Articles by: allison

A Bookshelf Made All The Difference

A Bookshelf Made All The Difference

Over a course of a week in February, our apartment went from feeling like a pretty-cool-place-that-we-lived to feeling like a home. And all that it took? 1) Hanging up our Printstagram, which I told you about in February, 2) hanging our art behind the couch, which I’ll tell you about someday soon, and 3) finding a bookshelf on Craigslist.

It’s actually pretty phenomenal that these three things were all that it took to make such a huge difference in the way our place feels!

As with pretty much everything over the last year, it took us a long time to find a bookshelf. Which is sort of ridiculous, because it’s a Billy—likely the most common bookshelf in the world!

But we knew we wanted a “medium brown” Billy, and the “medium brown” of five years ago is nothing like the “medium brown” of today. And then it was the winter in Vancouver, and moving a bookcase in the rain? Well, that’s not ideal.

But one day perusing Craigslist while the weather was good I found it: a (today’s) medium brown, disassembled, come and get it as soon as you can, by the way we also live it Kits, tall Billy. And it was perfect.

It probably only took us an hour to get a car, drive for the bookshelf, reassemble it, decide we like the look of it better without the laminate backing, and start arranging our books that have been living in boxes since early December … 2011. They were so happy to be free! And don’t they look fantastic?!

Not only did we add books to our bookcase, but we added some depth with vases, candles, our safari animal collection on the top shelf, and maps! I’m still on the lookout for some super cool bookends; perhaps like the awesome thinker, vintage camera, or bicycle bookends from Homeclick!

Another cool feature? Our “mom” section: each of our mom’s had independently made us gifts when we graduated and those gifts are finally on display…

And oh, how it’s changed over the course of a year.

1. From our initial house tour post in May

2. Some updates last July

3. After changing the paint from beige to white and adding in armchairs in September

4. And after five more months, we finally got art and a bookcase, and here’s what it’s looked like for the last two months

I love how it feels like home.

May 14, 2013 0 comments Read More
A Wood Pallet Garden

A Wood Pallet Garden

Happy Friday friends! And hello!

About a week and a half ago we wrapped our our SimpleTax’s incredibly successful first year. The next day I hopped on a plane and flew to Charlottesville for Heather and Gav’s amazing wedding. And I’m back again! Hooray!!

One of the Pinterest projects that’s been on my list for a long time (… more than a year …) is a wood pallet garden. Okay, and other wood pallet projects too.

back-deck-pallet-garden-urban-5

Pallet projects generally have been on my mind for quite awhile; I found the pallet I used for this project in April 2012. Then I found its friend the other pallet about a month later. These pallets have been living in a stack on our back deck. For a year.

It’s not like I wasn’t thinking about pallet projects. At one point shortly after I found them I tried to disassemble one. I don’t actually remember what the project was, but I do remember me + my hammer + two hours + lots of swearing. Needless to say that project was a bit of a fail. Life lesson: if you don’t have power tools, stick to pallet projects that don’t need deconstructing.

So, I decided upon this vertical pallet garden from Life on the Balcony.

Pretty, right? I thought so too, and bought the landscape paper for this project last May.

And then I just never got around to it. I have all sorts of excuses: I was busy craigslisting and projecting all the stuff inside our house, wedding season came, SimpleTax was crazy. But honestly, I was a little intimidated by potting soil.

A few weeks ago, I decided to take the afternoon off and just do it. A trip to Home Depot’s garden centre, two bags of potting soil (that were surprisingly inexpensive and not all that intimidating), and lots of plants later (including a hanging planter and some pretty lavender), I was ready to go. And it went quite quickly following Life on the Balcony’s instructions. Except I needed a third bag of potting soil (shakes fist) so lots of swearing and one more bus ride to Home Depot and a half an hour more and I was done!

back-deck-pallet-garden-urban-1

I let the pallet sit there and the roots take hold for 2 weeks, and then I tried to make it vertical.

And I realized that was never going to happen. There aren’t enough back boards on my pallet, so when I (ok, the hubs) lifts it or tilts it, all the flowers sag. Grrr. This is extra unfortunately because of the sweet peas I planted at the botton to grow up the planter. Grrr.

In positive news, at least it isn’t a total Pinterest fail.

back-deck-pallet-garden-urban-2

And, in other positive news, I still think it looks pretty awesome and brightens up our deck. And I’m thinking about using the other pallet to hide the other wall and make a different kind of pallet garden from Kelly Moore that can certainly stand vertically!

We shall see, friends. Maybe next May :)

May 10, 2013 1 comment Read More
A Haworthia Terrarium

A Haworthia Terrarium

Yesterday was one of those days where you remember exactly why you moved to Vancouver.

