O Blissmastree

The tree is up and looking purdy.  And all of the ornaments, snowflakes, tinsel, feather boas are from a super trendy store...you may not know it...  *coughcoughdollarcoughstorecough* and *aaaahhahhhh choooodollaramaoooooo* 

Excuse me.

Stairway to DustyRose Heaven

Our hallway makeover is finally complete. The summer has been crazy, so from start to finish it took about two months to get this project done.  All of the trim, doors, walls, spindles, risers and railing were painted, and unfortunately, more than a few coats over foot prints on the steps.

Hallway on the day we took possession of the house in April.

Dusty rose stairway to heaven. One of the hazards to your health when you buy a B&B named A Victorian Rose...

We ripped the carpet off before changing the wall colour back in July. When my 3 year old niece saw this she questioned "why did you take the fuzzy off the stairs?" ........."because the fuzzy was buttugly"

The trim was too yellowish-grayish-greenish-barfish, and the railing was too yellowish-orangish-shineyish

A couple of coats of a light grey called Luminarie on the wall, then it was on to the BM Cloud White for the spindles, spindles and more spindles. I darkened the railing with a dark walnut low lustre polyurethane. (4 coats)

Wall colour and cloud white trim on the left.

Started the runner, it's a beige colour to warm up the gray to get a natural sisal look.

Measured out a band because the runner was boring on its own



Finally finished.

Clean and fresh.

***Update: check out how the finish is holding up 1 year later

So that part of the project seemed to take forever, but the other sub project took less than 48 hours from brainwave to operational. 

I really like the look of the Moooi string pendant lights.  Since I am cheap/poor I would never buy one. So I came up with my own version. 

Cheesecloth, Stiffy Stiffener and a pendant light.  The idea came from when my mother made a nativity scene in the 80s by draping and stiffening cloth over the molds. I skipped spray painting the shade gold, but the idea was similar.

Picked up a pendant light at good ol' Canadian Tire. Put a call in my brother in-law and offered beer for a wiring job. 30 min later it was up and working.

The big shade fills the hallways high ceilings.

It's a Jungle Out There

This is the courtyard that we were looking at in March during our final inspection. It hadn't been maintained for about 2 years and it was looking pretty bleak.

A month later we managed to get most of the the dead brush out, but then it was looking more like an overgrown jungle of weeds.

After filling bags and bags of brush, leaves, weeds and other ugly stuff we were left with this!

We spent less than $100 on plants,soil, spray paint, sprinkler and gardening gloves after ruining my nails daily for about a week.  All of the furniture, pots, bird houses, benches came with the house, so they just needed sprucing up. Since most of the garden was green we needed some colour, some spray paint on the plastic pots and urns got the splashes we needed.

Trying to get a base for our first garden I started this season with all perennials (and I want the garden to look good next year with less work.) We went with Woolly Thyme, Beacon Silver Spotted Dead Nettle, Periwinkle, Moss Phlox, Pearlwort, Wild Strawberries and Red Creeping Thyme.

Started a vegetable garden in pots this year, and used some old beyond repair Adirondack chairs as their base.

Fence Update:  Request will be proposed at Town Council meeting July 13... the never ending process.  I hope we still have some money left by then to even build the fence.

Aussie Aussie Aussie

Ol' Blue is showing her colours for World Cup... the BF would like to paint her Green and Gold but we compromised on the Aussie Flag.

 

Backyard

So this is our spectacular backyard....

.... hardly any work needed, except for the 5000lbs of cast iron radiators which have been rusting on the deck since 2003...the door in the dormer to nowhere..the ugliest driveway ever, and no privacy.  Albeit it is not a busy street, but there is still no privacy from the few people on the street.

We have put in our application with the town to build a fence but the list of steps involved to get approval to build the fence is longer than the fence itself. Hurray for UNESCO Status... the process involves a  "Stamp of Appropriateness" I have yet to see the actual stamp.....Maybe we'll have a fence by 2015. 

But pretty sure its going to end up more like this....looks boring but in this photo we are barbecuing naked behind that fence. 

Dis and Dat

Like Dis and Hate Dat.  I save pictures from decorating sites that catch my interest.  There is usually something in the room that I like, but some parts I hate.  Welcome to Dis and Dat. 

Like Dis: Vintage Fan
Hate Dat: Gold frames

Glowing Chicken

So we have our own Seinfeld Episode going on in the master bedroom... no, not the switcharoo... a glowing street light... directly outside our window... very similar strength to the red neon sign which was outside Kramer's apartment.

 While it's not a giant glowing chicken it is still annoying..

 The solution, black out lining and I found some with white on one side and gray on the other... and the gray worked in the room.  jackpot.   half the work half the money.  The lining was $4 a meter and I needed 22 meters, a few pinched pleats later and we have ourselves darkness.

Best after photo ever?

Ta Da

After a good cleaning, a few coats of leftover trim paint and less than a meter of fabric from the Salvation Army the spring clean up chairs have been salvaged. 

Spring Cleanup!

Every spring and fall the town has a garbage pick up for large items.  This is the towns chance to get rid of crap that's taking up too much space in attics and basements.  My hope is that everyone has been watching the 'Hoarders: Buried Alive' marathon on TLC and fear they too may become a hoarder and decide to just throw everything out. 

While I'm not totally blatant about checking out what people are throwing out (slowly drive my creepy van from pile to pile in broad day light), I do keep an eye out for gems.  And this year I didn't have to travel far.  I was able to get two old dining chairs and a small side table with casters from my street.  I will be making Young Street's old crap young again.

The Drapist

The windows in our house, like most Victorian houses are beefy compared to newer builds.  These large windows are beautiful, but they have to do their shopping at Big and Tall..... our very own plus size models.

There are drape panels available in the 260cm length, but I am quite fond of my arm and leg so the only other option was to make my own. 

Wish me luck.

 

My Salvaging Mantra

Last night I was looking through the shelves of books that came with our house, and I came across one that deserved a second look,  Furniture Making and Cabinet Work (1949).  Lots of great chapters on built in cabinetry, finishing, upholstery and other great tips for furniture making and repairing.

One chapter in particular sparked my interest,  Chapter 9 Salvaging Discarded Furniture.  The second paragraph sums up salvaging furniture to a tee. 

"The following suggestions are offered in the hope of kindling an imaginative interest in the possibilities of successful salvage of whatever discarded furniture may be at hand.  Inasmuch as available pieces have already been declared surplus, a boldness of treatment may well pay large dividends, since failure will create no additional waste."

Translation..... go for it

The Accidental Hunt

To kill time this winter we checked out mls.ca with no real intentions of buying a home. We came across this house.. we were intrigued.

 

The response from the agent when we asked for a viewing was 'you do know there are four LARGE bathrooms off each room and on the main floor because it was remodeled as a B&B'..... obviously this fact has scared off most potential buyers for over 2 years... still not scared we went for a viewing.

The majority of the house was updated in 2003 and run as a Bed and Breakfast.  While we are not the Bed and Breakfast type I could see how we could make it work as residence with a few *tweaks* here and there.  Before we went ahead with anything we decided it might be best to check out a few others in our price range to see if the love for Ol' Blue was real.

'Nice, but too small', 'nice, but too traditional' and 'very cool, but no parking or back yard'.

Went with our first choice, and the rest is history.  

Welcome to Salvaged Bliss: Home Edition.