn’t really have a name, but the whole gorge around it is called Smokey Hollow (which is also the name of the painting). I’ve heard a couple of explanations for the name Smokey Hollow. One is the mist from the waterfall made the hollow “smokey.” The second is literal smoke which came from all of the mills that used to be throughout the valley. In fact, the creek that runs over this waterfall is called Grindstone Creek.

Wherever the name came from, this is a beautiful spot that’s very special to me, and to have it memorialized in a painting was something that I couldn’t resist.

This was painted by a local artist named Brian Darcy. He paints nature and farms and the countryside. I could buy pretty much every one of his paintings.

This particular painting, I’ve wanted since I was in high school. It means so much that my family came together to give this to me.

Since we painted the living room and set up the bookcases on the opposite side of the room, we had a perfect wall for it.

Smokey Hollow by Brian Darcy

Matt made all of the arrangements to buy the painting, but what made this extra special was that we actually got to meet Brian. We saw some of his works in progress and learned about his painting process and heard some of the story behind the Smokey Hollow painting.

He even gave us copies of a little study he did from the painting. Down in the bottom right corner on the shore of the creek, there’s a little cluster of pink wildflowers. Flitting around the flowers is a Swallowtail butterfly. Well, Brian took that scene and did a separate small little painting.

Summer fields by Brian Darcy

My family has known for a long time that I wanted this painting. Last year, my Mom went down to Smokey Hollow and took a picture for me. She had it printed and framed and gave it to me for my last birthday.

Smokey Hollow photo

I still need to find the perfect place to hang this one. Since Smokey Hollow is such a special spot for me, I think I’m allowed to have two pictures of it.

Anyone else have a story of finally getting something you’ve waited a long time have? Do you have any mementos of where you grew up? Even though this was a gift, this is Matt’s and my first time spending any significant amount of money on art. I have to say I’m feeling pretty grown up about it. Have you invested in art?

One room challenge – Laundry room makeover

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I am so excited for October’s project. Remember back in September when I didn’t have a project on my to-do list and I took apart the laundry room? Well now it’s time to put it back together.

I’m even more excited for this makeover because I’m going to make the laundry room my part of the One Room Challenge.

One Room Challenge

Linda at Calling it Home created the ORC three years ago as a way to help people stay on track and finish a room. Over the next six weeks, a group of bloggers and a whole bunch of joiners like me will be making over one room. We’ll be posting weekly updates on our blogs. So it’s not all that different from how I’ve handled my other projects so far this year.

Now, I will admit that I’ve gotten a little bit of a head start on this challenge. I trimmed out the cabinet doors and painted them last month.

I wanted to complete the makeover in October, but I knew two weekends this month were booked for non-DIY activities. As a DIYer with a day job, I absolutely need my weekends if I’m going to finish this in one month.

Well, it turns out that the ORC gives me six weeks. So I’ll have a bit of a cushion.

The purpose of today’s post is to introduce my room and tell you my plan.

Everyone, meet the laundry room. Laundry room, meet everyone.

Laundry room before

Here’s the part where the laundry room tells you a little bit about himself. We are very fortunate that we have a great space to start from (and yes, I took these photos after the makeover had already started–bad blogger). There is lots of counter space and built-in cabinets. We have a utility sink and our new (okay two-year-old) front loading washer and dryer. Even though we’re in the basement, we have a nice large window.

Laundry room before

before19

Now we redid the basement when we first moved to the farm. However, the makeover pretty much stopped at the edge of the laundry room. I scraped the stipple ceiling, took down the fluorescent light fixture, removed some posters that had been tacked to the front of the cabinets (why?) and that was it. Oh, except for our new washer and dryer (love you babies).

Since the room is open to the rest of the basement, I’d really like it to be as pretty as the rest of the basement. And right now, it’s not.

Laundry room before

So this makeover is purely aesthetic, and I’m working with what is there in the laundry room already.

