words of wisdom

found this over at Annelise's blog Box of Crayons and I think everyone should print it and put it on their wall!

here

hello monkey

while shopping for kiddy gift ideas on esty I came across this little monkey

is this not the cutest little hat you've seen???

buy it here

vintage and roses

here's another of my bargains from our garage sale shopping the other weekend -this heavy cut crystal vase cost me $2... I bought it with the intention of selling it on etsy but when I put my red roses in it, I instantly fell in love with it...

A List

Top 10 things I want to do

• Finish remodeling the master bath and bedroom
• Cook Thanksgiving dinner in my new kitchen
• Actually grow a vegetable garden
• Get a flock of chickens (already named them! Cordelia, Buffy and Willow)
• Make more room in the car for roadtrips by installing a storage pod on top
• Have another fantastic Christmas this year; Cut down a tree, yummy dinners at Kate's, tamale party at home, see plays and walk around downtown
• Take the dogs hiking more often
• Spend the last bits of summer boating as much as possible
• Do well in school
• Take a few roadtrips: LA, Seattle, Grand Canyon, etc.

italy dreaming

are you reading or have you read eat, pray, love? I am reading it now and spending each night in Rome, and loving it. I want to go back asap!

photo here

CB2 - The Selby Is In Your Place

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. I fell off the wagon and just haven't mustered the energy to get back on until today when I found this cool project and thought it'd be fun to share. It's a contest where you could win a $10,000 CB2 shop card and a photo shoot with Todd Selby. You can find the contest information here and also check out the cool entries already submitted. So far, I'm leaning toward the mid century homes and design.

hammer time

remember I told you that we were working on our garage a little while back? well this weekend we decided it was time to get physical and attack the cracked concrete driveway.

so we set off to home depot and rented a jackhammer!
it weighed 60 pounds (or 30kg) so you don't really have to do too much, it just hammers up and down and works it's way into the concrete at the pull of the trigger. the hard part is the lifting it back out again - especially if you get it stuck!
Bryce got a great upper body workout!
I gave it a go
as did Hannah - just so we could say we'd operated a jackhammer really... but we were both a bit short for it, so when it came time to lift it back up it was really hard. we decided Bryce was definitely better at it than us. we spent our time filling the wheel barrow with the broken pieces and hauling them away.to our berm

which is coming along nicely!
as Saturday night fell, we gave our neighbours a break from the constant jackhammering (not to mention our hands were raw and our bodies sore)
we didn't realise just how big a job it was to dig up all this concrete... some areas were as a foot deep!

so here's the progress we made in the 24 hours we had the jackhammer, and next weekend we'll do it all over again...

:(

over the weekend we found out that lady that we bought our house from passed away. we are the third owners of this house and her husband and her bought it when it was 10 years old (in 1964) and lived in it for the majority of their lives. he died while living in this house and she stayed on here without him for the last 5 to 7 years (from what we can piece together).

he was quite handy around the house, and she liked to garden. she was a romantic (she kept the horrible carpet because it was an anniversary gift) and he liked to put nails in things (everything is tacked together with a nail - even where you'd think a screw would do the job...) they raised a family here and shared many memories.

we never met her, or her family, but we feel a connection with them. we find pieces of their lives all over the place. like this recipe for muffins, these diamond earrings and the many choices of wallpaper...

so it saddened us to hear of her death. I hope she knows we love this house as they did.

the curse of the corner block

when we bought our house I was on the fence about buying a corner lot. I'd always thought it was a bad thing to live on the corner, but really had no idea why. what really sold me on this place though was the size of the block at over 7300 square feet (683 square metres). that's a pretty big plot of land in suburbia!

it's also a pretty big space to water - even with most of it covered in concrete... I turned our automatic sprinklers off a few months after we bought the place as I just couldn't justify watering a grass lawn every second day... it really didn't need all that water anyway. in July, it started to turn brown and not look so great, so we turned the sprinklers back on - until I got our water bill! it costs us $50 per month to water that front lawn! not to mention the gallons of drinking water being poured onto the grass...

we've been planning on making the front lawn a meadow and decided we should make a start on it and get rid of that water sucking lawn!

I have been collecting photos for inspiration and Julie drew us up a plan. we talked about putting in a fence, but Bryce was dead against that. if it were up to me I would build a 12 foot hedged wall around the whole property and create a private oasis - but he thinks that's weird... so we decided on a grass covered berm or a mound if you will.

we started ripping out the old bricked garden edging that is all broken and rickety and have been using that to build the base of the berm.

to create privacy on the corner

and then we're going to cover it in this beautiful green carpet of green fescue, which doesn't need much water or even need to be mowedbut you can cut it back every 6 months or so just to tidy it up

and then on top of the berm we will add this mexican feather grass to create a feature and also more height (privacy). this stuff needs zero water and turns greener in the winter when it gets rain.

we bought these little baby fescues a few weeks back and planted them in a temporary location so that they can get bigger, while we do the prep

saving us money by buying the smaller plantsand I've been find it hard to find mexican feather grass, but grabbed these 2 about a month ago
here's a photo of the 2 of them together. I love the great contrast of the green and the yellowy brown

happy friday

this week has been a tough one for me. I threw my back out lifting a half empty basket of washing while getting ready for work the other day (which had me doubled over in so much pain that I couldn't even breathe), and work seems to be totally sucking for me, and I just generally feel out of sorts. not feeling social, not wanting to do much of anything to be honest. you know, we all get like this sometimes... right?

when I feel like this I like to paint. so I picked up a paintbrush and unpacked a bunch of blank canvasses and funnily enough it's making everything feel much better.

