WEDDING BOUND

Fifteen years ago Chris and I started planning for our wedding and I had a very long list of all the people I wanted to invite.  Unfortunately there comes a point when reality sets in and a financial budget starts to dictate just how many people one (or rather two in the case of wedding planning) can actually invite so sadly the list starts to get dwindled down.  I still feel really bad about having to leave some people off our invite list.

Next weekend we are attending a wedding for Chris' cousin.  I love weddings and anytime I/we have received an invitation to a wedding, I always feel so incredibly honored to have been selected to be on the invite list and delighted to be able to share in the couples happy day!

BUT, it's amazing how things sure change when you become parents of three little ones and move over an hour north of the city. Since receiving our invitation to the upcoming wedding I've been completely overwhelmed by all the things that need to be done, bought and taken care of in order to make it even remotely possible for us to attend!

For example...

• First thing was to find an overnight sitter for the kids and dog (thank you a million to my cousins Liz & Bob and my mother for coming up).
• Then there was the financial aspect of it all...can we afford it? (nooo, we had to borrow money...thank you to a certain saint, that has come to our rescue...yet again).   
• Both of us need haircuts & "fixing up" (finding the time to do this is the trickiest). 
• I need to purchase a dress (that fits and is wedding appropriate) and shoes.  Once again finding the time to do this is very limited, difficult and exhausting because I am unable to go anywhere without the kids and husband.  Dragging them to the malls and having them hang around outside the change rooms while I try on a million outfits is seriously torturous for all of us. 
• Chris' suit needs to be dry cleaned ...will he remember to do this in enough time to get it back?
• A wedding card and a monetary gift are needed of course. 
• Overnight accommodations need to be made since Chris understandably  doesn't want to drive home ( I on the other hand, prefer to come home, but that's just because I'm such a home-body). 
• Organization at home for the kids & dog while were away needs to be thought out and taken care of or made and food will have to be made ...(and for Liz's sake too so she doesn't loose her mind)
• Lastly...energy...do I have the energy for all this?  Hmmm, I don't have the energy to do much of anything these days, so how am I really going to swing all this?

So the shopping began.  I had to return some bed sheets to Winners on the way home from work last week so I decided to quickly look and see what they had for dresses and shoes.  Well as luck would have it I found both!   And because I've only gone to the one store so far rather than shopping around to see what else is out there, I am still undecided about them and they may still may go back.  Kind of like buying a house, you want to shop around before buying or jumping at the first one you kind of like.



'THEE' SHOES THUS FAR
As much as I loved, loved, LOVED these shoes I continued to browse and shop around to see what other shoes were out there...just in case.  Guess what, there is a whole lotta beeeeutiful shoes out there and I ended up with 5 pairs trying to figure out which to keep & wear! 

On the way down to the wedding I stopped into Winners for something
and saw these little numbers.
Needless to say I grabbed them and they ended up being THEE shoes!

Where the wedding bells rang.

After all was said and done The wedding was lovely, the couple looked beautiful and the reception was fun with oodles of great food. 

All in all we had a wonderful time, thank you so much to Andrea and Michael for including us in your very special day.

...and just to note, about a week after the wedding ALL the shoes were returned to their rightful stores, where once they lived.

I just love the peacefulness and beauty of old churches

Me and the hubs.



The hubs with his siblings and mom.



Stop in at The Village Idiot
for bevies in between the ceremony & reception time.



Hubby is loving the Beer Menu at The Villiage Idiot!

Myself and sista-in-law at The Idiot.

Bodega Restraunt - where the reception was being held.

My mother in law Joanne
across from her bro Jack & his wife Molly. 





                                         

    



 

 

THE BEAUTIFUL HAPPY COUPLE, CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU BOTH! XO





HOME SWEET AUTUMN HOME

A STROLL TO THE BEACH AND THRU THE WOODS...

How we ever got so lucky to live in such a beautiful place and be so lucky to call it home, I'll never know.  Sometimes when difficult times fall upon us it's just a blessing in disguise for greater things to come.

Yesterday my two youngest, the dog and I, took a stroll down to our beach just to take in the early morning sun glistening like diamonds on the water and watch the gentle waves washing up upon the shore.  The kids ran around and played in the sand and the Shammy enjoyed a few cool dips in the lake.  It's such a different site then what it is on a hot summers day when the beach is packed with sunworshippers and lake is full of swimmers and massive size beautiful boats all aligned.

Today my daughter and I and Shamrock went for a walk in the forest that adjoins our backyard to take in all the beauty of the changing colours just outside our backdoor.

I can't imagine living anywhere else where the seasons don't change.  Every four months we are awakened by mother natures newest beauty.  In awe of her of beautiful collection of fall colours I took oodles of pictures, as you can see.

ROOFING WITH THE BROTHERS CHADWICK

 

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Yesterday Chris and his brother John spent the entire day up atop our house trying to repair the open valleys chewed and dug out by our local overly pushy squirrels.  Thankfully they were successful and the blue tarp that once draped down over the whole back of the roof with the not-so-pretty view of the overhang in front of the kitchen sliding doors is no more.

DRIFTWOOD FRAMES

I love the look of all things au natural.  Now that's not to say I want to see everyone walking around naked or in their skivvies, what I mean is I love decorating with driftwood, trees, twine, paper, birchbark, sand, linen, wool and so on.  I think it makes a home look and feel so cozy and warm.  So this past summer when we were at Wasaga Beach, with the help of my darling nephews Elijah & Malachi and my children we picked up as much drift wood sticks as we could carry.  I took the driftwood sticks home with the thought of making some frames out of them and this is what I came up with...



This is a picture that Chris and I bought from a store called Man Wah Tey in the small town of Whitney just outside of Algonquin Park.   We had picked it up as an anniversary gift for my dear Aunt & Uncle on our way to visit them at the cottage.  It has since made its way back to us and I just love it.





Naturally I didn't like the metal frame so I got out my glue gun and built up a driftwood frame instead.

 



This was just a plane-jane frameless mirror I picked up from Walmart for which I paid all of $10.00 for.  I then just kept stacking & fitting different size driftwood pieces on it and held them together with my almighty gluegun.

Note the wooden switchplates.  They are a work in progress...ahem Aunt Pennykins. ;)



CEILING FAN & LIGHT PAINTOVER

Another thing that always bugged me since moving into this little house was the brass ceiling fan in the living room.  For years I thought about paiting it, but it seemed an impossible task getting it down, dissasembeling it and painting all those little pieces.  Then one of those inspiration days came along and up I went and down it came.  I gave it a few good coats of spray paint and back up she went. 

Sometimes things really aren't as bad or difficult as they seem or as we make them out to be.  Sometimes all we need is a little ambition, determination and patience and just to dive right in.




BEFORE - CEILING FAN & LIGHT IN BRASS




AFTER - PAINTED A OIL-RUBBED BRONZE COLOUR

 This is my little miracle product in a spray can. 
Rust-Oleum in Metallic Oil - Rubbed Bronze colour.


http://www.rustoleum.ca/CBGProduct.asp?pid=107&sid=253409  



Now I'm on a quest to replace those glass light shades to something else, not really sure what, but I'm looking around.

THANKSGIVING 2012

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6th, 2012 

Gorgeous flowers my wonderful mother-in-law brought me the day before.



  

 Awww, Autumn.  Next to Christmas it's my most favorite time of the year.  The weather changes to a "not so humid" comfort level for adorning cozy sweaters, relaxed walks in the woods, cuddling close to bonfires and sipping hot chocolate or whatever beverage one might enjoy ;). 

It's a true family time.  Always it has been a big family tradition to get with my grandparents aunts, uncles, cousins, pets and so on, most times at our family cottage Crooked Narrows on Mink Lake up north just outside of the southern point of Algonquin Park, but not always.  One year we got together at a neighbours cottage, while the boys were putting a new rough on ours.  Another year we went to my Aunt Penny's house in Bancroft and another at Aunt Penny and Dons house also in Bancroft.  My father and his wife Joan also lived in Bancroft for a while so one year we went there.  We have had a family Thanksgiving here at the house a couple of years ago and that was really nice too since my dad was able to join us all the way from Alberta where he and Joan now reside once again.  I guess it didn't really matter where we were just  as long as we were spending it together. 

HALL LIGHT TRANSFORMATION

For years our front hall light fixture drove me crazy.  It was so tiny and so high up and gave off very little light.  Changing the light bulb was a death defying balancing act in itself. 

