Rambling Renovators: December 2009

Mini Chair Makeover

Remember this little chair we found at a garage sale this summer? Well, I wasn't entirely satisfied with my initial fabric schemes so we went and picked some new fabric for it at Designer Fabrics. I wanted something feminine but not too girly, something sophisticated enough to complement the design of the chair, but not too adult. Here's what I picked!

The nubby plaid will go on the front, seat, and arms of the chair. The stripe will go on the back.

Oh, how I love these together! They remind me of summer and sunshine and lemonade and picnics! Preppy and pretty :)

And I think I will paint the wood the robin's egg blue I was contemplating before. Now if I could just get this baby to nap (and stop trying to climb the furniture and stop wanting to be held by mommy all.the.time), then I'd actually have time to redo the chair ;)

Bedside Table Talk

I've been on the hunt for a pair of bedside tables for a few months now for our master bedroom remodel. Luckily, a trip to our favourite hotel liquidator proved fruitful and we came across these:

They're solid cherry and in great condition. Seems a shame to paint them, but paint them we will. The style reminds me of these refinished pieces:

(Images from Little Green Notebook)

I'm thinking the room will be painted white and will paint these in the accent colour, whatever that is. Canary yellow? Leaf green? Robin's egg blue? What colour do you think I should paint them?

Windsor Smith

If money were no object, which designer would you hire to build your dream house? I have a few names in mind and one of those is Windsor Smith. Her style is a mix of traditional + feminine in just the right doses. Here's pics of her house from the September 2009 House Beautiful issue:

I love how she mixes pattern and colour and shapes. And what a sense of fun she has - did you see that black painted games room with the polar bear art? There is so much to look at in these rooms. They're very layered and interesting. I think these looks will last a long time... there's always something new to catch your eye!

If you'd like to live in a house like this, well here's your chance! This house is currently on the market for a cool $7.995 million. Uhm, thanks, I think I'll pass ;) Though I would love to walk into this entryway...

And snooze in this bed. *Sigh*.

Holiday Randoms II

HandyMan is still off on holidays next week and over that time we hope to do a bit more visiting with friends and family. I wouldn't want to come empty handed so I made up these little jars of Cinnamon Honey Butter using a recipe I saw on Darby's blog.

She had a great idea to dress up the jars with fabric and tags, so I did that too. I used leftover Ikea fabric from our kitchen blind and made the tag in photoshop. What is it about the holidays that makes one want to bake and cook and whip up little goodies in the kitchen?

Recipe Source: allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions:
In a medium bowl, combine butter, confectioners' sugar, honey, and cinnamon. Beat until light and fluffy.

Makes 3 - 4oz jars.

Holiday Randoms I

Saw this modern gingerbread house online:

And was reminded of this house:

That's the card box HandyMan and I created for our wedding. :)

Yo Homies!

I hope you are all enjoying the holidays. Its this the comfiest time of year? When you sit at home stuffed with too much turkey, mashed potatoes, and gingerbread cookies, wearing cozy pajamas, and watching Its a Wonderful Life for the 14th time? Perfect time to curl up on the sofa and enjoy some new blog reads, I think.

Apartment Therapy is holding The Homies 2009 awards for the best in home design blogs. Its a fantastic chance to discover blogs old and new and vote for your favourites. Some of my favourites like Little Green Notebook, Urban Grace, and Making It Lovely are doing well and getting the recognition they deserve. Rambling Renovators is on the list too (thanks to those who've voted for us!) and if you'd like to vote for us, you can do that here.

I'd like to thank you all for visiting us here at Rambling Renovators over the past two years. We appreciate you dropping by, leaving comments, offering suggestions and sources, and taking an interest in what's going on at our house. We hope to do a bit more renovating and DIY-ing and family adventuring in the new year and entertain you with a lot more posts in 2010!

xoxo,
Wanderluster, Handyman, and Chloe

From Our House To Yours...

Photos by me. Card by Tiny Prints.

