Taking the Paint Plunge

We are getting to that stage in the renovations where it makes sense to commit to wall colours. We may even be buying some paint tonight! I had no idea this would happen so fast! I'm finding this both exciting and a little overwhelming. My sister, who is the family interior designer, has offered some great advice and some beautiful paint chips and magazine clippings.

Not sure if these will read accurately on your monitors, but even if they don't, isn't it always fun to look at stuff like this?


I'm loving these warm, soothing, Pottery Barn inspired colours. I think "Lychee" would be beautiful on the living room and dining room walls - that area is sort of open concept and I think that painting in the same neutral would be a wise choice.


The top of this chart "Tracery Entrelacs" is the front runner for both the master bedroom and the guest room. My office is teeny tiny and I think it would be really fun to paint it a dark colour so that the light wood furniture I'll be using will pop. Initially, I was thinking of charcoal grey but now that we are going with a very light blue for the two rooms next to it, I think it might make sense to go with something from the deeper end of this colour family, "Smoked Turquoise" or "Spring Evening".

As I've mentioned before, I'm embracing the decades old dark wood cupboards in the kitchen and going for a mid century modern look. I've always loved blue and brown together and think a saturated turquoise would be the perfect accent colour for the kitchen. I found this card at Home Depot and it's as if somebody at Behr was reading my mind.


"Embellished Blue" and "Ultra Pure White" are exactly what I want for that room. It's a bright colour which can make one a little nervous (what if my kitchen looks like it should be an extra in a Wham video?!) but I think I need to try for this. It's important to me that the kitchen be sunny and cheerful and I think this will be just the ticket.

There are a few more decisions to be made - a couple of rooms we haven't given much thought to - but I can feel my mind leaving paintland and moving into whatdowehangwhereland already. Slow down brain, there's still a month until you move in!

Pride of Ownership

The graffiti on the back of our garage door is the prettiest graffiti in the alleyway.

I really mean it.

Some Thoughts on Decor

Kitchen Confidential

So we get the keys to the house at some point today and I'll be able to get in there, take some pictures and see just what everything looks like. I really remember very little, my visits were quick and over a month ago. It's a little bizarre. One thing I've been focussing on is the kitchen. I think it's a bit of a diamond in the rough. Here's an awkward photo of it from the Real Estate pages:


Naturally, we'll get rid of the table, the holly hobby lampshades and the wallpaper. The plan is to add a double sink and a butcher block counter at some point, too. Now conventional wisdom would dictate that I replace or at least paint out the dark stained cupboards, but I'm planning of keeping them and building the kitchen around their mid-century charm. I WILL be replacing the hardware, with something along these lines:


I'm picturing the walls in a sort of teal or aqua to play off the brown of the cupboards and I'm looking forward to accessorizing with my favourite vintage kitchenware like this beautiful casserole dish I picked up on Etsy last year on Christmas Eve.


What did I say to The Robeau when I showed it to him? "I'd like to build a kitchen around this piece some day." Now I can.

Dining with Decals?

Here's what the dining room looked like when we were at the open house (they were using it as a living / sitting room:


There's lots to be done, like tearing up the pink shag carpet, losing the weird bedknob looking spindles in the pass through and replacing the fancy lady draperies. We have a dining set and sideboard that are very mid-century modern (don't you love teak?) and I was thinking it might be fun to create a little shabby chic contrast on the wall. There are lots of great opulent looking wallpapers happening right now which could be fun. Ultimately, what I'm thinking about is finding a way to add some luster to the modernity of the mid-century shapes we'll be housing in there. Something I'm considering which seems almost too easy and economical to be true is decals:



I'm not sure though, the space might be too small for a statement like that to work. I don't know. Like I said, I hardly remember anything and it's all academic until I get in there, armed with paint chips, The Robeau's good design and common sense and the Decor Dream Team (Paula, Annette and Jen). Hopefully we'll be hearing from The Decor Dream Team in more detail on these virtual pages over the next several weeks as we whip this house into shape. In the meantime, any thoughts or suggestions you have are more than welcome in comments. I never get tired of swapping these kinds of ideas.

