It's a Christmas post I forgot to publish

http://issuu.com/graymag/docs/gray_magazine_no1/1

Just found this new on line bi monthly digital magazine Gray. It features Pacific Northwest Design. For the first time ever I found a spread that fits me to a T. "The New Glamorous". So me! Sigh...I don't have the money or space to do this in our house yet but when I do. I'll post it here.
Things are going tickity boo down stairs. I have another set of photos to share. It beginning to look like Christmas and while Keaton is sleeping I am itching to go up to the store and see if there are any christmasy bits to get for our tree. It's our first in our new house and I am soooo happy that we are not in the old place anymore. Between the malevolent presence of ex-friend upstairs and an Eyore for a downstairs neighbor. It was a depression sandwich. So even though we are close to financial ruin things are waaay better over here in East Van for Christmas 2011.

Slooow Down There Little Pookie!

We could not be going slower. Some of this is my fault and some of it is just life. I'm so sorry to drop the ball like this. We or rather Peter has been doing the basement. He's the "One Man Renovation Show". It's been excrutiating for all of us involved. Nothing worthy to write or take pictures of. Just the drudgery. I should go down and take some photos because it will be a great contrast for when it's finished. It will be a nice generous one bedroom with good light. So for now here are some upstairs photos.  They are not professionally staged and you may see some of the clutter creeping back in. But hey, like I said this aint HGTV. It's real reno real time.

From the bathroom to kitchen

Hours of Good Clean Fun!

My little pookie warshing the dishes

Keaton's Reading Chair

Play Table

Keaton's kitchen area

bathroom

bathroom

kitchen

bedroom I got a padded headboard for my Birthday

Livingroom

I love me a sweedish bulb

More Keaton's room

spice rack o my dreams

Mud room

Bathroom

Thanks for your patience! We'll be back up and running soon! I promise.

And We're In!

1st night staying at the house and I want to do everything! Have a cup of tea, a glass of wine on the patio
 ( Peter is out tonight of all nights ) have a friend over, yak on the phone etc. Instead I skip dinner and keep running around unpacking and making lists.

I had another tough session with Jada my "Simplifyer". I am exhausted. I had to try to get rid of 50% of my wardrobe. All my dresser drawers are full and I have another trunk load of clothes coming over from Grandma's. What am I gonna do?

She had some amazing ideas for organization, really really amazing. I can't wait to impliment them. For instance, we have this old ironing board cupboard and it is the perfect size for our canned goods. It will free up so much room in the pantry.

It's really going to be so wonderful to live like this. I am finding it easier let go of things and rather than give a long explanation about where I got it and how it makes me feel I just say toss or keep. Then we go through everything again to find that I have 19 short sleeved striped shirts and I have to keep culling. This really will be a transformation.

I'm not use to the sounds here, inside and outside. I noticed that the neighbours putter endlessly in the garden, go in and out of the two side doors. They also go through my recycling when I put it out and they get more and more brazen each week. First, I put it out and walked to the back of the garden to get a hose and just as I land at the bottom of the garden and start watering the vegetables he was rummaging through it. Was he watching me? The following week I had barely put it down and he was behind me. I ignored him because I was going to finish putting it down damn it! I don't know why it bugs me so much. I feel kind of territorial about it. Silly Silly Silly....

Here is a picture from the old apartment. I have gotten rid of over 200 pieces since this was taken and I still have to get rid of more. I don't know what makes me feel more sick. Having this much stuff or getting rid of it. All I know is the feeling I have after purging the clothes and clutter is much better.

My closet at the apartment at it's worst

Why does more space feel like not enough?

It's so frustrating that we got rid of about 4 car loads, 6 book cases, 8 huge garbage bags of clothes before moving in and we still have way too much stuff. One thing we have working against us is the lack of storage in the house. True we have a garage but only certain things can be stored there. Most of the basement is taken up with the suite. It's been a week of unpacking and ten hours of hard purging with a professional.

