Seen + Scenes

It's a long weekend here so I am still in relax mode. The past week has been a busy one so I thought I'd share some of life lately via photos from my iPhone...

We worked a bit more on Chloe's bedroom. HandyMan made a 3D model (his idea of fun!) and we spent a good hour at the dining room table Saturday night trying to figure out how to actually build the thing. If you've ever built cabinetry or millwork, you'll know a lot of the work goes into the sequencing and figuring out which pieces to build and affix first, what screws or glues into what, and the most efficient dimensions to prevent wastage. We're trying to build the thing out of scraps of plywood and MDF left over from the basement renovation so that's adding another layer of complexity. 

After almost eight years of renovating together, I've come to realize that our most heated discussions happen at this stage of the process. It all works out in the end though :)

Chloe has had a fun couple of days. She and I took a trip to Ikea where she was finally tall enough to go into the Ikea playland. If that wasn't enough excitement, we took home this cardboard lemonade stand (only $12!) with us. You know we have a thing for cardboard around here.

West Elm had their summer preview for media. I love their products and was so inspired by their store displays. This giant pegboard was so awesome. How cool would it be to have that in a mudroom or home office? We have one wall in the garage covered in pegboard and it is super functional. The paper bougainvillea display was another great DIY. I like how the 2x4 wood rustic frame holding the paper flowers worked with the wood tones of the lamps and coffee table.



We had the basement bathroom wallpapered the same time as Chloe's bedroom. I've been debating what to use in there and I finally went with one my long-standing loves... Coronata Star from Osborne & Little. It looks even better than I hoped! The black is the perfect contrast to the crisp white wainscot. It feels all a bit modern country with the hooks and label holders.

And no, I haven't given you a tour of the finished basement bathroom. Its not quite finished because I didn't want to decide on a window covering until I decided on the wallpaper so that is still up in the air. We also wanted frameless glass for the shower but the quotes came back at $1000+ for a 2'x6' pane of glass!! That is so not in the budget right now so you can guess who just bought a new shower curtain ;)

Anything new on your home front?

The Love List

Serena's gorgeous farmhouse kitchen is almost done.

Videos not made for kids that the kids should see. I like the one about Oliver Jeffers and Chloe was fascinated by the one about balance.

A fascinating history of typography.

Free vintage posters, just the thing to brighten up that bare wall.

I bought this and its my new favourite outfit. I love one piece dressing.

The sweetest little nursery.

The most brilliant kitchen sink drawer.

I saw this bench at the West Elm summer preview. I think it would look so cute at the foot of Chloe's new bed.

This is my favourite part of Holly's latest house flip.

A Little Girl's Room {In Progress}

Hopefully, that's what we'll have soon enough. We finally had the wallpaper installed in Chloe's bedroom and I love love love love it! I've been crushing on this Nina Campbell Swan Lake wallpaper for a long time but I didn't want to use it unless Chloe loved it as much as I did. Luckily, the girl shares mama's taste and picked it out of a pile of 20 wallpaper samples. That's my girl!

I really love this colourway. The trees and swans are a pale silver, their shimmery quality only visible when you see the wallpaper from an angle and light hits it.

We've paired the wallpaper with a light aqua paint on the other three walls. We had the paint from our bathroom colour matched and then made it 25% lighter so this is a custom colour. Depending on how the light hits, it can look more blue or a bit more green.

So a few things have to happen in this room. First, we need to deal with the radiator situation. As you know, HandyMan is pretty handy at building lovely little rad covers around our house (like this one and this one). Since this is a very small room (only 8'x11') we want to maximize use of the space. This is one of our ideas:

Just like in the nursery, we could build a small bench seat over the radiator. A narrow bookcase could fill in the space to the left of the window. To match the style of the bed, we would add turned feet to the bench. You'll notice that we "cheat" the space: the radiator cover extends further to the left than the actual radiator so we don't have to deal with building around the shutoff valve and it stops short on the right so we can fit in a post (to both hold in the bench cushion and to give the bench a finished look).

But this is just one idea. We'll probably come up with three or four more before we settle on a final solution! As for the rest of the room, I'm thinking it will look a little like this:

Chandelier | Pink polka dot sheets | Scallop drapery fabric | Thrifted paintings

Floral duvet | Geometric pillows | Rug

Chloe wants pink in the room so hopefully she'll be happy with the pops here and there. The mattress arrives tomorrow (we had the best sales experience ever at Sleep Country on Bayview Ave.) and hopefully we can get the rest done over the long weekend!