Archive for June, 2012

un-red the bed(room)

un-red the bed(room)

No mini project today, friends (though I did finish the lasts coats of poly on three more colourful kitchen table chairs yesterday… sneak peak here). Instead, today I’m going to talk about our VERY RED bedroom and how we plan to “un-red the bed(room)”.

I introduced you to the bedroom on our house tour, but since then it’s got a bit of an upgrade in the form of a dresser. Woohoo! Drawers! I’ve also added some art to the moulding, but that’s just to “real it up” a bit in there, they’ll probably get swapped out as we grow into our space.

First let’s talk about the red. The red has got to go. It annoys me that it photographs fairly well, because in real life it is way, way, way red. So much so that it casts a sheen of pink on everything (and everyone) in the bedroom. Yuck. So, clearly step 1 (or at least a very important step): CHANGE THE WALL COLOUR. We’re planning on painting most of our living space a warm shade of white, and we are going to carry that through into the bedroom. We’ll add colour through furniture, pillows, window treatments, and art.

Second, let’s talk about the dresser. It was a $50 craigslist purchase, and it really wasn’t the best deal ever. On the internet it looked like wood (or at the very least a wood veneer). When we got to the seller’s home, the dresser was pretty much the ugliest fake wood laminate you’ve ever seen. However, we had just failed at getting an entertainment unit (which was much, much too big) and I was desperate a) to buy something so that our car rental that evening wasn’t a total waste, and b) for drawers in our bedroom. I also love the lines. So, that desperation (and little bit of love) led to buying the dresser anyway (without even asking for a discount… the shame)!

I think that somewhere deep in the back of my mind lived this dresser transformation from YHL. The starting point of which was this wood veneer dresser:

Look familiar?

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been living with the laminate dresser and I decided that I was sold on both the shape and the functionality. What I wasn’t sold on? The fake-wood laminate. But I think that once this baby stops trying to look like wood, I will love her. But I wasn’t sure exactly what to do to make me love her the most.

That is until I saw this faux bamboo chest on Centsational Girl:

And remembered this beauty from Room & Board (that I pinned on pinterest over a year ago):

And I was struck with inspiration in the form of a shiny peacock blue + Room & Board dresser mashup.

And then the inspiration came in waves: what it I painted our other bedside tables to match? And then upholstered a headboard in either white or peacock blue (or possibly a patterned fabric combining both)? And the next step will be recovering the box spring in the same fabric as the headboard. And window treatments, and ART! And repurposing our directors chairs in the same finishes to sit beside the dresser!

And then I got started with photoshop. (Please excuse my less than awesome photoshop skillz). Imagine these walls are a warm white, not this gross light pink colour. And also imagine that the headboard has texture (and tufting)!

Since changing up the colours is fairly easy in photoshop, I decided to test out a few additional colours. Of course I tried light grey (like the inspiration dresser), and also tried out a trendy teal and a timeless baby blue (I also tried a few shades of yellow, but even though yellow is my very favourite colour of all time, I just couldn’t get it to work for me).

I’m not loving either of the latter two, teal seems like it would date itself quite quickly, and (to me) the baby blue belongs in a(n awesome) nursery.

Love ‘em? Hate ‘em? Wish we were planning on keeping the red?

June 28, 2012 2 comments Read More
crazy hippy hair? not anymore!

crazy hippy hair? not anymore!

The last time I got a haircut was on May 7. “That’s only 6 weeks ago” you’re thinking… And you’re right. But I didn’t get my hair cut on May 7, 2012. Oh no friends… I got it cut on May 7, 2011.

And up until this morning, my hair came past my waist.

Long enough that I felt just a wee bit creepy.

So, today I went for a haircut! (Woohoo!) The goal was to channel some Rachel McAdams. Probably because she’s so pretty.

It seems just a bit softer than the hair I went for last time.

And this, my friends, is where I ended up.

Not bad for a $22 (including tip) haircut from the Vancouver Hairdressing Academy (in the Michael Levine family). If you go before the end of July, ask for Katie. She rules.

Ahh… the difference a day can make:

June 27, 2012 7 comments Read More
zanzibar, tanzania (travel tuesday)

zanzibar, tanzania (travel tuesday)

When I recently posted the image of Victoria Falls (more accurately of Devil’s Pool at Victoria Falls) I realized it’s been awhile since I shared any Africa images. And this one is a good one.

I have really mixed feelings about Zanzibar. I think by the time we got there we were really, really tired. It was beautiful, and we had a lovely place, and we ate delicious food, and we laughed and laughed at the Obama signs everywhere (it was October 2008, after all) but I felt a little off while there. That didn’t stop me from taking a sweet ass image of a Zanzibar sunset. And oh, to be there now. I’d love it. Every minute of it. I promise!

This image was taken in Zanzibar, Tanzania on October 8, 2008.

June 26, 2012 0 comments Read More
homemade pizza!

homemade pizza!


If you haven’t noticed I’ve been on a wee-bit of a homemade kick recently.

(Thanks Captain Obvious.)

I’ve homemade bread, pasta, pitas (and cookies, and lasagna noodles, and more bread), diy-ed a ton of stuff around the home, etc. Call it nearing-30 nesting, call it excitement to have a home, call it extra time due to working from said home (who wouldn’t rather bake bread than commute to the office?) but I’ve been on a roll.

My most recent homemade thing? Delicious pizza. (Delicious pizza dough, really, is what I’m referring to).

