Basement Makeover: The Vision

These past few weeks I've been itching to spruce up our basement living area. Every time I go down to look for tool or sort through my holiday decor, I remember why I don't like to hang out there...DRAB.  We have furniture from a past life (and not in a chic vintage way) that I can't get rid of fast enough. 

Here's what it looks like now.

I started to think about just how much I would love one of those sofas with a chaise lounge attached...and it all spiraled from there.  I whipped up a little inspiration board, these are just my fave things ever to make!  According to hubs, I'm "allowed" to redo the space on the condition that we add some colour - he's a bit sick of my usual black, white and grey palette. Pourquoi? Anyhoo... I went WILD and landed on blue, lol, I don't know...it just felt right. 

The existing items I own and need to work with are the ever-glorious Eames lounge and ottoman, industrial-ish side table and black lamp and that's about it, it's open season on the rest! I felt this space should be a bit more comfy than the rest of the house, so I toned down the glam a wee bit and tried to keep it a bit masculine, because let's be honest, I send hubs down there most of the time to watch sports...although...the chaise lounge may change that?!

The wall colour is still settling with me, but never fear, of course I managed to squeeze some black and white elements in :) 

DIY PAINTED PICTURE FRAME MAT

So, I got up to some major DIYing this weekend, how about you?  I painted my fall pumpkins gold, gold leafed a ceiling medallion AND spruced up an old picture frame mat to give it some much needed colour. Because I knew it would take me another year to decide on a new piece of art that was a bit more colourful, I decided to go about it in a different way; I painted the mat.

The blase before...

Before

The tools were as simple as craft paint, mini roller and IKEA picture frame (I experimented with an inexpensive frame just in case it didn't turn out the way I wanted).

And the process was even simpler, dip roller in paint and roll on the mat (making sure to get the inside edges so you don't see any white).

After it dried, I popped it back in to the frame and found it a new home.

After

Instant facelift! Love.

CHIC SHACK || master bedroom design, or lack thereof...

Hellooooo! I'm back from vacation, ahhhhh what a glorious trip of a lifetime indeed. As you can imagine a 19 day tour with 4 major destinations has left me wiped. Quite honestly, I'm not organized enough to show you some of the awe inspiring things I came across in my travels, so instead I'm going to complain about my unfinished bedroom!

This new motivation to finish what I started in our master is driven by all of the wonderful ideas and inspiration I soaked in while gallivanting around the globe.

This is what the bedroom looked like when we bought the house.

And here we are now, as you can see not much has changed. We've moved the bed out from under the window, bought curtains, a rug, side table, dresser and a lamp. Why you ask would someone purchase these items without a bigger plan or vision for the space? Who knows?! I was excited when we moved in to fully complete every space, I was on a buying frenzy, but a couple of months ago I realized, I don't have a plan!

Note the many paint testers on the wall, like I said, no plan.

I'm back now with a fresh set of eyes and a head full of ideas; I'm gettin' this room done! Stay tuned for the vision...

BEFORE & AFTER || teak dining table transformation

Nothing excites me more than finding a diamond in the rough; a beat up, tossed aside or flat out ugly treasure that's crying out to be refinished, refurbished or even re purposed.  Our dining room table was one of these hidden gems. For a cool $350 (including delivery) this gorgeous antique Danish, teak table would become the future meeting place for dinner parties, game nights and crafting projects for many years to come.

Its unique oval shape fit well into our tight space, it had a beautiful base and an extra leaf which made this baby a done deal! I couldn't live with teak, it's nice, but not my style, so I decided I would stain it black (a choice that was NOT popular with the purist, craftsman we hired to do the dirty work).

Before: sad little fellow

Personally, I LOVE the transformation! Went from flat to glam in just a few short days and it tucked in perfectly to our petite dining area.

After: black beauty

It's a beautiful, well made vintage piece that I can keep around forever, and with a $400 stain job and a grand total of $750 all in, I feel like I won the furniture lottery!

LANDSCAPE CHRONICLES || urban backyard makeover

The time has finally come, yes I know you've all been waiting with bated breath - well hopefully at least some of you have!? The BIG backyard reveal!!!

