So, I have this little vignette in the front room of our home.  The room is alternately referred to as our living room and our music room.  The music part you would understand if I showed a photo facing left.  More instruments than family members, years worth of music books and sheets per instrument, and teaching paraphernalia.  And truthfully, since we are not formal people, this space rarely gets used as a formal living room.  And the music part quickly migrates across.  Nevertheless I work with what I’ve got.

This is what I’ve got:   a child sized table and chairs which doubles as a music teaching/music homework spot and a pseudo coffee table.  It has sentimental value since it came from Husband’s childhood home.  It has the name of one of his Siblings childishly markered on the underside.  Hmmm.  Hope you didn’t want it back Annie H.

This is what the table looked like before…

…quite unacceptable as a pseudo coffee table.  I have debated for too long what to do about it.  Restain?  Paint?  Replace?It needed to be tidied up at the very least. 

You can see in the first photo that the chair situation has already been addressed.  So while there was a lull in the basement renovation (can you see the flesh-coloured linoleum flooring?  Oh man I can’t wait to reveal the After of this space!)  I lugged the child-sized table…it weighs a tonne…they don’t make them like they used to…downstairs.

This is what I found in our storage room to use for my little makeover.

The primer seemed like it would be perfect.  Since there were marker stains, even burn marks, to cover.  And it worked great.  But turned out I wrecked the paintbrush.  Oops.  So don’t use this kind unless your paintbrush is disposable!

The chalkboard paint I had bought a while ago for another project that I never did.  Oops.  But see, I’m using it now.  Read the instructions carefully because you have to wait many hours and then cover the surface with chalk and then brush it off, and not wash it for many days after that.  Here’s the finished product.  Perfectly acceptable (and practical) for a not formal living room doubling as a music room. 

I mentioned that the chairs had already been fixed up.  When the Personally Teens were in Junior High they did them as an art project at school. 

Personally Teen’s project was done as a Bateman.  Miss Personally’s as a Monet.  And mine as a Chalkboard.  Tidied up quite nicely.

Thanks for visiting.

xo andrea

Family Valentine’s Day: Table Decor

What a fun occasion to celebrate as a family.  Ever since we have all been able to sit at the table in a civilized manner…wait…actually maybe we’re not quite there yet.  Ever since I have hoped we could all sit at the table in a civilized manner, we have been celebrating Valentine’s Day with a festive family dinner.  Decorations, dessert, the works.  Not fancy necessarily.  Just festive.  A theme is usually helpful to simplify things but still have it pulled together.  My usual…red.

Snow Day

OK friends.  It’s time to get back to my little project of documenting some iconic winter moments. 

This weekend Mother Nature sent us the most enormous snowfall of the season so far.  In fact the most enormous in a couple of years.  Thanks so much.  By the end of two days there was a thirty centimetre plus accumulation.  No school buses.  No school.  So with all Family Members dispatched to begin the monumental task of clearing snow I headed out with my camera in hand.
 

Here we are in the backyard at about mid-snowstorm.  I was hoping to get a beautiful photograph of individual pretty snowflakes.  I even googled to get some tips and ideas.  I should have started out by building a little hut for myself a la ice-fishing.   It seemed  it was going to take the same amount of patience.  And frostbite.  After a foggy lens, frozen fingertips and no success I move to Plan B.

Inside.

This is the way to enjoy a snowstorm.  From inside.  Looking out through the window.  Now I’m not convinced there really were any very pretty snowflakes anyway.  But this was cool how they clumped together in these shapes against the windowpane.

Here they are piling up from below…

…and piling down from above.

A lotta snow.  Out there.

Pink Lipstick

Well, girlfriends.  Doesn’t this look glam?  I agree.  And I have been feeling very glam carrying this around in my makeup bag for the past several weeks.  Full disclosure…I got this for Christmas.  From Little Sister who is the ultimate put-together fit working-mom-on-the-go.  But pink!  I don’t even know if I own a pink article of clothing.  There’s certainly nothing pink in the home decor around here.  And me, I’m a tinted chapstick, sheer lipgloss kind of girl. So this was a bit out there for me. Well.  Little Sister informs me that I need to start sporting a bold lip.  From halfway across the country may I add, so not like she’s here to help me. 

 

So I pop the glam little tube into my make-up bag and carry it around for weeks, all the while sporting my tinted chapstick sheer lipgloss look.  Well the day finally came when there had been one too many flu bugs, too little sunshine, one too many late nights studying with the Teenagers for exams.  Out came the little tube.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Miraculous!  It erased a whole season of sickness, lack of sunshine, high school in a single swipe.  Maybe all of you are already believers.  But I am hereby a convert to pink lipstick.  Little Sister is a genius and I thank her for broadening my horizons.  Look out world, I am sporting a bold lip.

Now you will notice there is second tube.  Oh yeah.  And guess what.  It’s not pink.  No.  Berry.  Berry!