But today I saw my kitchen counter tops for the first time since we took posession in May. Finally I feel a little hope. At last I am seeing the potential of the place and the possibility of living in a decluttered, organized and totally decorated house. Finally! I can get on with the business of living. I'm very excited.

So for the afternoon we took a bunch of measurements and went to Ikea. Normally I am hating Ikea but now there are a few things that would solve specific problems. It's nice to buy things that you know are going to be used and you have a place for them. Today I decided to replace my bath towels for all white ones. I got some gadgets for hanging the vacuum cleaner and the iron. Then what I am really really excited about is the picture rails we will use as a spice rack that will run the full length of the wall above the stove and I have these fabulous old fashioned spice jars. I hope it turns out as fab as I picture it.

Now I have the makings for an amazing, really awesome garage sale. Not just junk but really good junk. Cute useful junk. I'm going to go all out and advertize it and put up flyers. It will be interesting to see if I can pull it off and sell everything. I promise it will be good garage sale prices, like clothes 2 bucks a piece, magazines 25 cents, books 1 dollar.

My lightbulb / aha moment came today when Jada said,

"You want to hold on to the space not the things".

So true.

Restore your teak! Go to the paint section in Home Depot and get some steel wool and go over the surface then put some tung oil it let it sit over night and voila! The steel wool worked great for cleaning paint and grunge off of our tiles.

some of this ended up in the garage sale stuff

Unpacking

You can't tell by looking at it but there's some really good stuff in there

Booze, vases, platters, trays, good china etc.

Peter built this shelf in the back to maximize the space using scrap wood from the garage

Seeing more potential

I've got space in my cupboards!

Still a work in progress, all the mail and bills from our summer in limbo

I haven't seen my counter in 12 weeks!

IKEA Hackers: Maskros XL

A brilliant hack for Keaton's Maskros Lamp. Maybe we'll get another one!

IKEA Hackers: Maskros XL: "Materials: Maskros, Plain white paper coffee cups, Glue gun Description: Looking for a reasonably priced pendant lamp for a restaurant ..."

Inches Away

We are inches away from finishing the kitchen cupboards. Peter read about using Rustoleum on the Retro Renovation Blog. So while we were in Belingham at the start of all this we got a kit. You have a choice of a "light" or a "dark" kit. We chose light because we wanted to match the light lemon yellow in the accent tile. I also didn't want to go all white for the cupboards for some reason.
By leaving the store we made two mistakes. 1st you have to get the kit tinted and also we should of gotten the bigger kit. We are having to get real creative here to stretch the amount that came with our kit. I had the brilliant idea to get it tinted at our Benjamin Moore where we've been getting all our paint. They were only too happy to oblige. Unfortunately they mistinted one of the quarts. So we got a quart of tinted primer and a quart of flat tinted to our chosen shade. So far it's working but we haven't put the final coat on yet. Hopefully tonight!

It seems that we will never get out from under the boxes. I am up against a lot of blocks, emotional ones about how much stuff we have. As a gift to myself I hired a professional to help me declutter and organize. We did a marathon 6 hour session. I'm still recovering but it really inspred me to keep going with this. We have two more sessions booked and I think I'll keep going till the whole house and garage are done. Jada calls herself the "Head Simplifyer" at Nitty Gritty. She also does home staging and I found her to have great ideas for lay out which is something I really struggle with. So far I have a good pile of stuff for my garage sale and then I will donate whatever is left over to Miscellany - Thrift Store which is in my hood and the proceeds go to women's programs.

Bedroom in progress

Ikea curtains that go really well with the livingroom rug etc

Kitchen mess

Nice light that came with the house

Out of the ashes comes a cute little vignette

Boxes everywhere

Boxes in the dinning nook

Kitchen in progress

Scored this from my favorite vintage store, not sure where it's gonna go

So in love with the lamp

Just need to get rid of the extra chain and cord

Peter hung the schoolhouse lamp

We'd thought we'd use this side table for her to use as an art table

Keaton's Room

Keaton's Room