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!

Pinterest Love

Are YOU on Pinterest?! Seriously if you aren't you should be. Not that I'm telling you what to do or anything...but I'm highly encouraging you to join!

Remember the days of finding an image online, saving it to your computer, filing it somewhere you could never remember and then trying to find it online again?! Those days are OVER!

Pinterest allows you to save all of your images in one place for easy access, sharability and for inspiration! I absolutely love it. I pin daily...or try to at least (there's so much cool stuff to pin!!)

You can pin about anything and everything...

Decor:

Baby Things:

For the Home:

How To's:

Fashion:

all images courtesy of Pinterest.com

and SOOOO much more!!

Those images Ive shown you are all courtesy of Pintest, and are images that Ive "pinned" to my personal boards, which you can check out/follow here.

You can become a follower of someone's boards, someone's page or simply re-pin an image that you enjoy.

So many of the images I've 'pinned' have inspired things we've done to our home, or given us ideas to strive for!

Thanks Pinterest!
So go check it out and happy pinning! :) 

Winner Announced!

Hi Everyone!
Hope you are all enjoying the lovely winter day (we are having a bit of a storm here, but boy do the trees look pretty!).

Anyho, the winner for the Frog Tape Giveaway is.... (drum role please...)

#19- Echoe!

Congrats Echoe!!


Send me an email to livingbeautifully1@gmail.com, or leave a message on the Facebook page, and I'll get back to you to confirm your contact info so you can receive your prize!

Thank you to all who entered!
Happy Friday!

New Giveaway!

Happy Monday Everyone!


So I wanted to start of the new year, not only with a "Reveal" post, but also another Giveaway! You might remember my post about FrogTape a while back, and how fabulous we thought it was.


We've actually been completing a bunch of other projects using FrogTape, including my vanity mirror and painting our master bedroom all of which we will post photos of in the next while, but our favorite project so far, has definitely been our guest room stripes that you can read about here, or see here:

(This room has actually come quite a long ways, since these photos are taken, but it is currently acting as our closet- as the Master Bedroom closet is under construction- so I'll spare you photos of our clothing tornado for now...)


Anyho, ShurTech (the makers of FrogTape) have decided to sponsor a giveaway for you, my lovely readers! You could win a FrogTape gift pack including, 1 package of FrogTape, a FrogTape t-shirt and a FrogTape tote! Lets be honest, who doesn't need more FrogTape (and heck, you can tape, while wearing your new t-shirt!)


Here's what you need to do to win:

1. Let us know what project you would complete (or start) using FrogTape!

2. Join our site/become a fan through any of the following:

Google Friend Connect

or Facebook 

or Twitter 

Once you've done that, please leave separate comments on the blog and let us know what you've done :)

The last day to enter is Thursday January 26th and the winner will be chosen on Friday January 27th!

Please review the contest rules here.

Goodluck!!

Vanity Reveal

Hi Friends,


So lots going on lately, as you probably remember from my 'blogging note' post, however, this weekend we've been working away once again, and I managed to finish my vanity and vanity chair. I love it, and I can't wait to be able to actually use it now!


You might remember me introducing you to my $10.00 vanity that I "picked" from Kijiji last summer, here, or my antique vanity chair that I also found on Kijiji for $10.


Let me remind you of the "Before's" anyways...


Here's what I started with:

and here's how it turned out:

I sanded, painted and reupholstered it in new fabric. I actually ordered that fabric for our Master Ensuite curtains and used what I had left for the chair- worked out perfectly. The fabric I used was 'Bethe-Robins Egg' from Tonic Living and the paint colour is a light sea-foam green called 'Smokey Slate' in a satin finish by Behr . I actually didn't even need to prime the chair- I used Behr Premium Plus Ultra paint which has a built in primer. It worked beautifully. I honestly might have gotten away with 1 really good coat- its that thick. I did 2 coats though, and that was more than enough- the paint went on really well. 

Now, here's what the Vanity Table looked like before:

I spent some time fixing it up and painting it ("Simply White" by Benjamin Moore). I also added some new hardware to the drawer that I found at Home Sense:

and now it looks like this:

Added a few accessories for now...

I found this mirror at a second hand store for $7.00. Its super heavy and has a solid wood frame- someone had painted over the previous finish, but I think that with some paint, it will look perfect over my vanity....

I'll update you all once I've painted and refinished the mirror, but for now, I'm looking forward to having a nice spot to sit in our bedroom to get ready :)

Total cost for the make-over:
Vanity Table (Kijiji)- $10.00
New handle for drawer (Home Sense)- $11.00
Vanity Chair (Kijiji)- $10.00
Fabric for Chair (Tonic Living)- remnant from curtain fabric
Paint (Home Depot)- $10.00 (HD coupon)
Mirror (second hand store)- $7.00


Total: $48.00


Other Accessories (already owned):
Flowers (Home Sense)
Jewelry Drawer (Home Sense)
Vanity Tray (Second Hand Store- $0.99)

All I need now, is a light, a small mirror and to fix up the drawer, so I can actually put all of my make-up inside :) I'm planning on using some wallpaper that I'll have left over from our bedroom closet make-over (post coming soon!), to do the drawer (I know no-one will ever see it but me, but that's ok right?!)


So what do you think?!
What else would you make sure to have on your vanity table?

Linking up to:

Featured on: