Beach bums

We’ve had a lot of fog around here lately. Nine straight days of fog, in fact. Most mornings we wake up to fog, then there are varying degrees of fog during the day, and fog at night. Too much fog! So in attempt to escape the fog and just do something a bit different, last Wednesday I grabbed Jackson and we headed off on a little beach adventure.

Once we got farther inland, the fog disappeared and we had sunny blue skies on our drive to the beach. Yay! But we got stuck behind a truck painting the yellow lines on the highway. Boo! So I decided to pull over and take some pictures. I’ve been wanting to take pictures here for the longest time, and now I finally got my pics :-)

Once I figured the truck was far enough ahead, we continued on our way to the beach. And we did manage to avoid the truck, but not so lucky about the fog!

It wasn’t so bad, though. With the fog all around us, it felt like we were the only people on the beach. Well, us and this seagull…

A small break in the fog…

It looks like this rock has a big pink crazy hairdo!

We could hear the waves, we just couldn’t see them very well.

Strike a pose, Jackson!

What have you done to your tail?!

So in the end we didn’t really escape the fog, but Jackson and I had a relaxing and peaceful afternoon together being beach bums :-)

We finally did have some sunny days – three straight days, in fact! – but as I’m writing this blog post, we’re surrounded by fog again today. Oh well, what can you do!

Kitchen crisis averted

We almost had a major kitchen crisis a couple of weeks ago. Do you remember the beautiful leathered Blue Night marble slabs we put on hold for the kitchen island last summer?

The ones that went so well with the honed Blue Pearl granite that will be going on the perimeter cabinets.

And with the purple island that Brian built.

The templating for the island and cabinet countertops was done a week and a half ago. Two days later, the stone shop called to let us know that no matter how they laid out the island dimensions on the slabs, neither slab was going to work because they were both a couple of inches too short for the proper overhang. DOH! Brian built the island too big!

Choosing another stone wasn’t an option, I NEED leathered Blue Night marble in my life! Brian contemplated reducing the size of the island. Not ideal, but it could be done.

Another option was to use the two Blue Night slabs and have a seam. Not the best option, but probably easier than modifying the island.

Luckily, there was a third option – the stone shop had another slab of Blue Night that was big enough for the island. It was polished, but the shop said they would leather it at no charge. I zipped into the city the next morning to take a look at the potential new slab. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure that I liked it as much as the other slabs. The movement of the stone is different, and it has darker bits that the other slabs don’t have.

But then we looked at it next to the honed Blue Pearl slab, and the two slabs looked pretty great together. The darker bits are just about exactly the same colour as the Blue Pearl.

In the end, I think I may actually like this slab better than the ones we had on hold. Especially once it has the leathered finish, which I absolutely adore.

The countertops are being installed on Tuesday, and I CANNOT WAIT! I’ve been envisioning the kitchen with these two stones for a year, and I’m beyond excited to finally have them in our kitchen :-)

Behind door #1 and #2 and #3…

Disclosure: Thank you to Schlage Canada for partnering with me and providing door solutions for our house build.

We still don’t have a completely finished room in our house, but a couple are pretty close to being done. The guest bedroom is near the top of the list of rooms to finish because Brian snores and he needs to be tucked away in a room by himself so he doesn’t keep me awake all night!

I wanted to do something colourful and different in the bedroom. It’s one of the few rooms in the house that has doors, so it can be closed off and doesn’t really have to flow with the colours through the rest of the house. A sunset colour scheme popped into my head one day, and that’s what I decided to go with. Click here to check out some of my colour inspiration.

Here’s the bedroom in all it’s bare glory:

I chose two Sherwin Williams colours and had them colour-matched in Benjamin Moore paint – Coming Up Roses for the ceiling and Rejuvenate for the walls.

     

First the pink went on the ceiling, and I had some doubts about this crazy colour plan!

But no turning back now! Next up was the orange…

And then Brian installed the wainscoting. It’s strips of 1/2” thick MDF attached to the wall every 16”. The strips are capped with a horizontal strip of the same MDF and a square piece of MDF. It’s all painted PPG Pittsburgh Paints Delicate White colour-matched in Benjamin Moore Advance paint.

I painted the doors Delicate White as well because I wanted them to tie in with the white wainscoting. And I also didn’t want colour overkill!

But each of these white doors has a secret… this is the inside of the closet door:

And the other side of the door to the bathroom…

And the other side of the door to the living room…

Yep, purple and turquoise and bright green are definitely my favourite colours! They’re the same colours I’ve used elsewhere in the house – BM Peerage, BM Douglas Fir, and PARA Paints Lush Turquoise.

I love these unexpected pops of colour when the bedroom doors are open. And I also love our door hardware. As I mentioned in this post, I knew I wanted black knobs or levers on the doors, so when we ordered the Madison doors from Jeldwen, we requested black hinges.

After checking out the Schlage Style Selector, we decided on the Broadway lever in matte black from Schalge Canada.

I really like the simple lines of the Broadway lever. It’s clean and contemporary, and feels smooth and solid when you turn it. And the matte black ties in perfectly with our super-tall black chimney and other dark metal accents in the house.

Of course, Schalge carries door hardware in a wide variety of finishes and styles to suit any decor. Click here to check out the Schalge Style Selector. Coincidentally, Jennifer at Rambling Renovators installed the same matte black Broadway lever on the turquoise door to her craft room :-) Schlage door hardware can match the other finishes in your home to complement your home’s unique style and décor.

For now, I’m using our existing furniture and accessories in the room. The only things I bought new are the ceiling light fixture and the duvet cover, both from HomeSense. I still need to figure out what art to hang and where (it won’t be leaning against the walls forever, I hope!), but here’s the almost-finished guest bedroom.

Door hardware is used in every room, making it the perfect accessory to help tie the entire home’s look together. And it’s the perfect finishing touch to complement a room’s look. It’s a quick, affordable, and impactful way to express your personal style. We installed Broadway levers on the entry closet and upstairs bathroom doors as well to continue the flow of black accents throughout the house.

For more information on Schalge door solutions, click here to visit the Schlage Canada web site, and click here to find Schalge retailer near you. To see the completed guest bedroom, check back here soon :-)

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I need a 500 foot hose

Does anyone make such a thing? Because I have plants that need to be watered that are a looonnngggg way from the outdoor faucet! We haven’t had rain for a while and there’s no rain in the forecast, so I had to somehow water the haskap bushes and spruce trees and cuttings from a friend that are planted way up near the other end of the driveway.

I can’t bring the plants to the water, so I had to somehow bring the water to the plants… Ah! Got it! A garbage can and a smart car, and now I have my very own Watermobile!

Do you watch Canada’s Worst Driver and laugh when they do the water challenge? Yeah, me too – but now I know that it’s not so easy to drive a car with a big bucket of water and not have it slosh everywhere! But I did make it to the other end of the driveway without getting wet :-)

Then I used that square container you can kind of see to bring the water from the garbage can to the plants. Not ideal, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do!

These are a couple of the haskap bushes. They have green berries on them, but not sure if they’ll continue to ripen after being transplanted from the haskap farm to our lot. If you’ve never heard of haskaps, check out this link. They’re super-delicious and really good for you. If you want to try some haskap products, check out Haskapa.

So until I find a 500 foot hose, this is how I’ll be watering my plants :-)