Shut the Front Door!

Another project motivated by Mom when she was visiting - painting the front and side doors!  I went with black, although I was thinking about doing mustard yellow. I figured in the end that a glossy black would look perfect with the new mailbox and house numbers (as well as the old porch light fixture and the plant pots I have out there).  I love it.  It took 4 coats of paint and lots of touching up to get it to this point!  (after picture was taken while the paint was still drying hence the green tape on the door handles). 

Colour used:  CIL exterior paint - Dark Secret.

Before - bright white door!

During - yikes, I was a bit afraid...

After - looks great! 

Can't wait to hang some kind of festive wreath on this door.  Totally wanted to do that crayon wreath that I saw on Pinterest, however with the black door and the direct sunlight all day, I'd have melted crayon all over my front door...

Pinterest Challenge 2011!

What a great idea!  I am in love with Pinterest, and as many others do I've pinned soooo many fun ideas.  Problem is, I never follow through and actually try to recreate the beautiful things I see.  Well I was so happy to hear that I am not the only one!  Over at one of my fave blogs http://www.younghouselove.com/ the Pinterest Challenge was posted, and I was ready to take it on! 

My husband and I bought this really cool vintage sofa frame from a garage sale a few months ago and kept putting off making the pillows and cushions for it...until this weekend!

Lucky for me, my Mom was in town visiting (she's a sewing pro) so we decided to take on the challenge together. 

Here is my inspiration from Pinterest (via my other fave blog Decor8!):

I really like how the pillows can change, and with some new colours you could have a new look.  So that's what we decided to do.  Here is our lovely sofa frame before we got started:

And here is our during shot...foam cut, pillows purchased...

And finally, the finished product thanks to Mom!  She's so talented and can sew anything :)

And here's another look with some other pillows - I have to keep playing with it to get it just right.

Thanks for inspiring us Pinterest (and thanks for kicking our butts into gear Younghouselove!)

New House!

It's pretty much official - we've purchased a new home and can't wait to move in!  Pictures from the real estate site are below. Very excited to start decorating again!  Before I get into more details about the new place, as a last farewell to our current place, I FINALLY entered the Small Cool Contest at Apartment Therapy.  I've been meaning to do that for many years, and with the real estate pictures on hand I figured why not now?  Vote for me HERE if you're up for it! 

When my husband and I began our house hunt late last year, we wanted our dream home to be an old bungalow in a great area that was flipped (since we are NOT handy at all). That's exactly what we found.  It's a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom house, with a finished basement. 

I learned from the real estate agents that a group of four guys did this flip, and carried out the work from Oct. 2010 until it went up for sale in Mar. 2011.  They did an amazing job.  My agent was able to provide me with the original listing from back in Oct. 2010 which had pictures - a great way to show a before and after!  Remember - we didn't do this work - someone else did!  All we have to do now is give this house some love from the outside, move in and decorate.  We are really lucky we found what we were looking for!

BEFORE (pictures from original home listing in Oct. 2010)

AFTER (pictures of the house after flipped and up for sale in Mar. 2011)

Time for Change

I started this blog in order to document my adventures in designing and setting up my first home. Unfortunately life got in the way and I kept on decorating and stopped blogging. Tisk tisk!

Well it's been about 4 years since I moved into my home and started this blog and now I am (or we are) packing up and getting ready to sell! During that time I got married and took in a "roommate" aka my husband. We've made our 1-bedroom condo work well for us and are accustomed to the idea of small space living, but it's time for something new.

I am so excited to start house hunting and decorating all over again, but I am also sad to say goodbye to my little home. One neat thing about selling is that now I have some snazzy professional pictures to share of my finished product!

I will continue to update the blog as our home search continues, in the mean time scroll down and compare the before (all the way at the bottom) and after shots. I added a couple of wedding pics too!

We've come a long way in 4 years!

Henna Ceremony - Jan. 2, 2010

Wedding Day (Dominican Republic) - Jan. 9, 2010

Toronto Reception - Jan. 23, 2010

Pictures of the "finished product"