We're at it again....Bathroom #3!

Sooo...you might be thinking, how are they STILL renovating bathrooms? Have they not already done two?

Yes, yes we have.

But quite honestly, we just love renovating bathrooms SOOO much that we decided to do this one for fun. Did you even sort of fall for that? Didn't think so. The main floor powder room is the one bathroom that probably bothers me the most. Not because it was the worst of the 3 (it was probably in the best shape), but because its not only us that uses it, which means we can't hide it from the world.

So whenever we have guests and they need to use the washroom, I cringe at the thought of them walking in there and thinking...wow, Ive just stepped back into 1990.

For starters there is no towel rod or paper towel holder. You'd think we could get our butts in gear and put something up, but we figured this would force us to complete this bathroom sooner. Not-so-much. Secondly, the toilet is bad. Like seat falling off, and its just not a good scene. Lastly, the fixtures are gold/silver and rust. Not as in 'rust the colour', rust as in 'super-old-and-not-in-good-condition-rust-falling-off' rust. For those of you who've used this bathroom you're probably thinking its not "that" bad, but I know a few of you out there who are probably relieved to know that those were not our decor choices. NOT our decor choices :D

So over the past while, Ive been collecting "pinspiration" sources of powder rooms that have inspired us. We're starting to think about ideas and here's what we're liking so far (all photo's are courtesy of Pinterest and can be found on our board here):

Mirrored pieces:

source

Pastels... (Im a BIT obessessed with anything mint green right now- and always):

source

Wallpaper:

source

Touches of gold:

source

Rustic and warm:

source

Vintage touches:

source

Coloured vanities:

source

Truly in a small space or powder room, I think you can break the rules a bit. Feel free to use colour, wallpaper (as there's no tub or shower to we don't need to worry about moisture issues) and fun accents.

As you can see from the pictures, our thoughts are still all over the place. We're still working on a tight budget here, so we'll definitely be doing this space on the cheap as well. Hopefully we can come up with some creative ideas for this one ;)


What would you do in a powder room? Have any of you wallpapered, used fun colours or tiles in a small space like this?

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Last time I posted about our vanity, the mirror was sitting on the vanity top and it wasn't completely finished yet. So I finally got my act together and finished it up.

That's right people, the mirror's actually up on the wall now. I convinced Ian to use a hammer and put a nail up....only because I know he'd kill me if I tried to do it myself. That, and I'd probably miss and put a massive hole in the wall that Clover could fit through....so the only solution was to bribe Ian to do it for me.
Food usually works for that.

Anyho, got the nail up, put the mirror up and presto- mirror on the wall!

I also added this cute little lamp from HomeSense:

It was on clearance and the colour was perfect. Only problem? I brought it home and it didn't work. Switched to a new bulb...still didn't work. Boo.

So I went to return it at a different store, and found another lamp exactly the same...also on clearance. This one better work! Brought it home, flipped the switch and ta-da! Worked perfectly!

Not only now do I have a mirror up on the wall, but a light so I can actually see what Im doing at night. SO much better for everyone involved here....

So there you have it! A finished project which only means we're one step closer to our master bedroom reveal.

For those of you who dont follow us on Facebook or Twitter (and why not I might like to add?! Join in the party!)- I often share sneak peeks of what we're up to on our Facebook page before I post about it. Think of it like a VIP club, where you get special privileges and cool stuff. Although ours is free and right now the bonus' are pretty limited...but again, isn't it cool to be a VIP? I like to think so.

So here's another small peek that I posted on Facebook this week, of our *almost* complete master bedroom...

Whatcha think?!
Thats all for now...I'm off to finish up that room people!

Friday Feature

Who doesn't love Fridays? Its my awesome item for today. Just the fact that today is Friday rocks.

For those of you who dont follow us on Facebook, hop over and check out our page here. Lots of fun stuff happening over there :)

One of the announcements I made a while back, was that I was going to try and list one "awesome item" every day. For those of you who have read "The Book of Awesome" by Neil Pasricha, you'll know what Im talking about. For those who haven't I highly recommend it. Neil came to do a speech at a staff conference we had at work and he totally inspired me. So, thats when I started my own "awesome item a day" tally:

Monday- finished the 3rd book in the Hunger Games series and actually went to bed before 1:30am- awesome.

Tuesday- new sheets fesh out of the dryer, on the bed- awesome.

Wednesday- did not get attacked by the goose standing beside my car- awesome.

Yesterday I found a granola bar in my purse when I was about ready to eat 18 tic tacs to fend off my hunger- awesome.

Today is Friday- awesome.

