Thoughts On Making Ordinary Things Pretty

 Our home is pretty simply decorated, and I really like to make the most of the ordinary things we use everyday. I like them to be both pretty and functional. This allows the normally plain or even ugly things that have to be hidden in closets to instead be on display.

There are a few reasons why I do this, one of them being that we have very little closet space. We are actually tearing down the only closet on the main floor to make room for our new bathroom. And although we have a basement, it is too scary for me to go down there on a regular basis. When my husband reads this he will deny that it is scary and say that it is just a typical old house basement with concrete walls and tiny windows, but personally I try to minimize the time I have to spend there!

 Also, being on a tiny budget does not allow for purchasing tons of meaningless accessories, instead I have a few favourite ones such as my driftwood sailboat. Therefore, my everyday things become the things I decorate with. A stack of white dishes that are used all the time can make for a very pretty display.

Today I made this ruffled cover for my ironing board. Our laundry is in the scary basement so I like to do my ironing in the kitchen, which means that our ironing board is always leaning against the pantry. So I decided I might as well make it pretty and help it contribute to the overall look.

If anyone ever wants to try to make an ironing board cover it is really easy, just take your old one, cut off the casing and sew it to your new piece of fabric, pull the strings and you are done. 
Another example of simple things I love is the old mason jar in the first picture, tied with a scrap of fabric leaning against our breadboards, more things that we use all the time. 
I often hear the quote by William Morris "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful" but I personally think that it is nice to have both function and beauty in one!

Above The Hutch

I like to decorate 'forgotten' spots, such as above doorways or tall furniture. I think it adds an extra layer of interest and detail to create the environment of a pretty and well-loved home. That is not to say I believe in decorating every blank surface - in fact the walls on either side of this hutch are bare.

Above the hutch is the piece we found for $15 at the market. A little sanding and fresh paint was all it needed. The white dishes my husband won in a golf tournament! The pretty carnations are from our good friends.

I like the way the moulding sort of 'frames' the hutch.

The sun is shining here, I hope it is where you are too!

A Few Bedroom Details

Thank you SO much for your comments on our bedroom. It is so nice to hear from all of you! I thought I would share a few more details of the room.
I found this old piece of trim with hooks in it at the flea market, and we hung it behind our door. This would be easy to make and we are thinking of using a horizontal piece to create towel hangers for our bathroom.

Here is another shot of the old piece of molding above our bed. I really love using inexpensive pieces like this to add character. I don't use a lot of artwork because personally I don't like the idea of matching artwork to the room, but at the same time I like everything to match! So mostly I love architectural salvage, photographs, and mirrors on walls.

Here is the bedskirt I made. I am a very beginner sewer and I know this is not perfect but I'm really happy to finally have a bedskirt. We have a very high bed so I needed an 18 inch bedskirt, but these longer ones are very expensive, plus I really wanted it to be linen.
I searched everywhere but I could not find one for less than a few hundred dollars! So I created this one out of a thrift store linen sheet for the part that goes under the bed and this wonderful linen/cotton fabric from Ikea. I find that Oxy Clean and sunshine is the best combination for washing antique linen, I have not yet met a stain that it could not remove.
The Ikea fabric was exactly 18 inches, and it was already hemmed! So for about $30 I got the linen bedskirt I was dreaming of. I think this fabric would be perfect for so many uses, I am going to use my leftovers to make ruffled tea towels for the kitchen. You could also use it for a table runner, napkins, or small pillows. When I put the effort into sewing something I really want it to be made out of natural fibres like linen or cotton.

That's all, I hope you aren't sick of these pictures already! We did manage to go to the antique market yesterday and I can't wait to show you what we found for $15.

Have a wonderful Monday!

Beachy Master Bedroom Reveal

Our master bedroom is finished! Well for now, of course there are a few more things I have planned for it...
Here is the before:

And the after again...

I tried to create a sort of beachy look combined with a farmhouse feel. I wanted the room to look pretty but also comfortable. We painted the walls Sea Foam by Benjamin Moore. My husband put a lot of effort into the beautiful beadboard ceiling, I love it so much! You can see the before of the ceiling here. Of course we were on a small budget so the carpet had to stay, but I don't mind it because at least it is new, clean and neutral. We bought our bed and dresser when we first moved into our house. I love how the wood warms up the room.