Here’s the vision:

And here’s the plan:

  1. Add shaker style trim to the cabinets
  2. Paint the cabinets
  3. Install doors and drawers
  4. Remove ceiling rack – By Oct. 3
  5. Patch ceiling and walls – By Oct. 3
  6. Prime walls and paint ceiling – By Oct. 10
  7. Paint and install baseboard and paint window trim – By Oct. 10
  8. Deep clean (sink, counter, floor, machines) – Oct. 13 (Happy Thanksgiving Monday!)
  9. Paint walls – By Oct. 17
  10. Build and install ceiling rack – By Oct. 24
  11. Build and install towel bar – By Oct. 24
  12. Install cabinet hardware – By Oct. 24
  13. Build and install light fixture – By Oct. 26
  14. Decorate – By Oct. 31

Fourteen easy steps to laundry room bliss. Simple right?

Is anyone else doing the One Room Challenge? Do you find pretty laundry rooms as exciting as I do?

Bringing back the books

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I didn’t really have project this month, but I did say that I wanted my books back. That meant finishing the bookshelf makeover that I started in August.

You might recall that in my original photo you could barely see the bookshelves because they were painted such a dark brown (oh, and hidden behind boxes that have been packed for two and a half years).

Bookshelves and boxes of books

Well, not anymore. Behold the view from the same angle.

Living room bookshelves

Bright and white and, best of all, filled with books. Hello beloveds.

The bookshelves wrap the one corner of the living room and tuck behind the comfy lounging chair that I inherited from my grandmother.

Corner bookshelves

I’m pretty happy with how things have come together. I know a lot of people struggle with styling bookshelves, and I’m no different. I’m decently satisfied with the middle section right now.

As always, the contents of the shelves have a lot of meaning for us. Besides the books we have some very special treasures.

The trophy is Matt’s grandma’s won for a school running race in 1935 when she was in high school, my dad made the small lidded wood pot on his lathe, and the hammer on the top right was a gift from my grandmother to Matt and unscrews to reveal decreasing sizes of screwdrivers. Towards the bottom, we have a brick I found in the backyard of our first house that has our city’s name stamped on it. Below that there’s a picture of Matt and me at Niagara Falls back when we first started dating, and beside that a miniature replica of Rodin’s The Kiss. (Rodin is our favourite sculptor. A miniature of The Thinker is on an adjacent shelf). The half naked man (or more accurately naked half man) was a high school art class project.

Bookshelves

I want to tuck a few more knick knacks in some of the empty spaces, and I definitely need to get some bookends. I’ll continue to futz with the arrangement, but regardless of what things look like, I’m thrilled to have my books back.

Perhaps it’s because I had bookshelves on the brain, but as I was pulling my shelves together they seemed to be popping up on other blogs as well:

I cannot explain how thrilling it is to have my books back. I came across a few I’d forgotten I had and of course lots of old favourites. In fact the borrowed book that I was half-way through may have been set aside in favour of an old favourite. (I never do that. I’m always a one-book-at-a-time woman).

Plus, setting up the bookshelves gave us an excuse to paint some more of the living room and unpack about 16 boxes that had been piled in the corner. The room feels so much more finished! … Well, we’re still a long way from finished. At least it’s a little bit closer to the vision in my head.

How do you handle book storage at your house? Besides books, what’s on your bookshelves? Any tips on styling bookshelves? Who else is a one-book-at-a-time reader?

Highlights from the Canadian Blogger Home Tour

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Well that last post was a bit of a downer. I didn’t want to make it seem like I was bashing the Canadian Blogger Home Tour.

I truly do think it was a great series. I know the work that goes into photographing, editing and writing posts like those, and it’s considerable. I admire all of the people who participated in the home tour and the beautiful spaces they created.

There were some really inspirational homes on the tour and today I wanted to highlight a few of my favourites.

Rambling Renovators – Jen’s home tour was the first I read, and it linked me to many of the others. I’ve been a long-time reader of Jen’s blog, so I’d seen most of the rooms on her home tour already, but this was a great showcase of her house all in one post. The trim work and built-ins–all done by her husband–are beautiful. I love the traditional feel of her house and the attention she and Handyman pay to every detail.

Trim work at Rambling Renovators

The Creek Line House – This is a new blog for me that I discovered through the home tour. A tour of a 114 year old farmhouse? I was hooked from the very first photo. And then I scrolled a bit and saw a barn. And there were fields too. This is my kind of place.

