Basement Renovation

Our blog has been neglected for quite awhile – trying to get back into it as it’s been a great resource for us for re-finding favourite recipes. It’s also a fun outlet for various home projects, and I just found this draft for a blog I wrote a year ago but never published. Our basement renovation, for anyone who may be interested.

New Art for our Living Room!

We’ve talked a little bit in the past about our home decor and the desire to change some of it around. Today we took the plunge and purchased a new big piece for above our mantle/faux fireplace. Check it out:

Our newest addition

We’re really happy with it. A nice big and relaxing piece that ties a lot of the colours together.

Also take note of the new little Iniut man brought home by Adam’s parents from Alaska. He fits in so well!

Summer Walks: West Queen West to Queen West

Victoria Day 2009 Walk

Not such a lengthy walk today, a little over 5kms total (2.5kms each way), but a productive one. We didn’t have a whole lot of time to devote to walking, but it had been awhile since we’d made it to Queen West – so we drove down and parked just outside the Drake Hotel at Queen West and Beaconsfield and walked down to Spadina and back. A few highlights:

• We stopped into Urban Barn and picked up an awesome decorative accent piece: A bright orange and very happy Buddha. I’ve always been a bit on the fence about Buddha knick-knacks for decor… but… I can’t look at this guy and not smile. He’s so happy!


Look at that smile!

• We grabbed a bite to eat at The Dog’s Bollocks, primarily because the name is pretty awesome. A really nice solid pub meal with great service – Adam had a burger which he seemed pretty wowed by, and I had a simple grilled cheese. A nice relaxing and yummy break from our walk.
• That’s… about it. I guess it wasn’t so productive. But it was a pretty awesome couple of hours.

Weekend Project: Painting our Sideboard!

We were extremely lucky to get all sorts of hand-me-down furniture when we bought our house. Our entire basement is furnished with pieces from Adam’s parents: a couch and loveseat, coffee table and end table, and an entertainment unit – not to mention the surround sound speaker system and a 32″ TV. On the main level we have a beautiful table and chairs (seats 6 to 10 depending on number of leaves) that is perfect for our many dinner parities from Adam’s aunt & uncle, and a sideboard to store our fine china and other dining room necessities from Adam’s parents. We’d have a pretty empty house (or empty wallets) if it weren’t for their generousity.

That said, hand-me-down furniture sometimes means you get pieces that don’t quite suit your tastes or the look you’re going for in a room. Our basement couches were an easy fix: we covered them up with nice solid brown slip covers which better goes with our blue walls. The sideboard has been a project on our “to do” list for ages… we just weren’t quite sure what we wanted to do. It’s a really great piece – very well made and great quality wood. But it was a very dark piece: 

The "before" picture. Missing one door.

And we always felt like it made the whole room feel a bit dark as a result. We knew we wanted it to look different, but went back and forth on what exactly we wanted to do.

Months ago (I’m talking probably January) we decided that we needed to book a weekend to just do it. We’d have to have decisions made by then and book the time to do it. That was this weekend. We decided the easiest thing to do was to just paint the whole thing. Last week we spent a bit of time at Lowe’s looking at paint samples and talking to the people in the paint department. We brought a door for them to see and got advice. Luckily all we needed to do was paint the whole thing with a multi-purpose primer to start… we were worried we were going to have to sand the whole thing down.

We painted it a nice olive-toned green. It turned out a bit lighter than I’d expected (I guess the glossy paint makes it appear a bit lighter), but I like! It really brightens up the room:

 

The "after" photo. It's still missing handles for the drawers - we bought the wrong size. I'll replace it with an updated photo as soon as those get added.

The room really has a much brighter and more colourful feel now.

Now to find a few accessory pieces and a rug for the living room, and I dare say the main level of our house is “done.”

Framing Fabric, Part 2

It’s been nearly a month since we framed some fabric in our dining room. While we really liked the fabric I bought, I didn’t want all four pieces to be the same thing… a bit blah. Today, Adam and I stopped off at Fabricland together and got something that we thought would compliment the purple flowery fabric nicely. So we ended up with a green flowery pattern – we like!

Check it out:

Our new dining room art!

It’s quite bright, but I think it works.

Next, a new rug. We looked at many today – but didn’t pick yet. Give us another week or so (or month, knowing us) and maybe we’ll make up our minds…

Framing Fabric

Remember our dining room art?

Dining room art

Pretty blah. We’ve been thinking for awhile about getting a piece of cool fabric and framing it as a cheap way to bring some colour and life to the main area of our house.

Today I stopped at Fabricland and picked up a meter of a really nice flowery purple fabric. It was more of a task than I expected getting into the frame, but I love it!

Fabric! In a frame!

It’s pretty girly, but I think Adam will forgive me. I don’t know yet if we’ll fill all four with the same fabric. I think that will be a bit much… so we may go back in the next day or two to find some complimentary fabrics. Yay for small changes!

Inside Number 71: The Mantle

We’ve been in this house just over two years, and are starting to feel like we’re outgrowing a few of the decorative choices we made when living in our shoebox apartment. We’ve been making little changes here and there that we’re pretty happy about, but are always on the lookout for more ways to make our home feel more “us”.

Our biggest concern of late is that the main level of our house is a bit too… dull. It needs more colour. More life! We have fairly beige walls, with a sage green couch and chair, and a number of brown accents – including a lot of wood.

The biggest piece of art we have is a large square canvas that lives above the mantle. And while I still like it a lot – I’m not thrilled with the colour pallet of browns and beiges. We’ve been on the lookout for something new for awhile, but nothing has really hit us yet. It doesn’t help that we’re not too keen on spending a lot of money – and it’s a fairly large piece.

Anyway, all of that said – we made one (very minor) change today that I think I’m happy with:

Before

After

Yeah – the change is very subtle. A new vase and a small bird-shaped candle holder. A good change? I hope so.

Besides changing the large piece above the mantle, we also want to swap out the artwork in the dining room:

 

Dining room art

Nothing wrong with them, it’s just time for a change!