Bridgewood, a Sneak Peek

Alright faithful readers. It's time. I've been given the samples to choose the exterior colours for our new house. I started looking at them last night, but felt like I needed to see them in their true colours, aka daylight (which, if you're looking for painting tips, is the best way to choose colours, interior or exterior. Take the sample outside [if it's not -80] and look at them there - interior lighting often shows a false colour).
SO. I have to choose the colours for the following:

• Garage door
• Soffits, Fascia
• Windows
• Siding
• Stucco
• Brick/stone
• Roof shingles (which I have to do later because I need to go to the supplier warehouse)

I have had this inspiration shot saved since we started this whole process, and now it is time for it's reveal:

And now it's time for the reveal.
Here is what our house will look like:

Instead of the stucco we'll have what's called HardyBoard (a wider wood siding, similar to the inspiration shot), and I'm still trying to convince CJ to have it installed vertically. I might also end up choosing a different style of garage door, but it will ultimately be white, like the windows will be.
So there's your sneak peek. Enjoy! And come back later for more!

OK, gonna go check out the samples now while it's still daylight :)

And The Answer Is....

Ta da! Thanks to an eager Facebook friend, we have an answer! The glass "vase" I found at a thrift store is (drum roll please... dun dun dun dun dun)...
A 120oz. Venice Infusion Jar!

See here.
So it may not be an awesome vintage piece, but it's still pretty unique and I still love it.  And hey, it's used for vodka - what could be worse? haha.

My friend found this link literally seconds after I posted the blog post on Facebook. I really should send her a prize for her efforts. What do you think I should send her? Some infused vodka? :)

Fantastic Find Fridays - Vintage Glass...Thing

Wow! It's been a whole week since I've posted! Whoopsies! We went to Thunder Bay, ON last weekend to visit friends, and I guess I haven't gotten myself back into routine yet. But I found this awesome glass...thing at a thrift store when we were in Thunder Bay, and just had to share it. I also want help with figuring out what it is! I have no idea! The guy at the store said something about putting wine in it, but I'm not sure that's what it's original use was. I'm not even sure it's old, but it has the thick greeny-blue glass which often means it's old.

The part I love about it most is that little brass spout at the bottom. I haven't tested it out yet, but I really hope it works.

So what do you think? Any ideas what it is or what it was used for? Any ideas what I can use it for (other than just decoration, of course :P)?

On a side note, we started carpeting the stairs at Carriere last night. Man that's a lot of work! I hope to do a couple of posts on it next week. But for now, get your idea caps on and tell me what this thing is!

Have a great weekend!

Fantastic Find Fridays - 5 Minute Microwave Chocolate Cake

Yes, you did read that right. I've seen a whole lot of these recipes kicking around on Pinterest, but it never crossed my mind to make one. Until the other night, that is. I was trying to figure out if I should check Facebook one. more. time. or go to bed, and then this idea popped into my mind, for some reason. So I fore-went the Facebook plan and decided to give it a try. I used this recipe, and to be honest, it turned out...shall we say...somewhat interesting. I may have used too much oil, and I think next time I will try the butter instead. The first few bites were weird but it got to tasting pretty good! I think it would be excellent with a dollop (love that word) of ice/whip cream, and in honor of my sister, maybe a topping of chocolate chips and chocolate sauce.

It really did only take about 5 minutes to make, and made for a fantastic before-bed snack for me and CJ (case in point, he actually looked up from his Mayday episode (!) and said, "that's really good cake").
As much as this is a pretty fantastic find, I might have to do another fantastic find on a good weight loss program.


"Let them eat cake!" ~Marie-Antoinette

Valentine's Day Sangria

I don't know much anything about Valentine's Day, but I do know this: people spend a LOT of money on flowers and chocolates. I don't really get what the big deal is. Flowers die and chocolates make you fat.
I wanted to send some flowers to CJ at work today.

These, however, were a wee bit out of my price range (gasp $450 stutter choke). I couldn't believe anyone would ever spend this amount of money on roses! I mean, they're nice and all, but really? They'll die in 4 days!

