Rambling Renovators: January 2010

Lucky Girl!

I'm not the lucky girl in question, though I wish I was! Do you remember where I posted about this casting call for Sarah Richardson's new show, Sarah 101? Well, one of my dear readers read the post and applied for the show - and lo and behold she was selected!! So not only will this reader and her hubby have their dining room made over and get $10,000 worth of labour, fixtures, and furnishings, but she will get to hobnob with my absolute favourite designer & her sidekick Tommy.

Seriously, I'm so happy (and a tiny bit envious) of your good fortune. Maybe if I'm nice, dear reader will let me stand in the bushes outside and stalk the TV shoot ;)

Reader's Question: Laurie's Bathrooms

Laurie, a reader in Ottawa, wrote to me seeking some design help. Here's her note:

We are in the process of completely renovating the second floor of our 5-year-old home. It's nothing fancy, fairly cookie cutter, but we did do some upgrades. The area I need help with is our bathroom mirrors/lighting. Do you have any a) good lighting/mirror suggestions and b) good stores to find possible solutions.

Bathroom A will be a kids bathroom once we start a family. It has white cabinets, white counter tops, white tub...lots of white with blue ceramic floors (almost looks like a sky) and funky blue and green accent tiles. We're painting the walls blue. We have one long vanity with double sinks so i was thinking of two white framed mirrors. Right now we have the standard HUGE builder mirror with the "hollywood lights"

Bathroom B is the spare room ensuite. Very similar to Bathroom A, but in greens. The walls will be a light green. I was also thinking of a basic white framed mirror in here too - or possibly something in silver, but our fixtures are in brushed nickel.

Finally, our master ensuite. This room has a bit more of an "earthy" feel and i'm going with a darker colour on the walls (SICO 6117-52 Rubens Autumn (walls) and 6117-21 Flemish Taupe (ceiling)) This is where i'm REALLY stumped. Our tiles are a light beige but i'd say more to a "peachy" tone as opposed to a "browny" tone. We were thinking of dark chocolate mirrors, but not sure this would go.

Let's take a look first at Bathroom A, the future kids bathroom:

To keep with the beachy look of the bathroom, white framed mirrors are definitely the way to go. But no need to get rid of the huge builder's mirror - simply frame over it! Check out how to do it on this great post over at Our Suburban Cottage. I would use the same size of 1x4 pieces of wood. This is a nice substantial width which will make your huge mirror seem less huge. Above the mirror, go for a simple contemporary light with a bit of a nautical feel like this one from Canadian Tire. The rounded shades work well with the round curves of the wall accent tiles, don't you think?

Another option is to go with individual oval mirrors centred over each sink, like these pivoting ones from Home Depot. However, since kids love to look at themselves in the mirror, I personally would prefer the large single mirror.

Onto the spare room ensuite:

Now this bathroom is a bit more problematic because of what looks to be an off-center sink. Usually, you could put a mirror centred above the sink but in this case that would leave a gap over the bank of drawers. For that reason, I would stick with a single large mirror like you have now. You could do a white framed mirror or one in a brushed silver frame. It could be more decorative since this is the ensuite in your spare/guest room. A great source for decorative mirrors with interesting frames is HomeSense.

And finally, the master ensuite:

Since this is the master bathroom, I'd go a bit more glamourous with it. This mirror from Pier1 would look great and add a bit of sparkle. Overhead, you could go with a light in a brushed nickel finish (to match your fixtures), though you could also do something in more of a bronze finish like this light from Home Depot, which works with the earthy brown paint tones.

You mentioned that you did like the "backlit mirror" look too though. If you're handy, here's a great DIY tutorial from Cityline on how to build your own! Hope these suggestions help, Laurie!

Have a your own decorating question? Drop me a line at ramblingrenovators@gmail.com

Good Ideas

Sorry for the lack of posts around here. It was a busy week. HandyMan and I were preparing for our PechaKucha at the Interior Design Show. I'm happy to report it was a great success (though one presenter had a bit of a 'colourful' vocabulary so we may have to institute a 3 second time delay with next year's event!).

The theme was "Good Ideas" and we had a fantastic and diverse group of presenters including, him, him, and her. He was our Master of Ceremonies. What they had to say was truly inspiring and I love hearing folks talk passionately about what they do! I can't wait until the next event.

Work continues on the bedroom. Drywall is up (yay!) but nothing much else post-worthy, so I'll leave you with pics of good ideas I like. Click the text to see image source.

Sliding barn doors

Patterned Kitchen Floors

Banquette seats and bistro tables

A collection of vintage prints

Daybeds in the living room

Beadboard ceilings

What are some good ideas that you love?

