Feb 9, 2010

Day at the Pool

This is a short post about our morning today enjoying a quiet swim at the pool. The "Mom and Tot" swim time (Morg prefers to call it "Parents and Tots", even if he's the only Dad in the pool) is only $3.75! We went first thing and enjoyed having the pool almost to ourselves. The kids and Morg hiding while I seeked.
We alternate between the big pool, the tot pool, the baby pool and the hot tub pretty frequently. Morg says Elizabeth has pool ADD - she can never focus on one pool for very long before she's up and running to another.
While we swam Elizabeth asked for french fries afterward. We usually hit the Wendy's across the street after a pool date to get the kids fries (and Morg a Frosty) but we hadn't been swimming since early last fall so I thought it was funny she remembered that we usually do that after swimming.
Also, here is the table I've been working on - this is the before. I'll have the after picture posted soon.
Good night!

Jan 12, 2010

Fall Family Photoshoot

Our friend Angela (sagerstudios.com) took our family photos again this fall - it was so much fun! Here are some of my favorites, although I really love them all it was very hard to chose.

Jan 8, 2010

Elizabeth's Room

Last month Elizabeth moved into her big girl bed. I was dreading the change. She is a very restless sleeper and I was imagining many nights spent picking her up off the floor. I was wrong - the transition was a dream. She loves her new bed and has never once fallen out.

The twin bed frame used to be my Grandpa Mason's bed. My Aunt Joanne held on to it for me after he passed away 3 years ago and my parents were able to get it to us this last fall. I don't have a before picture, but it was a medium wood and looked a bit masculine, so I just gave it a couple coats of white paint. I thought it still needed something more interesting so I distressed it a little. With a quilt as bedding, I thought the "chabby chicness" of it would work.

I need to give a huge shout out to my sister, who made this quilt. It is the most perfect little girl quilt I have ever seen - way nicer than anything I could have found in a store. Elizabeth's baby room was lots of soft lavendar and white, so the the new bedding colours give new life to her new big girl room. I love how the fusia, dark purple and mustard yellow colours are feminine but not too frilly, and have a sort of vintage feel! I know my sister spent many hours making this quilt - and it shows - because I truly have never seen a nicer quilt in my whole life.

This is her dresser area, nothing much changed here: Here are the shutters I found on mega clearance but weren't quite sure what to do with them. They used to be yellow and pink, so I painted out the yellow to white and distressed them too, to match the headboard. I really like the whimsical crown cut-outs: My attempt at distressing: The footboard. She needs this footstool to actually get into her bed because it's so high: A nice closer shot of my sister's work. The fabric has little mermaids on it if you can't really see. She also made the little flower pillow (who's fabric is also featured on the reverse side of the quilt) when she found this perfect matching material! That's all for now - I am now trying to decide on how to recreate an old kitchen table a friend gave me. Hmmm....

Jan 4, 2010

Master Bedroom Makeover

Here is our bedroom before. When we moved in just over 2 years ago, we worked on decorating the main floor, bought new furniture, and immediately worked on doing the kids rooms also. Our bedroom was left untouched. It has been the same builder's beige colour (that we chose...) that was painted throughout our whole house when it was built. Even though it's a nice warm colour, I have gotten really sick of it, especially in our bedroom, since it seemed to make our bedroom boring and nothing like the relaxing master bedroom I pictured in my head. Our bedside tables were the same drawers that my sister and I had as kids, and opposite the bed we had a couple more that were a bit bigger, but were starting to fall apart and look yellow rather than white.

My Mom and Dad offered us these bedside tables after they moved out to Victoria - I thought they would be perfect - just perhaps in need of sprucing up. They were in perfect condition, a nice old solid Sears set - just slightly dated... Here is the before picture of our headboard I bought right before we moved in. I bought it second hand and was never happy with the knotty pine finish....but loved the style. Here is our bedroom after. Most things are the same - just lots of paint! I painted the walls a cool grey (I wanted something totally opposite than the very warm beige that stares at me from every other wall of the house) and added an accent wall in a darker grey for the white headboard to punch out from!