I'll give you one last look at the bland before pic...

If you head back over here, this is where I ranted about my industrial glamour vision for our urban yard reno.  I think we managed to execute the essence of the vision BUT... the backyard ended up having more of a mid-century modern flava, still glam, less industrial.  Either way we LOVE! 

Drum roll please......

WHA BAM! Squealing with JOY! I didn't dare step foot outside last summer, now I can't stay away.

DIY || modernizing porch lattice

As I’ve previously complained about, our house has a negative rating in the curb appeal department (keep in mind we bought a flip so at least most items were “updated”: front door, windows, new porch ya, ya, ya…).  On the list of outdoor uglies, was the white plastic lattice underneath the front porch. As a quick fix last summer (I’m embarrassed to even admit) we spray painted it in hopes that it would blend with the deck, knowing we would be ripping the sucker out this summer.

Hallelujah, praise the design gods, the time has come; we just did a super fab DIY and replaced it all! We decided to add 1.5” wide horizontal slats to create a more modern look. Here’s how we did it:

       

- Nail gun

- Circular saw

- Table saw

- Drill

- Screws

- Medium sandpaper

- PL glue

- 1"x6' maple wood planks

Out with the old; we tore off the existing lattice – which took all of 2 secs and measured out the distance across the porch (Note: there was an existing frame the plastic lattice was attached to so we just used that, if you don’t have one it’s easy to create).

Before

Next, cutting down to size; hubby and my bro used the table saw to cut the wood into 1.5” strips

Then, the sanding; really easy, doesn’t have to be perfect, just use a medium grain sandpaper and do a quick once over of all sides

Installation; this was also pretty simple (coming from the person who “supervised” and sunbathed the entire time :) ); the boys added two support strips of wood vertically down the centre of our existing frame to prevent the slats from warping in the centre. They also made  a 1” inch thick spacer, which allowed them to maintain the exact distance between each board every time.

They held the spacer against the underside edge of the top portion of the frame, they butted the first strip of wood up against the bottom of the spacer and using the nail gun put nails into the wood at each support beam (far left, centre and far right).  They repeated this step all the way down.

And…voila, bye bye sad sissy slats, hello sleek lined lady. I LOVE!  The finishing touch will be the paint.

After

Time: 5hrs (two people)

Cost: $75 (my brother had all of the tools)

Difficulty Level:  7/10 (for peeps who know at least a little something about power tools)

CHIC SHACK || our living room

Happy day all! BIG post today - big in my mind anyhow - it’s my pride and joy, the transformation of our living room!  Thought I’d take you on a little tour of one room in our house that we're finally done decorating, however, I’ll warn you, my work is never really done.  I’ll get this out in the open now, I’m THE queen of monochromatic: black, white, gray and gold of course, they are my besties when it comes to colour schemes. 

Here’s a “before” pic of the living room, this is how it was "staged" at the open house.  A veritable blank slate *salivating*.

Before: Living room June 2011

The plan was to create a functional modern glam space that was clearly defined as a living room but also flowed well with the rest of the main floor. Since we're constantly entertaining we designed it to be a practical conversation area too.

After: Living room March 2012

We painted the entire main floor in Benjamin Moore Cement Gray and added a darker accent wall in Benjamin Moore Stone to create depth and importance, this wall is home to our art gallery (an attempt to disguise the T.V). 

We injected hits of colour with yellow, just so it didn’t feel like we were living in a black and white photo. Colour is a stretch for me, I hate committing, but I say hip hip hooray for these velvety, tufted yellow arm chairs nabbed at West Elm. Did you notice the coffee table? My FAVE (brass ram heads) I mean really, a total stunner, found on Kijiji for a whopping $150– Best Brass Find award winner!

And there you have it. There are definitely still tweaks to be made to the decor, I’d like to replace some of the art – truth be told a few frames are filled with decorative paper, got a bit overzealous in a paper shop one day, oops, I think they can be improved, and I’m realizing some more hits of colour might do some good, maybe pillows?