Master Bedroom: Let There Be Light

Last we left the room, boxes for sconces had been put in on either side of the bed. At the same time, we had some potlights put in, one in front of the closet, another over my vanity, and two to highlight the panelled wall. A bit of lighting overkill perhaps (especially when you consider there is also a center ceiling light) but HandyMan has been hankering for potlights since the dining room reno (which I vetoed). So, I picked my battles and that's how we're left with mondo illumination decoration.

Now to find sconces to fit those boxes! Since the room will be painted white, I knew I wanted dark toned lights to balance the dark headboard. And lately, I've been really liking the whole farmhouse / new country / cottage look so I was looking for something more casual in feel. A swing-arm would be great too, since we like to read in bed. Put all those things together and these are kind of sconces that we find appealing:

1. Robert Abbey Ant Bee Pharmacy Head Swinger Wall Lamp
2. Hancock Collection Dark Bronze Hardwire Swingarm Wall Light
3. Universal Lighting Oil-Rubbed Bronze Hardwire Swing Arm Wall Lamp
4. George Kovacs P3 Plug-In Swing Arm Wall Lamp

5. Pottery Barn Wyatt Sconce

Of these, we liked the Pottery Barn one best - but found out they don't sell them in the Canadian stores and PB online doesn't ship to Canada. Ugh. So now, I'll have to find a way to get them. Don't you just hate wanting something only to learn you can't actually get it?

OALASWI

Happy OALASWI Day, Chloe! Out As Long As She Was In...40 weeks less one day - that's how old you are now. And my how you've grown...

You are a sweet child, so good to me and your dad. You are curious and fun and a joy to have around. You're crawling all about now and will try to pull up on the furniture, so long as mommy is there to catch you if you fall. A natural water-baby you are; you love your swimming classes, always splashing about and showing no fear when being dunked in the water. You love to play with your toys especially the ones that you can bang together to make some noise, and reading books with your dad is one of your favourite things.

You have a friendly nature and always laugh and smile at other babies. I see you trying to keep up with your older cousins, crawling and rolling about more in their presence. When you make your mind up, you do it! Your independent streak is already starting to show :) We're still working on sleeping through the night, but you nap great during the day, feed yourself well, and even let me know when you need to go to the bathroom. You're going up way too fast sweetie, and your mom gets all sad at the thought that you will soon be one and no longer a baby. But that's okay, because you're doing what you have to do. Grow, little girl, grow.

xoxo

Clippies Winners

And the winners of the giveaways from ariamamma are:

Infant package

Toddler package

Yay Mrs.V. and glow! I'll be in touch and get those packages to you soon. Thanks to ariamamma for sponsoring this fun giveaway.

Master Bedroom: Making A Focal Point

And so it begins. We've started, ever so slowly, on the renovation of our bedroom. Given our post-baby track record, we'll probably finish this project up, oh, when Chloe graduates from high school :o\

So here is the bedroom in its current state. *Shudder* I know, I know, shocking isn't it? Sad to say that we've lived in this sorry state of a room since we bought the house. While we have finished many other renovations in the house, we've neglected one of the most used rooms. Don't ask me why. That's just how we roll. Amazing how we don't even noticed the floral wallpaper border or fugly blue curtains anymore! But, no worries, because this room will soon be transformed. (And anyway, a really bad Before photo makes the After even better ;) ).

I thought you all might like to see how we HandyLuster's put a room together, so I'll be doing a series of posts on things like layout, lighting, fabric and paint selection for the room. First up, focal point.

The pic above is from the door when you enter the room. I wanted the room to have instant impact, which meant the wall facing the door should be the focal point. However, that bump-out in the wall limited where we could place furniture. So, we've gotten rid of it by framing out a wall around it, leaving us with a nice flat wall and clean slate to work with.

If you notice, we always try to add a bit of architectural interest in each of our rooms, like the window seat and built-in storage in the nursery, or the wainscotting in the dining room. In this vein, for the master bedroom, we decided on panelling for the wall. Chris at Just Beachy wrote a great post on this and I was inspired to do a few mock ups in photoshop. Here are a few options I came up with:

We'll be putting sconces on either side of the headboard and hanging a chandelier, so that had some impact on the placement of the panels. As with all of our designs, we were going for something not too traditional and not too contemporary. We're working with our existing modern espresso headboard and the new sidetables. As well, we have to design the room for without the crib (don't ask me when Chloe is moving out though because I don't know, lol).

I mixed and matched some of the elements to come up with a final design. I liked how the sconces sat on the vertical panels. I also liked the different sized panels... I just felt a regular grid would feel too modern. So once we decided on the look, HandyMan did up a plan to scale in Autocad and we came up with this:

We needed this plan because we had our electrician (hi Mike!) come in last weekend and put in potlights and plugs and boxes and switches. Had I been a bit more on the ball, I would have picked out the actual sconces and ensured they were the appropriate distance from the headboard and the side tables. But we didn't (I guess finishing the panel design at 2am the day before Mike arrived at 8:30am didn't help!) so cross your fingers we can actually reach the lights while lying in bed.

