WOW and Project Back Room Reveal

All I can say is WOW. And I'm SORRY!
I don't even want to look at the date of my last post. It just embarrasses me! I have been neglecting my blog for so long and am finally sitting down here and said to myself, "ok Jes, just DO it!"
So here I am after a long time away. It's been busy, to say the very least. We got back from Europe (which was a blast) and dove headfirst into more house renovations in order to get this baby up on the market. We have succeeded, and now have a bit of breathing room to do things like blog posting.
But before I get to talking about the house, something else has been keeping me "away" and I think it's time to let you know (if you don't already)...

That's right, our little "baby" won't be the baby anymore, come November D.V. I haven't been too sick, just really tired, but that's finally starting to ease up a bit too. We are super excited! Hopefully now I will get back into the blogging "routine."

Alright, so now onto the house. I posted awhile ago about our back laundry/mud room. That project is finally complete. It didn't turn out like the gorgeous inspiration pictures I posted here, and this was mostly due to budget and space. But we did manage to encompass the two main elements of our mission:
1. create coat and shoe storage
2. laundry facilities
and created a functional, bright, clean space.
So get to the pictures already! May I remind you again what it looked like before. See here.

What!? Is this even the same room!? As you can see, the washer and dryer are still stacked. Much to my chagrin, there wasn't enough space to put them side by side with a counter on top and nice open shelving with nice baskets and canisters and these awesome crates that my sister and her husband make...
Also to my chagrin and my husband's understandably ebbing inertia to these house projects, we didn't end up using that nice glass tile as decorative tile. I think it turned out just as good, and nobody would have noticed it anyways! 

Closet! On the walls we used some leftover paint we had called "Powdered Snow." Yay for cheap leftovers! I love how everything is just white and clean!

 I'm already so used to using this closet. I honestly don't know how people in 1924 used to live. I guess with less stuff... ??

This is what you see coming in from the back door.

And then for the stairs we just cleaned them up and painted them....you guessed it... WHITE! It makes such a difference!

So there you have it. Even though it didn't turn out like my inspiration shots or the pictures in my head, I'm still happy with the outcome. It makes coming home so much better : )

Now let's just see how much longer I get to call this place home! ...

Now if I haven't overwhelmed you with all the content on this one single blog post, come back and see what's in store next!

...a little europe

A post on a Saturday you ask?
When I started this blog I said to myself that I would not post on the weekends, just to give myself a break (I'm good at giving myself breaks). But this weekend calls for a post because, well you see, we leave for Europe this coming Wednesday. CJ's sister, who lives in the Netherlands, got married and all the family is heading out there to celebrate!
I'm pretty excited as I've never been there before. CJ has, and I think he's pretty excited to "show me around." The planning of this trip, however, has been nothing short of a headache for us. We knew the dates we needed to be there for the family stuff, and we figured we'd take an extra week just for the two of us (yes, we're leaving T here! :| ). We tossed around idea after idea (I really wanted to go to Greece - haha), and I think we've finally come to a conclusion: we're staying in Europe, renting a car, and traveling through the different countries around Holland.
I spent quite a bit of time last night trying to map something out and here's what I came up with:

Amsterdam - Groningen - Enschede - Frankfurt, Germany - Luxembourg - Paris, France - Brussels, Belgium - Amsterdam

We fly into Amsterdam, then the first week is spent around Groningen (where the wedding celebration will be). After that, we have just shy of a week to hit these other countries. Enschede is where my dad was born and lived til he was three, so we're going to check that out and spend the night in Enschede, at this quaint hotel:

http://www.hotels.nl/enschede/broeierd/

What we do after Enschede is kind of a free-for-all. I just picked a city I've heard of in each of the other countries shown, there is no significance to any (besides the obvious Eiffel Tower in Paris). Actually, Paris was a last minute thought, we may not even hit that up. But part of the excitement will be not really knowing where we're going! We decided we should book the hotel in Enschede, and then just see what happens from there. Another part of the excitement will be doing it all in this baby:

That's right, a manual transmission little foreign car! What more fun could you ask for?

So needless to say, you may not see many posts in the next two - three weeks. But believe you me, I will definitely have my camera with me at all times and when I get back you  better believe you'll hear from me.

Til then, though, go rent yourself a little car and pretend you're me driving around in Europe! See you in a few weeks!

-Jes

Fantastic Find Fridays - Map!

This is kind of a funny story. My husband doesn't think so, but I'll tell you anyways. If you know me, you know I have a love for maps (kind of like my love affair with chairs). I have about 6 of them hanging in my office right now that I want to get framed. Anyways, CJ was at one of his customer's houses once and noticed a huge map hanging on their wall. He asked where they got it and they told him. So, he went online, ordered it, and got it sent to my brother in law so I wouldn't see it. He thought he had written instructions on the packing slip about it, instructing him that it was not actually for him, but to hold it for a while for me.
So yesterday I was visiting my sister (who's married to above said brother in law), and low and behold when I get there there's a cardboard triangle package sitting on their counter. Well since it's addressed to my brother in law, he opened it and was pretty bum-puzzled (my new favorite word) as to where it came from, naturally. I noticed the packing slip and on it was written: nothing! Except that it was "sold to" my husband, which made it even more confusing. I had no idea what was going on. Then later I was talking to CJ on the phone and he said, "well there goes that part of the surprise." It was for me!! Poor guy got his surprise ruined and was totally dejected. I, on the other hand, was totally stoked that I got to take it home!
I know I mentioned that this map was huge, but let me tell you just how big. Actually, let me show you first.

