Zooey Deschanel in Person + Other Goodness

I've been a little stressed out about selling the townhouse and finishing up my dissertation but luckily, what seems like ages ago, Hubs and I bought wristbands for an outdoor music festival happening in Ottawa right now.  With the prospect of carrying two mortgages looming, we're in serious penny pinching mode so I'm so happy we had this little treat all paid for, just waiting for us.  Around here we often joke about Past-us looking out for Future-us, like the time we went away for a trip and I hid the key to the filing cabinet inside the spare toilet paper roll in the bathroom.  Past-me knew Future-me would forget where I put it, but knew that Future-me would eventually reach for the spare roll and, voila, the key!  Past-me somehow knew I'd need a little fun right now.  We've been going almost every night and it's been such a sweet way to cap off a day. 

The teenager that dwells within me is super excited I got to see Weezer (of course, I've only been a fan since I was 10).  We also saw The Black Keys, Dixie Chicks, and Mother Mother, in addition to Hub's favorites - what Jessica Day refers to as "computer music".  Speaking of New Girl, last Friday saw us ankle deep in mud to hear She & Him and they were fabulous.  I was wowed by how much energy Zooey has, plus her voice is so much more powerful live than in their music videos.  And she wore a pretty dress.

Photo from the Ottawa Sun

Photo from the Ottawa Sun

Photo from Ottawa Citizen Bluesfest Digital Lounge

Photo from Ottawa Citizen Bluesfest Digital Lounge

I actually bought a pretty dress of my own with the She & Him concert in mind.  When we last went to the States I bought a few dresses (I live in summer dresses), and when I bought this one I said to Hubby, "I'm totally wearing this for Zooey!"

Embroidered Dress

But then it rained and it was a muck-party by the time She & Him hit the stage.  I ended up wearing my weirdo-attracting orange dress (this one), not caring if I ruined it.  Of course it survived.  And it hasn't lost its mojo, Hubby is my witness.  The flats I wore serve as proof of my fandom.  I waded to the muckiest area to get super close, at which point my shoes ensured as much mud as possible gushed in.  Totally worth it.

Oh yeah, and on our way to Weezer, I spotted this lovely vintage chair curbside.  With a move looming, Hubby has been even more reluctant to facilitate my garbage-picking but I convinced him to help me shove this in the car and we made it to the concert only slightly dusty.  It's a project, for sure . . . 

Such a swell week.  I needed this.  Check here to see if you're having a swell week and are the winner of my giveaway with Olive Leaf Stencils.  Happy weekend!!

How to Cover Pipes in a Bathroom

You might have noticed the half bath change involved a tiny bit more than just wall paint.  We fixed a few issues as well.  Our heating system was converted from electric baseboard to radiant hot water by a former homeowner (thanks!!) and the system is fabulous.  No dust, like forced air, and super inexpensive to run - I'm sad to leave it!  The only sign of the transformation is in the main floor powder room, where pipes run up the corner wall.  The pipes were originally hidden with a wall-papered metal cover, which I painstakingly stripped, primed and painted (not so thankful for that, former owners).  You can see the wallpaper in the half bath transformations. 

I thought it looked fine, but the gap between the cover and the wall, plus the small hole at the ceiling, irked our realtor and my Dad, so I figured it would bother potential buyers too.  Seeing as my Dad was always vocal about this flaw, I handed the task to him to fix!  It's dangerous to critique something around the townhouse.  At the same time we addressed the pipe cover, we figured we might as well fix the eyesore of a cover hiding the converted heating system along the baseboards too, because the one in here was the worst of all of the ones we have in the townhouse.

The fixes turned out to be really simple and make me wonder why we lived with things like this so long!  To make a smoother transition between wall and pipe cover, I found some wood coving at Lowe's, which my Dad glued in place with extra strong construction adhesive before we gave it a coat of primer and paint.  Then he used a small drywall patching kit to fix up the ceiling, which was also primed and painted over.  Boom.  Done!  Because I'd already primed it with metal primer, Dad just painted over the metal cover and now it all looks seamless.  Painting the ceiling the same colour helps everything blend in.

The baseboard heater cover just needed a light sand, some metal primer and then an application of the same latex paint we used for the walls (which we applied with a tiny foam roller). 

WOW does it ever look better (and newer!).

Our little house is solidly built and has been lovingly updated and renovated, but I think any little flaw like these, even though they are just cosmetic, might have made home buyers nervous so I feel good that they were addressed.  In case you missed it, see the other updates made to this powder room here.