It was March 3. And this happened.

sunbathing-in-march (That’s people sunbathing on March 3, in case you were distracted by the beautiful view.)

On top of the fantastic weather, we were surprised that we had a bit of a “calm before the storm” (at least we hope the storm is coming) type of day. It was the type of day where we woke up bright and early and went grocery shopping when the store was still empty, but ready for a busy Sunday. The kind of day where we found a bookcase on craigslist, brought it home, and released our books from the Staples boxes in which they’ve been living since December 2011 (I wish that was a typo). And then we styled it. And our house feels so much more like a home.

Then we decided to go for a walk to buy a succulent, since I’ve wanted to build some sort of terrarium or succulent garden for a very long time. On last week’s epic walk we purchased this fun hanging glass pot from CB2 with this project in mind.

This cute little guy is called a “haworthia”. He is a succulent, and though he looks like an aloe, he isn’t. That’s the extent of what I learned about him on the internet.

haworthia-succulent-terrarium-3

I made a little rock barrier around his outside, and decided he looked pretty fricken cute.

haworthia-succulent-terrarium-4

The last tenants left us 4 hooks in the ceiling for ceiling plants, and after taking him on an adventure to all four we settled on the kitchen. This is his view.

haworthia-succulent-terrarium-5

Other than the time it took to buy the materials, putting him together took less than 15 minutes and resulted in something pretty awesome.

March 4, 2013 1 comment Read More
Prinstagram

Prinstagram

Image from Prinstagram

In October when I posted a collage of my 365-photo-a-day challenge, my friend Melissa suggested I reward myself with a Prinstagram poster. I thought that was a fabulous idea, so I picked out 105 of my favourite Instagrams and patiently waited it’s arrival.

And then I couldn’t figure out what the heck to do with it. For three months. While 20″x38″ is a really cool size, it is also a really non standard size.

We’re bootstrapping SimpleTax and are on a serious budget, so a custom frame was totally out of the question. I considered mounting it on foamboard, but that was too permanent. I thought about taping it to the wall and making a washi tape frame (like this), but that was too … I don’t know … dorm like.

And then when I was totally overwhelmed, and the hubs was totally annoyed with the print living on the ottoman, and I didn’t know what the heck I was going to do with it, this awesome diy frame appeared on Young House Love. And it was perfect.

We hit a few speedbumps with our version of the frame (I suggest following the steps in YHL post), but now that it’s up, I’m so happy with the way way it turned out! I love standing in front of it and looking at all the awesome moments from our last several years!

March 1, 2013 2 comments Read More
2013 goals

2013 goals

Hello! See, I told you I’d be back.

So. Let’s talk about my 2013 goals .

I have two.

Image found on Pinterest from Fresh Studio.

Having two goals this year is very different from thirty goals I had in my 30-before-30 project, last year.

And one of this year’s two goals is private (sorry mom; it’s not have a baby).

And having a private goal feels really very different from the public goals I had last year.

The second goal is not to obsess about things. Because you may have noticed that I tend towards the obsessive.

So there you have it. 2013 is about giving myself a break.

(P.S. If you are reading this in your RSS reader, pop on over and check out the blog makeover. A little less fancy, a little easier to maintain. A lot more conducive to more frequent posting).

February 25, 2013 4 comments Read More
changes are a comin’

changes are a comin’

Hi guys! I’m back. And this time, I’m going to try to be back to stay. You may not hear from me every day, or even every week, but I’m promise that I’ll post more than once in 5 months :)

Part of the reason that I’ve been completely absent from my blog is because I’ve been feeling guilty. If you’ve been around for awhile, you know I tend to the long-winded. But I just ran out of steam and I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—devote the energy that it takes to write my regular posts.

I’ve been spending a lot of hours per day starting at my computer screen lately (the amount of time you spend at your computer when you have one colleague/husband and no commute is cr-a-zy) and I haven’t wanted to devote my downtime to a hobby that’s also in front of my computer screen. Instead, I wanted to get off the computer, give my lower back a breat, and do things! So, without really making a conscious decision about it, I started spending my my spare time doing things rather than writing about them. It’s been good for my soul.

So. What’s gonna happen? Well, the plan is to come back. I miss it here! But be ready for something a little different (and posts that are a lot shorter). I should be good at short. I’m short. Don’t worry though, I’m sure I’ll throw in a soul-baring 1500-worder every now and again (because I won’t be able to stop myself).

So. Hello! Thanks for sticking around!

From Kensie Kate, found on pinterest

 

February 23, 2013 0 comments Read More