I can't help but love Ikea

I thought once I grew up I would get out of my Ikea stage and maybe move onto something that is more mature and rich looking... but seriously I love Ikea. Swedish style is pretty much my favourite ever and living there made me want to change the whole way we do houses in North America

Anyway, I've been loving Ikea's Lack and Ribba shelves for awhile and I am super excited about all of the places I can put them in our house. For sure I want to put a few in our living room and then a few in our kitchen. I think the Lack shelves are awesome for laundry room, offices or bedrooms as well. We have an open closet in our master bath so I might do some Lack shelves in there as well.

Apartment therapy has a whole post titled "12 Uses for IKEA's Lack Shelves" and here are a few of my faves

#1 Console behind a couch: I seriously think that anyone who has a couch against the wall should have this. Unfortunately this is not us... because of our open floor plan our couch is kind of in the middle of our Living Room so it won't work but I do love it. This picture has also inspired me to spray paint every picture frame I have white.

#2: Entryway: How awesome is this?!? I'm trying to dream up a way this could work in our house even though it goes against what I originally had planned for the entryway... we'll see :)

#3. Display for Collections: I don't exactly have any collections but if I did, I would probably put them somewhere like this

Here is just a random pic that I planned on using for inspiration in either our Dining Room or Living Room. I'm thinking of only doing 2 shelves though because 3 is a bit much for me and I'm not sure I have enough stuff to put on 3 shelves so it might look funny

Here is the Ribba shelf which I also love. It is really narrow and just kind of acts as a ledge for pictures or really small things to display. LOVE LOVE LOVE it in white.

I don't wanna jinx it... but I'm too excited to care!

The lights we've been wanting for our livingroom and dining room are one step closer to actually happening... Yeah!!!

So to make a long story short, Lowes in Canada is different from Lowes in the States and even though they say they can order anything from the States they are liars and even though they say "oh our new lighting catalogue will be here any day" they are also liars. but the good news is when you have parents who spend so much time close to the boarder they can run across and try to smuggle lights back for you... I hope all goes well cause we love the lights!

Dining Room

Living Room

Wall Quotes

I'm a fan of the vinyl sticker wall quotes that are fairly popular in decorating right now. I found a company that has a good selection and ordered a few here for the house.

For my first one, I made my own quote and ordered all of the letters to put on a wooden board. I bought a board from Michaels and decided this cold Satuday was the day to do the quote.

I used Benjamin Moore: Copley Gray which is a sample colour I bought for our house. I love the colour but I might need to go 25% lighter for our bedroom because it's a bit dark.

obstacle #1:

the board was pretty crappy quality. It was cheap but next time I would look for one with less dents and for a lack of better explanation "fuzziness" Even after sanding and priming I still couldn't really get it smooth

Obstacle: #2

Letting the paint dry when you are super impatient like me

Obstacle #3:

Putting the letters on straight, and without tearing them... harder than I thought it would be

All in all I thought it turned out ok. I wouldn't order from the company again because in my opinion these vinyl letters are too expensive and too close to what I could get at Michael's or Walmart for much cheaper. On the other hand, if I ever want to start a business I would totally make these because people pay tonnes of money for wall quote/art when they are really quite inexpensive to make.

I did buy another one for the laundry room (at the same time I bought the letters and before i realized i could probably get them cheaper) that I am just going to put onto the wall above the washer and dryer.

Here's my laundry room one, only difference is that I bought it in black

Sentimental Saturday

Everyone is gone today and it is awesome. It is terribly cold outside but the snow is so pretty. I'm sitting in the living room procrastinating from all of the laundry and cleaning I need to do today and I came upon a folder of pics on my computer called "Ode to Edmonton" so I thought I'd do a little tribute to the fun times I had before I ended up here.

Now that I'm living in Linden again my time away seems really far away and sometimes I forget about it but it's fun to think about all of the adventures I had before I landed HOME again.

First stop after High School: Sweden, where I met some FANTASTIC people and learned lots about God. Most of the girls I met here are people that I still admire the most out of anyone I've known. I think about them often and I am thankful for the experience that I had in Sweden.

This pic is with Heidi the day that she left Sweden and I didn't see her again for a very very long time. Now she lives in Santa Cruz and working there for the summer that I did is one of the best things I have done.