Small pleasures people. Small pleasures.

Next week we are going to have some exciting changes happening to the blog and I can't wait to share with all of you (also awesome!)

Until then, I wanted to share something we are going to start doing on Friday's on the blog. I often feel that when you read someone blog you think, wow, is this real? These people always seem so happy and smiley and their world looks perfect. Well, lets be honest, at least in our world thats not always the case!

We save up for weeks to buy things and get everything on sale. Most of the time we are scrounging around in our kitchen to make meals (hmmmm grilled cheese on rice crackers and an old can of soup sounds delicious!) and spend hours working on every project we post- many of which don't always turn out as planned..."Ian why is this paint bubbling?"

So, in the spirit of "keeping it real" we're going to dedicate this Friday post to just that. Keeping in real.

Other than decor, I have a love for fashion and finding deals. These will just be some of the things we post about on Fridays. The best part? Everything we post about will be things that most anyone can do, try or buy.

A key piece to living beautifully (for us) is doing that on a budget. We hope this will let you all see that we struggle through situations like everyone else and things aren't always perfect.

So for today, I wanted to share something I thought was super awesome....

She really is the best :)

Did you note the big white painted square on our wall in the video? Yep, thats where the previous owners had installed a cat passageway. So after filling the hole, we haven't gotten around to painting it yet, and now there's just a big fancy white square there.

Just keeping it real :)

Happy 1st!

Well its here!

Our blogs very 1st birthday.

I can't believe its already been a year since we made our first post. I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of all the things we want to do!

I want to thank all of YOU, our readers for following along with us over the year and for being so incredibly supportive and positive about everything we do. Without you, we'd just be writing a blog for ourselves (and maybe our mom's). So THANK YOU.

We hope you plan to stick around for another year...or maybe more to see what else we have in store :)

Happy Birthday Blog!! Now make a wish....

Sourcing, Sourcing...

Ever since we posted our Master Bath Ensuite reno back in February, we've had countless people emailing and asking us where we got everything.

We've actually added a few things to finish off the bathroom since, and felt it was finally time that we could give you all a list of where we got everything.

I have to be honest and let you know it took months for us to source all of this...soooo you can thank us later when you spend half as much time sourcing your items based on this list. You're welcome :)

Where to begin....we're going to start with the Tile.

We've actually already posted a detailed source list for where we purchased all of our tile, which you can find here, but to break it down:

Tile:
Floor Tile- Tile Master

Shower Floor Tile (Marble Border)- Tile Master
Shower Floor Tile (White non-slip tile)- Dante's Tile
Shower Tile (White wall tiles)- Dante's Tile
Shower Tile (Glass mosaic tile on walls)- Tile Master
Shower Tile (White chair rail on walls)- Dante's Tile

So there you have it. We went to Home Depot and various other places to find tile (our smaller bathroom tile was mainly from Dante's and USave- who we highly recommend for flooring), but for this bathroom, we found the best prices and styles to match our vision at Tile Master and Dante's.

Now for the larger items :)

Tub:
Our freestanding tub, was purchased from Costco.ca. Ive actually given you the direct link to our tub- the Jade Capri Soaker Tub.

Floor Mount Faucet:
We also purchased our floor mount fauct, the Jade Fontana Freestanding facut from Costco.ca.

They had amazing prices and honestly we liked the shape of the tub the best. We found a lot of freestanding tubs, but they were either too expensive or didn't fit our space or style choices.

Toilets:
The toilet (we replaced EVERYTHING in this bathroom), was from Lowes. When they first opened in our town, they had a Grand Opening sale where American Standard dual-flush toilets were incredibly cheap. We contacted our good friend (who happens to be a plumber) to see if they were any good. We were told they were a great purchase, so we ran out there at 6:00am when they opened to buy the maximum amount per person. We ended up with 4, to replace every toilet in our house. They ended up costing us just under $400.00 for 4 (on sale), but we managed to get a rebate from the city, for replacing our old toilets with new ones. We got a rebate of $180.00, so in total, we spent around $50.00 per toilet. Total score.

So, like I said, we ended up with American Standard toilets from Lowes, I think these here are comparable to what we have.

Shower/Sink Fixtures:
For this bathroom, we wanted to go with fixtures that would last and be of excellent quality. We also didn't want to break the bank. Another thing to consider was fixtures that wouldn't date quickly. We decided to go with chrome (after our debate, which you can read about here!), as it was affordable, easy to clean and matched the look we were going for.

