It's That Time Again....GIVEAWAY!!

I'm not sure if you guys noticed yet, but LB@30 has welcomed a new sponsor!!  You might have seen their info around the blogsphere since they are super supportive of home decor blogs...so I'd like to welcome...

{Insert crazy amounts of applause and woop wooping}

TileShowroom is an online company that sells a variety of tile…from recycled glass to natural stone to stainless steel.  They have a lot of options for whatever your tiling needs are - bathroom, kitchen, vestibule in an old victorian rowhouse (hint hint, hubby) even.

Now - with a bathroom reno in my future (hopefully!), I have definitely spent some time on this site and found a few that I love:

As their way of saying HI to the awesome readers of this blog, TileShowroom.com has generously offered up a $100 gift card to use on tiles offered on their website! 

Yep - ONE HUNDRED BONES!!

That is a lot of money people!!

{Insert ooohs and ahhhs here :-)}

Anyways - here's the deal.

1. Go to www.tileshowroom.com and pick what you'd buy with the $100 coupon code.
2. Come back here and comment on this post telling me what you would use it for!
3. Ummm...that's it!

You have to be a google follower to win, and unfortunately this is only open to Canadian and US residents. While it is a US company, they definitely ship to Canada!

So there you have it! Come back and let me know what you'd do with the money if you won - I know what I'd do with it!

This giveaway will be open for one week!

Guest Bedroom CYOA Part II - UPDATED

Welcome back to the Guest Bedroom Choose Your Own Adventure project!

I know that I've been super slow in my guest bedroom projects. I have lots of excuses, the biggest of which is a lack of funds (you know how January is!) so I haven't been super motivated to get going on the room.

As a reminder, HERE is the previous post on the guest bedroom so you have an idea of what we are working with.

However, I think I can swing the paint in the near future, so I thought it was high time to figure out what we should do!

Here are some options:

Option #1: Stripes

I love the idea of striping a wall in the guest room.  When I see it in photographs, I think it looks so cool and if I ever tire of it, it is easy to paint over.

Here are some stripey-inspiration pictures for your perusal:

I love the large stripes of varying colours (but all similar tone/shades) that work so well together.

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While I could stripe the whole room, my preference is to just do the one large wall.  Mostly because it is easier than doing the whole room, but I also think that one wall would look really striking.

However, this is where my layout issue rears its ugly head. Striping the large wall if it were the "bed wall" would make sense, but I think that I will have to keep the bed in the corner as it is in this ugly before-picture:

Do you think I could stripe it anyways?

Source - my own mad paintbrush skillz

Option 2: Wallpaper

I could do the same thing with wallpaper, but I would have the same "what wall" issue. Thoughts?

All wallpaper pics via decorpad

None of these are really ideas of what wallpaper I'd use - more just an idea of how it would look in the room to have a wall of paper.

Option #3: White

I'm not sure why, but with all the grey in the house, I was thinking of going (gasp) WHITE in the room.

Here are some gorgeous examples:

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So, what do you kids think? Stripes? Wallpaper? White? Something else? I'm still definitely open to suggestion on this one since I have (almost) no direction.

If I knew how to include a poll, I would. ha.

ETA:
After I posted my Guest Bedroom CYOA Part 2 this morning, I received the sweetest email from a reader.

To quote:

"I'm not knocking you paint brush skillz, but what can I say, its a slow day at work. Here is my photoshopped example of what you could do".

And she attached THIS:

Ya, seriously. How nice is that?!  So a special thanks to H up in Thunder Bay for going the extra mile for me (and my crazy awesome paintbrush skills :-).

Re:Style Studio Toronto

Have you kids heard about Re:Style Studio here in Toronto? I was recently emailed a link to the studio's page, and it is seriously a GREAT idea!

Basically, it is a workshop and event space for decor seminars, one-on-one upholstery classes and DIY parties. They even run group classes such as Put Your Feet Up (DIY ottomans), BYOP reupholstery (bring your own piece, such as a chair, and get guidance and tools to refinish it and give it a new life!) and Head of the Bed (DIY headboard).