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How to Stage a Living Room and Dining Room for Sale

Finally the fireplace is a focal point!   Remember how I struggled with it?  Once the DIY antiqued mirror with the Hungarian stenciled poem was hung, I thought I'd found the right piece.  The fireplace has a weird little brick bump out that I thought prevented anything larger from being hung there.  But when we listed the house, I asked our realtor (who is also a home stager) if she had anything more neutral for the fireplace.  I didn't want people distracted by the poem, trying to figure out what language it is and what the heck it means (it draws dinner guests to it like a moth to a flame, it's kind of comical).  She brought over this behemoth of a mirror that I am madly in love with:

The bump out still poses a bit of a problem, but this mirror is so beefy it really disguises it.  I think I should have gone bigger with the poem mirror . . .

Along with removing any Hungarianness, I also de-cluttered the living room a little.  The realtor never asked me to do this (although she did have a hate-on for the puffin candle holders), but I think it just looks cleaner now.

I think the key to staging a living room is to de-personalize, without removing too many of the accessories that make the space feel homey and comfortable.

Here's a list of what was edited:

1. DIY felted wool billy buttons (end table)
2. Pottery dish (end table)
3. Hand-sewn crow pillow (from tweed chair)
4. Houndstooth throw (from tweed chair)
5. Puffin candle holders (realtor made me)
6. Wood box for kindling
7. Vintage side table/stool
8. Hungarian poem mirror
9. Ottoman (swapped for mint coffee table)

Long before we decided to list the house, I gave my Mom the vintage cat print I had carefully chosen a frame for (that replaced the chair watercolour in the first photo), because it just wasn't jiving with the rest of the space.  Sometimes things I love just won't work!  Because the empty wall looked weird, I hung my displaced tree painting there because I was too lazy to take it all the way down to the basement.  I wish I was kidding.  It's too low, but was never supposed to stay there.  I had a really cool art project planned that would take up the whole wall, but I just never had time to finish it.  Or start it.

Here's a peek at the photos the photographer took for the listing:

The dining room looks identical, but for the listing photos my beautiful Shane Norrie pottery bowls were swapped out for flowers and the realtor added a plant stand my Papa welded.  It's so weird to see the townhouse through the photographer's lens!  Turning every light on and using a wide angle lens really changes things.  I think maybe he uses a flash, too? 

The dining room as it normally is:

The dining room in the listing:

It seems like a small change, but swapping out some pottery with fresh flowers make the space seem more lively.

I plan on doing a full post on the ins and outs (and ups and downs) of selling the townhouse but I know some of you are itching to know what's been going on.  It was listed for sale on a Friday and the next Monday we had a showing which resulted in a strong offer two hours later!!!  Unfortunately, we couldn't settle on a closing date or price but I think the quick offer means the townhouse shows really well, because the potential buyer wanted it immediately.  I'm hopeful the right offer is around the corner, but we're lucky enough to be in a position that we're not desperate to sell, even though we take possession of the lake house soon.  We can wait for the right price.

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Giveaway: Olive Leaf Stencils

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.  

UPDATE: Congrats Susan Sykes!!!  I'll be in touch shortly to put you in contact with Olive Leaf Stencils.  Congrats, and thanks to everyone who entered!

You've heard me wax on about projects for the townhouse and impending projects for the lakehouse.  I'm knee deep in projects and planning, but I want to make sure you're not left out in the cold.  Actually, I want to make sure you're sweating up a storm, DIYing in the summer heat along with me (mwahahaha).  To make sure you've got what you need to tackle something fun, here's a chance to win a gorgeous stencil of your choice from Olive Leaf Stencils.  I've shortlisted a few of my favorites that are perfectly graphic and modern:

Arrow Stencil

Mod Triangle Stencil

Woven Stencil

To Enter:

Head over to the Olive Leaf Stencils website, find your favorite stencil, then leave a comment here and let me know which one tickles your fancy.  No need to sign up or have a profile/account - anonymous entries are always welcome, but make sure you leave an email address so I can contact you if you win!  I won't pass on your information to anyone (pinky swear).

Bonus Entries: (leave a separate comment for each entry)

Follow Olive Leaf Stencils on Twitter.
Follow Olive Leaf Stencils on Facebook.
Follow Olive Leaf Stencils on Pinterest.
Tell me what kind of stencil project you're dreaming up right now.

I manually approve all comments (to keep pesky spammers and their inappropriate comments at bay) so it may take a few hours to see your comment appear here.

Contest ends Thursday July 11th, 12:00a.m. EST.  Check back to see if you're the winner next Friday!

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Budget-Friendly Half Bath Makeover with Aqua Walls

The main floor half bath has gone through a few subtle transformations already, but it needed a few more touches to make it ready for sale.  When we bought the house, this is the powder room that greeted us:

Yikes.