We purchased all of our shower fixtures from Mark's Supply. They offer wholesale products with a 20-30% discount from regular retailers. We chose the Moen (as it was the most afforable for us, and we liked the style the best) for the rainfall showerhead, handheld showerhead and valves. We also purchased our sink faucets from Mark's and again went with Moen (so the styles matched with the style in the shower).

Mark's Supply were great to work with and we would definitely go back to them again. They have a large showroom as well, so you can see and feel how your choices would work.

Vanity/Sinks:
The vanity that we chose was also from Costco.ca. They feature the company our their site that we purchased from, but not the actual vanity. The company is called Studio Bathe, and we took a trip down to their showroom to see everything they had before we made a decision. If you check out their site, ours was the 75" white, but they have a lot of choices.

The great thing about the vanity, was that it came with the marble top, 2 mirros, as well as the undermount sinks and drains. It also came with faucets, but we opted to purchase our own style (they only had 1 option available). We also received the mirrors as part of the package, but purchased our own.

Mirrors:
Its funny, because so many people ask us about the mirrors. The mirrors we purchased at HomeSense, but the outer frames on them were black, so we spray painted them white. I had a bunch of pictures of us doing that, but it was a bit of a mess so I decided not to post it. You can also purchase them at Home Depot. Ive found the link here.

Glass:
We chose to do a fully enclosed glass shower, with a transom above the door. Our reason for doing this was not only esthetic, but also for function. We liked how the glass looked going fully up to the ceiling, and the transom provides an outlet for steam to escape, but also gives us the option of a steam shower if we wish to do that.

We purchased the glass from "Fulton Glass" a small company, that did a great job, and offered us the best price. I mean, glass is glass right? We made sure to get the right thickness and double checked all the details with the other companies to see if we were getting the same product, as basically we were. They unfortunatley dont have a website, but you can just google the name to get the information.

Lights:
The sconces flanking the mirrors were from Rona, and the potlights from Lowes.

Chair Rail and Picture Frame Mouldings:
You can read all about how we did it here, but we purchased the chair rail from Rona, and the wood for the picture frame mouldings from Lowes.

Paint Colours:
Lower Wall: Simply White by Benjamin Moore
Upper Wall: Misty Moonstone by ICI Paints (now Dulux Paints)


Accessories:
For all of our accessories, we searched around a lot, but here's our list:

Chandelier: HomeSense
Towels: HomeSense
Flowers: HomeSense
Small Mirror on Vanity: HomeSense
Glass Jars for Cotton Balls, etc: Michaels
Picture frames (not shown): Ikea
Rugs (not shown in pictures): Home Outfitters
Curtain Fabric: Tonic Living

Since these pictures were taken, there are a variety of changes we've made and this ensuite is pretty much complete :)

Once I put the photos into the frames on the walls, I'll be posting some new pictures.

I hope this helps all of you who wanted to know where we sourced everything. Keep in mind, that for almost every item we purchased, we waited for sales, used coupons or deals and managed to get the items for a price that fit into our budget. This took a LOT and I mean a LOT of extra time, but it was worth it in the end. Even the day when we raced across town on our lunch to get fixtures on sale, or spending countless evenings going through flyers and websites :) Good times, my friends, good times.

If there's anything Ive missed on here, please feel free to email us at livingbeautifully1@gmail.com and we can try and provide you with the source for the item.

Are any of you currently working on a bathroom or Master Ensuite? If so, how is it coming along?

Happy Renovating!

Blogger BFF and a Special Delivery!

Sometimes in life you meet people that can only be described as incredibly special. When I first started my blog, Im going to be honest...I had NO idea what I was doing (not that much has changed, but still). I didn't really know any other bloggers that I could turn to for help or advice or just to talk to about blogging.

One day I came across Shannon's blog: Burlap and Lace. The odd thing was, that we had a TON in common. To begin, we had used similar design aspects in creating our blogs and seemed to have very similar tastes. I emailed Shannon directly to compliment her blog and our conversations began from there.

Weird things began to happen...lol. We found we were updating similar items, worked on the same furniture as each other, had the same fashion sense and obsession with Diet Coke....lol. We chatted more frequently and literally every day, found something else we had in common. WEIRD.

The only challenge is that we live nowhere near each other (sad face). I know if we did, we'd probably hang out...a lot. And talk decor and fashion and how our husbands would freak out if we brought home one more thing from the thrift store...lol. Thankfully we have Facebook and email and all those other media tools out there to keep us in touch.

Over the past little while Ive been dealing with a few struggles, and on a particularily hard day I got a package in the mail. Not just any package...a beautiful one:

It contained this:

and this:

and a little bit of this sweet smelling stuff:

Now if that doesn't cheer a girl up, I dont know what does! I feel that people are meant to come into our lives for different reasons, and Shannon is one of those people that I am so thankful to have met, and can call a friend :) Thanks Shannon :)

So pop on over and check her blog out!
On top of all of this she's featured my vanity table on there today!