I was initially going to look for a nice bedside table but once we decided to do the ceiling we had no money in the budget so we took this old drop leaf table from our basement and painted it white. The vintage mirror was a $5 Kijiji purchase, hung with ribbon that was used to wrap the package containing the driftwood sailboat below, from White Flower Farmhouse. Even their parcels are beautiful to look at!

These built-ins were one of our favourite features when we first saw our house. We painted them a bright semi-gloss white and changed the hardware to glass knobs. I was initially looking for glass handles, but knobs are much cheaper and I think they look just as pretty. The milk glass vases were $1.50 for all three. The baskets are from Ikea.

We moved this mirror from our living room into the bedroom, I think it fits perfectly here and I love how it reflects so much light from the window. It is from the lovely City.Cottage store.

We also moved this little table from our living room since Layla has been able to lift it! The chair is from the Ikea as-is section. I spent a few Monday mornings in January looking for this chair in the as-is (Monday is the best time since all the weekend returns are stocked then).

We found the piece of salvage above the bed for $20 and painted it white. I was so happy with how perfectly it fit above the bed. The chandelier is from Home Depot and the duvet cover was a Christmas gift from my husband. It is the Pottery Barn Ruched Duvet, but he purchased it less than half price from Ebay. I made the bedskirt and euro shams myself, more on that and the other details in another post!

I hope you all have a great weekend, the Aberfoyle Antique Market opens this weekend and we are hoping to go!

Linking this post to Donna's Saturday Night Special

Summer Living Room Update

First of all, I want to thank everyone who read, commented, or emailed me about my last post. I really appreciate all of your support, and I am working on getting back to each of you.

I know it is not summer yet, but I thought I would get a little head start! Recently, my mother in law and sister in law and I were able to make one of our semi-annual trips to Pottery Barn. My husband doesn't understand how we can make a whole day out of going to a store that is only 45 minutes away. I told him that to us, it is sort of like a museum. We walk around the whole store a few times, intently studying all the different displays and new items. And then, if we are going to make a purchase, deciding actually what to buy is a whole other ordeal!

I love Pottery Barn pillows! They are well made and easily interchangeable. Usually I buy them off of Ebay, they are often much less expensive. In case anyone is looking to do the same thing, I recently discovered that the reason you can find so many brand new Pottery Barn items on Ebay is because when something is returned to the store it goes immediately to the Pottery Barn Outlet, even if it is in perfect condition. Then Ebay sellers buy the item at a deep discount and sell it online. Since we are in Canada the Pottery Barn Outlet is a magical place I have only heard about, but I would love to go someday!

Also, to my fellow Canadians, in my limited Ebay experience I find that often sellers in the US are willing to ship to Canada, so even if they have not specified it in the ad I always email to ask and usually they will.
Anyways, I was lucky enough to find these two blue striped linen pillow covers on our recent trip. They were marked down since the last time I was there so I had to get them!

The old blue sap bucket is from White Flower Farmhouse, my favourite place to shop online. Lori and Megan have amazing taste and their prices are so affordable. The beautiful white carnations are from my Mother in law.

I hope you are all having a wonderful week!

It Blooms Every Spring

I realize that this is a decorating blog, and I intend to keep it that way, but some of what we do to our home has a deeper significance to me than simply looking pretty. Our homes are just boxes until they are filled with little pieces of our lives... scuffs on the floor, little pencil marks on the wall tracking the height of a child, family photographs lining the staircase...
We recently experienced the early pregnancy loss of our second baby, thus I have entered a terrible club of motherhood that no one wants to join. I am certain some of you have experienced this same loss and I am truly sorry if you have.
And so, we are planting a tree. A flowering tree. It blooms every spring, marking the short season that our second baby lived.

Pictures of Home...

Here is a glimpse of what is happening around here...

Most importantly, a certain little someone just turned 11 months! In some ways I can hardy believe how fast the time has gone. I know everyone says it but I am beginning to see how true it is. I'm always a little sad that she is growing up but mostly excited to see what the next stage holds. Right now her favourite game is peek-a-boo.

The painting continues in the master bedroom...


