Displaying posts labeled "Kim’s House"

I thought I’d do a little something different today since I spent just about all day yesterday organizing parts of my house, taking photos, sorting through the photos and tweaking the photos. (Amazing how time consuming this ends up being). I acquired a few things recently so I thought I’d share them with you. Keep in mind I still have plans to tear this house down in the (hopefully) near future but in the meantime I still need to keep myself amused with decorating it.

I did a little something in my dressing room which you can check out over on themourningcloak.com. On the same wavelength as that little project, there are a couple of new additions to my living room. First, I decided that I was tired of not really having anything over the sofa (it’s been 5 or 6 years) and since I have next to no space to display anything in this house, I decided to stick a shelf there. My husband took me out to a lumber yard and we found some gorgeous raw edge planks of wood. We bought 3 and used 2 in the dressing room and one over the sofa. My vintage cameras have been in storage for a while so I pulled those out and for some reason I like displaying lightbulbs (but I need a better bowl) so there we have it – a little display of stuff and things. 

I stopped in at the new Modern Shop downtown location last weekend (I blogged it here) and could not resist picking up a couple things. (More on that and other goodies after the jump!)

Two of my favourite brands – Normann Copenhagen and HAY. 🙂 The Normann Copenhagen Dropit hooks (large) now reside on the wall next to the front door. We don’t have a closet or anywhere to hang a purse of jacket when you walk in so I thought they would come in handy.

These Scholten & Baijings tea towels by Hay are amazing. The fabric is to die for and the colours and patterns are really fun. I seriously lack cute tea towels – not anymore!

Also in the kitchen, I’ve got a new centrepiece on my dining table thanks to a bunch of goodies from Highjinx (a local non-profit thrift shop where proceeds help the homeless). For about $40 I scored some really cool silver items (that I added to some I already had). I dug out a silver tray from the basement that my grandmother had given me and voilà, new bling on my table. 

The piece above is really neat. It is a vase on one end and a candleholder on the other. (It is marked with “NORWAY PEWTER”). My candle didn’t fit the candle end so I just shoved a few in the vase end. 🙂

Last but not least – my bedroom. I had cheap rattan blinds that stuck out from the window a good 4 inches so light would shine right in our eyes if we were lucky enough to sleep in (or the streetlights would shine in). I FINALLY got rid of them and found some cute black and white retro tree curtains at Ikea (that I “hemmed” with hockey tape temporarily – it was all I had). I also picked up a new duvet cover that I thought would work with the curtains and the very pale pink walls. The room has had no real colour or pattern going on lately so this was a HUGE improvement. And a few of the cats were stoked that I actually made the bed (in my defense there are always cats or a husband asleep on it so I have given up bothering – unless I take photos). On the bed is an otami pillow that my parents brought me back from Puerto Vallarta (I stupidly didn’t buy it when I was there but got them to pick it up before they came home). I had never seen otami in black and white there so I was stoked to find it and the piece of otami fabric I did end up buying there.  

Over a year ago I blogged a really cool idea I saw on The Selby – a vintage safe as a side table.

Low and behold, I recently came across one on Kijiji and my husband nearly lost his marbles. Turns out he is a huge fan of vintage safes too! Yesterday we drove for what seemed like hours to some little town out in the middle of nowhere and arrived at the home of a really nice man who sold us a very similar safe for $250 (I’m thinking this was a steal based on what little I’ve seen via some quick googling). It took 3 men to heave the 300 lb (or so) safe into our vehicule and somehow my husband and I managed to carry it into the house last night. Now it takes pride of place in the corner of my living room. The previous owner does not remember the combination (he’s had it for over 40 years – when he was younger while drinking with his buddies they’d see who could lift it) so we’ll have to figure out how to open it or find someone who can. In the meantime, I think it makes a sweet side table. 🙂

I spent the day at my sister’s cottage yesterday (trying to enjoy every last bit of summer while I can) so I had no idea what to blog today. I decided to simply take some photos around my house – inside and out. Hope you like. 🙂

First up, some photos in my kitchen.

I have a wall-mount Tolomeo on either side of my stove. Still one of my favourite lights of all time. 

Branches from a tree at the cottage ended up on top of the fridge (less cats can eat them up there).

Antlers from Alberta that I adore and some baskets on top of my pantry.

There are always cheap herbs from the grocery store sitting on my kitchen window sill. Oregano is one of the cutest plants.

I am obsessed with avocados. I could eat them at every meal. I just bought a whole bunch so they’re sitting in a stack of Green Light District pasta bowls (next to one of their vases) on my dining table.

A few photos in my living room (we still adore the new sofa, just wish I had more time to spend on it)…

My favourite vintage fan ended up on the floor in the corner. 

