Hallways and other ramblings

While painting our house, Joe and I have definitely been sticking to the neutrals on the walls. It makes everything easier to decorate, and I think it looks pretty good.

However, I did want at least one statement colour in the house. I've been intrigued lately by images of darkly painted walls, like this:

I thought, why not just go for it? I had also seen an article in House & Home magazine about how a dark teal is a "new neutral". So, a couple of months ago, Joe and I went out and bought a can of "Plumage" paint by Martha Stewert.

From House & Home found here

Plumage by Martha Stewart

As soon as we got it home, I began to question my idea. Would it really be a good thing to paint the hallway such a dark colour??!

After some hesitation, we went for it. It was a seriously challenging feat considering the height of the walls over the stairway, but we managed. And I couldn't be happier! It looks amazing! Here are a few shots from a few different angles:

I'm pretty pleased at how well it seems to tie everything together. One more project down! Many, many more to go.

On a completely unrelated note, we have a mourning dove living in our front planter! It is very tame...I even touched it's tail feathers today. And I was in it's face taking pictures. It didn't budge! I'm worried it may be injured or ill?! Has anyone else ever experienced something like this?

Cuteness!

I just spent a couple of days up at the cottage.
I have bronchitis (yuck!) so it was pretty low-key, but I still did manage to get a few cute pictures of my adorable nephews, Braden and Spencer!

Aren't they the cutest?!

I can't believe how fast this summer is winding down. I'm definitely getting back into school-mode and have been busy preparing for my year. If only my bronchitis would go away so I can enjoy these last two weeks...

Dirty Work

Since Joe and I were in Europe for the first two and a half weeks of our summer, we never seemed to get back on top of our gardening.

We pretended we were by keeping the front of the house acceptable...

But we were hiding our secret: the backyard was a disaster!

Point 1: Remember the 'lovely' fountain that graced our yard when we moved in?

Well, back in June, we posted it free on Kijiji and it was taken away, leaving us with a pile of dirt and rocks in the middle of our yard.

Yep, it has been like that since June. Ugh.

Point #2: The hedges in the back are out of control!!!!

Oh my!
The lawn was also starting to get out of control because of recent rain.
So, we decided to get down to business. Joe mowed the lawn while I pruned the hedges.
Don't they look pretty?

Then, we spent the afternoon moving the dirt pile. This was no small feat...it was huge!

It took over 30 wheelbarrow loads which we had to roll up the hill to the back of our yard. Joe kept me motivated by giving me some eye candy :)

And finally, we have it ready for some grass seed! Although Joe wants to plant a tree...and Mira thinks it's her own private kitty litter, so we have some figuring out to do.

Next on the list: Tackling the overgrown, wild garden. But it does feel good to have a few things done! Although this pregnant lady is paying for it today!

Thrifty Dining Chairs!

When I saw these fraying, stained chairs at a thrift store, all I could see was potential!

We had recently bought a white pedestal table for our kitchen and had been using some fold-up chairs until we found something to put with them. I knew these white chairs would be perfect...with a little TLC, of course.

Anyway, I had originally planned on covering them with these toile pattern pillow covers from Ikea (One pillow cover would have upholstered two of the chairs, so not a bad deal):

They would have looked nice, but right before I was about to chop them up, I thought of some cloth napkins that my Mum gave me as a house warming gift in my first house. I LOVE the pattern on them, and thought they'd look great on the chairs. 

Recovering them was actually extremely simple. We just took off the top layer of fabric and took out any remaining staples.

Then, we pulled the fabric tight, alternating sides, and used a staple gun to fasten, being extra careful on the corners.

Et voila! The seats were done.

I must say, I'm pretty happy with the finished product. 

So, at $15 per chair, I think we did pretty well!

Now we just need to repaint the kitchen. Sigh. 

Starting to Feel Like Home!

It has been almost 3 months since Joe and I moved into our new home.
Needless to say, a house full of soft yellow (not my fave!) with an endless list of to-do projects, mixed in with early pregnancy sickness... the first couple of months had me wondering whether we had made a mistake. It seemed silly that we spent MORE money on a house that needed so much updating.

However, as my energy is returning and we've been able to start a few projects, it is finally starting to feel like home!

Summer morning :) 

One of the projects that we have really worked on this past week is our sitting room.
As a reminder, here is what it looked like when we moved in:

Yellow walls. Yellow curtains. Yuck!

Then, we took down the curtains and painted it a nice, light grey back in June. We didn't change anything else and lived without curtains for a while. Anyway...I couldn't stand it! It seemed Sooo unfinished. This week, we made much more progress!

And here it is now!

We rearranged the furniture and brought in a different rug that I used to have in my sitting room at our old house. The other one just wasn't right.

We bought these two Ikea bookshelves for $30 each off of Kijiji. We brought out some of Joe's book collection and arranged the books by colour. I still feel like something is missing, so the shelves will probably always be changing.

We added floor-length, white curtains. Thanks to a(nother) rainy day, the room looks a little more blah than in real life :)

We still need to get some artwork and a few other small things. We're also considering putting a TV in this room (gasp!), which I haven't owned...ever! Still trying to decide if it is really necessary. We watch a lot of movies on our computer, so it may make sense so that we don't have to move our computer around to watch something. But we'll see. There is a perfect space for a wall mount above our cabinet.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited to have some things checked off of our "to-do" list.

Back to Blogging...and our Big News!

I realize I have taken a very long break from blogging...Oops!
I could make a ton of excuses...but instead I'll just focus on the positive! I'm back!

Summer has been an amazing whirlwind so far. Joe and I spend 2 weeks in Europe, which was amazing. We went to the lake for a week with my Dad. I became an aunt again. And now we're just catching up on life, and enjoying the pool at home :) It's been nice.

Anyway, I guess it's about time I share our exciting news, as well!

Joe and I are expecting!

I am almost 15 weeks. The baby is due on January 30th, 2013.

As you can see from the photo, it has been easy to hide. I have been searching for a baby bump, but it's only just starting to make any type of appearance. In fact...that might even be a stretch. So, that's the best I can do! (Oh...and ignore my bedhead. I am on vacation, after all!)

14 weeks