The Creek Line House

Adventures of the Uncommon Common Law – Obviously, Becki’s and Chris’ aesthetic is not something you’ve seen from me before. However, if I ever go modern, this is how I’d do it. Sleek and clean. Dark and dramatic. But still super warm and personal. Their lighting is really cool and creative.

The Uncommon Common Law

The DIY Mommy – Some of the Home Tour posts included a collage of images from the various bloggers who participated. One of the little pictures was of a bright kitchen with cheerful blue curtains. This picture is what drew me into the other blogs. I just had to find the house with those great curtains. Well, I did. And the house behind it is great too. The fact that Christina and her husband built it themselves is even more amazing.

DIY Mommy

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the whole roster of blogs in the Canadian Blogger Home Tour, I encourage you to. I’m sure you’ll find lots of inspiration too. Thanks to all of the bloggers for opening their homes to us.

Monday
AKA Design
The DIY Mommy
Northern Style Exposure
Echoes of Laughter

Tuesday
A Pop of Pretty
Rambling Renovators
Craftberry Bush
Elliven Studio

Wednesday
First Time Fancy
So Much Better With Age
The Creek Line House
The Sweetest Digs

Thursday
Clean and Scentsible
The Happy Housie
Just Beachy
Dans le Townhouse

Friday
The Uncommon Law
This Little Estate

Comparison, blogging and progress

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The Canadian Bloggers Home Tour was a couple of weeks ago. It was great to see Canadian bloggers come together and share their personal styles and beautiful spaces. I’ve been inspired by their designs, photography and styling (tune in Friday for a post showing some of my favourites). I’ve even found some new blogs to add to my feedly.

However, often when I see posts like these home tours, I’m a bit conflicted.

I know all of the houses have been cleaned and staged before any of the photos were taken, but I still can’t help feeling slightly inferior when I see house tours like these.

Holy bad paint job, Batman. There are maybe three rooms in my house that are even close to being photogenic enough to be part of a home tour. And they’d all need a good tidy before I took their picture.

Dining room

Much has been written about the unreality of the blogosphere. I think we all know that the images we see on Pinterest and many blogs are not always accurate representations of how people actually live. Lauren at A Lo and Behold Life did a behind the scenes post last week showing some of the real life at her house, which was nice to see.

The bloggers who participated in the home tour are to a certain extent the cream of the crop of Canadian shelter blogs. One of the organizers, Shannon of AKA Design, said “we selected Canadian bloggers who have gorgeous homes (big or small), great photography and mad decorating skills.” Fair enough. Home tours don’t have quite the same inspirational impact when you see the clutter clustered in the corners or the toss cushions tossed on the floor rather than arranged artfully on the couch.

I have to remind myself every so often that reading certain blogs is basically the same as reading a decorating magazine. It’s about appreciating design and finding inspiration for my own spaces. It’s not about other people’s homes or blogs being “better” than mine.

Nightstand

I like the saying that comparison is the thief of joy. In a lot of ways I don’t care what other people do or what they think of me.

Even though I obviously share a lot of my house and my life in public on the internet, I blog for myself (and those like-minded souls that loyally hang in there through slow-moving makeovers and interminable renos).

My house is for myself (and Matt).

I’ll be honest, though, I can’t help wondering what’s wrong with me that my house doesn’t look like these beautiful spaces I saw in the posts last week. We’ve been living here for two and a half years. Why is our house not “done” yet?

I have every confidence that our house will get to a stage where our rooms are beautiful and tidy and perfect reflections of our personal style. Someday, we will be home tour ready. I’m just feeling a little impatient to get there.

(And in case you missed it at the top, I don’t want this post to be interpreted as a rant against the Canadian Bloggers Home Tour. There’s too much negativity and criticism out there. I think the tour was a great way to showcase creative designs and some talented Canadian bloggers. I was inspired by many of the designs I saw. This post is simply my personal reflection and an expression of where I’m at today in my own renovation/decoration saga. I have another post coming up later this week with some of my favourite designs from the home tour. Stay tuned.)