DIY coffee table and living room refresh - Update!

We have a new coffee table! I mentioned here that we were going to DIY a coffee table. And we did it this weekend...

 

From my previous post, a lot of you liked the Peony fabric option - and I did too, but it would be much better in a room with lighter furniture. Since our floors are dark and our furniture is dark AND visually heavy, we really needed something to brighten the space.

This Centro Mist fabric from Tonic Living was the perfect solution. It's also an outdoor fabric so is a bit more stain resistant and durable for putting our feet up on the table (which we do all the time...)

We changed the pillows (thanks mom for sewing!) to give the whole room a bit of a refresh. The gray fabric is Cameron in Storm, and the toile is Neo Toile in Coral (I am in looovvveee with this fabric).

 

 What do you think?

Coffee table conundrum - SOLVED!

Exciting news, my friends. I FOUND a coffee table this weekend. One that will work and replace our old rickety one!

The funniest part of it is that I litterally found it...in my basement...

I've had it for the last couple of years (at least...) and when we originally got it I had planned to turn it into a bench for our guest room like the one I made for our master)...but then we redid our bathroom and stole 20" from the guest room...which wouldn't leave enough room for a bench. At the time I didn't think the table would work as a coffee table because it didn't have storage / a shelf. However...since Owen has started motoring around, pawing at everything, and deciding his favourite toy is anything that is NOT a toy, I've realized (and thanks to your comments on this post) that I won't be able to store things out in the open much longer anyways.

So, the plan is to get some foam, some batting, and some fabric and upholster it ASAP. A few comments said not to have an upholstered coffee table if we like putting our feet up on it...we do, but I'm not too worried about the fabric - if it gets grimy (which I'm sure it will with Owen pawing it every day), we can just recover it in a year.

I went to Tonic Living today and picked out some fabric samples - here are some contenders:

 

Secret Gate - Pewter from Tonic Living

A New Twist - Caviar from Tonic Living

Centro - Mist from Tonic Living

Leda Peony - Midnight from Tonic Living

Any favourites? I know which one is leading the way for me...

What's the most elusive item for your decor? Find out mine...

In my recent post I said we were looking for a coffee table and a rug. You wouldn't think this would be that hard - after all, I live in Toronto where home decor shops are abundant.

Well.

I have brought home 5 rugs, and have returned 5 rugs. They have come from Homesense, Ikea, a rug store, and Home Depot. With NO LUCK.

I've tried pattern, colour, neutral. And nada. We have a brown leather couch and mid-dark hardwood flooring and I'm having a hard time finding something that fits our room. I think a flat woven rug would be the right weight but I want it to be soft to the touch (for Owen's soft little knees!) and that is proving hard to find.

I would love to have a rug like this in my house:

via Erika Brechtel

But I can't find one. Believe me, I stalk ecarpetGallery like it's my job to see when they will get brighter rugs in the size I need (at least 6x9). Ideally I would love one with no red and more blues, teals, corals. Think I can find one? Nope....

The other option I like is the morrocan rug that is popping up everywhere...

This one is a deal and a half at costco.ca of all places

While I love the look of a Beni style rug, I think it's just too heavy for the furniture we have in the room.

I think what we need is a gray and cream rug in a flat weave that's soft. Budget friendly and Kid friendly, please. Is that too much to ask?? Where is your go-to for rugs? (I'm stalking Homesense as much as possible too)...

HI and...Where do you put your STUFF?!?!

Taking a quick break from the arrival of summer and the cutest guy on earth (who, PS is 8 MONTHS OLD NOW!!) to get back to my roots and post about decor..a dilemma really.

The Living Room has been on my to-do list for a loonnggg time (i.e. this post from a year and a half ago...woops). There were a lot of little bits completed here and there (gallery wall, map artwork, media stand, chair)…but the coffee table and an area rug are still the bane of my existence. The Mr. has given me a deadline of the end of my mat leave to GET.IT.DONE.

Maybe if I keep hemming and hawing I can extend my leave?!?! Kidding. 

Sort of.

First things first…the coffee table.

This is what we are living with…it came from my old apartment, to an apartment we shared, to our house. It’s beyond time to get rid of it. It’s IKEA and it’s been with us for over 7 years - definitely reaching the end of its lifespan. 

 (this is a photo before the floors were done...but sadly aside from the addition of curtains, a few playmats and a LOT of toys, the room hasn't changed)

The coffee table shelf doesn’t realllyyy stay up all the time (and it’s terrifying when it slams down)…with Owen pawing everything it’s really not safe to keep it, and it’s not right for the space. BUT it provides storage (obviously we have stuff all over the top of it too in real life).

I get that we probably won’t want open storage in a month or so when Owen is really on the move. We also need something that is friendly to his adventurous self, probably something round or an upholstered table so he doesn’t bonk his head a million times on sharp corners.

via Alanna Cavanagh (via Globe and Mail)

via Real Simple

But here's the question: If you don’t have storage in your coffee table where do you put your STUFF?? 