And I am very happy to introduce the newest addition around here... In my last post I talked about how we will be renovating our bathroom. I was looking on Kijiji for a claw foot tub. Our only bathroom is just 35 square feet so it needed to be a special, very rare size, 54 inches x 26 inches. Well, finally all the looking has paid off! We found this beautiful antique tub for only $65. The inside is in good condition so we don't need to refinish it. Of course the outside will take some work... you should see the other side...it is painted purple! If anyone has any tips on how to clean up an old tub I would love to hear them.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

How to Shop Kijiji and Craigslist

(set of 4 Queen Anne Chairs in perfect condition, $100)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. We had a lovely weekend visiting family! We still have more work to do on our bedroom before it is ready... so I thought since I have had some questions on how to find things on Kijiji and Craigslist, I would outline some of the things I have learned. Throughout the post I have included pictures of things we have bought on Kijiji, and where possible, what we paid in Canadian dollars to give you some idea of pricing.

(Dishwasher - $40)
First of all, Kijiji is an online classified site similar to Craigslist except the pictures are listed down the side which makes it much easier to scan through multiple items, instead of clicking on each ad to see a picture. (Edit: You can actually download this to let you see thumbnails on Craigslist - Thanks Linden Townhouse!) Of course location is key, it helps to live in or near a bigger city. Here are some tips I have to share.

1) Be Patient - I think this is the most important thing. Almost anything you are looking for will eventually come up, it just may take a few weeks or months. We looked for our sofa for two weeks, our dining room chairs for two months, and our front porch wicker furniture for a whole year!

2) Key Words - I think knowing how to search is very important. While you could spend hours searching the "Furniture" category, it would be much more effective to type in "Antique Dresser". However, keep in mind that someone who labels their dresser as antique probably recognizes it's true value and the price will reflect that. You may have more luck finding a deal by searching "old dresser" or just "dresser." You can also search for descriptive words such as "vintage" or "Pottery Barn."

3) Email Function - On Kijiji there is an email function where you can have items with key words emailed to your account. For example, right now I am looking for a claw foot tub for our bathroom renovation (so excited about this!) So any ads with "Claw Foot Tub" are sent directly to my email. This works for items that are pretty rare, since you don't want your inbox filled with dozens of ads.


(Jenny Lind Change Table - $40, retails $130)

[Ikea Lenda drapes $5 per panel (retails $30 per pair), matchstick blinds $12 each, Ikea ektorp Sofa $100 (retails about $600) Pottery Barn Chunky Wool Jute Rug $130 off with discounted gift card]

4) Timing - Timing is key in getting a good deal. To find something that is initially underpriced you have to be quick, as I was with this dresser and chair. Alternatively, you can search for items that are a couple of weeks old and offer the seller less than what they are asking. You are taking the chance that the item is no longer available but you might just get a good deal. Our dining room chairs were posted for $200, which was more than I could pay, so I offered the seller $100 and told her she could contact me if she was unable to sell them for $200. A couple months later she emailed me and said I could have them for $100.

5) Pricing - My opinion is that any used item should sell for 50% of the original price, with adjustments made higher or lower for the condition of the item. Of course antiques are a whole other category, but this is a general rule I follow when trying to determine if something is a good deal.

(Vintage stool, $10)

6) Be Flexible - If you are going to get a good deal you will most likely have to act quickly. Unfortunately, this often means dropping everything to go pick up the item NOW. People are usually selling stuff because they are moving, need space, or are replacing the item with something new so they want you to pick it up now, not in a week. I have gotten better deals by offering to come pick it up right away.

(Pottery Barn Manhattan Leather Club Chair and Ottoman, $600 (our most expensive Kijiji purchase!) retails around $2500 in Canada)

(Antique Dresser and Chair, $20 for both)

7) Gift Cards - This is one of the best secrets of Kijiji. People will sell Gift Cards and Merchandise Cards for significantly discounted amounts if they are not looking to purchase anything from that store. I have seen great deals for Home Depot, Ikea, Restoration Hardware, and many others. We purchased our living room rug after buying a Pottery Barn gift card that was discounted $130. The best time to look for these is after Christmas but I do see them all year round.

8) Be Creative - This means looking at Kijiji first before making almost any other purchase. You would be surprised at what can be found. In addition to furniture, we have purchased window treatments, kitchen appliances, a hockey jersey, baby toys, baby clothes, and baby accessories.

(Baby clothes $5 for outfit, Pottery Barn Wagon and Blocks $10)

I hope this helps some of you. I think shopping Kijiji is a great way to recycle and save money, and it is really not that time consuming once you know how to search.