Friday faves - baby hold!

Hi all! I have to apologize, but there will not be a Friday Faves post today because I have been busy co-planning a baby shower for one of my best friends! She lives in Vancouver, the shower will be in Ottawa, so it has involved a fair bit of coordinating and planning from afar :) But, it's coming up tomorrow, so as opposed to doing a Friday Faves post I thought I would give you all a sneak peak.

Here is the invitation - by my same great friend M who did my blog header - she is fantastic:



Here are some other things myself and other planner have been up to:

via

Full details to follow! Have a great weekend everyone.

Kitchen feature - the reveal

Yesterday I shared the before and during photos of a friend's kitchen renovation - and today is what everyone's been waiting for - the afters! As a reminder, here is what her kitchen looked like before:

And..here is the after:

Doesn't the space look amazing? Modern, yet warm and completly inviting. This is definitely the place everyone will go during parties, and the best part is that it's the perfect kitchen for that.

As you can see, they widened the island and added an extension to the island as a 'breakfast bar', and are thrilled with their decision. They also have garbage and recycling tucked into the island in a pull-out cabinet. The barstools were found online from Zuo (my friend says they are a great company for modern/retro renewed type of furniture), they went for a classic ultra white to contrast against the dark charcoal/black floors.

They also replaced the pantry door (left corner) with a white french door to tie in with the french doors on the right side of the kitchen, and add a nice traditional element to the modern kitchen style. 

Overall I think this is an amazing transformation of a pretty hum-drum run of the mill kitchen, to a gorgeous, modern, and completely functional one (not to mention pretty to look at!). Here's some more eye candy:

(This might be my fave pic...I am in love with the couch, floors, and pillows as well as the kitchen!)

Sources: Wood Floors (Max Windsor - Metallic Charcoal Handscraped), Paint (Valspar, Woodlawn Colonial Gray), Appliances (all GE Profile),  Backsplash - Walker Zanger , High Barstools (Zuo - Tickle), Low Barstools (Ikea),  Faucet (Kohler - Evoke), Sectional (Tosh), Pillows & Furnishings (all from West Elm, Target, Ikea). 



Kitchen feature - part 1

I hope you all had a lovely weekend! It was a hot one, but I love it (even sans a/c...so bring it on!). We got to hang out at a cottage near Perth ON, and attended a lovely wedding of one of my uni friends (congrats A + M!).

Today I am so excited to be featuring the transformation of an amazing friend of mine's kitchen! My friend, her husband and adorable dog Romeo live in Las Vegas -- yes, they actually live there in a house, in a neighbourhood, that resembles many other North American neighbourhoods! Just a quick drive away from the strip...

They are in the process of renovating most of their house and I have their kitchen to share with you today.

Here is the before:

As you can see, the old kitchen had honey-coloured cabinets and a tiny little island that really served no purpose aside from an object that could be called an "island".  They put a lot of thought and creativity into this kitchen, including moving things around and re-purposing the space.

They chose engineered wood for the cabinet doors and modern hardware that they found online for $4 a piece (as opposed to $12 per unit they saw at a kitchen store). 

They loved the look of horizontal cabinets and cabinets with frosted glass, so they incorporated that into the right side of the kitchen. Since they opted for a tall hood fan, moved the microwave into what used to be a cabinet, and opted for open shelving, they did lose some cabinet space, but they also gained another cabinet next to the dishwasher (a skinny one that they use this for cuttingboards and BBQ utensils since it's close to the back door).

The backsplash was a major splurge for the kitchen. They initially started out with the idea of doing one single subway tile colour in a jade/grassy green but then found this staggered horizontal tile at a high-end store and fell in love with it (if you can save in other places, go for the gusto with some stuff!).

They changed the white countertop out for a concrete-gray coloured quartz countertop with specks of broken mirror glass. They wanted to go with a more eco-friendly/recycled look, and Quartz is the only material that had that effect (they didn't feel that granite would suit their kitchen style, which I completely agree with).

For flooring, they chose a matte dark tile. They decided to place the rectangular tiles in a subway/brick pattern on a diagonal. My friend chose diagonal positioning for the floor because it elongates both the kitchen and the connecting room (family room). In the before picture you can see that the rooms were really divided with that straight floor line - since the rooms are open concept my friend wanted each room to be inviting. Unfortunately for her floor guys, she didn't go with an easy 45 degree angle, but kept them on their toes with an obscure angle (but it looks perfect!).

The sink was a compromise - my friend really wanted a farmhouse style sink but her husband didn't like how they hung over the edge. I think they made the absolute right choice with the sink they put in - all the benefits of a farmhouse sink (oversized), but completely suited for their modern space.

Check back tomorrow for the afters and sources!

Friday faves - strawberries

Ontario strawberries are in season, and to me there is nothing like local produce! It always tastes better, looks better, and is (at least seems) healthier than produce that has been trucked across the land for days on end. Right now strawberries are at their prime in Ontario and I just can't get enough. They are smaller than the grocery store variety, bright red, and so sweet. Get them before it's too late!



via BlogTO

How do you like your strawberries?

via Trois Allumettes - this is definitely what my basket looked like (half full) after hours of pick-your-own as a kid (many more ended up in my belly)

via The Kitchn - strawberry pie...yummy

via

via BBC GoodFood

via - Creative Eating

Happy weekend! 



Style files

I took part of my long weekend this weekend to relax and pore over my August Style at Home (THANK YOU blogger meet up, I still have not seen my issue post-mail-strike). Here are some of the tings I tagged as stand outs from the issue:

This is such a sweet take on a gallery wall. I think this would look adorable in a nursery.

A focus on tangerine -- remember my little Friday Faves post on Orange a little while ago? This page adds some great ideas.

ahhhh...need I say more? This is actually in a cottage but I would definitely take it in my house.

I need some shelf styling inspiration, and this is a good start! I need to rearrange the shelves in my china cabinet, and in a shelf unit in our guest room...I may spend hours on pineterst for ideas...

Maps are everywhere! This is a fun way to add maps that aren't on the wall.

Strawberry galette

I tried my hand at a galette this morning, following this Food Network recipe. I wanted to try it as a rustic alternative (read: less fussy) to a pie, so I whipped one up this morning (remember I had the day off? otherwise I'd be dreaming to do this before work). I already had pastry dough in the freezer which decreased the work by quite a bit.

The first step is to roll out your pastry and add a layer of chopped almonds and strawberries:

Make sure to leave enough room along the edges to fold up the dough. Now this is supposed to be a "rustic" tart, so I left my edges pretty rustic (read: uneven...when doing this again I would try to pretty-fy it a bit more!):

Had I read the recipe closer, I would have read that you were supposed to transfer your dough to a baking sheet before adding the filling...needless to say that would have been a lot easier. Transfering pie dough filled with 1.5 lbs of strawberries required the handiwork of me and the Mr.

Once that is done you toss it in the oven for 25 minutes. Pretty simple, right.

Right. Except, as you look closer to this picture you notice a LOT of strawberry juice / syrup leaking out...meaning the bottom isn't crispy and again - hard to transfer off the not-so-pretty-baking dish to a rustic ceramic plate I had in mind. None the less we had some for desert at lunch and it tastes GOOD. Not sure how to solve the juicy problem in the future, but will definitely try this again - maybe with peaches when they are in season.

As you can tell, it will get eaten (and it's delicious!). You can't really go wrong with fresh local strawberries, flaky pie crust, and a bit of ice cream (oh, and I used a baster to collect all that amazing strawberry syrup to warm up and put on top!). So, it may not look exactly like the recipe:



 

...but they cheated anyway with this artsy photo that only shows part of it :)