Sandy

Meet my new love, Sandy. Jack will be jealous. I am sanding down closet doors and I am.in.love with my new sander from Canadian Tire. I will post "After" pictures as soon as I actually finish a project around here right away!
In the meantime, here is a little ditty to remind you of Sandy...




Have a great day!

Nadine

Louis' House

Louis is a Halloween fanatic. In fact, he hails from a long line of Halloween fanatics. Louis' brother Andrew married his bride Niki yesterday because of their collective love of Halloween. Now that's a commitment to Halloween! So I thought I would give you a look at Louis' Haunted House. (Notice the hands from beyond the grave, above). Spooky!

The fence was created from Louis' garden pruning all summer long.


A scary close-up!


Two of the hand-carved pumpkins - Louis is a cat-lover. (Hi, Jasmine and Buddy!)

Some friendly ghosts for the smaller trick-or-treaters.



Love the hanging skeleton! And bats in the tree!

Louis hand-carved and painted all the tombstones out of Styrofoam. Talented, isn't he?

More pumpkins.


You dirty rat!


The whole house - fantastic, right? Notice the ghost on the roof?


Of course, the inside of his house had to be decorated for the season, too. Louis is a professional granite installer and his house is full of wonderful granite pieces, like the buffet counter and the dining table.


Yeah, it's a beer on the ottoman - Halloween is a party after all!

Lots of blue and white lights and scary music outdoors completed the look in the dark. Fifty little people dropped by for Louis' hand-assembled treat bags. A great success - and the neighbourhood is already looking forward to next year to see what he will do!

Happy Halloween! Thanks for the tour, Louis!


Nadine

Feeling Inspired....

Images: styleathome.com; houseandhome.com; sohautestyle.com


Happy Monday!


Nadine

Welcome September!

Now don't get me wrong - I love summer. And by summer, I mean June. By August, although I love the warm weather and wearing sandals and eating at outdoor cafes, some of the pleasure of summertime pursuits has worn off. It's TOO hot. Seriously, it's 39C with the humidex. (That's 102F to my American friends). And the flies, the flies, the flies. Not much of an imposition in the City, but our poor horse is suffering. He has lost weight, even though he is getting supplemental feed, wears a fly blanket and boards inside overnight. Poor Vegas!


Poor sad boy.

At this time of year, I start dreaming of a nice hard frost and nice sunny fall days. And the decorating - the decorating is my favourite kind of decorating! The colours are warm and cozy and natural. There are only two things I DO NOT like about fall are:
1.) it precedes winter. AND winter is very long in my neck of the woods.
2.) Fall vegetables. Blech. Need I say more? Parsnips. Shudder. Squash. Barf. Brussels sprouts. EEWW. And the worst fall vegetable of all is (drum roll, please) turnip. I could barely type the words. Luckily Jack agrees with me on most of the veggies. My kids, however, have been deprived of theses vegetables. Oh well. Life goes on.

What I love about fall is....DECORATING! Big surprise, I know! Lots of cozy colours, pumpkins and football. And I can't forget - the fall Parade of Homes in my city.
What's not to like?

More to follow.


Nadine

Desperately Seeking...

No, definitely not Desperately Seeking Susan (if you automatically thought of this cheesy 80s movie starring Madonna, you're at least as old as I am!)
I am actually desperately seeking chalkboard paint. Look at these beautiful inspiration shots from Canadian House & Home magazine...




Be still my heart.

I am not simply jumping on the latest hot trend. In the 90s I painted a small chalkboard on The Creative One's bedroom wall (notice the film theme and you may also notice I am STILL the skilled photographer I have always been).


I later painted that entire wall with the chalkboard paint, and the other walls in his room in alternating colours (purple, sunshine yellow and lime green - the ceiling was royal blue because he wanted his room to look like the Silver City movie theatre complex in our city). I obliged which probably makes me Mother of the Decade!