Where do you put mail? Bills? Things that need your attention but you’re too lazy to get to it right now? Paper and pens for writing out to do lists or sketching basement reno’s?

Where do you put all the STUFF??

Flooring reveal!

Remember back in 2013 (wayyy back then), one of my goals was to redo the flooring on our main floor? It's done..it was actually done in 2013...and baseboards / tiling were being finished when that gorgeous little bean Owen arrived, so I haven't posted anything about it...but without further ado:

We are soooo happy that we did the flooring and have it throughout the main floor, with tile in the entry and kitchen. I was worried about the darker tile showing watermarks, but it isn't too bad, and I love how it grounds our kitchen. 

Now of course, what do you do when you have hardwood in your living room? Put an area rug over it :) I am still on the hunt for a rug, any tips let me know!

Flooring Update

Well friends, I am still alive and well, and baby is still cozy in my belly :) I thought I would have tons of time for blogging since I finished work last Friday, but turns out that I've been cooking, cooking, nesting, cooking, nesting! Today is an exciting day though - install for our tiling and baseboards starts (which means no oven until the tiling is done...so blogging it is).

Here is what we are going with for baseboards and tile:

 6x24 tiles in a charcoal colour

This will have shoe moulding added (new term for me too...basically a finishing piece on the bottom)

Yes, the flooring was installed more than a month ago...but these baseboard / tiling people are B-U-S-Y. So we're hoping the guy we have coming in can do the job cleanly and quickly so we can have some more normal life before #BabyGroupie (leave it to my friend Lindsey at Recreated to come up with a hastag for my baby - Lindsey IS the one who talked me into joining Twitter after all!). I'll have a #babygroupie post coming up to update everyone, and will post the finished photos of our main floor (finally) when it's done!

Flooring is IN!

Wednesday was flooring install day - and it all got installed!

Woot!

Pretttaay exciting.

The first and last photos are most true to the colour...having them installed make all the work associated with demo disappear (we still have to clean up the basement though...) Now that the floor is in, we have to put in baseboards, do tiling for the kitchen and closet, and drywall / casing for our newly opened up hallway, but we're getting there. We will hire someone for the remainder of the work because the tiling will be finicky due to the radiators, and we want the baseboards and casing / drywall done right...now just to find said handy-person who can be available, at a reasonable cost, and done in early September...

Progress: Project Flooring

Another month, another blog post. I thought that I would have an easier time blogging of late, but life is just very busy. I'm working away at my day job and unfortunately that means that "free time" at night is spent on projects for the house, regular day to day chores, and sleeping. Oh, and some planning for the little human that will be joining us in the coming months. Until then....

Things are happening on the flooring front!! As part of our 2013 goals one of the longshots was re-doing flooring at least on the main floor. Why not do it when I'm 8 months pregnant? ;) Better than post baby, that I know FOR SURE. If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you know some of the progress that was made this weekend (if you don't follow me, then you should, I am able to update those easier than updating the ol blog!).

All weekend the Mr worked away on the project (help from friends for demo day was greatly appreciated). My specialty was doing puzzles with plywood  measurements to ensure we got the most our of each sheet!

Here is the demo:

The living room and dining room demo was "easy" according to the guys - the trouble came in the hallway where there was hardwood on top of linoleum on top of plywood on top of another linoleum on top of plywood on top of floor planks. Yikes (they didn't get a chance to take a photo of that beauty).

The second demo photo shows some of the debris and mess caused by demo...which all fell through the floor plank cracks into our basement onto this:

Thank god I had some foresight and threw plastic over the china/crystal and a drop cloth over the dining chairs on Saturday morning before demo started. We still have a hell of a mess to clean up in and over other things, but at least some of it was spared and I don't think there is any damage (fingers crossed....). The day didn't finish without any damage though...the Mr. had to get a couple of stitches after getting caught in the face with a plank / nail during demo! He's OK and stitched up following a 3 hour wait at the hospital on Saturday night (I plucked some of the many many nails from the floor while he was getting stitched up...he pushed through the rest of the day so he could finish the demo before going to the hospital!).

Day 2 was picking up the plywood from our friends at Home Depot:

 Yes, I did get to drive that puppy around and it was great. The rest of the day was the Mr. and I pulling out some more nails, measuring, cutting, and laying plywood.

Monday was spent screwing in the plywood and doing some final measurements and cuts. It's amazing how much better it looks already!

If you have seen my house tour, you know that on our main floor we had the hallway blocked off with drywall and beatiful 80's glass blocks. We covered up this side of it with a dresser and mirror, and while that was nice for extra storage we are liking the airy feel of the house opened up, so I think we're going to keep the hallway!

Hardwood installers come later this week...can't wait to see it all done! We will be tiling the entry way and the kitchen with a dark gray tile...more on that to come (anyone know a good tiler / baseboard installer who isn't crazy busy into September??)