Christmas Decor

I've managed to decorate a few more spaces in our home for the holidays. Good thing, with Christmas only 3 days away! Don't the days just seem to fly by at this time of year?

We moved things around in the living room to make space for the tree. Our Ikea sideboard ended up against a blank wall so I decided to make a little green, brown, and white woodland scene atop it. The little topiaries and reindeer were from President's Choice, the silver santa from Pottery Barn 10 years ago, and the owl from the William Ashley annual sale.

The branch candleholder was from HomeSense and looks very "West Elm-ish" don't you think? I filled out the gaps with pinecones, plastic crystal baubles, and some leftover brown ornaments. I dressed up a spare wreath with some green and brown ribbon and hung it on the wall. Putting the nail in the wall to hang the wreath was strangely satisfying. We haven't touched the living room since we moved in two years ago (that's the original wallpaper you see in the pic. Yuck.) so it felt good to hang the wreath and inject a bit of our personality into the space. How sad that sounds, lol!

And here's the tree. Its pretty neutral with splashes of green and blue. The tree is a 6.5' Nordman Fir which has a lovely light green colour and full branches. I always make the mistake of not putting enough lights on, so this year I strung about 800 of them on there!

I'm not entirely happy with the tree; its a work in progress. I like ribbon on a Christmas tree - but when I try putting it on, it ends up looking like a saggy crinkled mess... so we'll go without that this year. And I'd like a new tree topper and have yet to find that perfect tree skirt so we'll go without that too. I figure I'll be using the same decorations for at least the next decade so I have some time to get the tree just right ;)

And here is my favourite ornament! I wanted something to commemorate Chloe's first Christmas, and etsy seller SeptemberHouse came up with the perfect design. I sent her a photo of Chloe's polka dot red dress as inspiration (a dress I fell in love with and bought when I was seven months pregnant and didn't know if I was having a girl or a boy but felt like I was having a girl and anyway I had three months to return the dress if it turned out to be a boy, ha!) Its so cute. I love the little button closure with the red thread.

Its amazing how Christmas has taken on a different meaning now that we have a child. I've put a bit more effort into decorating and picking out special gifts, Chloe and I will be baking some treats tomorrow, and I'll be telling her stories about Jesus and Santa and the significance of the season. I can't tell you how lucky I feel to see Christmas again through the eyes of a child.

Doing the Can Can

Time to pick up 76 food items for the 76 comments left on my blog. Get the baby to choose some things (hence, an abundance of apple and mango purees!).

Everything picked out. Let's go drop them off!

Head to the neighbourhood fire station. They'll bring the donations to the Daily Bread food bank.

Yay, that was fun. Thanks for supporting my Cans For Comments drive!

A Handy Vac

A few weeks ago, the folks at Black & Decker invited me to join their New Product Team. They offered to send me over their new FLEX vacuum to try - and with an almost-crawling 8 month old in the house, how could I say no?

The FLEX is an ultra-compact cordless vacuum, more powerful than a dustbuster, and as versatile as a full-size vacuum. It came with a bunch of attachments - a brush tool, a long crevice tool, and a pet hair cleaning tool. Its as compact as it claims to be and has a nice stylish design. Here's my lovely assistant showing you how compact it is:

The attachments can sit in the base. I thought this was handy because you could bring the attachments with you, which makes it easy to switch and vacuum carpets or couches or corners or whatever you need to. The parts are there when you need them and they don't get lost. I also like parts that are detachable and not built-in. I have a Dirt Devil Vibe hand vacuum with a slide-out brush tool and I find it doesn't lock properly and always gets in the way and clogged up with debris.

Surprisingly, the FLEX weighs much lighter than my other hand vac. I thought because of the more powerful suction and the bigger size of it that it would be heavier but its not. The long flexible hose is a great feature. It makes it really easy to get into corners and under couches! I did have a small issue the first time I used the vacuum though... I charged it the recommended 21 hours and then tried to use it to vacuum the stairs - but the charge wore out about 2/3 down the flight of stairs. So I recharged it again for a few more hours and that seemed improve the charge time. (Note: I checked the instructions and it said you may have to charge/discharge up to 5x to get optimum charge time).

