Wallpaper Reveal

I posted about wallpaper before, but hadn't taken pictures of the final product yet. Well here it is:

Here's the blank wall:

With some furniture:

Almost finished!

More pics to come as the final product comes together!

Hard to find Hardware.....

Recently we have been changing out all of the hardware on our doors, handles on drawers, you name it. This house had some pretty 80's gold handles everywhere that we knew we had to change.

Although we are putting some pretty basic handles on the majority of the doors in the house, I really want to put a glass/crystal knob on the door to our closet....perfect room to glam up a bit, and hubby actually likes the idea!

SO, there are some pretty neat places to find hardward in our town, but I was checking online and found Anthropologie's amazing collection of hardware. They pretty much have the most amazing collection of unique and vintage looking pieces:

Knobs (a few of my favs):

Handles:

Hooks:

Switchplates:

Door Knobs:

I think they would look amazing on the right pieces- especially a vintage find that's been upcycled.
Definitely has inspired me to find a piece to work with the knobs! lol! Happy hunting!

Destroyed to Devine...Desk Transformation

The first room in our house that we decided to redo was the office. It was an easy pick since we knew we weren't going to be using it as much as other rooms in the house. Plus, it was out of the way, and we could work on it slowly without the chaos of everything being all over the place.

The one thing that I desperately wanted for our office was a new desk. I was tired of the massive ikea desk we had and wanted something that I could "re-vamp". I wanted something that looked like this:

A "French Provincial Writing Desk" I discovered it was called.

I looked EVERYWHERE.

We went to every furniture store we could think of, and the only stores that carried anything similar were selling for around $800-$1200. Way beyond our budget.  We were hoping for something in the 'under $200' range....wishful thinking I suppose. I searched on Kijiji for weeks in a million locations...nothing.

However, being the determined person I am, I wasn't about to give up on my idea of my dream desk. I could invision it beautifully in that room, and I was going to find it! Finally, one morning my brilliant husband suggested I look on Kijiji in a different geographic region- one close to his parents. That way, if we did find something, we could ask to borrow their van and drive it home.

There it was. My perfect "French Provincial Style Writing Desk".... listed at $95.00.

It must be a typo I thought, and the desk had been listed months ago, and was probably sold (another person who forgot to take down their listing).
However, I couldn't give up on this, so I emailed the person immediately and stared at my computer, waiting for a response. Nothing. I called. No answer. Sigh.....
An hour later the phone rang and Ian answered- it was the desk person!!!! I was thrilled- the desk was still available, however, it had a bit of damage to one of the corners from their dog. They had just returned from a vacation and hadn't been actively selling it. 

We drove down that afternoon to check it out. Perfect. It was in absolutely gorgeous condition- solid wood, beautifully cared for...except for the one corner which had been chewed by the dog. I looked past that. Ian was certain we could fix it would wood filler, and we were painting it anyways. Plus, for $95.00 I couldn't pass up this deal.

So we brought it home, piled on the wood filler, sanded. Piled on the wood filler again, sanded. Did that about 5 times until the corner looked somewhat like a corner again.

Then I sanded the entire desk and had it painted white.

We changed the knobs to crystal knobs and there it was. My perfect desk. For under $200.00 :)

Here's that chewed up corner that we fixed with a bit of wood filler and paint:

Put the crystal knobs on:

Ta Da! 

Another DIY project for the books!


Linking up to:

         

Wallpaper- its back!

I recently took on the challenge of wallpapering a wall in our dining room with my mom. I couldn't have done it without her and it was a very long, but successful day :)

We had fun doing it too...didn't we mom!? :)

The wallpaper we chose for our dining room has a funky/modern print (it looks much more tan/taupe in this picture than it is- its actually very silvery) :

We were pretty much committed to doing the paper after we chose the paint colour to match the paper, painted the entire dining and living room a second (yes second) time to match it. Unfortuantely we were then told that our order couldn't be fulfilled, since that paper had been discontinued. We were determined not to have to re-paint those rooms a third time, so I searched high and low for that paper and finally found it! Phew! So papering was GOING to happen!

But after doing one wall, we realised one wall was enough! I think thats the thing with wallpaper, people have realised it works in home decor, but only in small doces (and plese dont wallpaper everything in site, including the kleenex box!)

I was inspired by a variety of images before I decided to wallpaper, including the Sarah Richardson designs below:

Wallpapering comes in so many unique papers and styles now:

This paper even has rhinestones on it....

But you might have to search a bit to find some modern styles that don't break the bank.

A friend suggested Farrow and Ball to me and their papers are gorgeous:

So if you are thinking of papering, remember the golden rules:

- small areas only

- modern prints

- keep within a colour scheme

Happy papering!

Patio Lanterns

Yea Spring!!! We finally had some FABULOUS and I mean FABULOUS weather this past weekend :) It honestly felt like 30 degree's out! Im sure it was only about 14 or so, but with the amount of snow and cold weather we have had this year, we'll take anything above 10 degrees to be summer-like!

And with the spring weather we are getting just that much closer to SUMMER and patio weather!! Yippee!!!

We recently purchased some new patio/dining furniture for our deck (got a pretty great deal on it at Home Sense) and are pretty excited about it.

Here is our inspiration (and a sneak patio at what our furniture looks like!):

Im also on the look-out for some other key essentials:

YEA for Spring!!