How cool is that?

I am trying to organize a small group to go to the Head of the Bed class - basically for $250, you bring your own fabric and everything else is included. Instruction, materials, tools, you name it. And then you walk out with a new headboard! (And by walk, I mean call your husband to come pick you up and help you carry it to the car :-)

Check out this gorgeous studio:

Can't you just see me creating a piece of gorgeous-ness like this there:

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Or this:

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Or maybe this:

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What I think is the best part about Re:Style is that it gives people without a big basement or all the tools the means to create beautiful pieces of furniture for their homes.

Seriously. SUCH a great idea!

You Asked, Now You Shell Receive...

I'm seriously out of semi-wannabe-witty titles for my posts. Don't judge.

This weekend was freezing. Totally bitter and I never wanted to leave the house. So I didn't. Well, once a day but that was it.

One thing I finally got to was taking updated pictures of my new light in the dressing room.  Reason for taking so long?

I had to clean it. The room was a complete disaster that was even embarrassing for me (my poor tidy husband must have been raging on the inside for days). So I had no excuses this weekend since I stayed inside for 20 of 24 hours every day :-)

For those of you who are just catching up, last week my husband and I installed a new light in my dressing room, thanks to the generosity of Home Depot Canada! They ponied up $100 to let me buy something to spruce up my house! Lucky for me, it was just in time for the 20% off all interior light fixtures sale!

As a reminder, here is a pic of the room before:

So here it is :-) The Hampton Bay Capiz Chandelier, in my dressing room!

It was surprisingly simple to install. For once, all the pieces fit and we were able to have the light sit flush with the ceiling. The medallion came with the house - it covers up the butcher's job that was done for a previous light that left a massive hole in the ceiling, so we opted to keep it.

Once the light was up, I attached each line of capiz shells to the fixture, and that was about it! I was really impressed with how user-friendly the light was.

The light also fits a lot better than the old one. I really loved the light that was in there, but it was just. too. big. I could walk under it but no one else could, and if I had my hair in a towel, I was wacking it left right and centre. This is definitely a more appropriate fixture for the room.

Isn't it amazing how something that took all of an hour to install can make such a difference?

Special thanks to the Home Depot (of course) and Sara at Russet Street Reno for giving me the idea that capiz and dressing rooms are a match made in (decor) heaven!

Where did the old light fixture go?

In the guest bedroom!!

Clearly, there is still alot of work to be done in that room - but at least it has a light now!

A Reminder About Why I Love Craigslist

Remember when Shannon grabbed this lamp for me from Craigslist?



Well lookie what I found for sale on Homesav today!

It is the Urban Classic Zulu light!  It's on sale for $79 but is regular $180! I think I paid $15 for it or something ridiculous like that, but mine doesn't work all that consistently so I guess it all works out in the end :-)

If you aren't as lucky with Craigslist as I (or Shannon) are, then you should check out Homesav! It is like Gilt or Beyond the Rack for house stuff and (gasp) it is Canadian!!!  Click here to sign up - I will get a free ticket to the National Home Show for every three people who sign up!

Happy Thursday! There is just a spinning class, an episode (or two) of True Blood and (hopefully) a good sleep between me and Friday!

What Do You Hide in the Cellar?

We have this crazy little room in the basement. It is basically a few pieces of drywall that were put up to cover up the fuse box and a DIY jack that was installed at somepoint to hold our house up. 

The house is 100 years old - I'd probably need a little help standing up if I were that old too.

Anyways, this small room stays extremely cold, considering it is right next to our furnace (which incidently, keeps our basement VERY hot compared to the rest of the house). J has always said he wanted to turn it into a wine cellar for the wine we have collected from our travels.

After a few sketches and thinking of a number of options, we ended up driving to J's parents' place and picked up some super heavy clay tube things to use for the project. We had tried calling a supplier to buy them, but FREE sounded like a much better option (thanks, J's mom and dad!).

