Entryway TLC

Not having a proper entryway makings storing shoes, jackets and everything else that comes through the door a challenge.  Shoes were just being kicked off and pushed under the ottoman and ever since the weather started to turn sweaters and jackets have being making their own little home on top of the ottoman ....

Ikea Hemes shoe cabinet to the rescue!  I've only put a few pairs in it so far but it looks like it will hold a ton. Yahoo!

Then I added some hooks from Canadian Tire and voila!  Entryway organization! The cabinet helps hide the clutter-y look of the jackets and it even provided a home for our new orchid (now it just needs a nice pot).

I'm really happy with how it is coming along :) Yay!

Home Sweet Home

Today I had a list a mile long...  of course I put EVERYTHING on my list so it looked something like this:
-gym (lower body)
-water garden
-shower
-paint 1st coat of the china cabinet
-lunch
-dishes
-walk to bank.... and on and on it went. SEE nothing hard (shower? hello!). The painting was the time consuming part and just as I was planning the second coat Lisa came to the rescue with a brilliant idea to go hiking. Yay for spontaneous summer plans!

After the sweaty and rewarding hike I came home to one of my newest changes.

How sweet it is!
Such an improvement from the mat that we inherited.  Wouldn't you agree?

Thanks to my sister(in-law) and her family for the Pier 1 gift card - I can't wait to use the rest of it! :)

Here are a few other improvements that greeted me when I got home.
My new (to me) ottoman and the cushion I made for it. 

It added some much needed storage and a great place to put your shoes on (something the Mr. takes very seriously!).

I also made new pillows for the couch and you can even catch a glimpse of our new house plant that our friends gave us.

Oh and did you notice the new blinds?  Here they are in case you missed them.

The best part is that they open from the top or the bottom which allows us to still get some sunshine in without the entire neighbourhood watching us. Like this:

Here is what it looked like before all the changes. Now I know you can't really see because the sun is SO bright but those are two cheapo aluminum mini-blinds one of which was bent and yellowed.

There you have it a few more changes making our Home Sweet Home even more comfortable. 

More Living Room Fun

The living room is coming along everyday.  Still lots to do but I don't think it will ever be "done" and always a work in-progress.  Not that it is anywhere close to even being considered done yet anyways!

This is what the yellow looks like in the day and you can see my new silver shag carpet.  I have a thing for shag carpeting, LOVE the way it feels when you walk on it. :)

On the mantel is a picture set that I really like but it is too small and doesn't look right with the new yellow walls so I plan on switching it out for a mirror or some larger art.   There are those terrible cushions again -shudder....

The view of the front window and entryway:

It was super bright and my camera skills are minimal but you get the idea.  The blue stool is where we sit to put our shoes on and it doubles as a door stop - bonus!

People who have been to my house recently will know that I've made a few extra updates already.   So stay tuned for the pictures :)

Tomorrow I plan on tackling something different.  I'm going to try painting furniture (something totally new to me - unless you count spray painting a shelf... and I don't think you should...).  It is a china cabinet I picked up at the Sally Ann.  Should be an adventure at least.

Here she is in all her thrift store glory.  TaDA!

Living Room: Before the Before and a New Beginning

Here is the start of the much anticipated living room progress reveal!

I have been postponing writing this post as I have been looking for the before pictures from when we first moved in but I can't seem to find the camera.  However, I do have some pictures of the living room from the real estate listing.  So here is how the living room looked for the previous owners.

This is facing the front of the house. The front door is down there on the right and if you were to stand by their couch and turn around you'd see this:

 So, as you can see, the living room is very narrow and the colour is very apartment white.

Since the living room in our apartment served numerous purposes (office, craft room, gym) we didn't have much actual "living room" furniture.  Also, it was very student-y (read: cheap crap) that was past its prime and then some.  So the first step was to buy a couch.

We just had one requirement: it had to be big enough for both of us (something our ikea klippan love seat failed miserably at), oh and dark grey AND fit into our space - oh yeah, and be comfortable!  (okay more than one requirement...) Luckily our family contributed a chunk towards this major purchase (love you!) and after only a few bumps and one bad experience we were the proud owners of this baby.

Please excuse the terrible nighttime iphone picture and the hideous throw pillows it came with (eeeekkkk!) the couch is nice - I swear!

Next up was to paint! I chose a lovely yellow which I believe was "Celestial Sun" by CIL however homedepot's code for this number didn't turn out so they ended up doing a custom match off the chip so I'm not sure if it is exactly the same or not. (On a side note, it is never good when the girl at the paint centre says something like this: "oh this doesn't match... maybe I should add more red... or yellow" and then proceeds to spend 15 minutes trying to perfectly match a chip by adding random colours) The final result was a winner though as I love this colour - it isn't too bright or reminiscent of a nursery - but best of all: it makes me HAPPY!!!

And yet another iphone pic, taken at the wrong time of day, that doesn't really do the colour justice (this is where the computer desk was in the listing picture if you were trying to figure that out).

So stay tuned for a much more interesting continuation tomorrow when I'm not so tired and I can actually get up to get the pictures off of something more substantial than my iphone!

It gets better. I swear.