If you remember, first I removed the blue wallpaper with gusto, then the room was painted a soft greige to help the existing elements (70s beige counter, bisque toilet and sink) blend in.  A new light fixture helped modernize the space.  Then we ran out of money.  To save a buck, I snagged the 1970s hardware from the en-suite powder room (that was fully renovated), and applied a little leftover black spray paint.  Apologies for the horrendous photo - it was taken pre-blog (with a 2.0 megapixel potato apparently)!

We obviously kept the toilet (it's made in Canada, I couldn't toss it!), tile (because it runs through the adjacent halls as well) and vanity (good condition, plus the tile runs up to but not under it, so we left it in place and painted it to match the walls).  With all this un-jazzed stuff, we needed something to jazz up the space.  A simple mirror was a practical change.  Next we upgraded the counter with the same grey laminate we have in the kitchen, and added a chic black faucet (see here for similar).  The glass vessel sink (see here for similar), the jewel of the room, has been a hit with everyone.

A new towel bar from Target added some storage (this one is kind of similar), and art is always a good solution for making a space seem fresh.  After these changes, we had the half bath you recognize from other posts:

Although it looked better than before, despite a good wall-washing some of the wallpaper paste lingered and showed through the paint in streaks.  I thought potential home buyers might think this is water damage, so I added "painting the bathroom" to our list of urgent projects.  I taped everything off, taking special care to wrap the glass sink with a blanket in case anything was dropped on it.  Then I primed the trouble areas with a stain-blocking primer. 

Enter Dad, painter-extraordinaire (despite being colour-blind) and now the room is a soft turquoise (CIL Tropical Paradise, from Canadian Tire).  Although a bit brighter and much more intensely aqua than I originally intended (I was hoping for something like this), the turquoise paint makes the space seem airier, fresher and newer.  It also complements the green glass sink nicely.  I wanted to add more white (like a big white picture frame with a colourful photo from Hungary blown up) but anything white in here turns green from the reflection.  A black-framed print (the original, which I feel privileged to have seen, is by Tamara de Lempicka) works in a pinch and ties in the emerald green from the vintage kitchen posters and dining room painting. 

It's super hard to photograph this little windowless room, but it looks so gorgeous in the photographs taken by the photographer for our MLS listing:

Let's take a look at the before once again.  If not for pictures, I would barely remember what the house looked like when we bought it.

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June is Done. Did We Have Fun?

Happy Canada Day, folks!

My birthday came and went last month!  I worked overtime that day and got home from work late, then it sort of got away from me and I forgot.  But the timing worked out so that we bought our lake house very close to it!  This time next year, every day is going to feel like my birthday.

I already shared some of our plans for making over the space, but I'll share more details as we get closer to taking possession and tackling renovations.  We bought the townhouse around my birthday, four years ago, and took possession of it at the end of July.  Somehow I always end up renovating a house (and moving) during the hottest month of the year (August).  At least now I can jump into the lake in between projects.

Kitchen inspiration! Via Dustjacket

Because we've had the craziness of preparing the townhouse for sale, I haven't had the time to catch everyone up on all the projects we worked on but I did share a few we tackled this month.  To help show off the spaciousness of the townhouse living room, I moved the space-hogging ottoman downstairs and painted this slim, mid-century table a subtle mint green.  I know painting wood hurt the heart of some readers (I'm sorry!), but this table was in such rough shape the gentleman giving it away for free literally couldn't!  Plus, any other wood finish would have clashed with the teak, but the mint ties in with other accessories and complements the teak, so I think it works.  I'm going to find the table a new home when we move, so who knows what makeover the next owner might give it!

I've got many more photos of the townhouse - staged and ready for sale - to show you, but in addition to staging we've been cleaning.  I won't share all the nitty gritty details (boring), but I did have to tell you about this amazing chrome cleaner.  It even helps repel water so the chrome stays spot-free for a long time.  LOVE this stuff.

I also showed you how Mom and I turned old bedding into chic new curtains to hide our ugly washer, dryer and hot water tank in the (now fancy pants) laundry room.

The curtains are a tie with another laundry room makeover for favorite new thing about our house: turquoise floors!  I love this colour so much, I saved the swatch and am seriously thinking this shade might be nice for the lake house kitchen cupboards . . .

In case you were in the mood for smaller projects, I did a round-up of super cute knife block makeovers.  A small and simple project, but what a fun kitchen accessory!  Aside from my chalkboard knife block, I think I love this one the most:

Country Living

Speaking of round-ups, I showed off the teeny tiny new (thrifted) home our neglected Jade plant got and showed off a whole gaggle of adorable mini planters.

Tea cups, Corks, Wood Egg Cups, Tin on Saucer, Tin Can, Copper Caps

Next up: fresh new photos from around the townhouse, projects we wrapped up thanks to the inspiration that comes from last minute panic (half bathroom, laundry room, basement and more), plus some staging photos and house selling details (not sold yet, and I'm nervous).  And I still owe you a bar cart reveal!

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