Kitchen continued...microwave and backsplash

I bragged about my kitchen being done in my 2012 goal recap post...and that was mostly true, but we still had (have) a couple of things we wanted to upgrade.

Here's what we had before (after our kitchen reno was completed last spring):

The Mr. really wanted a project to take on over a couple of days he had off before the holidays. We ventured out to Pilo appliances where we got our fridge and bought an over-the-range microwave. VERY exciting for us since we love to cook and currently do not have a hood fan (that lovely beef Wellington we made for Christmas made the house smell like beef for a couple of days!). I like good cooking smells in my house before I eat but not the day after :)

The Mr. re-did the wiring for the microwave as I mentioned in this post, and then spent time putting up the bracket and the cabinet for the microwave.

From there we knew we HAD to wrap the backsplash around behind and beside the stove (is anything simple actually simple??).

We were initially going to do a different tile behind the stove, but once we opted for the over-the range microwave instead of a stand alone hood fan, we thought it made most sense to carry through the bevelled subway tile we have in the rest of the kitchen. Now it looks like it was always done at one time!

We are now one step closer to actually finishing the kitchen (final step is to find and buy a stainless steel gas stove)!

Holiday kick-off

I hope you are all in the holiday spirit now that it's December! The Mr and I hosted our annual Christmas Open House on Saturday. It seemed early when we sent the invite, but now that it has come and gone, the timing was perfect. It meant I had to get my butt in gear with baking, house decorations and the tree! Fortunately the Mr. was insistent that the tree was up in time for the party, so we had the full nine yards.

I will cover some of the DIY details tomorrow, but for now here are some photos to give a quick recap!

About 25 adults, 4 children under the age of 2 1/2, one visiting dog, and a partridge in a pear tree took part. Here come the holidays!

It's oh so quiet....

...around my blog that is...

I apologize for the lack of posting...I have some fun stuff to share, but I have been Busy (yes, busy with a capital B) at my real job...so unfortunately I'm forced into a bit of a blogger break. We are hosting our annual Christmas open house this weekend though so I hope to have some nice photos of our goodies for the event...in the meantime, we DID manage to get the Christmas tree up and decorated this weekend (good activity the day after my company Christmas party!). We don't usually do this until December, but since our party's coming up the Mr. thought (rightfully so) that we MUST have the tree up and ready.

 

I (aka the Mr.) also put up our new entry way chandelier (that I found on my antiquing mission that I mentioned in this post)

 

It's a small light, but we're limited to what we can put there because of the corner closet. I ended up having to spray paint the mounted part because when I bought it I noticed the brass had paint on it...so to clean it, I soaked it in vinegar and water....and the paint came off, but so did the "brass" finish! It all worked out well (and I think looks even better now). Here's a shot of it from the store, all lit up:

I have a million and two things on my to-do list, including a planter for the porch (not sure if I'll get to it...I will hang a wreath though!), and prepping for my party. At the end of the day, if we have wine, wine, beer, crackers, cheese, and christmas tunes we'll be good, right?

Living room - chair and coffee table

TGIT...didn't you know Thursdays are the new Fridays? {I wish}. How was your Halloween? Ours was pretty good - good "traffic" from 6:30-8ish...and then nothing! I was surprised, we started being stingy with the candy around 7:30 but now we just have some leftover (maybe that was all part of the master plan...mwahaha). I noticed from twitter and facebook that a LOT of people out there count exact numbers of trick or treaters! I just toss candy out but don't keep stats. You?

Soooo our living room is starting to come together, especially with the addition of the drapes I mentioned on Monday. A couple of weeks ago in this post I wrote about what to do with my living room, the consensus was to get a lighter coffee table, since our new sectional is quite solid. I agree 100% with this advice...but haven't had any luck finding a "light" coffee table! I'm contemplating building an upholstered one (but with light upholstery, it will get dirty...and I'm not sure i'm OK with that). I don't want a glass table (safety first!), so that knocks out most automatic "light" options. I came across this one on the weekend at GH Johnson:

It's not light in colour...but it is not as solid as my current coffee table. I would love to find a round version of this exact table...but haven't had any luck (even the maufacturer of this one doesn't make a round version). This table is the sister table to my side tables (too matchy - matchy)? What do you think?

I stumbled across a few other fun things at GH Johnson:

rugs

These soft baskets are perfect laundry hampers (or stylish storage)

The other thing I've been focused on this week is finding fabric to re-upholster our chair. I have my head set on a gray-on-gray herringbone right now, but am having a hard time finding it. I found a nice fabric at Designer Fabrics, but it reads as solid from far away. I saw this other one when I was there again this weekend, but it's a bit too creamy for my tastes:

I want subtle, but not too subtle. Is that too much to ask? Any suggestions as to where I can go (Toronto) for fabric (besides Designer Fabrics and FabricLand), or where I can look online (besides Tonic Living)?