Lets skip over my 2 years at Canadian Bible College because let's face it... I didn't like it there and I can't say it had a huge impact on my life in any way.
My first night in our apartment in Edmonton living with Kirbie and Jenna our sink explodes and there is water everywhere. Only one of the eventful things that happened while living with these two fun girls:) Here we are eating chocolate to try to make ourselves feel better about our flooded bathroom and University starting TOMORROW
Mexico with Kirbie, Kyle and James. I am obviously not good at disguising that that shot tasted GROSS!!

Oh Kyle, you were so much fun. Here's when he brought us a Christmas tree so our new house would look festive!

Sarah and I driving around Seattle trying to figure out where the heck Highway 405 is.... it took FOREVER!!

And then there was the Art class I took with Angie. I was a little bit out of my league to say the least. This was a very common look for me to have on my face during this class.

Mike being REALLY excited for Sarah's birthday. The three of us had some great times living together:)

And now I'm married to the best roomate yet and I've ended up back on the farm which always was the most homie feeling place nomatter where I lived

Yah for this walk down memory lane:) Now I think i really do need to do the laundry...

I have a confession to make

For the last 3 or 4 months I have fallen asleep with paint swatches on my bedside table and when Nels isn't home they are often right in the bed with me. I have grown to be a little obsessed with colour and everything related to the layout and interior design of our house. Partly this is because paint is the one thing that I don't feel guilty about spending money on at this point. I've also had lot's of fun trying to figure out how to best set our house up using the furniture that we already have (which is not much).

The only thing we're allowing ourselves to buy new right now is our dining room table (check!) and i even faithfully saved up for that before we bought it (pretty proud of myself). Of course there's a list a mile long of things I would love to get (armoire for the spare bedroom, oh yah, and a spare bed!) but I think for now I'll just focus on my colour obsession

As of November 5th at 9:15 here are my colour choices

#1 Hawthorne Yellow: Kitchen. I have searched high and low for a yellow that is not too bright and not to mustardy and I'm pretty sure this is it. It's from Benjamin Moore and several blogs I've been reading have recommended it as the perfect yellow. We don't have a tonne of wall space in our kitchen anyway but I'm pretty stoked about my yellow.

#2Copley gray: livingroom and entry way . I've loved gray for awhile now and i especially love gray and yellow combinations. At first I was a bit concerned about such a dark colour but because of the open plan of the house I think it will work. The next obstacle is dealing with the vaulted ceiling and where to stop with which colour. Hmmmmm...#3. Rockport gray: upstairs hallway and bonus room. Our bonus room looks down into the living room so I decided to choose one shade lighter of the gray for a few reasons. First of all I wanted the colours to be similar so the space wouldn't seem to broken up and second I didn't want the upstairs to be too dark so I figured one shade lighter would be a good choice for the space. I read a post from the blog Young House Love about creating flow with colour and I think the dark and light gray will flow well.

#4 Masada: Bathrooms. My latest development has been choosing a orangy red colour for the main floor and upstairs bathroom. I like the idea of a bold colour for a bathroom because I figure it's a safe room to take risks with because who really cares if it doesn't look awesome. Everyday I fall a little more in love with this colour though so I'm pretty stoked about it.

#5 and finally... Mortar:on one of my more lengthy visits to Benjamin Moore I picked up this colour that I love for our master bedroom and bathroom. It's fairly dark but I think the space will be able to handle it. We have a tonne of windows in our bedroom that will need covering (Terralee came over the other day and pointed out that people will be able to watch us have sex and of course we don't want that to happen!) so I'm thinking of doing white window coverings to lighten up the room.
*can i just say that the colours as they appear on the computer screen are quite different from the swatches I have in my hand. Computers ruin great colour:(

The Chair Experience

Inspiration:

We picked up our dining room table yesturday and i'm pretty darn excited about it. Too bad it has to stay in the box for another 2 months or so before we're ready to actually put it in the house.

Here it is (didn't get the chairs to go with it)

Throughout the summer I bought 8 chairs. 4 from kijiji and 4 from a thrift store in Sundre (which was an awesome little thrift store by the way). All summer long I told myself I would sand and paint the chairs. The sanding happened on about 1/2 of them but the painting did not. Finally made it to Walmart on Friday to buy some test paint to see if I liked to colour.


