Blogger book club | Review: On Beauty (Zadie Smith)

Happy Monday everyone! How was your weekend? Hopefully relaxing and refreshing.

Mine was full of a lot of errands but a bit of progress on some mini-projects. Thank you all for your advice on my living room post - I needed the advice of a "light" coffee table! The one we have now is...hmmm...6 years old? It is practical but really doesn't suit the space or the look I am going for. We tried to find a table and a chair this weekend to no avail...so the search continues.

Ok - onto the business at hand - book review time! If you haven't read On Beauty yet, you can decide whether or not you continue to read on (but I can't promise no spoilers).

This is a novel about a family and the changes and challenges they go through; each character in the book makes decisions which impacts the outcome of the book. 

Unfotunately I can't say that I loved this book (gah I feel like I've said that about each bookclub book!). I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm reading on the subway so my reading is broken up into 30 page chunks, but I didn't feel that I associated with any of the characters. Usually I have someone that I'm rooting for through the book, and I didn't have that here. I also didn't feel intrigued by the story of the book. Yes, I was disgusted by Howard on occasion, yes I felt badly for Kiki, yes I was annoyed by Zora. But did I really care about the outcome? Not really. And good thing because I felt the ending was pretty anti-climatic.

Now that I've given my unencumbered opinion...what did you think? I hope people enjoyed it, even if I didn't.

 

Living room re-design {I need your help}

We recently bought a new sectional for our living room (hoorah!) Here's a little before and after for you.

{sorry for the brutal lighting in the new photo}

I like the scale of the sectional in the room (and especially like how we now have enough space to both lie down...amazing). I also happen to think that it fills that corner in better, but now we need some other things to fill out the rest of the room. Curtains - definitely, and a chair (one chair with some weight as opposed to two smaller chairs which I was originally planning if we didn't get a sectional).

I've put together a mood/thinking/inspiration board for the living room, but following my typical indecisive style I need some help!

Living Room by interiorgroupie on Polyvore

We already have the end tables, lamp, and sofa. Here are the things I need to decide on...

1. For curtains, I think a muted pattern would be nice in this space. The corners of the room are plain right now and I think we need something visually interesting instead of solid fabric, especially since we have the corner of the sectional in the far left corner instead of an end table.

Ikat Ogee Linen Window Panel
westelm.com

2. Chairs - We want to get a chair to replace a Poang chair we currently have in the room, and I have no idea what style I want! I could go for patterned (but I couldn't find any nice ones on polyvore :) )... which style do you like with the room?

Sweep Leather Armchair
westelm.com

Pierre Chair - Grey
zgallerie.com

 

Eichholtz Richmond Chair

occa-home.co.uk

The Morgan Sofa

jaysonhome.com

 

 3. Coffee tables - I like the idea of a round table, but most of them don't have storage. This is a fairly big deal for me because our side tables don't have storage and I'm always behind on my magazine reading....how can we get around (ha!) this issue? Some options include an ottoman or a trunk style coffee table.

Drake Round Coffee Table
 laylagrayce.com

Castered Tufted Storage Ottoman
ballarddesigns.com

One Kings Lane Russell Johnson Brass Cornered Rosewood Trunk

onekingslane.com

4. Pillows - I'd like to change out the green and ikat pillows that I have. In this mood board I've selected neutral prints but would like to add a pop of colour...potentially orange. I think it would a nice change. Any colours (or pillows) that you're loving lately?

Pillows - Caitlin Wilson Textiles: Greige Zabeel Chevron Pillow -...
decorpad.com

DL Rhein Moroccan Tile Navy Embroidered Linen Pillow
zincdoor.com

Twinkle Living Lego Pillow Navy
bobbyberkhome.com

 
So, what do you think? All comments welcome (except we're keeping the couch, side tables and lamp no matter what...so if you can resist providing "get rid of it" comments on those items that'd be great :) ).

Thankful and a reminder

{via}

So many things to be thankful for this weekend! I was in Ottawa for work last week, and stayed there for the Thanksgiving weekend. The Mr. met up with me, and we hung out with family and friends, visited some of our favourite areas in Ottawa and stuffed our faces all weekend. All in all a great little Thanksgiving! So thankful for everything we have, and most importantly all the caring people we have in our lives.

Some smaller everyday items I am thankful for: flying home to Toronto instead of enduring a long-weekend-trafficy-drive, bringing home tons of leftover turkey, gravy, and stuffing (thanks mom and dad!), seeing my bestie's new house, having some time to catch up on blogging and magazines, seeing the beautiful fall colours in the trees, and having time (because of said flight!) to get to the gym today after a week away from it.

And, to end off - a quick reminder that Blogger Book Club is back on October 15th! We are reviewing Zadie Smith's On Beauty in a week - that means get reading! (Including me...my library book is officially late...but I have to finish for next week's review! Shhh...don't tell them I will purposely be incurring late fees to finish it).

Happy Monday which feels like Sunday, folks.

Friday faves | Thanksgiving

It's Friday (hooray!) annnnddd it's a long weekend in Canada (hip!hip!hooray!). Many many things to be thankful for, not the least of which is the homemade goodies I am looking forward to this weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving all...

via The Idea Room

Curb find stools -DIY'd and finished!

I know, I KNOW. These stools took me forever to finish...between chosing fabric, spray paint blunders, and any other excuse I could come up with they took a llllooonnngggg time (read: all summer) to get to a point where I could show them.

But. They are ready.

I can say that they've been done and displayed for a little while now, but I've only recently found / made the time to write about them.

Say helloooo to the new stools:

 

These will act as extra seating whenever we need it, and potentially as side tables without the cushions if needed.

Thanks to my amazing mom who made the round cushions - no easy feat. And, to beat that? She took pictures of the process. See, I told you she was amazing.

 And to recap....

Don't you think with the black spray paint they look a lot like this puppy:

via Pottery Barn

Except the PB one retails for $192.98 each ... without a cushion.

I can taste fall {lemon cranberry loaf}

Another weekend come and gone...can you BELIEVE it is October?? September flew..and I mean flew by. I remember the first week of September being at work and thinking, wow everyone is on full-speed-ahead-mode. That has not changed but it's now October...we'll have to wait to see what it brings.

Let's rewind a little bit for a weekend recap...The Mr. and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary that I mentioned last week with a phenomenal dinner at Ici Bistro on Friday night. It's a small french bistro with excellent service, great wine seelction, and food that is to die for. If you are in Toronto and looking for a special meal I highly recommend Ici.

Saturday we did tons of errands and wandered Queen East to see if these chairs were still available...needless to say almost a year later they were nowhere to be seen, but it was a nice afternoon walk.

Sunday was the day of domesticity! It started with the Mr. making eggs benedict for breakfast (he's the best), then we did some yard work, laundry, ironing, and I started on a little fall project that I hope to showcase after the craziness of my upcoming week(s). In between I got into fall cooking - roasted butternut squash soup (if that doesn't scream fall, I'm not sure what does), pork with maple mustard sauce, and glazed lemon cranberry loaf (recipe here).

Hope you had a delicious weekend as well...