February: Love

Our weekend was quiet and yet things were accomplished.  Small things that are making myself and I dare say us all happy.  We are moving more.  Soccer together, bike riding, walking.  Glorious winter weather with little rain (so far) is helping this to happen.  And art making is happening too.  Which always does me good.  There is no shortage of love here.  And we keep things like Valentine's Day simple for the sake of sanity.

 
Despite the frequent purges to "stuff" that seems to gather around us I always find more to pass on. While doing a recent purge I decided to use some cup hooks to create a necklace display/storage solution in my closet.  And it makes me happy to look at it and I actually wear my necklaces more often.  It's the little things, it really is.

out on Saturday

This Saturday brought a much needed respite from mommyhood with an excursion to the Vancouver Art Gallery with a very dear friend.  She had visited this exhibit and several pieces reminded her of me and so she invited me to go.  We had a great time looking at art, eating crepes, and talking about our brains, how they wire themselves depending on attachment and how our lives go through stages where different aspects of who we are come to the forefront.  Then I headed to the big downtown library and sat in the interior decor section because I couldn't find the sewing section and looked at books.

The first that I enjoyed was Amy Butler's Midwest Modern: A Fresh Design Spirit for the Modern Lifestyle.  I wouldn't say that my/our style is midwest modern but there are elements to how she designs that are just so lovely and comfortable.  Her casual pile of folded vintage tablecloths on the kitchen counter was very appealing to me.  Simple, colourful and soft in a room filled with hard lines and appliances.

The other book that struck several cords with me was The Family Home: Relaxed, Informal Living for All Ages by Joanna Copestick.   The designs were slightly dated since this book is over 10 years old but I loved the concept of designing for having a family rather than trying to create a home that looks like a magazine and is full of things that shouldn't be touched. 

 

Colour, warmth and functionality were important factors in all the designs.  I found the book made me think of a more European sense of design since technology was not as prominent on the pages.  But of course being from over 10 years ago the techie age was not nearly as big as it is now.  It's amazing how quickly flat screens in every room and digital everything has become the norm in interiors.  

Another excursion I took this weekend made my living room curtain dilemma even larger since drapes are not going to work as I had planned.  They would just come to close to the base electric heaters which are right below the patio doors.  So plans B, C and D are in the works.  I wanted to have this resolved before baby arrives since my sewing time will all but disappear but we'll see.  Hopefully we'll get something that works before I am forced to tack up sheets again in the middle of a July heatwave.  All in good time I'm sure, all in good time.

Thinking about Kitchens Part 2

The curtain edition.  The jumping off point for my kitchen design fantasies is the fabric that I've chosen for the curtains.  This fabric was purchased for a very special event that happened almost two years ago now. 

Birds have become a very important animal and symbol in my life.  When you live in the city they are the most prevalent wildlife (besides bugs and squirrels).  The nests they build always convey a feeling of coziness and you think of eggs, feathers and the shelter of tree branches.  So with those images in mind I picked this vintage fabric as my jumping off point for my kitchen.  In Part 1 I talked about colours and this fabric has each colour I find inspiring right now.  A deep red, soft blue, some pale green, golden yellow and even a slight pink in the upper bird. 
As for the style I created another Flickr gallery with styles of curtains that appealed to me.  Mostly though I think the photos evoke an energy that I like for different reasons in each kitchen.  I've played around with different ideas for the style.  I love the bistro style:

 brad hood

I've had this style in a previous kitchen.  But it covers up too much window in this case.  The kitchen window looks out from the second floor of our new townhouse and so privacy won't be an issue here.  I want to optimize the light and so I'll keep it simple with two side panels that can be closed if we want a cozy feel but leave the window fully exposed otherwise.  What remains to be seen is if I'll make them the length of the window or let them drape down to the floor.  I'll wait and see how we decide to place shelving or other furniture below the window before I make my final decision on that.  But in that case they would probably be more like this:

  decorology

Decor dreaming is quite fun.  Now I'm off on our weekend adventures.  Happy weekend to you all.

Thinking about Kitchens Part 1

As the big moving day gets closer my mind is off and running with ideas about the room in which I spend most of my waking hours: the kitchen.  I want it to be efficient, visually interesting, tidy (a girl can hope!) and as much as possible I want to enjoy being in there.  The best thing about my current kitchen is the cabinet space.  There is a lot of space.  More than any kitchen I've ever lived in.  But that is where my kitchen and I end our love affair.  The shape, lighting...oh, you name it, doesn't work.

This is the view as you walk in the door.  There is a built in table which is awkward to get around but eating in here with a ceramic tile floor was preferable to the dining room with a baby/toddler and carpeting.

And since I mentioned the floor...oh, how I detest ceramic tile!  Everything shatters when it falls on ceramic.  And since I am a huge klutz I have broken many jars, plates and glasses.  The shape of the kitchen makes more than one person in here at once difficult to maneuver.  (in the interest of full disclosure I left the kitchen as it looks at least three times a day...lol....)