 I feel very glam carrying it around in my make-up bag.

Tulips in Winter

Wow.  I am so ready for a sunny jolt of bright-coloured life right about now.  Mother Nature has been alternating between gray drab dreary-ness and blistering icy freezing-ness.  Take your pick.  So when I popped into the grocery store and a huge display with buckets of tulips stood right inside the entrance….  Well, to say they were calling my name would be an understatement.  Rays of warm sunny-ness for four bucks.  Three bundles for ten.  Sold.  My favourites are always the ones with a hint of variegation.

These yellow ones with a tinge of dark orange at the edges of the petals were the winners.

Once home I employed two little tricks I’ve learned to get the most longevity out of cut tulips:

The first is to to trim the bottom bit from each stem.  And you might notice the bottom of the stem was split open a bit.  So you want to cut a new slit into the end of each stem like so.  This I learned from Steven Sabados on the TV show Steven and Chris.  Have loved that guy ever since he started out on Cityline back in the day.  He’s a smart one with good taste and do-able design projects.  

But I digress.  I think the idea behind this trick is to help the stem soak up as much water as it can and keep the bloom fresh.

You know how cut tulips can quickly droop right over as soon as you get them arranged in your vase?  The second trick is to drop some tarnished pennies into the bottom of your vase.  It helps to keep the stems straight for a longer time.  Don’t remember where I picked up this little tip.  But it works.  And when it’s time to pitch out the flowers, you’ll be left with some super-shiny pennies!  I’m sure it’s very scientific.  Sometimes the drooped over flowers can be artsy looking.  Sometimes it just looks sad though, when all you wanted was some fresh flowers on the kitchen counter. 

Which is what I have now…some rays of sunny freshness.  For a few dollars. From the local grocery store. To get me through the next little while of alternating dreary-ness and freezing-ness.

Why don’t you get some too?

Snow-Covered Branches

We had the prettiest snowfall the other night.  This is what we woke up to in the morning…gorgeous winter sunlight reflecting off freshly fallen snow.  But oh my gosh was it freezing.  I did head out with my camera to brave the elements and try to capture another one of my winter “moments”.  This was taken right outside our front door.  Proof that there can be beauty in the ‘burbs. 

Then I hopped in the car and headed to a local conservation area.  Did I mention that oh my gosh was it freezing?  I lasted about twenty minutes before my fingers could hardly manipulate the camera anymore.  But it was enough time to capture that pretty combination of bright sun and fresh snow.

I have no idea what this thing is.  But I loved the contrast of the bright red against the bleaker colours of winter weather.  Also in this shot you can kind of see how the wind was blowing and swirling the snow up from the ground and down from the trees.  You know the feeling of ice pellets being whipped against exposed skin?  Yeah.

One last shot.  Nothing snow-covered but this is my favourite one from that little outing.  It did capture the gorgeous winter light.  So there you are.  Some pretty pictures to brighten up your day. 

Are we enjoying winter yet?

Entryway Organization

Well it’s January, the house is de-Christmased, and I am in the mood to organize.  One of my favourite things in life.  Some members of The Family who shall remain nameless would say I am Obsessed.  I prefer Passionate.  But seriously the best present I ever EVER got was my label-maker.  Love that thing.  I would take it with me if I was stranded on a deserted island.  But I digress.

The entryway.  So the organizers/decorators of the world…myself among them…tell us that a tidy, well-functioning entryway should have a shelf/console table/cabinet…some surface on which to tidily drop our keys/sunglasses/mail/etc as we come in the door.  So once upon a time Yours Truly set ours up with not one but two of the above.  One for the mail with also a lamp, mirror above, vase of flowers.  All organizer/decorator approved.  And one for all the other stuff.  Hmmm.  It soon became apparent that this system would be excellent for a household of one or two, but not Five plus A Dog.  A New Year’s resolution was in order to remedy this situation.  I spare you the Before photo of random receipts/keys/reward cards/sunglasses/charging cables/pens/keys/dog treats piled on the shelf by our front door.

Plan B:  Five of these stainless mesh baskets from Solutions.  A most excellent store.  A portrait of each member of the family converted to black and white for a fun contemporary way to identify each basket.  An alligator clip to attach each photo.  The observant among you will notice the clips are different colours.  Yes each family member’s belongings and schedules have their own colour.  Passionate.  Not Obsessed.

So here we have the end result.  Personal and funky and functional.  Notice that the five baskets fit perfectly along the length of the shelf.  Thank you very much.  Enough space for everyone to keep their own stuff tidy and accessible.  No The Dog does not get her own bin.  I draw the line.  Her stuff stays hidden in the closet.  And the closet is deserving of a New Year’s resolution of its own…another day.

It remains to be seen whether this system will stand the test of time but I have high hopes. 

New Year’s resolution #1…check.