Friday Finds and a Sneak Peek

Friday Finds is a little late today because I’m working my way around our basement with a paint brush in hand.

To make up for the delay, here’s a little sneak peek!

It’s a really dark day here today so all the lights are on in the basement. This photo makes the new colour look pretty dark, but it’s actually a lot lighter and brighter than the golden colour that I’m painting over. The colour on the left side of the door is closer to the true colour.

And now back to your regular Finds

The quality of 13 famous TV shows charted over time. Oh Dexter…

Speaking of paint, House Beautiful rounded up the best paint colours for your foyer.

This goalie gets into the groove. Literally.

Some beautiful photos from around the world from a bird’s eye view. Browsing through them made me feel very, very, very small. And made me want to travel again.

Have a great weekend! I’ll likely have a paint brush in my hand. AGAIN.

All the trimmings

The other day my friend Courtney told me that she was reading the blog tour of my basement in the middle of the night while feeding her little baby. Although I’m glad she is reading, Courtney has been in my basement many, many times. So she knew her way around. The tour was not exactly the most interesting post for her. Well Courtney, this one’s… not that exciting either.

This is a post about one of those projects that takes a lot of time, and seems a little lopsided in the work to payoff ratio. But, if you didn’t do it, it would also be so noticeable. So you’ve gotta roll up your sleeves and just do it.

When I showed you around the basement  you may have noticed that there were a lot of doors. Here’s two closets and a door in just one photo. Just to the left of the mirror (that you can just see on the left of the photo) is another door for another cold storage.

 

There’s also the bathroom door. And there’s a door that I don’t think I’ve shared a photo of that leads to another room in the house – our storage/furnace room.

And guess what? All those doors and all the trim around the room are painted cream.

And did I mention the stairs?

I really just wanted to get to the painting of the walls part because that’s the most rewarding. The change is so much more noticeable. But before I could get to any of the painting at all, I noticed that the trim around our stairs was looking a little worse for wear.

The caulking was separating from the walls, so before I could get to the not-awesome part of painting the trim, I had to get to the even less awesome part. Prepping. I used a combination of utility knife and scraper and it did a pretty good job. Working by myself it took me an hour to do both sides of the staircase including clean up.

And that’s about as far as I’ve gotten, but I’m making progress bit by bit. I did learn a nifty little trick while removing the silicone, though.

Once the scraper and knife had worked their magic, the moulding around the stairs was still looking a little worse for wear.

I read that using rubbing alcohol will help get the little leftover bits off and…

it worked like a charm! I just used a little rubbing alcohol on a paper towel and some light pressure. So now you know.

I hope that didn’t put you to sleep.(Courtney are you there?)  I think there was a little redemption there with the tip at the end. Hope it helps keep you around until tomorrow. I’m a master of suspense!

 

Diamonds in the Rug

Does that title remind you of “Royals”? I love that song, but dang it gets stuck in my head all.the.time!

While Roland was away “on business” last week I picked up a rug at HomeSense. Actually, I picked up four rugs and brought them home and hemmed and hawed over which would be the lucky one that got to stay in my kitchen.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I hit the rug jackpot at my local HomeSense. Apparently the store just five minutes from my house has a great rug selection. Way better than the one across town. Score!

After I layed them all out, it was a close call, but after consulting with hubby by text (isn’t technology great?) we decided on this diamond pattern one.

It’s just the right size for the space. A little softness under foot when I’m at the sink, a nice pop of colour and pattern. Not to mention a place to catch the drips between the sink and the dishwasher. Love it!

The kitchen chronicles continue…

The twins have arrived

And in fact, you can even snuggle with these twins, but they’re not of the baby variety. But that doesn’t make me want to hug and kiss them and coo over them any less. Is that weird?

Back in mid-July I ordered a pair of chairs on Joss & Main.

When I first saw them I liked the look of them, and to my surprise, Roland agreed. We do our best not to bring anything into the house that the other doesn’t completely agree on so I was so glad that he liked the chairs too. So, with his “ok”, I googled around to see if I could find them anywhere else  to find out if the price was good, better or best and, if possible, to read some reviews.

I was able to find the chairs on Overstock and Amazon, and the reviews were positive overall, so from there we were go for ordering.

I had them shipped to my mom and she visited on the weekend and was kind enough to deliver the twins.

I love how they look in the room. They add some much-needed seating, and look great with our sofa. They are tailored and comfy and just the right size for the space.

And the best part was how much of a deal they were. We paid $350 for both chairs including tax! That’s less than today’s Overstock price for just one chair! I couldn’t pass up this steal, and I’m so glad I didn’t.

The room is really starting to come together now. I’d like to add some side tables, and maybe a lamp for reading in the chair on the left. I also need to figure out some toy storage (see bottom left corner of the first photo – that’s a cardboard box holding toys). We need more “stuff” on the walls, too. But for now I’m just glad we don’t have to all stuff into the couch when we have company over.

Harrison’s Big Boy Room (So Far)

Here it is. The progress I’ve made so far on Harrison’s big boy room. There’s still lots of projects I want to complete before I’ll call it finished, but for now, I’m loving it. Harrison loves it too. I’ll show you the video of our HGTV-style room reveal tomorrow.