So back to chalkboard paint. I loved it before and now I want to use it in our condo. I thought I would paint my entire powder room in it - cool right? And what about my old ugly kitchen backsplash - I saw the idea to paint the backsplash in the July/Aug 2010 issue This Old House magazine which featured the blog condo-blues.blogspot.com. Super cool!

All I need is the damn chalkboard paint! Why am I cussing, you ask?

Because, while there are several different products available, if you look online,
(it even comes in spray paint!) it appears to be a rare commodity in my town...

Since I live within walking distance of a paint store (ICI), I went over and asked if they carried the paint. Not only did they NOT carry the paint, the clerk told me all I needed was FLAT BLACK regular latex paint to achieve the same result!!!!!!!!!!! Notice all the exclamation points! Seriously! This is not my first time at the rodeo dude! Can you imagine if someone actually TOOK this advice (why is the question mark not working on my keyboard) All I'm getting is ÉÉÉÉÉ. If I was a DIY newbie and actually did this - I would seriously be ÉÉÉÉÉÉ all over them!

[Ok, so I talked to The Creative One and he told me I had my keyboard in Canadian French - problem all fixed for now.]

Back to the problem at hand. So I took myself down to the local hardware store - McDiarmid's - and no luck either. Ditto for Walmart. So it was time to go down to the big orange box- yes, you heard me - Home Depot (heavenly lights go on) and guess what - THEY didn't have it either! What is the world coming to? This is a trend that is in ALL the magazines, but you CAN'T BUY IT IN WINNIPEG!!! AAARRRGGGHHH!

But I still have Rona and Benjamin Moore to try out. I was trying to avoid Benjamin Moore because of the price point, but at this rate, folks, I may have no other choice.

I'll let you know how it goes.....






Nadine

Like Watching Paint Dry, but Worse

So yes, I have been AWOL for a while. I know you missed me. Summer called and I have been enjoying the hot beach weather. I promise I will be back in full force this fall with lots of new projects.
This summer we have been working on our powder room. Veerry sloooowly, working on the powder room. Under the heading "Jack must do everything the most hardest way possible", after ripping out the old light fixture, he was left with holes in the drywall which needed to be taped and mudded over with drywall compound. Since he has placed a lifetime ban on me EVER touching the stuff (in my defense, did a few goopy messes really ever hurt anyone?), I now must wait until he has patched the holes, sanded them down and declared the room fit to paint.

Ok, fine, UNTIL he opened up the leftover compound and found - a soupy mess. Why? We'll never know. SO what would a reasonable person do? Go buy a new jug? (I suggested; he rejected). Go buy a box of dry compound and add it to said goopy mess? (I suggested; he rejected). What is he doing instead? LEAVING THE LID OFF AND LETTING IT DRY OUT. SERIOUSLY. I mean that is really cheap-ass. I have been accused of being cheap-assed in my lifetime, but THIS, THIS is seriously cheap-assed. So that is why I do not have a finished room to show you.
THIS is what I have to show you:

Notice the open drywall compound bucket. Notice the red lid balancing on the tissue box and the starfish. Notice the dust everywhere. Sigh. At least he works cheaply. If not quickly.

Finished room coming soon (I hope!).

Nadine

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Today, the Creative One turns 23 years old. So hard to believe that someone so young as moi can have a son that age. ;P

Here are the top 10 things you should know about Andrew (had to narrow it down cuz there were so many more)!

10. Was the world's happiest baby. And he's STILL witty and charming.

9. He's always loved wheels...

but now they look like this:

8. He's very smart.
7. He's a snappy dresser. (he's gonna kill me)


6. He's got the moves. Let's do the time warp again....


5. He likes animals-especially cats and horses.

4. He's the godfather of this beautiful little girl - Noelle.

3. He created this awesome music website all by himself.

2. He loves to holiday.

1. He's beautiful inside and out and his father and I become prouder of him everyday.

Happy Birthday, Andrew! Hope this is your best year EVER!!!!!


Mom