 I remember being excited about this kitchen when I moved in. I suppose I may miss some aspects of it in the future but thinking about a "dream kitchen" is still a work in progress for me.  I don't have my system down yet.  I still have kinks to work out and welcome ideas in several forms, especially photos.

I created a gallery on Flickr for inspiration and also because I'm trying to discern if I have a style of my own.  I noticed some themes happening in the gallery that I hope to incorporate into my new space. 

christayayaya

I love these colours.  That retro red and blue combo is very prevalent in my palette right now.  I can vary the shades of blue from sea foam to turquoise to blue veil.  The red sits between brick, blood and fire engine.  There is a vintage feel to my style, an eclectic mix and match.

one haute mess

And the other decor trend, if I can call it that since I'm not up on them, that I'm loving right now is the mixture of wood tones with painted furniture pieces.  My mother would cringe a bit on that one but painted furniture can really bring the eclectic boho up a notch.  Not to mention that I become more convinced each day that colour is so important for creating personality in your home.  Too much and it's overwhelming but a few hits here and there can make the room.   And my final kitchen decor requirement is open shelving.  I've had several kitchens with mostly open shelving and while it looks cool it gathers tones of dust.  So I wouldn't advocate complete open shelving but definitely some.   

If you couldn't tell before why my kitchen and I aren't the best of friends the Flickr gallery will probably explain it all.  I'm not much for beige.  The colours I'm looking at for the home in general will be blues, grays, reds and some small hints of green.  At least that's what I'm thinking right now.  But of course that may change when we get into the house.   And I'm not thinking walls right now since the co-op has a colour that they paint all the units and we can change if we wish to but I'll really live in the space through at least one year first to make sure that I understand the light in the place.  The wrong light can turn a paint colour into a disaster pretty fast.  Well, I hope that was mildly interesting.  I'm on a bit of a decorating kick these days.   

Living Room Tour

As promised here is the first tour of our current home.  I've chosen to highlight the things that I love about the living/dining room, some of which can be recreated elsewhere and some that can't.

This view is good for the soul.  The Cedars stay green all year long and sway in the wind.  We also watch the squirrels jump from tree to tree and the birds singing from the branches.  Chickadees came and ate from our bird feeder in the winter too.  And several times now we've seen a Stellar's Jay on the balcony railing.  Stellar's Jays are the provincial bird of British Columbia.

 

It has been so nice to have a working fireplace even though we've had some not so great moments with it.  This was my second home with a working fireplace and this one had a mantle of sorts which I enjoyed decorating despite its makeshift nature.  By makeshift I mean that the former tenants bolted glass shelves to the existing wood mantle beam and we've had some accidents to prove that it may not have been the best solution for more display space.  Our new home does not have a fireplace so we'll miss this one.

The little TV nook area was a challenge to decorate.  But it did lead us to find the TV stand that I still really like.  (our toy storage is still a work in progress...lol...)

I have wonderful memories attached to this shelf display.  Dave actually made a spreadsheet to decide what arrangement he liked the best.  His meticulous Virgo nature came out full force in this but I think he did a great job.  We'll bring these shelves with us and I'm curious to see what shape they will morph into next. 

This piece is what I will miss the most from this room.  A lovely built in display cabinet with storage for linens, candles and photo albums below.  The china looks so nice in there.  Obviously we will get another hutch type piece someday but this one came ready made.  Do you think they'd notice the huge hole in the wall if we took it with us? 

So that's the end of the tour for today.  I feel grateful that I'll have this record for Ky and for my own memory's sake.  As a visual person I can recall almost every place I've lived in but this is more concrete and much more personal than just clicking through photos in a folder.  Have a great weekend.

Notes to my Future Self

If you have ever rented your home or if you do now then you can relate to my dilemma with home projects....I am very limited.  Some people paint walls, add different window treatments or shelving when they rent but we don't.  We've lived with vertical blinds for three years now.....(no offense if you like them, I don't) and change is not something that Dave likes that much in terms of decor.  He's an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" type and I...well, obviously I'm the "artsy, everything must look pleasing to my sensibility type."  So I've had to limit my changes and dream of future home ownership where I can let my interior and exterior design diva out.  When I came across this project in Garden Wise magazine last month I had a "I must remember this"  moment.  This my friends, is a clothesline trellis!

Isn't it lovely?  Hanging out your clothes along side a flowering vine and doing that thing that I love so much: making a functional object beautiful.  Clotheslines are so esthetically pleasing to me.  I love sheets, dresses, tea towels, even underwear floating in the wind.  The smell on the laundry when it dries this way is fresh, the sun bleaches out stains, and you save energy by leaving your dryer idle.  In the article they even suggest planting lavender or rosemary beneath it to encourage your laundry to smell even more divine.  Some day this will be in my backyard but until then my love affair with clotheslines will continue.   If you want to check out some photo streams of clotheslines from around the world you can do so here and here.  And for those of you that have one, lucky you!