I am so glad it's friday! I can paint some more. we are doing some demo on the house this weekend - which is exciting! maybe we'll catch a movie or something too.

I hope you have a great weekend ahead of you and that you spend it doing something that makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

kisses

Kate

photo here

happy 30th Holly!

ah, 30. today my littlest sister is turning 30 - and I hope you have a wonderful birthday Holly! I know you already got what you wished for!

I spent my 30th birthday in Toronto, and went to New York that weekend for the very first time. what a great birthday! I remember at the time, it seemed like such a scary number - 30... but your 30's are the best time of your life!

love you darling

Kate

design star

have you been watching design star? could you imagine being on that show??? it sounds like fun, but I think it would be kinda scary... it's now down to the final two and I really hope Emily wins! love her modern vintage eclectic style!

here's her room from this week's episode which I love! particularly that green couch coupled with the wallpaper (which is actually fabric spray glued on). genius!

I also love that tree - does anyone know what type of plant that is?

the finale airs this sunday night, and if you need to catch up you can view the full episodes here. you can also find Emily on her blog here.

feeling thrifty

this weekend was the city wide garage sale that happens in our neighbourhood each year (apparently), and with the state of our garage, we really thought about participating, but decided that we'd get too many people offering $2 for our fully functional air conditioning unit, and $1 for that old playstation 2 etc. so instead of hosting a garage sale we did our duty as residents and went garage sale shopping! :P

as soon as we made it out the door, we were directed where to go. we took our little cart on wheels, and cooper and mckenzie helped us sniff out some bargains.

my first bargain to gloat about is this cute little piano bench that I got for $5 which is going to be perfect as the chair for my sewing table. I am going to paint it white and replace the fabric with this great velvet striped fabric I picked up at a flea market.
and it's perfect for storing sewing supplies toobut this guy here was my absolute steal! guess how much you'd pay for a solid walnut mid century side chair... guess!if you answered about $50-$60 you'd be about right (according to ebay and craigslist), so when I asked the guy how much he wanted for this chair and he said $1, I had to pretend not to be too excited! yes it needs some work, but I am excited to sand this guy back, and replace the vinyl aged cushion with the same stripy green velvet fabric. it's a really solid piece of furniture that will go great in our place.we also got some tools, picture frames, some vintage tupperware, a couple of vases and a cute little owl - all for less than $12. thifty indeed!

monday monday

why does the weekend always go at warp speed??? it feels like yesterday I was at work... but wait - last time I was at work I was riding roller coasters :)

we had a great weekend, re-organising the garage, working in the yard, going for long walks, doggy parks, dinner and garage sale shopping.

1. roller coasters at great america on Friday was great fun, this ride was my favourite next to the old wooden roller coasters - you just can't beat that fear for your life feeling when the old school carts roll over those rickety tracks! 2. this weekend it was garage sale weekend in our neighbourhood, so we decided to check it out - I got some great deals too. 3. a gorgeous rose we found on our walk. 4. some frightfully orange cheese on Bryce's potato when we went to dinner at the local ribs and bbq place up the street - like glowing orange!

what fun things did you get up to?

happy friday!

this week has flown by for me! we went to the baseball on Tuesday, out for dinner Wednesday, dinner at our place last night and I can't believe it's Friday already! but so glad it is...

we are heading to great america today (for work), for an afternoon full of roller coaster fun, so I thought this picture was perfect! don't you just LOVE roller coasters???

what fun are you getting up to this weekend?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

photo here

lamp love

I love this lamp - but the best part is that you can make it yourself! head over to poppytalk to see how easy it is to make. I am definitely going to give this guy a go!

you say tomato

I'm so happy to report that our roma tomatoes are ripe and ready to eat, with still so many more on the vine. our cherry tomato plant has tripled in size since we planted it (it's almost 5 feet tall!) and has the cutest little bunches of baby tomatoes on it - I am just waiting for them to ripen up.

here's a tomato salad I made the other night which is sort of a different take on a caprece salad which was delicious!
I cut up some cherry tomatoes (and the two ripe romas from my plant), baby mozzarella cheese, fresh basil (from my garden) and some sun dried tomatoes, drizzled some balsamic vinegar glaze, sprinkled some pepper and salt, then shook the whole thing in a salad bowl.

so easy. so fresh and delish!