See right there? Right at the bottom of the close up picture? 116"Wx76"L? That's almost 10 feet wide and 6 feet tall! HUGE!
I can't tell you how much I can't wait to put this up. I asked CJ what his original thought was to do with this, and he was going to somehow put our last name on it, and then it'll be our "Family Travels" map. We'd put a pin at all the places we've been and would like to go.
And instead of putting it on a wall (it's basically 3 sections of wallpaper), I had the idea to put it on some type of board so we can take it with us from house to house (this would also keep us from mudding the wall afterwards too from all the little pin holes). CJ had the idea to put trim around it so it looks like a frame. Awesome, right? Not sure if we'll do that soon or just wait to put it in our next house, but either way I'll be ready with the camera and a blog post, so stay tuned!

Have a fantastic weekend!

DIY Hooded Bath Towel

This was one of my first "major" sewing projects, and I thought I'd share it with you. I used a free tutorial from Prudent Baby so you should go over there and check it out. Their site is the best.

On to the towel! All you need is one hand towel and one bath towel, and if you want, a piece of fabric to make it look pretty. I think I got both of them for like, $5. I'll show you what I did, but really, if you want to make this, go to Prudent Baby and read their directions. I'll probably just confuse you.

This strip of fabric is for the hood embellishment. I made one with, and one without.

Fold in the edges, press, and pin.

Starting with the hood: cut the two ends off the hand towel.

Fold that piece in half like shown below, and place the piece of fabric about an inch from the folded edge - pin in place:

Unfold the towel, and sew the fabric in place:

Fold the towel "inside out" (with the fabric facing itself) and sew the towel ends together, like shown (this is it turned back right side out):

Take the outermost corner of the towel and stuff it inside the other (see how bad my instructions are?):

This is what it looks like on the inside.

And you should have your hood done!

Now this part for me was the hardest: figuring out how to sew the hood onto the towel. I read and re-read Prudent Baby's instructions and looked and re-looked at the pictures, but I couldn't figure out what they were saying. So, I figured I'd just try it and if it didn't work out, or if my sewing machine blew up, then that would be a lesson learned.

I was, you see, sewing through layers of thick towel. My machine did not blow up, and the hood is still attached to the towel (I'm assuming - I gifted it to my niece) so it turned out all right.

Voila! Let me know if you try this out! Don't forget to send pictures!

Project Back Room Sneak Peek

Ok, so I can't resist showing some of what will (and has) happen (ed) in Project Back Room. What can I say? I'm an impatient person, so why make you wait too, right? CJ got started on the demolition and then realized that he should probably do the basement (a whole other story) before the back room, in case he has to bring stuff up or down the stairs (better than doing that through a finished back room). So, once again, a project has been put on hold for the time being. We still hope to get it all done in the next two weeks, but for now, I'll show you a bit of what's happened in there, and a peek at what's to come.
So we all remember what it looked like before, right? Well let's refresh your memory (because it's been so long since my last post about this...):

 Here's what it looks like today (and will apparently look like for a "little while"):

 I think it's an improvement for sure.

Aaaand just for your viewing pleasure, here's a sneak peek of the new floor tile that will be installed:

 And I'm going to put this glass tile as a decorative element:

Awesome, right? Stay tuned for "final" pictures!

Fantastic Find Fridays - Old Rope

Ok, so this Fantastic Friday Find isn't an original find. I've had it for a while, but I just re-found it, if that's any merit. My mother in law gave me this old rope, and I believe she said it was her father's.

 Isn't it awesome?? My favourite part about it are the old rings - so rustic!

Now I just have to figure out what to do with it! I had this awesome idea to do something like this:

http://www.potterybarn.com/products/griffin-rope-iron-chandelier/?pkey=cchandeliers

I have this chandelier (sorry for the horrible picture, it's all I had): 

I was standing on the table trying to get it to look just right, and I had it perfect (or so I thought), and CJ comes in and says, "umm, that's a potential fire hazard." I'm not sure if he was being serious or just hated the way it looked, but nevertheless I took it down, and now need to come up with another idea.
Any thoughts? My next thought is just to roll it up nice and put it on display. Unless you come up with something better! 