You rock girl!! Wishing we could be out at OG with diet cokes rocking our matching wardrobes right now...lol ;) xo

Side Tables

Our Master Ensuite is almost complete, but we had been looking for a few things to finish it up. The hardest thing to find? Side tables/nightstands. Ugh.

We'd been looking for months. First we purchased these dressers from Ikea that fit our budget, but not our space...

source: Ikea

We spent an evening spread out in our family room- pieces everywhere, putting them together. We lugged them upstairs, put them in the space and didn't like them. Bah. I think we've all been there...thinking our room is going to look just like the Ikea catalogue and then putting it into your space and realising its not going to work. Womp womp.

So we took another trip to Ikea and purchased 2 other smaller tables, that we planned on making over, and that turned into a bit of a nightmare- I deleted the pictures of that project as its an instance I dont want to remember! lol!

Ian finally found one at Urban Barn that we absolutely loved, but could not afford:

source- Urban Barn

So that option was out...unless it went miraciously on sale for like 80% off. Fingers crossed! Ok so while we wait years until that happens, we had to keep looking.

We found a few items on Kijiji....none of which were the right size. So I kind of gave up for a while. Figured something would eventually come along- right price and size.

So one day my mom and I were at Homesense and I literally had an "aha" moment...like when a bright light shone over a piece of furniture literally saying: "HELLO...I'm right here".  We were actually sitting on a bench feeling defeated when I started to look a little differently at the 2 small cabinets right in front of me. The sizes were perfect. They weren't the right colour, and the hardware wasn't what we wanted but those were easy fixes. They were also a great deal. Sold.

I tried to lug them both out of the store, until my mom told me I was ridiculous and that she'd find a sales associate with a cart. Fine. I sat there right in front of them. A woman walked by and stopped to look at them. I felt like a mama bear protecting her young. Touch these tables and get ready for a fight lady!

Anyways, we escaped the store with both cabinets that I crammed into my car despite my mom's reluctance:

"Melissa, those will NOT fit"

"Mom, yes they will- do you know how many random Kijiji things Ive stuffed into my car before?

"They're not going to fit."

"Yes they are. Watch me. AND I'll get your luggage and massive picture in there too."

(SIGH)- mom

(10 minutes later...)

"HA- told you they would fit!" (HUGE happy face- ME), as I drove away not able to see out my back window...

Anyways, we got them home and put them in the space. PERFECT! Wooo hooo!!!

We haven't had them painted yet, but Ive switched up the hardware on them. Here was the before:

and here's how they look after switching up the hardware:

(please ignore my ugly alarm clock that Ive had since the age of 7 that might or might not still have disney stickers on it...I know I need a new one...)

Anyways, back to more important decor choices...what colour should I paint the tables? Right now, we are thinking white (as our headboard is going to be darker or patterned), but we might be open to colour choices too?

Any thoughts? What colour would you paint them?!

Master Ensuite Curtains

Hi Everyone!

Its been a while since Ive been on here- we have a lot going on right now, but there are so many things I have to share with you. Many of these projects we've completed a while back, and some we have still yet to finish.

Most of you will remember seeing our Master Ensuite reveal, and we are very much nearing completion on this room! We only have 2 things yet to complete, and Im so happy its almost done!

One of the major things we wanted to finish, was the curtains for this room. We found some incredible fabric on my favorite fabric suppliers site: Tonic Living, and felt that it went perfectly in the room:

Bethe- Robins Egg (Tonic Living)

It matched our tile choices nicely and helped to really tie the room together. Here's what the ensuite looked like before the curtains:

and here is the after:

We chose to create 4 smaller panels rather than 2 or 4 large, based on the size of the room. They fit the opening of the window perfectly and add a nice amount of pattern and texture to the space.

We chose to create simple panels, and hang them from the curtain rods with drapery clips. I found this was the most simple way to hang them while keeping the style modern and clean.

The curtain rods were from Lowes and the drapery clips from Boucliar Home. We used 3 packages of 7 drapery clips (leaving 1 to spare) as each panel needed 5 clips. Thankfully, the rods and drapery clips were a perfect match.

In order to make the panels, I used my Singer machine (which I LOVE), and followed these steps (which I made up as I went):

1. Take measurements of your windows and fabric to see what you have to work with. My windows were 45 inches wide and my fabric was 54 inches wide, so I knew I had just enough fabric to cover my window. I figured I could cut the piece in half, and with seams and cutting off the raw edges would end up with just enough. 