Ideally it would be nice to have dark wood floors...but since that will never happen I found the next best thing - a 5'-8' rug on clearance at Superstore for $25. The rug is a rich brown and it's design mimicks wood grain, voila!

This is the bed frame after a few fresh coats of white paint. The side tables from my parents got reinvented with some black paint, and I kept the hardware the same since it looked fine. I thought about doing them white as well, though I was trying to stay away from having everything too "mathcy matchy". I splurged on the side lamps...I the room needed some jelwery to add sparkle. I love Homesense.... This is the dresser I finished this summer - which now holds our new tv. Morgan isn't usually very "encouraging" of my painting projects, since I usually take over the basement during the process, though when our room was finished he had a big smile on his face and said he loved it. He said that it was only missing a new tv....He got up at 6am on boxing day, after he had been throwing up all night Christmas Eve, to get this tv. He managed to get the last one they had at the door crasher price. The things men will do for big tv's....

We also bought the small black/brown Ikea side table to house all of our computer gadgets (the modem, mulitple external hard drives etc...) which were previously sitting on our carpetted floor in the corner (our computer is in a little nook upstairs right outside our room and there was no room on the smal desk for all the other things so he drilled a hole in the bottom of the connecting wall into our room for all the electrical cords). I was hestiant to spent $100 on such a small cabinet that we could have definatley found cheaper somewhere else, or else use something we lready had, though I really loved it and knew it would be a perfect bedside table for Mason's big boy room perhaps in our next house so I was willing to pay a bit extra if it meant it could serve multiple functions.

This is a mirror that I bought at Homesense a couple years ago and the frame was a sort of washed on gold faux finish...which I thought I liked at the time....so I gave it a little face lift by spraying it with flat black paint. Without counting the tv....the room was madeover on a very moderate budget. Paint and supplies probably cost us about $60. All of our dressers/night stands were free (except the one that holds all the computer junk). My area rug was $25, my curtains are the same ones as before, I bought them 3 years ago at Bouclair's in Ottawa on super clearance for $15 and they seemed to work perfectly since they are a grey/blue colour. My lamps were a hefty $100 for both, but they might be my favorite thing in the whole room and much deserved (right?) after all my hard work painting and revamping old furniture instead of buying new.

Now for the next little while I am immersed in different project....potty training.

Dec 20, 2009

May Your Holidays be Happy!

I am still experiencing technical difficulties with posting! I am testing this again. I also have quite a few finished projects and new furniture pieces I've painted and refinished so I'm trying to get this figured out so I can post them. We've just about finished our master bedroom makeover, we are just waiting on one piece if furniture ( or piece of electronics...) that was Morg's request as a the final touch.... We had to buy a new computer a coulpe weeks ago so the proper programs that normally enable us to upload pics need to be reinstalled so all of this might have to wait until after Christmas, but in the meantime, hope all of you are spending lots of time with family and friends and enjoying your holiday! Merry Christmas from the Kyles!

Nov 10, 2009

Testing....

testing testing 123.... please disregard, I've been experiencing technical difficulties with my blog....

Nov 5, 2009

Wreath Fetish

I love Christmas decorating - but I am particularily excited about Christmas wreaths this year! There are so many styles, shapes and colours and I love them all. My new project this year is to vamp up our front porch with Christmas warmth and what better way to start than with a big welcoming wreath on our front door. As I was looking online for inspiration, these were some of my favorites: This one would probably cover the whole front of our house, but it reminds me of the Ottawa Parliament buildings at Christmas time!: So white and fresh: I love that it just hangs in a window, though we have blinds everywhere so that may not work too well....
I love the square shape - a little of the unexpected!
Who says a wreath has to be big?
I like this black door as a backdrop:
As much as I like different looking wreaths, the traditional green wreath is still my favorite:
Don't you just want to go inside this house? It looks so warm an cozy.
I found a couple of things yesterday (including a new wreath!) for some great deals and am excited to put something together on our front porch asap. Of course I'll be able to start as soon as Morg helps me retrieve some of the old decorations packed away, which might take me a week or two to convince him to do.