Like my making of homemade bread, my making of pizza dough was inspired by my friend Graham. Graham is also on a bit of a homemade kick. I didn’t do much googling in this case, and used the vera pizza dough recipe that Graham suggested (from the Tasty Spot), it uses only flour, water, yeast and salt. I love me some simple recipes.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get myself a pizza stone* in time so the middles were a tad soggy. That didn’t stop the hubs from proclaiming it was the best pizza he’d ever had.

Note on pizza stones: apparently, these can be terribly expensive at specialty stores, and really it’s just a bit of stone. Word on the street is you can pick something up at Home Depot (but be sure not to get a glazed ceramic tile, as the glaze contains lead). Several Home Depots have stopped carrying unglazed tiles, which was the predicament we found ourselves in. We’ve also heard that sometimes Safeway or Home Outfitters has them for about $10. Let me know what you use!

The first pizza was a tomato sauce, shallots, pepperoni, green pepper and mushroom pizza with delicious mozzarella and a bit of garlic (because garlic makes everything extra delicious).

The second pizza had a pesto base, loads of red onions, mushrooms, a bit of leftover green pepper, tomato, goat cheese and a bit of mozzarella. When it finished baking, I topped it with fresh basil (because fresh basil makes most things extra delicious).

These pizzas were scarfed down by the hubs, our friend Ian, and myself and followed up with a trip to Dairy Queen for blizzards. Saturday nights don’t get much better than that, I tell you!

VERA PIZZA NAPOLETANO DOUGH

From The Tasty Spot

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups bread flour
  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 3/4 cups water
  • 2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast (I used instant and the dough was fine.)

Directions

  1. In a bowl of an electric stand mixer, combine the flours together.
  2. Add the water and mix with a wooden spoon until a dough begins to form.
  3. Autolyse process: let the dough rest for 20 minutes.
  4. Add the salt and yeast.
  5. On the “2″ setting of the stand mixer, mix the dough for 5 minutes with a dough hook.
  6. The dough should be really wet at this point. Pour the dough onto a floured workspace. Use a wooden spoon to scrape all the dough out of the bowl, if necessary.
  7. Lightly knead the dough for a few seconds.
  8. Take the sides of the dough, pull to the middle, and pinch together.
  9. Take the opposite sides of the dough, pull to the middle, and pinch together.
  10. Lightly oil a large bowl and place the dough into the bowl setting the seam side down.
  11. Cover the bowl and let dough rise for 2 hours. The dough should double in size.
  12. Take the dough out of the bowl and place onto a floured workspace. Cut the dough into three or four individual pieces.
  13. Keyhole method: create a “keyhole” with your thumb and pointer finger. Push the dough through the hole (see pictures above) and once all the dough is pushed through, pinch the top together. Repeat for all the pieces of dough.
  14. Lightly oil individual plastic containers and place each dough into its own container. Cover the containers with the lids. Ed: If you are planning on freezing some of the dough, freeze those containers for up to 1 (or 3) month(s), depending on who you ask.
  15. Place the container in the fridge for overnight. One hour before rolling out, take the dough out and let rest. The dough does not have to placed in the fridge overnight, but let the dough rest for one hour before rolling out. Ed: I did the latter and it worked perfectly.
June 25, 2012 2 comments Read More
mini-project :: entryway

mini-project :: entryway

The first part of my inspiration to add a little sumthin’ to our entryway had nothing to do with the entryway at all. Instead, it had everything to do with a little slice of counter in our kitchen that would get covered with mail, sunglasses, wallets, keys, and other entryway type things. This was beacause, as you can see, there wasn’t a lot of room in our landing for stuff.

The second part of my inspiration came when I found this green mirror at the local thrift store for $4.99. I knew that I had a little shelf at home already, along with primer and glossy white spray paint. I just needed to buy some hooks!

In trying to figure out the best way to pain the frame (for instance, should I first pop out the mirror) I actually broke the mirror—so I felt like a big dumb doorknob (origin of that expression: my mom). I also may have cursed a bit lot.

In the end, the breaking of the mirror ended up being a blessing in disguise since I decided I’d cover those broken bits with corkboard and chalkboard, making the mirror even more functional.

Because of this I only covered half of the mirror for the painting part.

I primed both the shelf and the mirror with three super thin coats of primer, the annoying green stain was still bleeding through a bit after the third coat. Yikes! Then I spray painted them with two thin and even coats of high gloss white.

This whole process took a very long time. Why? You ask. Because it seems to only rain in Vancouver and waiting for nice outdoor days to paint and spray paint seems to take forever.

I then cut a piece of particle board I had lying around and painted it with chalkboard paint (which I bought for another awesome yet to come project), and cut a piece of corkboard to size (side note, that stuff is surprisingly expensive).

I glued them onto the broken mirror in the freshly painted frame. Then I screwed the hooks onto the mirror (for keys).

Next, I installed both the shelf and the mirror… and presto: new (and much more functional) entryway!

PS: No cute messages on the chalkboard because it needs 7 days to cure.
PPS: I may have realized that the shoe stand was backward with the unfinished edge pointing out. This small detail just added to the final effect of my simple entryway makeover!

June 22, 2012 6 comments Read More
korcula, croatia (travel tuesday)

korcula, croatia (travel tuesday)

Though I’ve previously posted a photo of Dubrovnik in travel tuesday series, I have to admit, it isn’t my favourite place in the world. Too busy, too many cruise ship tourists, and just a bit too intense for me. But then we took a ferry over to Dubrovnik’s little brother, Korcula. And I fell in love. We stayed in a beautiful (and cheap) apartment. We rented a boat for a day and cruised around. We had a fabulous time.

This photo was taken (almost four years ago) on July 11, 2008.

June 19, 2012 0 comments Read More