So those are a few of the things we thought about before we even lifted a hammer. More posts to come.

Giveaway: Clippies!

As a follow-up to my Becoming Mom post, I have a little giveaway for the kiddos!

Wonderful Etsy seller ariamamma, from whom I have bought a Sophie giraffe leash and a hairclip from, has kindly sponsored this giveaway. You could win one of two packages:

- the Infant giveaway contains a pack of 7 infant no-slip hair clippies in Spring Colours as shown. Plus, one Sophie leash (Sophie not included).

- the Toddler giveaway contains a pack of 7 toddler alligator hair clips in Spring Colours as shown. Plus, a Fantastic Elastic in your choice of colour. The Fantastic Elastic is great for holding up those a-little-too-big pants once your toddler moves out of diapers!

Ariamamma's products are great. The clippies stay in Chloe's hair no problem, even when she had baby-fine newborn hair. I've bought hairclips from other etsy sellers and places like Gymboree or The Children's Place, but these ones are really the only ones that do stay in her hair. See how happy she looks?

To enter:

Leave a comment telling me (1) which package you'd like to win, Infant or Toddler, (2) your email address, and (3) also tell me your favourite child's name... NOT that I am in need of another baby name anytime soon ;)
One entry per person
Contest open until Wednesday, January 13, 10pm EST
Winner will be selected using random.org number generator

Good luck!

Becoming Mom

I hope you all don't mind if I do a little mom talk this post. Renovators, feel free to skip this one :)

Wednesday night was a momentous occasion in the HandyLuster household. We now have a bona fide crawler in the house! Things are about to get interesting around here. Heck, they've been really interesting over the last two weeks. In that time, Chloe has hit some of the milestones in rapid succession. She's learned to go from tummy to sitting, started to clap, started to wave bye-bye, popped a tooth, and even pooped on the toilet (sorry if that's too much information, ha!). And last night she crawled. I know these are all normal achievements for a baby her age, but when you actually see the little one observe and process and practice and then finally "get" something, it really does make you say 'Wow! That's the miracle of life, right there in front of me.' Amazing.

Has it really been only 8 months and 23 days since my world turned topsy-turvy? I look at Chloe and realize that she has become a baby, soon a toddler, and right alongside her, I've become a mom. I couldn't have imagined myself being the mom that I am. I say that in all seriousness. I look in the mirror sometimes and wonder how I got here -- who is this breastfeeding, baby-wearing, baby-led-weaning woman? Save for the breastfeeding, there's so many things I never knew about, let alone thought I would put into practice. It amazes me that there are so many things you need to study or take tests for... getting your driver's license, graduating from high school, becoming a citizen... but having a baby -- pop one out, here you go, baby's all yours, do with her what you will.

The proverb is right... it does take a village to raise a child. Lucky for me, I had a mom, sister, aunts, cousins, and friends ready to pass on their motherly wisdom to me. I had a virtual village too, finding information on chat boards, websites, and blogs. And since I know some of my readers will be moms too soon, I thought I'd pass on some of the things I've learned along my journey. These are just ideas and concepts that worked for HandyMan and me. You should do what works for you; after all, there is no one 'right' way to parenting :)

Hypnobirthing: When I was pregnant, I bought this book. The book proposes that birth can be a relaxing, comfortable, and pain-free experience (yes, sign me up for that please!). Using a variety of relaxation, breathing, visualization and physical exercises, you become well prepared for a much more natural and stress-free birth. While my own birthing experience didn't go exactly to plan (do they ever?), the techniques I learned really did help me to relax, focus and even enjoy the experience.

Doula: We had a doula help us before, during, and after the birth. Think of a doula as a labour coach. While the doctor/obstetrician is focused on the baby during childbirth, the doula is focused more on the mother. Although HandyMan and I had attended pre-natal classes, I knew there would be no way either one of us would remember all the techniques and positions when it actually came down to crunch time. It would be the first time either of us would be going through an experience like this, so why not get a helping hand? My doula Kristi was great. She met with us before the birth to give us nutritional tips and exercises. She was there to help me walk the halls while HandyMan grabbed a much needed nap. When I had complications because Chloe decided to come out sunny-side up, she was there to explain what was going on and what my options were. And she was there a week later to give me breastfeeding and swaddling tips.

Baby Wearing: Can I tell you how much HandyMan and I love to wear Chloe in a carrier? In the early days, Chloe would sleep for hours as I carried her and I could actually get things done around the house. HandyMan loves to walk over to Home Depot with Chloe strapped on. I love my Moby Wrap while HandyMan prefers the BabyHawk.