-Jes

Project Back Room

Our mission is to create a space in our backroom that encompasses two main elements:
1. Coat and shoe storage
2. Laundry facilities
This is going to be an exciting project. And it'll be such a transformation that I can't wait to see it complete. I can't tell you how many mud/laundry room combos I've seen done (mainly on Pinterest), and I'm so excited to try it out myself. And one of the biggest challenges (but probably one of the most exciting parts) is going to be doing it for as cheap as possible. Before I get to the before pictures, let me tell you a bit about this room. In Winnipeg, most older neighborhoods have back lanes, and garages in their backyards. This generally means that most people park their cars in the back of their houses as opposed to front driveways, which means the back door is usually used more often than the front door. Seeing as this house was built in 1924, there is no storage. Well, there wasn't when we moved in. So, one of my main goals for this room is to build get CJ to build a closet for coats, shoes, etc. This room also houses the washer and dryer. I debated moving them to the basement and creating an awesome laundry room down there, but I already got CJ to move the plumbing once, so I figured I'd just let it be. Plus, it's nice to have main floor laundry - I wouldn't want to lug baskets up and down those stairs (see picture below). The stairs to the basement take up about half this room, which I'm not happy about and tried so hard to think of a different configuration. Moving stairs, though, is so expensive, and just not worth it. I'll just have to get my creative cap on and come up with something brilliant.
Alright, enough jabber. On to the pictures. Brace yourself.

Forgot to mention that this room is off the kitchen. With a french door. That you can see right in. So this room has to look fabulous!

 And it definitely doesn't look fabulous now!

I think it's even worse seeing pictures of it because I was just used to it being this way.

Could you imagine falling down these with a load of laundry? Pretty sketchy!

Anyways, the work on this room has already begun, but I want to save "during" and "after" pictures for a big reveal when it's all done. For the time being, take a look at some inspiration pictures:

Stay tuned for the reveal!

-jes

Carpeting Stairs in Four "Easy" Steps - Pun Intended

Carpeting stairs is a lot harder than it looks! But to be honest, I haven't seen it done, uhh, ever, actually. We've never done it before, and we relied heavily a lot on YouTube videos which were very helpful. So here are the "four" steps (it's actually quite a few more, but it's four main steps).
Our stairs had already been stripped of this lovely runner (one of the first things we did after moving in, for hopefully obvious reasons):

so we didn't have to remove anything when we were ready to carpet. Just for the record, by the way, I didn't really want to carpet the stairs, especially after seeing so many cool ideas on Pinterest, like this and this.
But for resale value, carpeting made the most sense. That, and the fact that these particular stairs are basically at a 45 degree angle, so it's a safety thing as well. So back to the steps. Step one is to clear any existing carpet and gunk and dirt from the stairs:

So clean! And so white! Let's change that, shall we?
Step #2 is to install your tackless strips (aka tack strips). These are pieces of wood that have super sharp metal points coming out at an angle to help hold the carpet down. Measure your stairs' width and cut each strip to that size. Then you want to install one 3/4" from the bottom of the riser (the vertical part of the stairs) and one on the tread (the part you step on), touching the riser. See picture:

Also, make sure the points on the tack strips are pointing DOWN for the one on the riser and UP for the one on the tread.
Also make sure when you're hammering them in that you don't hammer too hard or this might happen:

Whoopsies. Good thing we decided to put carpet on these babies!
Step #3. Now you want to cut your pieces of under padding (if you decide to use this). If you have an old house, make sure to measure each stair individually! The reason we decided to carpet each stair individually is because (after researching on Google) it lasts longer. If you use one piece of carpet for the stairs (the "waterfall" method), eventually the carpet will start to come off, and if each stair has their own piece you can replace it easier. It's more time consuming doing it this way, but is better in the long run. Anyways, back to step three. So you want to measure the width of the stair, and the "length" (the tread and riser - make sure to measure around the 'bullnose' too if your stairs have that). But don't include the tack strips in your measurements. Basically, measure from one tack strip to the next. Cut your piece out, and get your handy husband and his handy pneumatic staplegun to install each piece:

This picture shows some utility knives, and I started out using them, but I found that just plain kitchen scissors cut it so much easier and faster.

If it looks a little wonky it's because it is. Under padding is made of lots of tiny pieces of foam, and staples don't like to hold it that well. But it'll work.
We took a step back and looked at the stairs after this step was done, and we both said we should just leave it like this. It looks kinda cool! But then we'd have all this carpet and wouldn't know what to do with it, so we just decided to keep going.
Step #4 is to cut and install the carpet. Same as with the under padding, measure each stair individually. This time, include the tack strips in your measurements. I recommend doing a test piece first, in case your measurements are off (like ours were):

Starting at the bottom of the riser, place the piece of carpet on the tack strip and smooth your hand along up to the bullnose. Staple the snot out of it at that joint, and then continue smoothing your hand over the tread and push the carpet into the little crevice created by the two tack strips. It should hold just like that, but we used carpet with a kanga backing, and found that the tack strips didn't hold it too well so we used staples too.
Go all. the. way. up. and you're done! Don't they look so furry?!

Install the trim, the railing, and vacuum all the little pieces of carpet fibers away and you have a nice cozy set of stairs that don't squeak anymore! In just four steps!