Anyways, enough of my ramblings. I wanted to let you in on something I created a little while ago that I thought would be the perfect drink for Valentine's Day (mainly because of the colour, and the price compared to those flowers).
Introducing my Homemade Valentine's Day Sangria:

Recipe:
1/3 glass red wine of your choice
1/3 glass fruit juice
1/3 glass cranberry GingerAle

Add a fancy little heart-shaped garnish (strawberry?) and you have a lovely Valentine's Day Sangria! Enjoy!

-jes

Fantastic Find Fridays - IKEA Kitchen Planner

Welcome back to Fantastic Find Fridays! Today's find is something that I will probably treasure and use for, well, as long as we renovate or build houses. As you can read from the title, this find is the IKEA Kitchen Planner. We came across this gem when we were flipping our first house, and couldn't believe how easy it was to design and order a kitchen! We live in Winnipeg, and unfortunately IKEA has yet to make an appearance here (even though I keep hearing that it's coming...) so we figured that an IKEA kitchen would be a great selling feature. Although they've changed parts of the program (you used to download it straight to your computer, but now you do it all online - things like that), it's still just as easy to use and just as awesome. It might take a bit of getting used to, and figuring out all it's quirks, but let me tell you, it's definitely worth it - our first kitchen (appliances excluded) was a super cheap $3000 (approximately)!
So today I'm going to show and tell you a bit about it and how it works. It's fun even just to sit and plan your dream kitchen, whether you're planning a renovation or not!
Ok, first things first. I apologize in advance for the bad pictures. Then, after you've forgiven me, go to the website (here). And click on "IKEA Planning Tools":

 Click the big "Start" button and it will open a new window that looks like this:

This is where you want to add in your dimensions (top right side). At the bottom they also give pre-shaped designs that you can use and then alter accordingly.

Once you have the proper dimensions (and windows, partition walls, etc - which you put in by clicking on "Doors&Windows" or "Obstacles" under Room Layout) you're ready to start building!

Click on Kitchen (left side), and a large drop down menu will appear. This is where you can find all the cabinets. Like I said, you may have to fiddle around and find stuff, as I realize I'm not being very clear. Anyways, this screen shot (above) shows one cabinet placed against the wall. All you have to do is click on the picture of the cabinet and it appears on your floor plan. Then you can move it around to the proper location. On the right side it gives you options which you can change to suit your preferences.

Once you have something you think you like, you can check what it looks like in 3D (which is what I really like about this program). The first arrow on the above screenshot is pointing at what you click to bring you there. The second arrow is pointing at how you can move around (pan) the kitchen.

Once you're happy with your design, you can see what everything costs (the scary part)! On the left side menu at the bottom you will see "Your Selected Items." Click that, then click the one underneath it again. It will bring up a list of what you've placed in your kitchen, and at the very bottom, the grand total. This includes everything that comes with IKEA's cabinets - legs, plinth, hardware, screws, etc (unless you've specified otherwise). ACK! So CHEAP! Obviously, I don't normally think $7000 is cheap, but for a kitchen, and compared to custom kitchens - CHEAP! So after everything is said and done, save the design and it will be available at your nearest IKEA store for you to upload, and then order with their kitchen department staff. That's it that's all! Easy peasy.
And then, if you're like my husband, you can take it too far one step further and input your WHOLE HOUSE plan in order to have a 3D picture of what it would look like. Then I had some fun and added the design elements (flooring, furniture, wall paint, back splash tile, the fake tree, etc). It lets you do it all! Please note that this is not what our new house will look like.

Our first kitchen we did through this program was super awesome as well because the cabinets we ordered were being discontinued - cheapER! Here's what that one looked like:

 

This kitchen was small and such an odd layout that it was tough to figure out a functional plan. But we were happy with how it turned out, even if we only got to use it for about half a year.
Our next kitchen was a bit bigger and was easier to design. I desperately wanted a pantry, and I think that was the first cupboard that I put in. Everything else had to be designed around it. HAD. TO.
I still love this kitchen and will be sad to leave it behind, but hopefully our next one (which, obviously, we will be doing through IKEA again) will be the same or better. Here's what that one looks like:

Apparently this is the best picture I have of it. Please notice the nice big pantry cupboard on the left instead of the nice big mess on the counters and lack of trim on the window (which has since been cleaned and installed). Oh! And that open cupboard reminds me that all these doors are "angry wife cupboards" - which means they all come with those awesome stoppers that make the doors shut nice and quietly. But keep in mind that you will get used to this and will shut these doors a bit more forcefully than normal. So when you're visiting someone and go to get a glass from the cupboard, shut. their. doors. very. gently. Trust me.