Baby Led Weaning: BLW, or self-feeding, is something I've written about before here and here. I can't recommend this approach detailed in this book enough! It has made mealtimes around here fun and easy. Chloe is a pro now at feeding herself and will eat just about anything. I'm really hoping her lack of pickiness now (her faves are zucchini, broccoli, and naan bread!) will last as she gets older.

Elimination Communication: Though I'd heard of Elimination Communication, its not something I ever thought I would do. I thought when the time came for toilet training, I'd be just another one of those parents... running after my little one as she screams "I don't want to go on the potty!"... or sitting there waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting while she goes... or pleading with her that she's a big girl and she doesn't need a diaper anymore. But something funny happened... one day, Chloe gave me "that look" and I decided to run her to the bathroom and sit her on the toilet. And it worked! Job done, no muss, no fuss, easy as could be. I've been continuing trying to read her signals for the past week and it is going well and really, anything that helps avoid a few dirty diapers is something I can get on board with :)

Sidecar the crib: We are a cosleeping family. That means that most nights, Chloe will end up in bed with me and HandyMan at some point. Some people don't agree with co-sleeping, but we enjoy the benefits it brings: baby and parents sleep better, longer, and deeper; its easier for night time feeds; and it reduces the risk of SIDS. But here's the issue: I need my space! I like to stretch out when I sleep. I need room to roll over and change positions - and Chloe seems to be the same way (she will push me away sometimes if I'm napping too close to her!). So we've sidecarred her crib next to the bed as shown on this site. Not only does this make it really easy to breastfeed her at night, but after nursing, we can both have our space and get a good night's sleep.

I guess HandyMan and I fall on the attachment parenting side of the spectrum, and our choices reflect that. No matter what approaches you take though, I'm sure we're all striving for the same thing - to love our children and raise them to be happy and healthy individuals. That's really all that matters.

Mini Chair, Mega Problem

So recovering Chloe's chair is going to be a bit harder than I thought. When we found the chair at the garage sale, the lady selling it said it was a 'true reproduction chair from Williamsburg'. Not sure what that meant at the time but now I realize it means I'm going to be saying a lot of #!*&'s and %@!*'s with this project.

See how nice and tight the fabric is pulled into the wood frame? Looks like quality work, right? Usually, at least with more modern upholstered chairs, reupholstering is as easy as popping off the seat or back insert and stapling on a new fabric. Like you see here. You can cover any 'rough edges' or mistakes with gimp trim or piping. Oh, if it only were that easy! With this chair, this is what you see when you remove the fabric and foam insert:

Whoa. Yes, that is a hundred little individual nail holes driven into the chair and a spooky piece of fabric ready to eat me alive. This is how it works:
- a piece of material is cut slightly larger than the size of the area to be covered, leaving a small "seam allowance"
- the seam allowance is about 1/2" all the way around. Keeping the nice side of the material down, the allowance is folded in and individual nails are put from the inside and poke out of the material
- the piece of foam goes into the space at the back of the chair
- starting with one nail, you keep the seam allowance folded towards the chair and individually hammer each nail into the wood.

Confused enough? Scared? Yeah, so am I!

So this is just ONE part of the chair... the front, the seat, and the two tiny arms need to be recovered too. And another little treat: it looks like there is real strapping or webbing underneath the seat. We haven't taken the seat off yet but that's what it feels like and I'm not sure that will be even more problematic.

Not sure if I'm cut out to be a chair reupholster, folks! This little chair has got me more nervous than the first time I used the router! There's a whole lot o' things that can go wrong, like I ruin or tear the fabric (it looks like it needs to be stretched pretty tight) or I manage to get the fabric on - but its crooked (what possessed me to get plaid AND stripes?!) or I damage the wood or the painted finish while trying to get the nails in.

ARGH!! Ok, since it would likely cost me an arm and a leg to get this professionally recovered (if I can even find a reupholster experienced in this traditional way), I'm going to have to trod on. I think I'll try it first with a scrap piece of fabric and see how that goes... unless anyone has any other suggestions?? I'm just hoping I can get this chair done before Chloe outgrows it!

O-Nine, You Were Divine

When it came to making our house a home, I doubted that 2009 would surpass all the things we accomplished in 2008. But we did get some things done. Here's a peek back.

The dingy waterlilies and carpet (!)...

...gave way to gleaming tile and shine

A deck that ain't so sweet...

...is now a sweet place to enjoy a summer night.

A room with no personality...

...transformed into a room for a little person.

Long lost family treasures...

...are treasured once again

One door closed...

...and another one opened

And 2...

...became 3!

Wishing you all a 2010 filled with lots of DIY, renovations completed, and rooms lived in and enjoyed!