Kim's personal links
MY FAVOURITE DECOR SHOPS IN OTTAWA
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kitchen remodel in my last house
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my twin sister's mostly kid's rooms decor blog
Yesterday late afternoon my husband and I picked up the keys to our new house. YAY!!!! Today we begin hauling everything over from the old house (luckily only a 5 minute car ride) and I am beyond excited (clearly, see below) to start making this place our home. Stay tuned for lots more on that in the near future, and in the meantime I will be uploading more frequently on Instagram since it's just so damn convenient.
HAPPY FRIDAY!!!
If you didn't catch yesterday's post, the last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind of activity - I sold my house and purchased another. I cannot explain how ready and excited I am for this change. :-) This post is an introduction to my new Arts & Craft style home, built around 1940.
(NOTE: These photos are from the agent's website and I took some quickly during our inspection). The photo above is a bit old - the porch handrail has since been painted and there is greenery instead of melting snow piles under the windows.
This is the front vestibule, which means cats cannot try and escape when the pizza guy shows up. :) Isn't that front door beautiful? Gotta love solid wood!
As you walk in the dining room is on the left. Holy smokes check out the stained glass doors! (There is stained glass in almost every room of the house). I am not a huge fan of the red/mahogany stain used throughout the house but I will tell you all right now there is no way on earth I am repainting any of it. It is in amazing shape (likely recently refinished) and I do not have the patience to tackle it.
I LOVE this little nook for a buffet...which I do not own so that is going on my to-purchase list. Adorable window above. And to the right is a built-in cupboard.
I have some big news to share with you all (finally). Three weekends ago my husband and I decided to go house hunting. We had come to the conclusion recently that the whole build-a-new-house idea was just too much for us to handle (and too scary financially) so we thought we would take a look at what downtown Ottawa neighbourhoods had to offer. We were pleasantly surprised to find a few homes within our budget that we would be quite happy in. A few days later an agent that my husband had talked to convinced us to put our home on the market the following weekend. !!!!!! I thought she was nuts but we figured why the hell not. So one week after starting to house hunt we had our first open house and it was a big success. We ended up with 2 offers and accepted one of them. Early last week our house was officially SOLD!. Last weekend we went to see a home that blew our minds. And a couple of days ago, that home became ours. If you think these 3 weeks were insane... we get our new house June 26th and have to vacate our current home by July 3rd. AAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!! Hectic does not even begin to describe what this 5 week period has been and will be like. But I am beyond excited. The new house is the most beautiful home I have ever set foot in. I will share photos of it with you tomorrow. I thought today I would take you through the last 7 years I have spent in my current home. It is located in Ottawa's Little Italy (which I always really loved because I am half Italian), is 12' wide with 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths and is about 800 sq ft (I always thought it was 926 sq ft but it turns out that was the exterior dimensions).
Besides minimal landscaping at the front of the house, this is pretty much how it looked 7 years ago when I bought it.
This is the living room right after moving in. Pale yellow walls and ugly oak floors. BLEH. A bit annoying that the front door opened right into the space so the back door became our main entrance.
Walls were painted and my beloved forest mural was glued to the wall (and another sofa purchased).
Then we decided to DIY a sofa.
Then we found what is close to our dream sofa.
I thought I would share a few small happenings around my house from the past long weekend. First is a new mirror for the newly renovated powder room. I could not find a vintage shaving mirror (thrifting/flea markets for the most part suck around these parts) so we had taken the door off an old wooden medicine cabinet (as seen in this post). Home decor shops also for the most part suck around here (there's no C&B, West Elm etc. etc. - we have Ikea) but last week my sister and I headed down to Zone Maison because she wanted some knick knacks and I ended up finding the perfect mirror for my bathroom! And it was $49.50! I hung it over my Jieldé et voilà:
Last weekend after taking my mom out to lunch for Mother's Day in Chinatown, we stopped in at Highjinx - one of my favourite thrift shops (where all proceeds go to helping Ottawa's homeless). I dropped off a gorgeous table I have had for years from Pier 1 Imports that no longer works in any of my immediate family members' homes (my twin had been using it for a few years) and found a vintage wooden toolbox that I had to bring home for $65 (and my thing is to always pay about $10 more than the awesome ladies who run the shop ask for, so make that $75). I decided to use it on my dining table filled with random stuff, so the wooden rod/handle was removed and I now have a new centrepiece! Inside are a tin candle holder I bought in Mexico, a West German vase with eucalyptus, an Asian lantern, a plant from my coffee table, a candlestick from an art shop in Almonte, a vintage chipped vase with billy buttons from my wedding, and a bottle of wine my mom gave me that my nonno had made before he passed away (in the 80s).
This new centrepiece meant I had to do some rearranging around the kitchen. So this happened on a corner of my counter:
I also did a bunch of gardening lately...all in pots/boxes etc. because we still have hopes to wreck this house so nothing permanent. We used all of the plastic barrels my husband had brought home last summer and cut in half - they house lavendar and some tomatoes and peppers. I put some herbs in a box and a half a barrel and some plants in some cute pots I had found at Ikea and BMR. Phoebe thought it was fun to hide amongst some of them.
There is only one room in my house that had not been touched at all since I bought this place in 2007 - and that was the powder room. And it was horrendous.
This embarrassment of a bathroom is on the main floor of my house (and there is one full bath on the second floor), which means if any guests came over, this is the one they would use. Everything was so gross, including the worst tile job ever and a ventilation fan in the ceiling that sounded like a jet. The only good things about it are the size - 5' square, and that it has a pocket door (but with a full length mirror so you can watch yourself while you pee). Since we appear to be stuck in this house a while longer, my husband Jeff and I had talked about fixing it up on a budeget. To my complete surprise, while I was in Mexico in February, he tore everything out and started renovating it! We have been super busy so this project only saw completion yesterday. It is such a huge improvement and we are both so stoked over the transformation. YAY inexpensive reno projects!!! (Boo tiny windowless rooms! - makes for difficult photography)
Fri, 27 Jun 2014