Making A House A Home Part 1

Friday morning, we took the girls bright and early to Community Park so they could spend some energy outside before their nap. We were hoping the would nap a little longer since we were going to a wedding that evening. The ceremony and reception were being held at the Tigh-Na-Mara. I won’t post any pictures of the newlyweds as I didn’t ask if it was ok to post some on here so you’ll just have to trust me that they were both gorgeous and dashing!  We cleaned up very nice too, if I do say so myself!

I had bought a simple navy dress from Bryan’s  just before leaving and had forgotten all my jewelry and Ben had no pants to wear that fit him. We made a quick dash to the mall on our way to Parksville and I got myself a nice necklace and earrings from Aldo Accessories while Ben bought a nice pair of pants from Banana Republic. Rina was originally wearing a prettier dress, but she took a tumble and blood ran from her knee onto the dress, so we changed her into a different dress between the ceremony and the reception. Still a pretty cute family IMHO!

One day, BeZU will smile when prompted!

I love that dress despite my nasty CF bruise on my leg!

Yesterday morning, we decided to pack up early and hit the road during the girls nap. That meant we had to clean up the condo, do some laundry and we had also promised Rina we would take the girls “golfing” (playing mini-golf). She was so excited about it all and we didn’t really play for points. It was more an obstacle course for us as we were trying to hit our balls around little legs and feet that kept walking on the putting green. Rina and I both managed a hole-in-one on the 18th hole which meant we won 2 free plays. Seeing as we didn’t plan on using them, I went down the line-up of people waiting to purchase their entrances, picked a family of four and told them we would give them our free plays. I figured, we might as well pay-it-forward. The parents seemed very pleased with our offer and I just said they should pay-it-forward somehow to someone else! 🙂

Upon returning home, yesterday, we dove right into Home DIY projects. There were weeds to be pulled out (still lots of thistles, but we’ll get there eventually), bushes to be uprooted and plants to be watered. We had also received a call from the Home Depot saying that the blinds for our skylights were ready to be picked up. I’m pretty happy about those as it has been hard to sleep in the bedroom with the sun shining straight on my body and temperature of around 28ºC (82F). I’m sure these will make a huge difference in the heat that seems to get stuck upstairs:

See those nice sun squares shining right on my side of the bed? They are all gone on the right pic!

While we were waiting to pick up our blinds, we also decided to get 2 more shovels (one to uproot the thistles and another to do some grass trimming along our walkway) as well as a trowel for gardening. Once we dropped everything off at home, I took off on my own for a trip to HomeSense where I bought drawer organizers for the bathroom upstairs and a rug for the front entrance (I still want one for the patio door, but couldn’t find one I liked).

New rug

I also bought a towel holder that hangs from the cupboard and a make-up mirror for when I put my face on in the morning. Miracle of miracles, I also found a duvet cover for Béatrice. I was starting to re-think my idea of having her curtains and duvet cover in the shade of bubble gum pink, but I found her curtains last week at Home Outfitters and I scored her duvet cover today at home depot for $30!

Things we are still missing are a full-length mirror for upstairs, a new mirror for the bathroom downstairs (there is currently one there, I just hate it!)new furniture for the girls’ bedrooms as well as for our bedroom, and new duvet cover for us as well.

We have also booked an appointment for someone from Home Depot to come and give us a quote to change the 2 windows upstairs (they are the original ones, from 1918, wood and single pane. Definitely not safe for what will be Rina’s room) and we will be making some phone calls today to get quotes on the painting of all 3 bedrooms. Things are moving along and I’m excited about making this house a home!

Ben also put all the doors back up in our rental suite and has re-connected the washer and dryer. Lots of little projects being crossed off our list!

So Many Colours!

After we departed with the largest sum of money we have ever managed to save up at the lawyer’s office this morning, it felt really real… WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!! Also, we’re moving in 3 days! Yikes!

I came back home and all I wanted to do was peruse Design Seeds for the rest of the day. I have many Pins on my Pinterest account from their site and find it such a good inspiration for colours! For the moment, let me just share with you a few that I really have my mind set on, now I need to work on getting the husband to agree, although I just found out today that it might be easier than I originally thought so…

Yet another reason my husband is the best!

So… for our master bedroom, I was thinking shades of grey or charcoal with a bright canary yellow. Something along these lines:

(pics taken from here and here)

I’m thinking an accent wall in the shade of yellow with the other walls in the lighter shade of grey/charcoal, while maintaining the trims white and hopefully getting the white/beige carpet cleaned. Eventually, I’d like to keep our furniture on the darker side and get a black duvet cover. I could accent the duvet cover with a knitted yellow blanket and lighter accessories in the room. So yeah, that would be my ideal master bedroom! 🙂

For Rina’s room, I’d like to keep her duvet cover the same and therefore I was thinking something along these lines

(pics taken from here and here)

I would use the second pink from the left or the second purple from the bottom as an accent wall (again) and hopefully, we could pair it with the same grey/charcoal as our master and save up some money by doing so.

As for Béatrice’s room, she doesn’t yet have a duvet as she’s still in her crib, but we were hoping to get her in the toddler bed once the move is complete. She has this really nice knitted blanket that Mamie painstakingly made for her and it’s a dark grey and lime green in colour… Something along these lines would be awesome:

(pics taken from here and here)

Again, the lime green would be an accent wall and we could maybe pair it with the same grey/charcoal as our master bedroom and call it a day.

There you have it, my inspiration for our upstairs living quarters. As for our downstairs, I’ll keep the hallway and kitchen the same sandy/off-white colour. The dining room and living room are a bit more puzzling to me. They are big and open to one another, separated only by a small arch. I would love to have a beach-y feel to the main floor. Tones of (again) light grey, sea foam, navy and accents of coral is what I have in mind. I saw the following ad on the Pier 1 Imports website and that’s where the inspiration is coming from:

(pics taken from here and here)

That’s where the inspiration stops. I don’t know how I would paint the walls and what colour. I think I’d like to upgrade our couch to either a grey leather sectional or navy fabric sectional, although a navy leather sectional would be my ultimate dream! I would probably put accent cushions in the coral tones. The downstairs isn’t a priority right now and we’ll mainly focus our time, energy and finances on the basement suite (changing the carpets, or ultimately, getting them cleaned to their original status), the upstairs and refinishing the deck. If we could get by with just cleaning the carpets in the suite, it would free some money that we could use somewhere else! 🙂

Down the road, we’ll need new furniture for both the girls’ bedrooms, our bedrooms, the living room and a patio set would be awesome-sauce too! All in due time. We’ll get things done slowly, but this house will be our home! I can’t wait ti get the keys tomorrow. If we get them soon enough, I might take the girls with me to go have a picnic for lunch or dinner on the floor of our new house! 🙂