I searched and searched for a another and found several new ones that I loved, but were completely out of our budget.  So I  found this one on Kijiji which I hummed and hawed about for a while, but if you've ever bought anything off of Kijiji you know you don't have long to hum and haw before someone else comes along and scoops it up.  This one was listed for $75.00 and was called an "antique", but when we went to see it, it was definitely not an antique in fact it was only about 7 years old and was the colour of baby poop!  The lady said she paid well over $700.00 for it new from Prima Lighting in Woodbridge.  I hated the colour and wasn't fussy about the shades so with some transformation thoughts in mind I offered her $50.00 and a way we went home with it.

 And this is what took place once we got it home.  I took it apart somewhat and spray painted it a few times with a can of Krylon Dual Paint + Primer in flat black hoping to achive that wrought iron antiquey kind of look. 

Ta Da... the paint looks great, but not so much the glass shades.

The next challange was actually getting it a waaaay up there, so it sat in the hall on the floor for several weeks because someone in our house is a real good procratonator.  I finally said enough is enough, Thanksgiving is coming up and we need to get this baby up.  So together we managed to swing from the ceiling fixture, while balancing on the ladder without any casualties.  Well done partener, I knew we could do it!

Hubby in action

Here it is finished and up.  I still want to get some new fabric shades in perhaps a bell shape to give it more of a country-cottagey feel to it.

KITCHEN WALLS PAINTED & SOME GREAT FINDS!







 
 I painted the kitchen walls yesterday in a colour that was supposed to have been colour matched to the dinning room walls but somehow it's not quite the same.  Soooo, I'm going with it for now, well at least until it really starts to drive me batty then I'll paint it again.  Lessoned learned - don't try to skimp on paint by not buying the original somewhat more expensive one...disappointment ensues :( 

Great finds!

For the last little while, I've been searching for a shelf size silver sailboat I recently saw in Canadian magazine that I think would go so nicely in our little cottage home, but still no luck.  However, I did locate some great finds at Winners/Homesence yesterday that DO "colour match" my awesome prints in the dining room!  I always get so excited when I find things I love at a great price.  Take a peak at my new curtains, this cute little wooden box finished in chalkboard paint and a couple of mugs - LOVE THEM!  I must admit, I do have a weakness for different mugs and could have bought dozens of them of them yesterday.

SMOKEY BLUE - my new favorite colour



LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Chalkboard paint!!





REMEMBER THESE?



KITCHEN RENO

BEFORE SHOT

Here is a shot of our kitchen before, well one side of it anyway.

BEFORE

 AFTER SHOT

...and voila, the after.  Counter tops still need to be changed ideally to butcher block to match our Ikea counter cabinet on the other side of the kitchen.   As well, the walls need to be painted and the floor, sink, faucet, lights all need to be changed.  The list goes on and on, but over all this is a pretty good start.

AFTER



AFTER

HARDWARE



NIFTY HANDLES

I really wanted branch shaped wrought iron hardware for the handles that I once saw at Lee Valley Tools on line, but when I went back recently to search for them again, I couldn't find them.  So I opted for these little wrought iron cuties instead, which I found at Home Depot & Rona.  They are a huge step up from the green plastic hardware that was on the cupboards when we bought the house.

A CHALKBOARD TOO!

 And in this little nook I've made a chalkboard!  With a little chalkboard paint and some some m.d.f. anything can happen. :-)

There were 16 steps to refinishing each & every drawer and cupboard door.

Maybe there is simpler way but I wanted to be sure the wood grain still showed through and I didn't want (after all my hard work) anthing to get marred up.  So, this is how I did it.

1. Remove door or drawer and its hardware.

2. Sand each side down to rid it of any sheen.

3. Vaccume each side.

4. Wash each side with a solution of  TSP.

5. Rinse each side with warm water to remove the TSP solution.

6. Dry each side with towel and let air dry for a bit.

7. Paint front side first & let dry for 2 hrs. (as stated on the can, it takes 2hrs to dry to touch and 4hrs before recoating).

8. Flip over and paint back side - let dry 2hrs. then flip again and do the front side again.

9. Repeat steps 7& 8 until you have painted the back side with 2 coats and the top side with 3 coats.

10. Let dry to touch aprox 2hrs.

11. Re-attach the doors to the cabinet.

Note; I was doing to 2 -3 doors/drawers at a time and set a timer to go off every two hours.