I did a little cleanup with the FLEX. It picked up some dirt under the sofa. It scooped up some crumbs under the sofa cushions. It sucked up the leaves that had blown in under the radiator in our front entry. It even picked up some tree needles and the tiny little glitter bits that had fallen off some of our Christmas ornaments (and we all know what a pain that is to clean up!).

Overall I found the FLEX easier to use, more powerful, and quicker than my Vibe hand vac. I wish I hadn't bought my Vibe hand vac just two months ago, because this FLEX does the same job but better. The FLEX is great to have when you don't want to haul out your full size vacuum, or for a quick cleanup. If you'd like a FLEX of your own, you can buy it online here. AND Black & Decker will give my readers a free Power Brush Attachment (great for carpeted stairs or small mess on rugs or carpets) and free Power Scrubber with your purchase - just enter code FLX461 at checkout. Happy vacuuming.

UPDATE: A kind reader informed that unfortunately the online purchase option is only available to U.S. residents. So sorry about that! I'll be in contact with Black & Decker and find out where you can buy the FLEX in Canada.

A Vintage Christmas

There were so many treasures we unearthed when we moved Mama HandyLuster out of her old house this summer. Many of them still sit in boxes in our basement - great art books waiting to be displayed on bookcases, a huge set of Le Creuset cookware (waiting for me to become a better cook so I'll know how to use them), little crocheted sweaters that Chloe will get to use once winter really hits - but there was one special box I couldn't wait to open up.

I scooped up these old Christmas ornaments from a big box of decorations Mama had. When I first saw them, I knew they'd add the perfect colourful and childlike element to our tree so I packed them in a box. Unfortunately, HandyMan didn't quite have the same sentiment and accidentally gave them to the Goodwill when he was cleaning out the garage this summer! When he told me, my pregnancy-feuled emotions at the time went into overdrive and I was wailing about how our unborn baby would no longer have this piece of HandyMan's history and how he just had had had to get them back to me! Trouper that he is, HandyMan went back to the Goodwill and scoured through the musty dusty bins to find the little guys. Now that's love ;)

They're a little worse for wear, some missing arms and legs, hoofs broken off, trees fallen, but nothing some glue couldn't fix. I knew just the place to use them. I wanted to add some holiday colour to our hallway and recycled this idea from last year. Picking up on the candy stripe theme of our front door wreath, I switched out the green globes with candy cane ones I picked up at Ikea last year. The vintage ornaments were the perfect final touch. Sugary sweet! There's something about having a child in the house now that makes me want to add bits of colour and whimsy here and there.

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Thank you all for your comments... final tally for my Cans For Comments drive is 76 comments so I will be donating 76 non-perishable items to the Daily Bread food bank!! Way to go!

Tree Hunting

We took Chloe hunting for her very first Christmas tree recently. And when I say hunting, I mean we headed to Sheridan Nurseries and picked one out of the 100 or so lovely trees they had strung up to the rafters. I was so excited about the whole thing... for Chloe to look in awe at the giant trees and touch their prickly needles, to see all the decorations and pots of pointsettias, to smell the evergreen boughs. I would imagine that Christmastime for our baby is just as much fun as it is for us adults. There are so many new things to experience!

For me, some of my fondest childhood memories are of the holidays. I remember all the prep and cooking and cleaning for big family parties. How we would go visit my cousins on Christmas eve and come home to find Santa's gifts beneath the tree. And the traditions... leaving cookies and milk out for Santa... singing Christmas carols... taking an annual picture beside our tree. I appreciate now how much effort my parents put into creating that Christmas magic for us four kids, and I want to do the same for my own child. I would love to create some new traditions for our little family. Do share... what are your favourite holiday traditions?

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One more day folks to help out my Cans for Comments drive! For every comment left on any of my posts from Dec 6-11, I'll be donating a non-perishable food item to the Daily Bread food bank. We're up to 66 items, yay!!