Keeping Myself Busy.

If all goes according to plan, by the end of this week, we will have the keys to our new house. This "30-day close" thing is pretty intense. The Robeau has spent many of those days juggling money around, interviewing contractors and meeting with electricians. I haven't really been involved since the night we put the bid on the place and I signed my name on the papers. For one thing, his schedule is way more flexible than mine and for another, what the hell am I going to say to an electrician? "You make the lights go? And the house won't go boom? YOU'RE HIRED!" So yeah, I've packed a few boxes but not too many since we are keeping the apartment until the end of September and we still need to be able to function for the next 6 weeks. This leaves me with exactly two things to do. Obsessively flip through home decor magazines and daydream about the new couch I'm going to buy just as soon as I'm sure that it won't be covered in paint or drywall.

As mentioned in the previous ranty post, I'm a woman of ample size and my legs are so long it's just a little bit ridiculous. You know that old film noir line about "only the floor kept her legs going on forever". That's me. My legs actually do go on forever. I've got lengthy gams, stretched pins, stems that do indeed need to be seen to be believed. And for 'lo the last five years I've been planting them on a cute little Ikea 2-seater Cube Couch. It's modern and sleek and it looks nice in our current living room. In fact it's the only couch I could picture working in there. That said, my legs just don't fit. I have to bend like a Cirque du Soleil performer in order to get my legs up on it. If I want to take a nap on the couch I pretty much have to fold myself in half. I'm ready for something more. I want a relationship with my couch that is cozy. Ladies and Germs, meet what will someday soon be my new couch:

Sure, he's not much to look at, at first, but when you realize how deep the seats are and how the cushions are stuffed but not overstuffed and that the slip cover is made of corduroy you're going to fall in love with him a little bit too.

Bienvenue à la Maison

So, wow, posting sure has been light since Day 1 of The Toronto Jazz Festival, hasn't it? I was cocky to think I would be able to see three or four shows a day, photograph them, edit the photos in the middle of night by candle light, upload them to Flickr, send them to various publishers and still blog.

When the Toronto Fest wrapped we boarded a train to Montreal, the Robeau and I, to cover the world-famous Montreal Jazz Festival for CODA Magazine. It was a wonderful three days, getting to know this city I've never even been to where (did you know this?) everybody speaks French. No, I mean it. I've known all my life that Quebec was THE most bilingual portion of my bilingual country, but jeepers, EVERYBODY SPOKE FRENCH. Don't you just love my knack for stating the obvious? This reminds me of the time that I went to the musical FOSSE and my personal review was that "it was a little dance heavy". What was I expecting? Lots of riveting dialogue delivered from under the brim of a bowler hat? It was called FOSSE. So, yeah, I was kind of surprised by just how much French I heard in Montreal. Particularly in Starbucks where I actually had a hard time ordering my Triple Grande Latte. I spoke "Starbucks" but not French! It was a little awkward, but mostly kind of exciting and exotic. It's a beautiful city and they are very, very good to their artists. It was nice to see. I'll share some more pics and thoughts on all this good stuff later, when I'm not totally distracted. Which I am right now.

You see, less than a week after we got back from Montreal, this Monday to be precise, we went and got ourselves in the real estate market. You are now reading the blog of a homeowner. Holy crap. We take possession in mid-August and couldn't be more excited. My thoughts are dominated by "accent walls" and "throw covers" and The Robeau is stoked to finally live somewhere he can put his "handymanness" to work. Here's our new pad, white picket fence and all, where we look forward to playing out our disturbingly clichéd gender roles for years to come. Wish us luck.

Cliché, C'est Moi.

This guy's been gigging out of town a lot lately.



Now, I'm a strong minded independent woman with a lot of work to do and friends to see. I can amuse myself. I shouldn't complain. But it's LONESOME without him at home. Somehow things always seem to end up with me painting my nails, eating a frozen dinner, drinking wine and watching sitcoms. My man goes out of town and I turn into a freakin' Lifetime Movie. Sad.

And, oh yeah, the cats are turning on me. Proof, as if I needed any more, that they like him better than me.