After many trips back and forth to the car, then through the house, and finally down the stairs to the basement, J got to work and created THIS bit of loveliness:

Sure, it is blocked partially by the DIY jack, but you can get the idea! You can also see the crazy stones to the left that make up our (super old) foundation.

We keep a thermometer in there to ensure the temperature doesn't vary too much - we've been colleting wine for a while now and it would STINK to have it go bad.  I complain on a semi-regular basis to my husband for hoarding all the good wine in the basement. He claims we have to "let'em lie down" for a while but the thought of waiting years to drink some of this wine makes me sad!

Eventually we can add more tiles and we'll put little labels on each bottle indicating what it is (so we don't have to pull out each bottle to read the label) and when we should drink it.



So there you have it, folks. A DIY wine cellar that makes use of a tiny nook in our basement.  I love the fact that it looks kind of rustic and it can be moved and re-organized as our wine collection grows or if we ever decide to move.

Nice work, hubs!

Who Wants a CSN Gift Certificate?

Hopefully Lindsay over at Little House Blog is raising her hand, because she is the big winner!!!



Thanks to everyone who entered and a special thanks to CSN for offering to do such a great giveaway. They really love us bloggers, don't they?!

Lindsay - I'll email you shortly with your $65 gift certificate to use at any of the 200+ CSN online stores and to everyone else, stay tuned for some (sketchy Iphone) pics of a little project my husband worked on this weekend!

When It's THIS Cold...

...I don't want to do ANYTHING. I want to stay inside, cuddled up on the couch with a cozy blanket and a cup of tea and either watch tv or read a book.

Recently, I have been reading like crazy because my parents got me this for Christmas:

A Kobo e-reader! It is the e-reader distrubuted by Chapters/Indigo here in Canada, and I love it!  I have been reading the Sookie Stackhouse series (basis for True Blood on HBO) and I honestly haven't been able to put it down for 2 weeks! 

Anyways - like I said - I don't like venturing out in this weather but I made an exception this weekend to go here:



Yep - that is me heading into Home Depot to use my gift cards!!! Despite the bitter cold and disgusting slush (which is a HUGE pet peeve of mine), we made it to the Depot unscathed and with only one soaker.

And what did I buy, you might be asking yourself...

(Say in a Price Is Right-esque voice) That's right, folks, IT'S A NEW LIGHT! (Cue applause and insane cheering from people in matching frat shirts).

While I don't have pictures to show you right now, the light has been installed, and only one finicky little shell met its untimely death in the process.

Let's all take a moment and shed a tear for that poor shell.

Updated photos to come later this week!

PS Have you entered my CSN giveaway?!

Going on a Little Trip...

...to Home Depot!!

A little while ago, I was contacted by a representative of Home Depot Canada asking if I would be interested in working together on a small home updating project in my house. 

Seriously? You are asking me that?

"OF COURSE!!" was pretty much my immediate response!!  Home Depot was totally flexible - I didn't have to change all the knobs in my kitchen (although I could) nor did I have to repaint my front porch (although I could do that too). I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to spruce up my home.

Sounded like a pretty sweet deal to me! Especially when I shop at Home Depot anyways, right?!  In all honesty, I have spent many evenings and weekends at the orange box and I'm not embarrassed to say so!

And lucky me, look what arrived via courier yesterday!

Oh yeah!!  Someone is going SHOPPING this weekend!!

Tune in next week to see how these gift cards were spent!

Special thanks to Home Depot Canada for supporting my blog, my shopping habit and my incessant desire to update my house, all at the same time!

I'm Perfectly Imperfect!

Hi friends! I know - two posts in one day! What the heck is going on?!

Well, I am over visiting Kerry at her blog, First Time Fancy, today sharing what is Perfectly Imperfect in my home. I think the cool kids call it "Guest Blogging".  I think.

Well, one of the things anyways. Lots of imperfection to choose from :-)

So pop by First Time Fancy and check out one of my (very odd) quirks. Here's a hint. Bring scissors!

Special thanks to Kerry for inviting me over!