Hope you have a Fantastic weekend!

-jes

How to Make Homestyle Fish & Chips

You probably won't be reading many food posts on this blog, but I'm going to share this one.
I. Love. Fish. and. Chips.
My dad used to own a fish and chip store, but unfortunately got rid of it before I was born, so I can't say I grew up in one. But we did go as a family quite often, and I just learned to love it. If we went to a different restaurant I would always order their "fish and chips" and be completely crushed when they put a plate of frozen fries and fish sticks in front of me. I was used to the real, battered, fried in golden fatty oil, halibut fish with hand cut, fried in the same fatty oil french fries. It's amazing I'm not 300lbs. Because of this, however, I learned to love halibut fish, and ONLY halibut fish. I didn't want to try other types, just because I didn't want to be disappointed (that, and also probably because I was scarred from my mom's salmon loaf she used to make. Salmon loaf, you ask? Yep. Just think meatloaf, but with salmon. Yum).
Thus I come to last night's dinner. I had taken fish out of the freezer earlier in the day, and still had to decide what to do and eat with it. I had a bunch of russet potatoes that started growing other russet potatoes, so I figured I should use them up. But I was sick of mashed or boiled or even baked. So I turned to my friend, Google.

Hi Google!
Hi Jes. Welcome back!
Thanks. I'm looking for how to make homemade french fries. Can you help me out?
Sure thing! Here are some links for you to check out - hope it helps!
Thanks, Google.
You're welcome - come back soon!
You know it!

So there you have it. I got to work washing and cutting, and picking off the potato sprouts. I chose six fair sized potatoes:

 Cut them into french fry size strips:

Then you want to put them in a bowl, cover with cold water, and throw some ice cubes on top. Put them in the fridge (or if it's winter and you don't have room in your fridge, outside) for about 30 minutes:

 Meanwhile, pour some vegetable oil into a pot, and start heating it up. You want it to get to 375F.

 When the 30minutes is up, strain the water from the fries and pat them down with paper towel REALLY well. You don't want excess water on the fries because it will make your oil sizzle and pop.

 Add a bunch to your preheated oil, and fry for about 10 minutes (I didn't really time it, I just checked to see if they were done, but it was about 10 minutes).

 When you think they are finished, put them in a paper towel lined bowl to soak up all that grease. They WILL be greasy. But will taste REALLY good. Salt or season to taste.

And while you're doing all this, or while you're waiting for the fries to soak, why not make some fish to go with these babies?
I used freshly caught (a few weeks ago) pickerel but didn't batter it because I didn't think I'd have the time or ingredients. So all I did was put the filets in an oven safe dish, lather with salt and pepper and margarine, and threw it in the 400F oven, covered with tin foil, until it flaked with a fork. This recipe works well with all types of white fish. I especially like Tilapia done this way.

I may have used a bit too much margarine here, but it still worked. Turns out I'm not a big fan of the pickerel taste. I think I'll stick to my halibut :)

Re-purposed Wreath

Here's a little project I did this past Christmas time. I've had this wreath with snowmen on it since our first Christmas together (4 years ago!), and it was about time I changed it up. Things had started falling off of it - when I looked at this old picture I had, I didn't even remember that it had that green stuff on the top of it!