Here's the butt of the chair... after the sanding. I started out using an electric sander and then realized all I really needed to do was rough the finish up and not actually remove it all:)

PRIMER: took an entire can for 1 chair so turns out it will cost about 10.00 per chair to paint which i am okay with because I paid about 100.00 for all 8 chairs. Love the fact that the chairs are all solid wood and still have a good long life ahead of them

I actually liked the look of the chair with only the primer... looked very vintage but it was a bit too white for me
SPRAY PAINT: Ivory colour, Satin finish.

Still might do a few finishing touches but overall I'm pretty happy with the results! Yah for whiteness!!

Just when I thought the week couldn't get any better

... Eggnog is out in Superstore everyone!! Wahoo. I am sooo looking forward to my morning coffee tomorrow

Thankful

Just got back from a good good weekend in Salmon Arm. Got to see lots of good friends and family who we do not get to see enough of.

Very thankful for the people in our lives who make it interesting and fun and worth it.

newly weds, veteran weds and soon to be weds
Zander watching Monster Trucks

Our small but awesome clan for thanksgiving dinner:)
Nelly is slightly jealous of Eric's I-phone
nearly a pyramid
love
the best

I miss this tiny person

She moved across the ocean with her mom and dad to hang out with the people of Japan and I miss them all. I hope she doesn't forget us while she's gone because then I might cry.

Mondays are from the devil

Literally, I think the devil created them.

The only good thing about Mondays is that you have a whole week till another one comes around.

Kids are crazy and teachers are pissy. It's not a good combination

In other news I'm trying a new cinnamon bun recipe with the kids tomorrow. My regular cool-rise recipe is having some trouble rising overnight in the fridge so I'm trying to get a recipe that can be made in one class using a proofer.

We'll see how this goes. Of course, got it from Mennonite Girls can Cook... hasn't let me down yet:)

Hopefully I get a good cinnamon bun outta the deal.






p.s these are AWESOME.  By far the best cinnamon buns I've ever had!

I'm not going to say this is true...

...let's just say I found it interesting:)

Stay-cations are the best kind

Nelly and I had a little stay-cation since we didn't really get to do too much over the summer and since he is DONE DONE his first year as a firefighter and I am celebrating my first week of school being over... hah!

Anyway, it was glorious, we didn't want to come home and room service is the best :)

One more thing

some days I cannot believe how much I love this boy

Like these

i like these wall hooks. Bought 2 of them yesturday from Pier 1 for either our front or back entrance.

postsecret

The Perfect Pizza Crust

Look no more, I've got the perfect pizza crust. I shoulda taken a pic so I could remember how good this looked but it really was awesome.
only change i might make is to make 2 pizza's out of it cause I like more of a thin crust
sooo good!

-2 1/2 cups flour ( half whole wheat)
-1 tbsp. instant yeast
-1 cup warm water
-2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. sugar
-1 tsp. salt
Mix all ingredients in a large bowl with a spoon. Knead in 1/2 cup flour if needed. Form in to a ball. Cover and let rise for 20-30 minutes. Spread dough on to a greased pizza pan.
Add toppings and bake for 25 min or until crust is browned

*Recipe from Mennonite Girls Can Cook website

Found Some Stuff

Soooo.

went searching in Dad's bins again. Found some sweet magazines from 1951 that I'm sure I"ll find some use for.

Also, found a small wooden ladder (pretty sure it was from some old bunk beds) that I think I"ll use for a towel rack such as this:

besides my recent bin finds the good news is the Linden move seems to fit with my heart and I have fewer panick attacks than I thought I would. I'm having fun finding furniture and sanding and painting and dreaming up our house... so excited to see what it looks like.

As I settle into the peacefulness of the 'country life' I'm inspired by a quote Mike gave me recently:

"I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbour - such is my idea of happiness. And then, on the top of all that, for you a mate, and children, perhaps - what more can the heart of man desire?"
-Leo Tolstoy - Family Happiness

I feel like there is a whole lot to say but I'm tired and happy so I'll stop here.

a reminder of what makes life full

"I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition -that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet this is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are--even if we tell it only to ourselves -because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about. Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell."
-Frederick Buechner

A Few Things...

04.27.2010

Today I'm excited about...

picking a colour for our kitchen:

I'm happy about:
... the awesome finds for our house from places like Dad's old bins

I'm dreaming about...

Hawaii. Can't believe its almost been a year since we've been there. guess the framed images will have to suffice for awhile :)

I am in awe of...
anyone who has given birth. And more specifically Miss Carmen for her amazing little boy!
And lastly, I am grateful for my hubby who treats me like gold and makes me dinner with instructions when he works at night