2. Lay the fabric down on a large surface (my dining table worked well!).

3. Cut off the raw edges.

4. If you are creating small panels like I did (24 inches wide), fold your fabric in half and iron the crease.

4. Cut your fabric down the middle to create 2 large pieces

5. Figure out how tall you want your panels to appear (I wanted to hang mine closer to the ceiling (my curtain rods were already up- which was risky!- but I measured how tall I needed them to be from the rod to the floor.)

6. Cut the fabric to be just long enough, and put your extra fabric aside. I had purchased enough fabric to create 4 panels.

7. You should now have 1 large piece thats just long enough, cut in half. Sew all your edges to create 2 large panels.

8. I went the extra step to make sure my patterns matched when I closed the panels, but you dont need to do this.

9. Once I finished my first 2 panels, I used one of them as a template to create the remaining 2.

Its not a difficult process, it just takes time to sew, iron and measure when you are working with such a large amount of fabric.

Im really happy with how the turned out, and am now working on a roman shade for our "kids" bath and 2 more curtain panels for our guest room. Our guest room is getting close to being finished and so is our master ensuite so those will be up soon.

For now, I can enjoy a nice relaxing bath in my washroom...without giving the neighbours a show anymore :S

Enjoy this sunny day everyone!

Linking up to:

Lovely Bloggers

There's a few lovely ladies out there who have recently let me know that they've featured me on their blogs...and I wanted to send a big THANKS out to both of them!

It means a lot when a blogger features you, and spreads the love! The internet is a big space and there is truly room for all of us out there-big or small :)

I would highly recommend checking out these lovely blogs!

First up, is the "Creative DIYers Club" who feaures do-it-yourself projects from blogland. She focuses on showcasing projects done by ordinary people that are truly affordable- within the financial reach of the majority of people....and she chose to feature my Vanity Table!

You check out out her post on my vanity here: 

Thanks for the feature!

Secondly, is Jena from Involving Colour whose blog focuses on her "love for paint color and to chronicle the DIY adventures of our fixer upper". Jena's blog is an amazing place to explore the world of colour and see how colour can be used in any space! I am so flattered that she chose to feature our Master Ensuite.

You check out out her post on our Master Ensuite here:

So thanks again to these lovely ladies for the features and check out their blog for even more inspiration!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!


I love Valentines day....whether you spend it with family, friends, significant others...this is a day to show them how much you care :)


First of all, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dad!


And to my Valentine, who happens to be away for Valentines day, but still sent me Tulips (one of my fav's) from around the globe :) I love you to the moon and back.

Ian's amazing at remembering important dates and celebrating...here's what he did for me a few years back:

yep thats right...I love you in peppers :D


I love you with all my heart sweetie :)

Clover sends kisses to you all too...

tee hee!


Happy Valentines Day everyone!

Dresser Update

So our master bedroom is getting pretty close to completion....that is with the exception of no headboard, magical endtables that we will probably never find, and unhemmed curtains...so all and all not bad :)
Anyho, we recently finished updating our Ikea dresser...I guess you could say this is my first true Ikea Hack...yippee! Boy are we ever glad its finished (and still in one piece as we refrained from kicking it several times while remaking it :D )


Soooo....here's what we began with:


The Ikea Hemnes 8 drawer dresser (ours was a honey colour, which they dont actually make anymore):

so we wanted it white...and didn't feel like forking out the $300 to get a new one...soooo we decided to paint ours.

I have to say this dresser was probably the most difficult piece we've worked with yet. It involved a bunch of steps and we dealt with a bunch of challenges after each.

First thing we did was sand the dresser down completely.

We took apart all of the drawers so we only had to paint the drawer fronts.

We then primed the entire piece and all drawer fronts with an oil based primer. This helps when you are trying to get the paint to level-out better, however for us it didn't work too well. We ended up stripping the entire top of the dresser and trying again with a water-based primer. After that, we sanded the entire piece again, and started with our paint.

We used "Simply White" in a satin finish by Benjamin Moore- which is the same colour as our trim and other white furniture- so we kept it consistent.

We constantly seemed to have dust and little blue particles from our drop cloth sticking to our pieces, so we were continuously wiping the pieces off and painting again, and again and again.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures on our progress, but I completely forgot to take some during our frustrations! lol)

After 3 coats of paint, we ended up with this:

We changed up the hardware a bit...

and we're pretty happy with how it turned out!

Dresser complete! We're almost there with this room friends! Up next- headboard re-do!