Anyway, I was getting pretty sick of the snowmen, and had seen so many great ideas on Pinterest with peacock feathers. Luckily our local dollar store had a pack of three feathers for about $2, so I bought 2. I wasn't too sure what I was going to do with them so they sat on my craft table for a good couple of weeks. Eventually I figured it was time to do something about it when I found my daughter with one of the sharp sticks to hold up the snowmen in her mouth. Not sure if she ripped it off or it fell off (wouldn't be surprised about either), but either way, I got to work.
I first started with the fun part: ripping the snowmen off. Not surprisingly they came off pretty easy, so it took all of about 2 minutes.
Then I got out my glue gun, found some matching Christmas balls (that I got for super cheap as well), and started playing around with different figurations. After many attempts, and TONS of glue, it turned out like this:

I'm pretty happy with it! I had played around with a bit of tulle as well, but just ended up using it for the tie. Here is a breakdown of costs:

wreath: about $5 four years ago, so I consider it free.
peacock feathers: $2 (only used three)
ornaments: I'd say about $1 total.
glue: about $1
tulle: I got a whole bunch of it at a thrift store for $2 so this little piece is probably about 5 cents.

So for about $4 you can have a beautifully re-purposed wreath! Change up the Christmas ornaments (perhaps some birds?) and it can be a spring wreath too!

Front Entry

This house was built in 1924. I guess back in those days people didn't feel the need to hoard and store things, as there is very little storage space (not including the 3/4 basement - which is all storage because you can't really do anything else down there). The front entryway is small, and there is no closet. For selling purposes we are leaving it that way (much to my chagrin) and hopefully building some type of closet in the back mud/laundry room (yet another project). Since there is a back lane and the garage is in the back, we figure most people will use the back entry most.
So, CJ doesn't think we should spend too much time making the front entry super nice. But of course I do. So here is my inspiration:

 This blog is awesome. She gives step by step instructions on how to do these stripes, so I can't wait to try them out. Here is what my front entry looks like now:

My sister (check her out here!) suggested to do vertical stripes so it feels taller. But these are 9foot ceilings in this house, and if anything I want this space to feel wider. So I'm sticking with the horizontal stripes (sorry K!). I also had the thought of doing more subtle stripes like this:

As you can see, my entry is an off white, so I would probably do a darker shade of what it is now. I'm still not decided on one or the other. What do you think? I'm open to suggestions!

Come back to see how it turns out (after, of course, I get my butt in gear and actually do it)!

Carriere: A Sneak Peek

We bought this house in the early spring of 2008. It was supposed to end up being a flip, just like our first, but life got in the way of our plans and we are still finishing the renovations today. Things have changed in the last couple of months though, because we are putting Carriere up on the market in May and have started the process of building another one. I hope to post before and afters (even thought not all the "afters" are complete), and upcoming projects and work we still need to do. So today I give you a sneak peek at what's to come.

If you're squeamish, cover your hand over the first "before" picture of the front exterior. When CJ started ripping all that green seven-layer-painted board off, we actually had people walk by and say Thank You.

You're very welcome.

So there's your sneak peek. Be sure to come back to see more!

Fantastic Find Fridays

I decided I'm going to dedicate Fridays' posts to "fantastic finds." Pretty original, hey?
Anyways, these posts will consist of things I've found either in real life, or just on the internet. They will be random. They will be awesome. They will be...you guessed it. Fantastic.

So today, being the first Friday I've ever posted fantastic finds, I'm going to let you in on a little secret love affair I have. Now just relax, don't get all "i'm going to tell your husband" on me. This love affair is not with someONE but with someTHING. They come in all different styles, shapes, and sizes. They have four legs, and some have two arms. They can be soft and hard. They can be wood, plastic, or metal.

Guess it yet? Ok, I'll tell you. My love affair is with...chairs. I don't know why. I can't explain it. I just have a thing for them.

So, in honor of Fantastic Find Fridays, here is one of my chairs that I found at a little antique shop. I loved it so much, but couldn't bring myself to buy it (I don't really know why... it was only $50). But then my lovely husband took me out for my birthday last year and before dinner we stopped at this place and he bought it for me. Such a guy, he is.

The shop owner told us he thought it to be at least 100 years old. I think that's why I love this one so much. Plus, it's actually pretty comfy.

Anyways, that's my little secret. Now, not so secret. Oh well. Here are a few more fantastic chair finds for your pleasure (and mine).

fantastic stripes.

truly antique.

pink. eames. lounge.

So these are just a snapshot of some of the chairs that I've fallen for. I'm sure if you follow my blog you will encounter many more. Stay tuned. You know you want to.