The same corner with spiky plant to fill the space, DIY light fixture and busroll art from Homesense. 

I love the colours of fall flowers. Picked these up at the grocery store. Milo is enjoying the view out front. 

Couple of shots from my bedroom…

I love collecting blankets. It’s not easy to display them in a house with many cats. Right now they’re in a basket on top of shelving – a cat-free zone until winter comes.

I bought this coat rack at least a year ago and it’s been sitting in a heap of crap in the basement since. I was worried it would warp/break/etc. so it’s now hanging on a wall next to the bed. 

Here is my office at the back of the house…

My Frye moto boots at the backdoor next to a shelving unit my husband built to store his shoes. 

Phoebe watching birds from the Ikea hacked baby changetable turned cat perch. Behind her is a tall branch that is nice and straight that I found at the cottage – perfect for a curtain rod. 

That’s it for inside. Here are some around the yard. 

Formerly a field of weeds, my view out the front of the house is now a bunch of these 3 story townhomes. Awesome. At least they somewhat block the noise of the highway (just beyond that metal fence you can see to the left). 

Lucky losing his mind in the living room window because I was on the porch snapping pics and he was stuck inside. 

Some chrysanthemums to decorate the front porch and help me forget summer is almost done (stupid brown pots).

I only went to the plant section of Home Depot for those baskets above, but had to bring home this massive rosemary plant for $5. I’ll plant it in a decent pot and bring it indoors when it gets too cold. Of course, that means it won’t last long. LOVE the smell and will take what I can get. 

My husband was bored one day so he took some wood from the DIY couch we tore apart and made this BBQ utensil holder next to the shed. AWESOME because I those utensils are huge and annoying and I don’t want them in the kitchen.

Despite the fact that I am not taking care of any of the plants in the yard since I will likely have to replace them all when we do real landscaping after new house is built, this bamboo has survived and looks adorable. It makes me think we’re in the tropics. HA!

Another quick project the husband came up with out of boredom. A cute little table for the back deck. 

And a little extra I had to add…we finally created a sign for the pontoon boat at the cottage to put its name. The S.S. Shapoopie. A favourite Family Guy word we all love. 

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned on my page that I bought a new sofa, because my husband and I were sick and tired of the DIY sofa he built that we’ve been using for the last few years. I think the new sofa is pretty funky and will go with the theme I want for the new house we are hoping to build next year. Here is the photo I snapped at the store.

I LOVE brown leather that looks better with age, and this one I hope will age beautifully. We had it delivered a few days after purchasing it, and I had Friday off so I prettied up the living room and took some photos. Now, it’s a bit of a large sofa for our tiny living room but I don’t care, as we hope to not be in this house much longer, and it’s SO much more comfortable than the last one. I re-decorated the space with items I had around the house, because I don’t want to purchase any more stuff (I have too much crap!) until the new house. I thought the space above the sofa, while empty all this time, kind of looked bare (maybe I’m just tiring of my forest mural) so I found 2 pieces to hang there. Not ideal but the wall was making me crazy sans art. Eventually I’d love maybe some Australian aboriginal art (in black and white) above it. Anyhoo, here it is.

My dad emailed us kids the other day to say he wanted to get rid of his wine making paraphernalia and wanted to know if any of us were interested in some 10 gallon glass carboys/demijohns. HELLS YEAH! My little sister ended up with 2 clear/blue-ish ones which were gorgeous, and unfortunately all he had left were 2 green ones but hey, I’ll take what I can get (even with a dead mouse in it). I likely have to store it in the basement because again, I have too much crap and too small of a house but I’m sure I’ll find a place for it one day. (Felix approves).

I have been on holidays these past 2 weeks and dear gawd did I need this break (at least from one of my jobs). Since Tuesday I’ve been pretty much stuck at home during the day which I welcomed, because it meant getting lots of things done I have been putting off – including several tasks involving organzing something or other. Yesterday, after walking to the post office to pick up some hot boots, it was time to organize the bookshelves in my bedroom. I really don’t like having all this book storage in my bedroom (to me it’s like bad feng shui – too much visual stimulation for a room that’s supposed to give me tranquility), but it was the only free wall in my tiny house that could house my magazine collection and some books. I threw some of the older magazines out because holy smokes I have far too many, and made the piles neat again. Once the contents were organized (and shrunk down a bit) I went out to the storage shed and dug out some apple baskets and a couple wooden crates I had purchased some time ago at an antique shop out in the boonies. I am a FREAK for rustic/industrial storage options, and these, along with my vintage metal locker baskets, helped in the wrangling of my crap. I’m a happy camper now, and I think I can sleep a little better tonight knowing it’s not a disaster. (P.S. Before the hubby moved in, the shelves looked like this, and after when I de-feminized the space, the room looked more like this).